Syria's Peasantry, the Descendants of Its Lesser Rural Notables, and Their Politics available in Hardcover, eBook
Syria's Peasantry, the Descendants of Its Lesser Rural Notables, and Their Politics
- ISBN-10:
- 0691002541
- ISBN-13:
- 9780691002545
- Pub. Date:
- 07/21/1999
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- ISBN-10:
- 0691002541
- ISBN-13:
- 9780691002545
- Pub. Date:
- 07/21/1999
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
Syria's Peasantry, the Descendants of Its Lesser Rural Notables, and Their Politics
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Overview
Batatu begins by examining social differences among Syria's peasants and the evolution of their mode of life and economic circumstances. He then scrutinizes the peasants' forms of consciousness, organization, and behavior in Ottoman and Mandate times and prior to the Ba‘thists' rise to power. He explores the rural aspects of Ba‘thism and shows that it was not a single force but a plurality of interrelated groups—prominent among them the descendants of the lesser rural notables—with different social goals and mental horizons. The book also provides a perceptive account of President Asad, his personality and conduct, and the characteristics and power structures of his regime. Batatu draws throughout on a wide range of socioeconomic and biographical information and on personal interviews with Syrian peasants and political leaders, offering invaluable insights into the complexities of a country and a regime that have long been poorly understood by outsiders.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780691002545 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Princeton University Press |
| Publication date: | 07/21/1999 |
| Edition description: | New Edition |
| Pages: | 432 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 9.25(h) x (d) |
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COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Published by Princeton University Press and copyrighted, © 1999, by Princeton University Press. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher, except for reading and browsing via the World Wide Web. Users are not permitted to mount this file on any network servers.Chapter 1: The Role of Demographics
BETWEEN THE END of the First World War and the present time marked increases in population occurred in Syria. Although the relevant statistical evidence may be somewhat defective, in particular with regard to the first four decades of this century, the persistence of demographic growth is unmistakable. Syria's population rose from about 1.5 million1 in 1922 to about 13.8 million in 1994 (consult Table 1-1), that is, more than ninefold. Its average annual growth rate was 3.3 percent in the period 1970-1991.2
Table 1-1
Syria's Total and Rural Population and Its Population Active in Agriculture,
Animal Husbandry, and Forestry (in thousands)
Year | Total | Rural | % of Rural | Population Active | % of Total |
1922a | 1,547 | n.a.b | n.a.b | n.a.b | |
1937a | 2,367 | n.a.b | n.a.b | n.a.b | |
1946a | 2,950 | 2,006 | 68.0 | 683 | n.a.b |
1960(census) | 4,353cd | 2,668cd | 61.3 | 514cd | 52.1cd |
1970(census) | 6,305c | 3,564c | 56.5 | 747c | 49.4c |
1981(census) | 9,046 | 4,790 | 52.9 | 495 | 24.2 |
1991a | 12,529 | 6,194 | 49.4 | 924 | 28.0 |
1994(census) | 13,782 | 6,732a | 48.6a | n.a.b | n.a.b |
Sources: League of Nations, The Mandates System (Geneva, 1945), pp. 86-87; Great Britain, Foreign Office, FO 371/75558, XL/A/11723, E4976, Annex B to Letter of 22 October 1948 from H. R. Stewart; Office Arabe de Presse et de Documentation, Damascus, Recueil des statistiques syriennes compar‚es (1928-1968), p. 10; Syria, Ministry of Planning, Directorate of Statistics, Census of Population, 1960 . . . , pp. 30-31, 34-35, and 162-63; Syria, Office of Prime Minister, Central Bureau of Statistics, Population Census in Syrian Arab Republic, 1970, vol. 1, pp. 1, 39, and 306; Results of the Population Census . . . , 1981 (in Arabic), pp. 44 and 225; and Statistical Abstracts, 1991, p. 60; 1992, pp. 90-91; 1994, pp. 62 and 80-81; and 1996, p. 58.
aEstimates.
bNot available.
cThe 1960 and 1970 census takers did not count a great number of women working on family farms.
dThis figure does not take into account the bedouin elements, who numbered 211,670 in 1960.
