Virtù and Justice

A conflict of interests arises between A and B; A attacks B, they fight it out, and at the end, A carries the day. What conclusion(s) could be drawn out of this abstract?

One could reasonably conclude that A was stronger than B and therefore capable of defeating his opponent. Would it be fair to also infer that A's cause was the righteous one? Was A the Party of Good that prevailed over B, the Party of Evil? Not quite, for it is self-evident that being stronger, smarter, prettier, etc. would not in and of itself make you a moral person or transform your conduct into an ethical one. Sounds pretty straightforward, but is it?

The story of little David smiting colossal Goliath epitomizes the victory of right over wrong. The virtuous may suffer temporary setbacks, but at the end of the day, he has to win. Of course we may stretch this argument by stipulating that, even if one does not get his/her grievances redressed in this life, surely a day of reckoning would set everything straight in the afterlife. For this post, however, I would like to stick to what is tangible and suspend theological nuances and metaphysics.

The Book of Samuel reveals another aspect of King David, not as noble but an uninteresting one nonetheless. Uriah the Hittite was a soldier in David's army whose wife, Bathsheba, was coveted by the slayer of Goliath. To satisfy his lust, David had to arrange for the murder of the husband. The sordid affair is detailed in the Holy Bible for those interested in saucy tales. Setting aside all ethical arguments and counterarguments, my purpose of relating this story is merely to illustrate what I think is the truer nature of ANY successful ruler, something that was masterfully elaborated by Machiavelli in his famous political manual, “The Prince.” Irrespective of whether David, Goliath, Bathsheba, or Uriah were historical figures or—far more likely—fictional characters, the story retains its validity as to what makes a despot good or bad, or, for the purpose of simplification, a success versus a failure. David, a murderer and an adulterer, is a far more plausible template for a ruler than David, the dashing youth gallantly risking his life in what seemed like a hopeless battle won against overwhelming odds.

Powerful men or women are neither honest nor kindly. They may be bright, good-looking, charming, and charismatic... but decent they are not, and honesty is out of the question. They usually are opportunistic, ruthless, perfidious, mendacious, untrustworthy... The latter qualities are not necessarily bad in a ruler so long as they work to the advantage of his subjects, at least the largest possible number of them. My dad used to tell me an axiom he attributed to ʾAnṭūn Saʿādā—founder of the SSNP—that could be loosely translated as follows: “To an honest man, I'd give my daughter's hand in marriage, but entrusting him with my fate would be a different matter.”

Classical Rome had a better grasp of what's virtuous and what's not. For the word “virtue” originated from the Latin “virtutem,” meaning “manliness,” and begat the derivative “virile” that had a most positive connotation in the writings of Winston Churchill. The Romans did not fathom virtue the way we do. To our modern understanding it's about compassion, love, charity, sympathy, honesty, hard work, mercy, altruism, piety, chastity... for them it was about audacity, stoicism, power, might, victory... A Roman might wage war, destroy, kill, and enslave and still be virtuous, not despite his cruelty but as a consequence of it. All is allowed as long as you win, and once you do, you can conveniently pass the task of glorifying your exploits to poets and historians who would highlight your achievements and ignore or minimize the trail of death and desolation you left behind.

History, everywhere at any time, is a collection of lies and partial truths. Chroniclers might sample the Assyrian Annals that provided a useful adjunct to archeological studies and where Assyria's propagandists assiduously documented the exploits of its kings, exalting their prowess in warfare along with their gratuitous cruelty. Rome''s apologists followed the same path: glory to the victor and death or ignominy to the vanquished. Herodotus' analysis was more sophisticated, as he sought to seek cause—usually hubris—and effect—nemesis—to conflicts; he also cleverly magnified the achievements of the victorious Greeks by wildly exaggerating the numbers of the defeated Persians, a practice common to apologists from time immemorial. 

Cyrus the Great, Alexander the Great, Suleiman the Magnificent, Peter the Great, Catherine the Great, Napoléon... their “greatness” consisted in conquering vast empires at a tremendous cost in human suffering and material destruction. Might is right.

