Israel Matzav

Hillary Clinton doesn't get ethnic conflict

Yedidya Atlas makes a convincing case that US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton doesn't get Syria - and doesn't get ethnic conflict in general. Really, that's not surprising. I doubt most westerners get ethnic conflict, and that's been a problem for
western understanding of the Middle East for many years. This isn't Kansas (Hat Tip: Ricky G).

The “Syrian people” is a composite of religious and ethnic groups who historically oppose each other. The dominant group, approximately two thirds of the population are Sunni Muslims; 12 percent are Alawites; 9 percent are Kurds; 10 percent are various Christian sects (Arab Christians, Assyrians and Armenians); and the remainder are a hodgepodge of religio-ethnic groups including Druze, Turkmens and Circassians.

Let’s focus on the Sunni, the Alawites and the Kurds. The Sunni majority includes the Muslim Brotherhood. It is subjugated by the ruling Alawites led by the al-Assad family. The Sunni majority, which lost power in the takeover of Syrian rule by the Alawite-dominated secular nationalist Syrian Baathist Party in a 1963 coup, began to cause increasingly violent unrest led by the Muslim Brotherhood. This later developed into open revolt.

In 1980, after an assassination attempt against President Hafez al-Assad failed, he came down on them like a ton of bricks, literally. In 1982, the city of Hama, a Muslim Brotherhood stronghold, was destroyed by regular Syrian army forces, including tanks and artillery, commanded by Rifat al-Assad, Hafez’s younger brother. An estimated 20,000 residents of Hama were killed. The revolt was quelled and the Alawite al-Assad family continued to rule.

However, the real dispute goes way back. The Sunni majority view the Alawite minority as heretics. The Alawites, or Alawi as they called themselves because of their adherence to Ali (the Muslim prophet, Mohammad’s cousin and son-in-law), were originally called by the Sunnis the “Nusayri” after the Shi’ite Ibn Nusayr in the 9th century, indicating their break with Islam. After 1920 and French rule in Syria (which included Lebanon), the persecuted Alawites ingratiated themselves with the new rulers.

The French encouraged Alawites to join the French-commanded Syrian army and dominate the officer corps as a counterweight to the hostile Sunni majority. This subsequently set the stage for the Alawite dominance of the Baath Party and the 1963 takeover of the Syrian government.

Syria is the scene of an ongoing civil war of sorts between the Sunni majority led by the Muslim Brotherhood and the minority Alawite controlled regime led by the al-Assad clan with various minor religio-ethnic players scattered over the field. If the al-Assad regime falls, it is not merely the al-Assad family that is in trouble, the entire Alawite population can expect similar or worse persecution by the Muslim Brotherhood led Sunnis as they attempt to turn the clock back to a modern version of the Ottoman period. Bashar al-Assad is fighting for both Alawite dominance and survival.

Secretary Clinton and Co. must realize that life is not a Hollywood movie and Syria isn’t a western country. Syria is a serious mess and there is no happy ending in sight soon.

Read the whole thing.

The West in general, and the United States in particular, being melting pots of different ethnic groups, finds it hard to fathom that these kinds of ethnic differences really matter. But in the Middle East (and in some other parts of the World), they do. And no matter how 'modern' these societies seem, these ethnic tensions continue to lurk beneath the surface.

Labels: Alawite, Bashar al-Assad, Hillary Clinton, Sunni, Syria, Syrian uprising

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 9:33 AM