This growth of population had its beginnings in the nineteenth century and was worldwide in its incidence. As Fernand Braudel has pointed out, its rhythm—registering, despite slowdowns, a continuous rise—differs from that of former times, which was characterized by alternate demographic ebbs and flows.3
In Syria the phenomenon was initially related to the revival of agriculture and its gradual or fitful integration into the world trade network. But the rise in population was as much an effect as a cause of the agricultural revival, in the sense that the two phenomena nurtured and reinforced each other. Other factors contributed sooner or later to the advance of agriculture, including the increase in rural security, the growing penetration into the countryside of money and the idea of profit, the stabilization of property rights, the settlement of the bedouins, the introduction of machinery and artificial fertilizers, and the building of roads, railways, harbors, and irrigation works.
If, initially, the rise in population was related to the reanimation of agriculture, its continued growth has been increasingly a reflection of the decline in mortality rates, particularly after World War II. The process is traceable to the restriction of the ravages of endemic diseases, greater access to purified water, better sanitation, increasing public health facilities, improved diets and child health care, and wider utilization of antibiotics. As is clear from Table 1-2, the crude death rate for Syria fell by two-thirds between 1960 and 1991, and in the latter year was, interestingly enough, lower than that for Japan or the United States, assuming the accuracy of the demographic indicators. As is reflected in the same table, Syria appears also to have made much progress between 1960 and 1991 in lengthening life expectancy and reducing infant mortality. This could perhaps be attributed, at least in part, to the marked interest of its regime in the welfare of country people, which is, in turn, explicable by the regime's rural roots and rural constituency. As regards the infant mortality rate, however, it is doubtful that the rural-urban differential has as yet been wiped out; but rural people aged fifty and above appear to live longer than their urban counterparts.4
Table 1-2
Life Expectancy and Demographic Indicators, Syria Compared with Selected Middle Eastern and Advanced Countries
Crude Birth Rate per | Crude Death Rate per | Life Expectancy at Birth | Infant Mortality Rate per | |||||||||
Country | 1960 | 1984 | 1991 | 1960 | 1984 | 1991 | 1960 | 1986 | 1991 | 1960 | 1984 | 1991 |
Syria | 47 | 45 | 44 | 18 | 8 | 6 | 50 | 64 | 67 | 132 | 55 | 37 |
Saudi Arabia | 49 | 43 | 37 | 23 | 9 | 5 | 43 | 63 | 69 | 185 | 61 | 32 |
Egypt | 44 | 36 | 32 | 19 | 10 | 9 | 46 | 61 | 61 | 128 | 94 | 59 |
Iraq | 49 | 45 | 20 | 10 | 46 | 63 | 139 | 74 | ||||
Iran | 46 | 41 | 44 | 20 | 9 | 9 | 50 | 59 | 65 | 163 | 112 | 68 |
Jordan | 47 | 46 | 37 | 20 | 8 | 5 | 47 | 65 | 69 | 136 | 50 | 29 |
Israel | 27 | 23 | 21 | 6 | 7 | 6 | 69 | 75 | 76 | 32 | 14 | 9 |
Turkey | 43 | 30 | 28 | 16 | 9 | 7 | 51 | 65 | 67 | 190 | 86 | 58 |
Japan | 18 | 13 | 10 | 8 | 7 | 7 | 68 | 78 | 79 | 31 | 6 | 5 |
U.S.A. | 24 | 16 | 16 | 9 | 9 | 9 | 70 | 75 | 76 | 26 | 11 | 9 |
Sources: The World Bank, World Development Reports (Washington, D.C.) 1982, pp. 144-45 and 150-51; 1986, pp. 230-33; 1988, pp. 222-23; and 1993, pp. 238-39 and 290-93.
Although under ideal circumstances Syria can absorb a larger workforce in its economy, rapid demographic growth has been, at one point or another in the last four decades, an important unsettling factor in Syrian life. In conjunction with other elements, such as recurring droughts and soil degradation, it has increased the pressure on land, stimulated an unprecedented rural exodus, made Damascus and other main cities top-heavy with people and problems, pushed up the cost of food, exacerbated economic inequalities, and indirectly contributed to the rise of the Ba'thists and, eventually, to the partial erosion of the salutary effects of agrarian reform. Conjointly with inadequate productivity, the improvement from the 1950s onward of living standards and the consequent rise in per capita consumption, demographic growth was also responsible for transforming Syria in the 1970s from a net exporter into a net importer of food, thus significantly increasing the country's financial burden.