The notion that justice would eventually prevail is a fiction. A just cause is at least as likely to lose as an unjust one, that is, unless we define “justice” and “virtue” in Roman terms. Victors—keenly conscious of their posthumous image—handsomely reward legions of pundits to meticulously highlight their good deeds and whitewash their crimes, however odious. With that in mind, it should be no wonder that a generation or two is all that it takes for people to forget the abominations that spearheaded the impeccable “greatness” of their heroes and delude themselves into subscribing to a Hollywood-style “good” that deservedly thwarted the ultimate “evil.”

La Perfide Albion

I grew up in an Arab Syria where passionate patriotic discourse was the norm and Arab nationalism often bordered on jingoism. Every national narrative has to have its heroes and villains. The latter could be native quislings or alien conspirators whose strings are pulled by some hostile power. Of heroes—real or imaginary—there certainly is no shortage, and the same goes for villains: the stronger those villains are, the better, as there is no glory fighting unworthy foes. This is self-evident: darkness is needed to better define the light, and every thesis needs an antithesis.

The super-villain I grew up with was the United States of America, sworn enemy of all “Progressives” worldwide and unconditionally supportive of a militaristic Israel, hell-bent on expansion to the detriment of its neighbors. The notorious Pentagon and CIA were plotting against the Arab World in general, and Syria in particular, day and night. Their nefarious designs aimed at nothing less than global hegemony, usurping Arabs’ national resources—oil first and foremost—and propping up “reactionary” Arab regimes and client states.

But the evil that my grandparents and great-grandparents were acquainted with was a different one. That malevolent superpower was—as my grandmother used to enviously repeat—the “empire on which the sun never sets.” It was mighty Great Britain, whose king or queen claimed the Indian Empire and ruled the Seven Seas. By contrast, we all know that England is now a has-been. To be sure, it still is prosperous and proud, but it no longer dominates Europe, let alone the world.

So a rising “Arab Nation” struggling to be born had to face the great power that was the United Kingdom. To an Arab nationalist of the first half of the twentieth century, the British committed two unforgivable sins: the first was to betray their promises to the Arab revolutionists, and the second was to issue the notorious Balfour Declaration pledging to facilitate the immigration of Jews to Palestine. Nothing the British would do could erase those twin crimes from Arab memory. Not even the White Paper of 1939 or the rapid decline of British influence after a ruinous WWII that they supposedly “won.”

It certainly is not my intention to exonerate England or to apologize for the Zionists. The British acted according to what they perceived as their national interest and—as I will try to demonstrate later—were as fair to the “Arabs” as could realistically be expected; as for the Zionists, they used every “legal” or illegal means at their disposal to realize their dreams, knowing full well this would be at the expense of the natives. No, my purpose in writing this post is to indict the Arabs (or rather their self-appointed representatives), their political immaturity, and their infantile ideology.

The once imposing Ottoman Empire was agonizing by the beginning of the twentieth century. From without, hungry European powers were disputing the leftovers of its vast territory when WWI erupted in 1914; from within, aš-Šarīf Ḥysayn of Mecca raised the banner of the Great Arab Revolution that was to revive the glory of early Islam while Egypt declared its independence from Constantinople under British auspices. As everyone knows, the Sublime Porte cast its lot with the Central Powers and lost, whereas the Hashemites of Hejaz bet on the Allies and won, or so they fancied.

Ḥysayn negotiated what many Arab historians described as an agreement with Great Britain to grant the Arabs their independence in a territory that extended from the Taurus Mountains in the north to the Indian Ocean in the south, and from the Mediterranean Sea in the west to Iraq in the east; that was in exchange for the Arabs supporting the British campaign against Turkey with their guerrillas—themselves armed with British weapons and financed by British money. The details of this understanding were elaborated in the infamous Ḥysayn-McMahon Correspondence that spanned the interval between July 1915 and January 1916.

