The sectarian issue in Syria: agricultural and commercial roots

It is impossible to interpret the sectarian conflicts that occurred in Western Europe without considering the economic factor. During the French Civil War (1562-1598) between Catholics and Protestants (Huguenots), the Huguenots formed the backbone of the emerging capitalist class, while the Catholics, who were the majority of the population, consisted mainly of peasants loyal to the king and the church allied with him. The aristocracy allied with the king felt hostility toward the nascent capitalism.

Similarly, the English Civil War (1642-1649) between London merchants, who had prospered from England’s control of the seas after the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588, and King Charles I, who ruled with absolute power and was the head of the Church of England (Anglican), also reflected class and regional tensions. The merchants and most Londoners belonged to the Puritan faction. In this conflict, which saw London merchants demanding parliamentary authority over the king, the king found a social base in rural aristocracy and wealthy farmers, while the city of London and its trading class stood on the opposing side. The conflict between king and parliament was thus intertwined with another dimension: the division between a city that became a global trade hub and the rural areas. There was also a third form of conflict between two sectarian groups, with all three forms of struggle blending during this civil war.

In Syria, the sectarian issue cannot be understood without considering the agricultural question. The actual emergence of the Syrian capitalist class took place between 1941 and 1945, following the entry of British forces from Iraq and Palestine and their victory over the pro-German Vichy government in Syria. During this period, Syria’s wheat, cotton, dairy products, and cheeses became the main supplies for the British armies based between Iraq and Egypt. The initial monetary accumulation by large landowners, many of whom were urban residents, became the capital that established major Syrian industries during 1945-1958, as well as banking. Many of these figures were also leaders in the two major political parties of that time: the People’s Party and the National Party.

The military coups led by figures like Husni al-Za’im, Sami al-Hinnawi, and Adib al-Shishakli did not aim to fundamentally change the structure of economic ownership; they merely seized political power through military coups. Overall, those who held political authority until the Syrian-Egyptian unity had no class interest in solving the agricultural issue, manifested in poor peasants alongside landowners, and in the disparities of development and modernity between rural and urban areas. As Nicolas Van Dam notes, “The sectarian dimension of the dual rural-urban split in Syria is noteworthy. While cohesive religious minorities are mainly concentrated in impoverished rural areas, the wealthier regions and larger cities are predominantly Sunni” (The Power Struggle in Syria, Madbouli Library, Cairo, 1995, p. 51).

The Ba’ath Party’s rise was rooted in a rural social base, particularly in the coasts, Hama, Homs, Aleppo, Idlib, Deir ez-Zor, and in Horan and Jebel Arab, plus a strong presence in small towns like Al salamiyah. It also had a significant foothold in urban neighborhoods such as Sheikh Zaher in Latakia. The party gained substantial support among students in high schools and universities, not only from rural areas but also from middle and lower urban social classes. The Ba’ath’s rise was driven not only by Pan-Arabist ideology following the establishment of Israel in 1948 but also by their control over the agricultural issue, this was their strength. Conversely, this was the greatest weakness of the Syrian Communist Party.

If the Ba’athists dissolved themselves in pursuit of union with Egypt, it’s certain they were also thinking about solving Syria’s agricultural problem, as the officers of the July 23rd Revolution in Egypt did, most of whom were rural. When the move towards secession sought to undo the land reforms implemented by President Gamal Abdel Nasser in September 1958, it became a primary motive for the Ba’ath military officers, whose core members, including Mohamed Omran, Salah Jadid, and Hafez al-Assad, were from rural backgrounds, to carry out the March 8, 1963 coup. The Nasserists’ desire to restore unity also played a role.

The March 8 coup was a revolutionary move by the Ba’ath military committee, in collaboration with Nasserist officers, which the Ba’ath leadership was unaware of, except for Michel Aflaq and Salah Bitar. During the interim period before the July 1963 movement by the Nasserists, the Ba’ath military men held the real power: “The true ruling force was the military Ba’ath Party” (Muneef Al-Razzaz: The Bitter Experience, Ghandour Publishing, Beirut, 1967, p. 95). “They had to make the Ba’ath Party their own” (pp. 109-110). Salah Jadid achieved this through a military coup on February 23, 1966, against the regional leadership, and Hafez al-Assad did so through the military apparatus in the coups of November 13-16, 1970, when he ousted Salah Jadid after a Ba’ath Party conference decided to dismiss Defense Minister Hafez al-Assad and Chief of Staff Mustafa Tlass.