Between 1976 and 1989, however, there appears to have been a simultaneous decrease in Syria's agricultural population (see Table 1-3). True, the official figures should be viewed with some skepticism. The sharp fluctuations in the size of the farming force that they reflect stem in part from the vagaries of the weather, but may also be due to flaws or changes in sampling methods. The figure for 1976 is probably to some extent a statistical aberration. The projections for the years preceding or succeeding the 1981 census, which was published in 1988, may be defective. Nevertheless, the decline of the cultivating population in that period was in all likelihood fairly large. Moreover, there are indications that at least some of the owners of small or nonviable farms are now only part-time husbandmen, having been driven by economic need to take second jobs in nearby towns.
Table 1-3
Proportion of Population Employed in Agriculture
in 1970-1984, 1989, and 1991
Year | Population Active in | % of Total |
1970 (census) | 747b | 49.4 |
1971 | 892 | 54.2 |
1972 | 908 | 55.6 |
1973 | 858 | 50.8 |
1974 | 864 | 53.0 |
1975 | 918 | 49.9 |
1976 | 578c | 33.7 |
1977 | 756 | 39.9 |
1978 | 671 | 34.7 |
1979 | 687 | 32.8 |
1980 | 687 | 32.3 |
1981(census) | 495c | 24.2 |
1982 | 705 | 32.0 |
1983 | 715 | 31.8 |
1984 | 571d | 31.7 |
1989 | 675 | 22.9 |
1991 | 924 | 28.0 |
Sources: Syria, Office of Prime Minister, Central Bureau of Statistics, Population Census . . . , 1970, vol. I, p. 306; Results of the Population Census, 1981, p. 225; Yearly Compilation of Agricultural Statistics (in Arabic) and Statistical Abstracts for various years; and the Peasants' General Union, al-Mu' tamar-ul-'Am ar-Rabi', p. 28; al-Mu' tamar-ul- 'Am al-Khamis, p. 71; and al-Mu'tamar-ul-'Am as-sadis, p. 53. The latter congress gave the figure 696,200 for the 1981 population active in agriculture but I relied on the figure in the 1981 census, which was published in 1988.
Note: The Syrian government did not publish figures for 1985-1988 and 1990.
aThe short-run (year-to-year) variation in the agricultural labor force is largely explicable by the vagaries of the weather, but transfer to other occupations and internal and external migration were also involved.
bAn undercount of female family workers is certain.
cIt is not clear why the agricultural population dropped so sharply in 1976 and 1981. The indices of total agricultural production for these two years inclined upward (see Table 4-3). It is possible that the 1976 figure is a statistical aberration or that the statistical projections for the earlier or succeeding years are defective. The latter explanation might be true also of the figures for the years preceding or following 1981.
dBecause of a drought Syrian agriculture was depressed in 1984.
The decrease in the farming population in the years in question had its roots in the income differentials between rural and urban laborers, the attractions of city life, the irregularity of rainfall, the depletion from over-use of the subterranean water in some areas, the greater reliance on agricultural machines and on a capital-intensive mode of production, and the sharp swing in the world grain prices. In the second half of the 1970s many peasants in such rainfed regions as the Hawran and Jabal Druze were also tempted to seek their fortunes in the Gulf, but the prospects for these migrant laborers have dwindled with the downward movement of international oil prices after 1981 and in particular after the 1985 precipitous oil price plunge. This factor, added to the relative improvement in the conditions of life in the countryside and the decreasing chances for peasant employment in the cities, may account for what the Peasants' General Union described as "a reverse migration" from urban areas to the villages in the early 1990s,5 which is reflected in the increase of the agricultural force from about 675,107 in 19896 to about 924,274 in 1991.7 But 1991 was also a year of exceptional rainfall.8
One other significant demographic feature is the population's low rate of participation in the labor force, which stood in 1970 at 24.9, in 1981 at 22.7 and in 1991 at 27.8 percent.9 It is possible that a segment of the unpaid women working on family farms were not officially enumerated. But the low labor participation rate is in large measure explicable by the youthful slant of the population's age structure: in 1994—the latest year for which relevant data are available—44.8 percent of the Syrians were younger than fifteen.10 Moreover, a high proportion of urban women do not take part in the work force. Both these factors add greatly to the economic burden of the laboring component of the population.