The contents of those letters are public knowledge, and I will not dwell on them. Suffice it to say that the British did not promise a whole lot no matter what Ḥysayn thought, and understandably so. England, which sacrificed hundreds of thousands of its young men and a tremendous treasure to defeat Germany and its allies, understood the proposed “independent” Arab kingdom as a client state to be stirred in the right direction by British “advisers.” Moreover, their vague promises were made to the Hashemites of Mecca, not to the “Arabs” whatever that term means. I would also argue that, after all was said and done, the British were fabulously generous with the Hashemites: they created a kingdom for Fayṣal—recently expelled from Syria by the French—in Iraq and concocted a realm for his brother Abdullah in a Transjordan forbidden to would-be Jewish immigrants. Ḥysayn would likely have kept the Hejaz fief to his family—his son Ali—had he been more realistic. Instead, he kept grumbling and whining until the frustrated British decided to abandon him to his fate at the hands of Ibn Sʿūd and his ʾIẖwān. In other words, the British were prepared to grant three kingdoms to the Hashemites and were perhaps justified in thinking that the territory claimed by Ḥysayn was vast enough to satisfy the appetite of many vassals and buy out quite a few enemies.

For in reality Šarīf Ḥysayn was asking the British to grant him a vast empire that they conquered on his behalf. Let there be no mistake about it: the Ottomans defeat was achieved by the British and only the British. Not only were Ḥysayn’ guerillas little more than British mercenaries, but also the entire “Great Arab Revolution,” as T. E. Lawrence would put it, was a “side show of a side show.” WWI was fought and decided in Europe, and the Ottoman Empire would have been terminated with or without Ḥysayn’s contribution. Had he and his apologists possessed a healthy dose of common sense, they would have realized that empires are conquered, not given.

Contrast Arabs’ attitude with that of the Zionists. Chaim Weizmann worked tirelessly towards preparing the conditions that would eventually lead to the creation of a Jewish state. He accepted a relatively modest territory and did not insist on a state right from the start. To him, a vague promise of a “Jewish National Home in Palestine” was adequate to begin with, it being implied that more could be demanded in due time. Indeed, there was no reason back in 1917 to conclude that a Jewish state was inevitable.

In summary, England deliberately issued vague promises to Arab and Jew, and its politicians went out of their way in wording their documents as to leave ample room for maneuver for their successors. While it is true that the Balfour Declaration gave a “legal” basis for the Zionist enterprise, it remains undeniable that Israel became a reality in 1948 mainly thanks to the commitment of wealthy European and American Jews financing the—mainly Eastern European—Jewish settlement in Palestine and providing the settlers with arms and ammunition to conquer the land at the expense of its inhabitants. Contrary to the Hashemites, the Zionists relied first and foremost on themselves.

Heroes and villains are the stuff out of which movies are made, comic books are illustrated, and tales are told. In real life we have winners and losers/ If you win, all is or would be forgiven in time. If you lose, you accept the crumbs the victor might leave you out of the goodness of his heart or hold your peace. Many losers did not even survive to relate their ordeal.

The White Man's Burden

Years ago, I came across a curious narrative concerning the conquest of Egypt by ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ, completed by the end of 642 CE. Muslim chroniclers have from time immemorial glorified what undoubtedly was an impressive military achievement and a seminal event in the epical history of Egypt. According to Muslim tradition, the conquered peoples of Egypt and Syria—the overwhelming majority of whom were Christians—welcomed their Muslim brethren from Arabia with open arms as deliverers from the Byzantine yoke and went out of their way to collaborate with them against their Roman oppressors.