While the “real ruling power was the military Ba’ath,” its key pillars were rural and Alawite: Mohamed Omran, Salah Jadid, and Hafez al-Assad. Since March 8, 1963, Syria’s history was shaped by these three through their meetings, disagreements, and conflicts throughout this period. They managed, through the positions they held, to consolidate power in the hands of the Ba’ath military committee (Omran: the seventy army corps; Jadid: deputy head of officers then Chief of Staff; Assad: from commander of the Deir ez-Zor military base to commander of the air force). Concurrently, purges in the army after March 8 targeted Sunni officers from Damascus, Aleppo, and Homs, and after the July 18 movement, they also targeted Nasserist officers, again mainly Sunnis. “About half of the approximately 700 officers dismissed were Alawites” (Van Dam, p. 82). This pattern continued after March 8, July 18, and the February 1966 movement, where all dismissed officers from the regional leadership, except for Ali Mustafa, were Sunnis.

These three leaders, in their ideological beliefs, did not lean toward religious thinking. Socially, they were not sectarian. But to maintain their new rule—whose base was weak—they resorted to what Ibn Khaldun described as ‘asabiyya (group solidarity), creating new state authority around a specific group to hold ‘the shukah’ (power), similar to the Almohads (1121-1269), who relied on Berbers rather than Arabs in the Maghreb. Even Hafez al-Assad, in his coup against Salah Jadid, relied on remnants of officers loyal to Mohamed Omran, who was ousted as Defense Minister in 1966, and on his own loyal officers after consolidating control of the army in 1968.

All three, when united, controlled the military apparatus from summer 1963 onward. During the period from February 23, 1966, to September 1966, Jadid and Assad purged the mainly Druze officers from key positions, and between February and August 1968, they eliminated the Syrian Orthodox officers like Chief of Staff Ahmad Suwaydani after his failed coup attempt. After the Ba’ath Regional Command Conference in September 1968, Assad’s dominance over the military became clear as he faced opposition from the party organization. In February 1969, Assad staged a coup d’état, seizing control of the radio and the newspaper al-Thawra. The result was the suicide of the head of the National Security Office, Abdul Karim al-Jundi.

The three leaders only placed Alawites in key military positions. Whenever one of them lost control over these positions, they were replaced—like Omran in 1964-1966 and Jadid in 1968-1970. In practice, power belonged to whoever controlled the army, which ultimately led to Assad’s victory.

However, they did not establish sectarian rule or rule solely for a sect; rather, they used the Alawite sect to dominate the military apparatus. Through this process, they ruled. They removed Omran, then Jadid was dismissed by Assad. Ultimately, the military leadership was a trio, then reduced to two, then to one. Hafez al-Assad was not merely one of the rulers but the sole and absolute ruler; others were tools or assistants, with each becoming more or less significant depending on their role. Anyone attempting to surpass this balance, like Rifaat Assad in 1984 or Ali Hidar in 1994, was ousted. But Hafez Assad never abandoned the principle that “the Alawite faction” would dominate the army and security forces after 1970.

A good example can be seen in 1983: the First Division under Ibrahim Saafi, the Third Division under Shafiq Fayyad, the Special Forces commanded by Ali Hidar, the Defense Brigades led by Rifa’t Assad, the Air Defense Forces under Ali Saleh, military intelligence under Ali Duba, Air Intelligence under Muhammad Khoul, Syrian intelligence in Lebanon under Gazi Kanaan, and the Internal Security Branch headed by Muhammad Nasseef—responsible for security in Damascus, personnel evaluation, and coordinating between the General Intelligence Directorate and the State Security branches.

Furthermore, Hafez Assad, after consolidating power, realized that governance cannot be built against the Sunni merchants and religious institutions, represented by the Directorate of Endowments overseeing mosques and waqf properties, and the Dar al-Ifta with Sheikh Ahmed Kftaro since 1964, who was head of the Sufi Naqshbandi order. The regime also extended influence over Ash’ari scholars like Muhammad Ramadan al-Bouti and Salafis who supported him during and after the armed confrontation with the Muslim Brotherhood.