Table of Contents
LIST OF TABLES xiii
PREFACE xvii
PART I THE PEASANTS' SOCIOECONOMIC CONDITIONS 3
CHAPTER 1 The Role of Demographics 5
CHAPTER 2 Differentiations 10
The "Peasant-gardeners" and the "Agricultural Peasants" 10
The Pacific Peasants and the Peasants of Warrior Origin 12
The "Orthodox" and the "Heterodox" Peasants 13
The Clanless and Clan-linked Peasants 22
The Landed and Landless Peasants, the Traditional Urban Landowners, and the Modem Mustathmirs 29
CHAPTER 3 Living Conditions 38
The Distribution of Agricultural Income prior to and since the Restructuring of Agrarian Relations 38
The Lessening Cost of Agricultural Credit 53
The Reduced Tax Burden 59
The Rapid Electrification of the Countryside 63
The Spread of Safe Water Networks 66
The Expansion of Rural Health Care 66
The Development of the Means of Communication and Conveyance 69
The Intensification of the State's Educational Efforts 71
CHAPTER 4 Economic Efficiency 75
Land Use 75
The Agricultural Growth Trends and Related Causal Factors 81
Possible Lines of Future Progress 91
PART II THE PRE-BATH PATTERNS OF PEASANT CONSCIOUSNESS, ORGANIZATION, AND POLITICAL BEHAVIOR 93
CHAPTER 5 Introduction: Portraits of Peasants by Ibn Khaldun, Balzac, Trotsky, Father Ayrout, and J. C. Scott, and Their Relevance 95
CHAPTER 6 The First Peasant Organizations or the Corporations of Peasant-gardeners from the Seventeenth to the Twentieth Century 98
CHAPTER 7 Sufism among the Peasants: A Source of Political Quietism? 103
CHAPTER 8 The Proneness in Ottoman and Mandate Times of the Peasant Mountaineers to Rebellion and of the Peasants of the Open Plains to Indirect Methods of Defense 109
CHAPTER 9 The Communists and the Peasants 118
CHAPTER 10 The Arab Socialists, or the First Agrarian Party in Syria's History 124
PART III THE RURAL AND PEASANT ASPECTS OF BA'THISM 131
CHAPTER 11 The Old Ba'th and the Political Rearing of a Rural Intelligentsia 133
CHAPTER 12 The "Transitional" Ba'th or the Ba'th of the 1960s, the Rise of the Lesser Rural or Village Notability, and the Ruralization of the Army, the Party, and, to Some Degree, the State Bureaucracy 144
The Social Origins of the Members of the Military Committee 145
The Causal Factors behind the Ascent of the Lesser Rural or Village Notability 155
The Stepped-up Ruralization of the Anned Forces 156
Reasons for the Paramount Influence of the 'Alawi Officers 157
The Rural Penetration of the State Bureaucracy 160
The Enhanced Rural Coloring of the Ba'th Party 161
The Agrarian Policies of the 1960s and Their Social Meaning 162
The Downfall of the Mainstream Ba'thists of the 1960s and Its Causes 170
CHAPTER 13 The Post-1970 Asad-molded, Career-oriented Ba'th 176
Qa'id-ul-Masirah 176
The General Characteristics and Social Composition of the New Ba'th 177
The Reasons Why the Proportion of Peasants in the Party Declined in the 1980s and Rose Subsequently 188
PART IV HAFIZ AL-ASAD, OR SYRIA'S FIRST RULER OF PEASANT EXTRACTION 191
CHAPTER 14 Asad's Background, Early Education, Party Apprenticeship, and
First Political Battle 193
CHAPTER 15 Asad's Military Career and Military Qualifications, or the Inferences as to His Generalship Deducible from His Performance in the 1967 and 1973 Wars and during Israel's Invasion of Lebanon 198
CHAPTER 16 The Varied Aspects of Power in Asad's State 204
A Few Preliminary General Observations on "Democratic" Rhetoric and the Realities of Life 204
Asad's Public and Private Views of the Power of Men in the Mass and Their Aptitude for Politics 205
The Four Levels of Asad's Power Structure and Their Basic Characteristics 206
CHAPTER 17 Focusing for a While on the More Subtle Forms of Power 208
CHAPTER 18 The Organization of Power at the Second Tier of Asad's Polity and Its Partaking, among Other Features, of a Basic Trait of Peasant Life 217
The Elemental Instinct for Family and Clan and Its Impact 217
The Lesser Rural Notability and the Inner Core of the Regime's Leadership 225
Is Asad's Regime Sectarian? 226
The Abuse of Authority in High Places and Its Prime Symbol 230
The "Succession Crisis" 232
New Tensions 237
A Word on the Security and Intelligence Networks and Their Key Figures 238
CHAPTER 19 A Glance at the Third Level of Power or at the Composition of the Upper Elite of the Ba'th Party (1970-1997) 244
CHAPTER 20 Shifting the Focus to the Fourth Level of Power, or an Analysis, by Way of Illustration, of the Role of the Peasants' General Union, the Party's Principal Ancillary Mass Organization 251