There certainly is a kernel of truth in this account, and this goes a long way in explaining the ease with which Muḥammad’s followers were able to defeat the vast and—in theory—mighty Eastern Roman Empire. I stress “in theory,” for Byzantium at the time was a mere shadow of its former self; it barely survived a protracted and ruinous conflict with Sassanid Persia, and its people were engaged in an endless and bloody civil strife concerning the nature of Christ: did Jesus have a divine nature? Human nature? or both? The Incarnation Controversy preoccupied legions of theologians and was slowly but surely tearing the Byzantine Empire asunder. For the sake of brevity, suffice it to say that Egypt’s Christians followed the Monophysite Doctrine, which maintained that Jesus had one single divine nature as opposed to the Chalcedonian creed that insisted that Jesus had two natures, one divine and the other human; the latter doctrine was promoted by Constantinople to the exclusion of others.

Relieved to see the back of the Romans, the Copts lost no time in dispatching a delegation to the victor. They congratulated ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ on his great exploit, professed allegiance to the rising Arab Empire, and proceeded to explain to the conqueror the irreconcilable differences between them and Byzantium. They mourned the persecution they had to endure for adhering to their faith. Perhaps they also harbored the hope that ʿAmr would exact revenge against their erstwhile foes on their behalf.

Unfortunately for them, ʿAmr understood next to nothing about their esoteric disputes. He was a brilliant general and an astute politician, but a theologian he was not. His practical mind could not fathom the nuanced and convoluted arguments about the nature of Christ. Worse still, he expressed not the least interest in the subject. He laconically replied that since they all were Christians, they all were subject to the poll tax (ǧizīā), and no retaliation would be tolerated. The rest is history, or at least the victor's version of it.

It would be too simplistic to attribute cynical motives to ʿAmr or many other great conquerors for that matter. It is indeed quite likely that he and his fellow desert warriors genuinely believed that they were “liberating” the Copts from Byzantine occupation, the same way Saʿd ibn abi Waqqāṣ “freed” Sassanid Iraq from Persian tyranny. Most humans love to attribute lofty, even altruistic motives to their deeds, and many manage to convince themselves at some level of the truthfulness of those motives. I see no reason to doubt the good intentions of Napoléon or that Tamerlane considered himself a devout Muslim, though everyone knows that those two men perpetrated or at least played a dominant role in wholesale slaughters.

Fast forward to the year 1920, when General Henri Gouraud marched on Damascus, deposed King Fayṣal, and inaugurated the French Mandate of Syria. British arms “liberated” Syria from Ottoman rule in 1918, and now came the French to “civilize” a then barbarous Syria. The “Liberating Mission” of Great Britain begat the “Civilizing Mission” of France, or, as the French would put it, “la Mission Civilisatrice.” Enfranchising and civilizing the backward peoples of Asia, Africa, and Latin America were sacrosanct goals in the best tradition of “the White Man’s Burden.”

At the risk of stating the obvious, the French managed to commit quite a few atrocities during their relatively brief stay in Syria—a little more than 25 years—but the Mandate was more than a brutal occupation by a ruthless colonial power. Along with soldiers and high commissioners came educators, missionaries, scientists, archeologists, financiers, and administrators. True, many of these came pursuing a career, but quite few truly believed that they had the best interests of the natives at heart.

The Mandate was doomed to fail, however, and for numerous reasons, both internal and external. The French discovered that there was no peaceful way to keep Syria, and they were too weakened by WWII to impose their will by crude force. Had they tried to do so, the price in blood and treasure would have been unacceptable. The year 1946 witnessed the last French soldiers leaving Syria; for most Syrians it was a day to celebrate, but for the French it was a mere episode in a long series of retreats that would culminate in evacuating Algeria in the early 1960s following a bloodbath that disillusioned all but the most fanatic believers in “civilizing missions.”

Decades would pass before the West, led by a rising transatlantic empire, recovered its appetite for “liberating” and civilizing.” I no longer can keep track of how many countries were “liberated” within the last 25 years: Kuwait, Bosnia, Iraq, Libya… To name but a few. Syria is the most recent candidate for “liberation,” a process that started in 2011 and is still underway today.

Just to be clear about where I stand and what I believe in, the vast majority of Syria’s would-be “liberators” are acting according to their own geopolitical calculations and with utter disregard to Syria’s best interests. To add to the confusion, those “benefactors” represent numerous nations with different goals and varying methods of achieving those goals.