In practice, from his rule through his son’s until the regime’s fall at the end of last year, Syria was governed through a trilateral alliance: Alawite officers controlling the military, Sunni merchants and industrialists—mostly Sunnis—and Sunni religious scholars.

The main difference between Hafez and Bashar Assad is that the latter practiced Alawization of civil jobs—placing Alawites in key positions such as the Ministry of Information, television, diplomatic missions, the airline, and abroad scholarships—and also used numerical Alawite majorities in cities like Latakia and Homs.

Another difference during Bashar’s era is that since 2004, in his attempt to liberalize the economy, he effectively marginalized the middle classes, pushing them into poverty, and destroyed agriculture. This process was compounded by the drought that affected Syria from 1996 to 2011, aligning with the rural support for his father during the confrontations with Islamists between 1979 and 1982, which benefited from land reforms during the United Arab Republic and Ba’ath periods, and from the large social base of Islamists in Aleppo and Hama at that time.

Practically, the uprising-turned-revolution since 2011 has primarily relied on the Sunni rural population or marginalized urban neighborhoods populated by internally displaced persons from 2008-2011 due to agricultural devastation. This explains the strength of Salafi-Jihadi groups, which are rooted in rural areas, unlike the Muslim Brotherhood, similar to the situation in Egypt.

The period from March 2011 to December 2024 revealed the Syrian landscape, with Sunni wealthy classes and their sheikhs supporting Bashar Assad, backed by a large majority of Alawites and Christians, while Druze and Ismailis were divided. The Kurds, notably, united against him. The largest social base opposing him was in the Sunni rural areas and marginalized urban neighborhoods. During this phase, the conflict was not sectarian at its core, as the Sunni elite and sheikhs supported the regime. However, Bashar’s reliance on the army, security forces, dominated by Alawites, and militias, including Hezbollah and Iraqi and Afghan Shia militias, along with Iranian military advisors, cast the Syrian conflict in sectarian terms, especially given the numerous massacres committed against Sunni civilians. Most of the civilian casualties, detainees, displaced persons, homes, and properties destroyed by targeted airstrikes, barrel bombs, and missiles were predominantly Sunni.

In summary: the sectarian issue originated from the transfer of power on March 8, 1963, from the cities of Damascus and Aleppo to rural areas. This sectarian problem stems from unresolved agricultural issues. During the confrontations of 1979-1982, the Muslim Brotherhood attempted to sectarianize the conflict with the regime, but they failed because traders and sheikhs from Damascus supported Hafez Assad, and so did the rural Sunnis, despite widespread social discontent with Alawite dominance in the military, which became evident at that time. Even after March 2011, the conflict did not initially assume a sectarian character, as Sunnis were divided along class lines—opposition, regime supporters, and undecided. But state practices, repression, militias, and allied forces left deep sectarian imprints. Many believed that these imprints would lead to revenge violence after Bashar’s fall, but the new regime adopted a non-revenge policy, as did many victims and discontented factions of the previous regime.

A likely explanation is that the events of March 6, 2011, and the fabricated Sheikh’s video aimed solely to ignite sectarian strife—first, through massacres against public security forces leading to retaliatory massacres against Alawite civilians, as the security forces involved in the movement lacked sufficient manpower and weapons to control a large coastal area; second, by inciting Sunni outrage through the fabricated video to provoke a Sunni massacre against the Druze, aiming to prevent any initiative by the new regime to reach out to Israel during the recent visit of U.S. Congress members. However, these events, along with massacres committed against Alawite civilians in the coast by armed groups loyal or not loyal to the regime, suggest that the sectarian issue in Syria is real.

The solution to this problem can only be twofold: either equal citizenship rights for all Syrians or a “state of components” (muwahadat al-muwatin), which would favor Islamists who would demand power-sharing based on demographic proportions after conducting a comprehensive census of sects, religions, and nationalities. The latter solution would make Syrians members of sectarian groups rather than full citizens within a society.