CHAPTER 21 A Closer View of the Summit of Power, or Asad's Personality as a Factor in the Maintenance of His Rule and the Thwarting of His Opponents 256
CHAPTER 22 Of the Manner in Which Asad Dealt with the Muslim Brethren and their Militants, and the Light It Throws on the Methods by Which He Holds Sway 260
Coping with the Muslim Brethren by Propitiating the 'Ulama' and How the 'Ulama' Responded 260
Benefiting from the Divisions within the Brotherhood 262
Encouraging the Quietism of the Brotherhood's "Damascus Faction"? 265
Facing the Militants' Violent Blows and Their Large-scale Armed Rebellions, or the Gravest Internal Challenge to His Regime 266
Using Force at First Guardedly and Differentiating between the Militants, Leaving Open a Line of Retreat for "the Misled" among Them 270
Feeling out the Country's Temper 271
Altering the Sectarian Composition of the Ba'th Command and Placing in High-Profile Posts More Sunnis from Families of High Religious Status 271
Linking the Irreconcilable Militants to the CIA. and Taking the Problem by the Horns and Going the Limit 272
Frustrating the Muslim Brethren in Exile 275
More Firmly in the Saddle than Ever 277
CHAPTER 23 Asad's Main Concepts at the Level of Regional Politics: Ends or Instruments? 279
Asad and Pan-Arabism 279
Asad and the Iraq-Iran War 283
The Conflict with Israel and the Concept of Strategic Parity 285
CHAPTER 24 An In-depth Study of Asad's Relations with Fath and the P.L.O. from 1966 to 1997 and the Light It Sheds on His Aims and Techniques 287
The First Spell of Fath-Ba'th Cooperation 287
"The Affair of Yasuf 'Urabi" 288
From the 1967 Arab Defeat to the Jordanian Crisis of 1970-1971 289
The Twists and Turns prior to and during the 1975-1976 Lebanese Civil Conflict and the Slide from Latent Enmity into Open War 292
An Interlude of Apparent Harmony 300
The 1982 Israeli Invasion of Lebanon and the Virtual Abandonment of the Palestinian Resistance to Its Fate 302
The Rupture of Relations and the Battle of Tripoli 303
Arafat Springs Surprises 307
The Arafat-King Husayn 1985 Initiative 308
The Reemergence of Fath in Lebanon's Military Equation, the Alleged "Assurances" to Israel, and the "War of the Camps" of 1985-1988 309
The Intifadah, the Tenuous 1988 Agreement, and the Continued Divergence of Policies 312
Turning a New Page? 315
Arafat Goes His Own Way 315
Pulling Together Again 318
Some Conclusions 320
CHAPTER 25 Epilogue 323
APPENDIX Members of the Syrian Ba'th Party (Regional) Commands, 1963-1997 331
NOTES 355
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY 391
INDEX I: SUBJECTS 405
INDEX II: PERSONAL NAMES 409
INDEX III: NAMES OF FAMILIES AND TRIBES 414
What People are Saying About This
This is a profound and comprehensive study of modern Syria that is unlikely to be surpassed for a very long time. It is a model of how social history should be written, and of how it can be used to explain the politics of a complex society like Syria.
— Rashid Khalidi, University of Chicago
This is a richly textured study. . . . The book is full of interesting and novel ways of understanding Syrian peasant behavior and why peasants cannot be discussed as a single socioeconomic or political force or group.
— Philip S. Khoury, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
"This is a richly textured study. . . . The book is full of interesting and novel ways of understanding Syrian peasant behavior and why peasants cannot be discussed as a single socioeconomic or political force or group."—Philip S. Khoury, Massachusetts Institute of Technology"This is a profound and comprehensive study of modern Syria that is unlikely to be surpassed for a very long time. It is a model of how social history should be written, and of how it can be used to explain the politics of a complex society like Syria."—Rashid Khalidi, University of Chicago
Recipe
"This is a richly textured study. . . . The book is full of interesting and novel ways of understanding Syrian peasant behavior and why peasants cannot be discussed as a single socioeconomic or political force or group."—Philip S. Khoury, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
"This is a profound and comprehensive study of modern Syria that is unlikely to be surpassed for a very long time. It is a model of how social history should be written, and of how it can be used to explain the politics of a complex society like Syria."—Rashid Khalidi, University of Chicago