That those nations would pursue their perceived interests is not surprising in the least. What I find hard to digest is the ease with which many Syrians have put their trust in outsiders. It would be tedious to analyze the motives of each and every actor separately, and I don’t even believe that I qualify for such a complex task. I will therefore choose one actor, unquestionably the major actor, without whom the Syrian scene would have been drastically different as I type those sentences: the American Union, or its government, to be precise.

Not all those who advocate “liberating” Syria are cynics, though there is no dearth of hypocrisy. I have no doubt in my mind that some American statesmen would love to help Syria and Syrians, and perhaps they—like many warriors throughout history—really believe that the best way to do it would be through some military intervention that may include bombing the hapless country into “freedom and democracy,” whatever those terms mean.

 My questions to those Syrians who would entrust outsiders (the USA) with their fate are:

1. Regardless of what American politicians state and what their media repeat, do you really think that Syria is a priority for the USA? One has to separate rhetoric from fact. Americans have many issues to worry about that are far more important to them than anything that might or might not happen in Syria: jobs, healthcare, education, retirement benefits, and so on. This is totally understandable.

2. Do you know that millions of Americans can’t locate Syria on a map if their life depended on it? Do you know that millions of Americans (perhaps most Americans) can’t tell the difference between Arab and Muslim, let alone between a Sunni and an Alawite?

3. Suppose America does indeed “liberate” Syria. How long would it take for Syria to vanish from US news like magic, the way Libya did after the fall of Colonel Gaddafi? Heck, the Kardashians’ exploits are a much higher priority for many Americans than anything happening or that might happen in the Near East.


Syria is imploding before our eyes while some Syrians busy themselves imploring foreigners to “liberate” them. They seem to be anticipating a Messiah or a Mahdi, but I am afraid they’ll be waiting for a very long time.

Irredentism Revisited

Otto Von Bismarck, along with Palmerston and Metternich, is regarded as one of the most influential politicians of the nineteenth century. To many historians, he is acknowledged as the most influential German politician ever and incontestably the creator of modern Germany. So solid were the foundations he laid that not even losing two world wars and the calamitous reign of Adolph Hitler would preclude Germany from leading Europe as its economic and industrial powerhouse well into the twenty-first century.

Bismarck would impeccably finish a process inaugurated by Frederick the Great of Prussia a century prior. He did that by refining Realpolitik into an art, which culminated in transferring the German center of gravity from Vienna to Berlin. This is not the place to elaborate on the steps that led to the consecration of the German Reich in 1871 at the Hall of Mirrors in Versailles, a seminal event understandably cherished by most Germans incapable or unwilling to consider possible future consequences of their triumph.

For not everyone was celebrating at Versailles. Least of all the French hosts who had to swallow their pride, cede Alsace and Lorraine to the victorious Hohenzollern, and turn their attention to the immediate challenge of building a new France. Paris, however, had neither forgotten nor forgiven this humiliation. For two generations French politicians would patiently try, with the collaboration of a Great Britain now alarmed at Germany’s newfound power, to undermine Bismarck’s system of alliances to their own advantage. To France, the Entente Cordiale, signed with England in 1904, was a major step towards a day of reckoning. That day came in 1914, and the French managed, after four years of mutual carnage, to defeat Germany and recover their lost provinces as they imposed a huge war indemnity on their humbled foes. Versailles was to beget a treaty designed to establish a new balance of power with France recovering its “rightful” place as the dominant continental power in Europe at the expense of Germany, leaving to England the privilege of dominating the seas in partnership with a rising and increasingly ambitious US empire. The Versailles of 1871 was undone by the Versailles of 1919.

France emerged on top, but it bled white in the process. More than anyone else, it realized how close the call really was, and she remained keenly aware that her victory, precarious as it was, would have been inconceivable without massive British and US help, not to mention Russia’s enormous sacrifice. The France of 1920-1940 was desperately clinging to the new status quo, but meanwhile German irredentism was, in its turn, giving ammunition to rightist demagogues hell-bent on reversing Versailles, restoring German prestige, and recovering the “occupied” Alsace and Lorraine.

Along came WWII. In 1940, the Wehrmacht stormed France, Belgium, and the Netherlands and soundly defeated the Western allies with lightning speed. It was now the turn of France to capitulate and of Germany to dictate. Once more, Alsace & Lorraine would be swapped between victor and vanquished, only this time Berlin’s success would be undone in less than 5 years despite millions of Germans recklessly immolated on the altar of Mars.

Germany was seemingly humbled beyond recovery. Its once proud cities were transformed into heaps of rubble; its surviving population was a collection of widows, orphans, and disabled; large chunks of its territory were ethnically cleansed and handed over to its erstwhile victims; the country was partitioned and demilitarized; and new war indemnities were imposed. Imperial dreams were dead and buried to be replaced by an indomitable will to survive, rebuild, and consolidate. The prostrate Germany of 1945 would, in time, extend a hand of friendliness and cooperation to France. The two nations would spark a partnership that would develop into a peaceful and prosperous European Union.

For France did not win WWII. It may have recovered its northeastern provinces, but at an unacceptable price in blood and treasure. Even England was severely wounded in the process, though many did not realize it at the time. The duel between the Allies and the Axis powers—and prior to that between the Allies and the Central Powers—would transfer the world’s center of gravity across the Atlantic. London, Paris, Berlin, and Moscow were broke. Pax Americana—the Cold War notwithstanding—had replaced Pax Britannica.

In retrospect, neither Alsace and Lorraine nor any territory for that matter was worth the blood baths between 1914 and 1945. France would have been great with or without them. Germany would have easily headed Europe’s economy and industry without costly, quixotic enterprises seeking a nearly impossible-to-keep—if not conquer—Lebensraum in the East. “Good” wars belong rightfully and exclusively to Hollywood, as was amply proved by Europe’s experience in the first half of the twentieth century. Conflict may benefit weapons manufacturers and war profiteers, most certainly not the common folk.

A lengthy introduction it was, but my purpose is to demonstrate what I believe to be the deadly futility of irredentism. Historians may glorify or demonize this or that ruler or general, the main criterion used being how successful he or she was, rather than who was a hero and who was a villain. If you win, you get to write pretty much what you want. If you lose, you put up or you shut up, often both.

But if irredentism could be lethal to major European powers, what about weak Near Eastern entities that themselves had been created by these very same powers? Would an ambition that nearly destroyed modern Europe work for an impoverished and underdeveloped country in the Levant or North Africa? How costly would this El Dorado be to reach? How many years would it take to achieve such a utopia, and how many martyrs would need to be sacrificed on the path of glory?

I am old enough to remember when we used to commemorate the annexation of Alexandretta by Turkey at school. Our history—or rather what passed for history—textbooks used to list as “usurped territories” Cilicia, Arabistan, Eritrea, Ceuta, Melilla, etc. If you happen to adopt the SSNP ideology, you could claim Cyprus, Sinai, parts of Arabia, etc. If, on the other hand, you believe in a supreme Islamic empire, you might as well claim Andalusia, the Balkans, Sicily… Well, you got the idea. This would be a flawless prescription for endless war, destruction, and desolation, the outcome of which would most likely result in losing still more territory and perpetuating misery, despotism, and/or chaos, all in the name of pursuing an illusion that has chased our hapless people from time immemorial.

 As the popular saying goes, cry not for the gambler who lost money; rather, cry for he who tries to recover his losses through more gambling. I am not trying to “surrender” territories that have never belonged to me to begin with, and yes, some of those territories were indeed unfairly and violently detached by various predators. What I aim to demonstrate is simply that if Germany can survive the loss of not only Alsace and Lorraine but also East Prussia, Sudetenland, Schleswig, Holstein, etc., to emerge as a major world power, then surely a Third World Levantine country could scale down its ambitions to a realizable size, namely to advance the welfare of its citizens by addressing the issues that really count, such as health, education, infrastructure, employment, economy, and environment, to mention but a few.

Rather than chasing costly dreams that have time and again proved elusive to one generation after another, it perhaps makes more sense to build on what is still available and tangible. Failing this, our kids and grandkids may one day wake up to discover that their ancestors had lived in a golden era and, other than confabulations, left them little diet on which to subsist.

Fire Worshippers

Seizing on what seemed to be a unique opportunity to aggrandize his person and recover usurped “Arabistan” for its “Arab Nation", Iraq’s Ṣaddām Ḥusayn attacked Iran back in September 1980, thus inaugurating an 8-year-long conflict that was to claim hundreds of thousands of lives and untold billions of dollars with disastrous geopolitical consequences destined to haunt the hapless inhabitants of the Persian Gulf for generations.

Saddam’s gamble was predicated on two assumptions: the first was that the US would not object to his designs, and the second that Iran, an international outcast weakened by revolutionary purges and civil strife, would be a pushover. It was to be “Saddam’s Qādisīyyā,” as the Iraqi strongman aimed to duplicate the exploit of Saʿd ibn abi Qaqqāṣ.

Ḥusayn was right on the money as far as the US reaction was concerned. Indeed, not only did the US indulge the ambitions of the Iraqi leader, but the Reagan administration also, before long, extended covert as well as overt support to the embattled Iraqis. Ḥusayn’s second assumption, however, proved utterly unfounded as Iran—its isolation and internal turmoil notwithstanding—proved far more resilient than expected and would have beaten Iraq absent outside intervention. The latter possibility should have been expected—or at least considered—given Iran’s advantage in geography and demography; those factors eluded Mr. Ḥusayn at the time.

Religion has been used and abused in warfare from time immemorial, including in the Iraq-Iran War of 1980-1988. This “first” Persian Gulf War took place during my formative youth when my knowledge of differences and similarities between the numerous Islamic sects was minimal to nonexistent. Part of the earliest “religious education” I received was via Jordanian TV, so let this post acknowledge my indebtedness and serve as a tribute to Amman's media.

The plucky little Jordanian king threw his lot with Ṣaddām Ḥusayn and instructed his obsequious media to relay the Iraqi army's "victories" against the "Persians” on a daily basis. The Jordanian TV transmitted what passed for news, emphasizing the heroic deeds of the guardians of the “eastern gate of the Arab Nation.” Statistics were provided regularly, of course: “the Persian enemy lost 100 slain soldiers, while the Iraqi army lost 3 martyrs.”

Jordanian TV outdid itself by presenting a TV series entitled “Hārūn ar-Rašīd.” The legendary Abbasid despot would certainly provide a fascinating subject for any historian or movie maker, but this series focused on one particular aspect of Hārūn’s reign: his relationship with the fabulously rich Barmakids, Yaḥīā, al-Faḍl, and Jaʿfar.

The Barmakids were a wealthy Persian family that grew influential serving the early Abbasids. H̱ālid begat Yaḥīā, who begat al-Faḍl and Jaʿfar, the most illustrious of the lot. His mother nursed Hārūn, whom he served as vizier for many years, enriching himself and his ilk in the process. Eventually Hārūn quarreled with the Barmakids, seized their property, jailed some of them, and inflicted a savage death on Jaʿfar, his friend and confidant of many years. Jaʿfar was beheaded, and his corpse was split in half; his ghastly remains were publicly displayed in different parts of Baghdad.

Explanations vary as to what motivated Hārūn’s barbarous treatment of his loyal advisers. Some suggested an affair between Jaʿfar and Hārūn’s sister, al-ʿAbbāsā, while others simply justified the murder on the ground that the Barmakids were becoming too powerful and Hārūn preempted a coup that would have claimed his throne, possibly his life. A more outlandish interpretation was proffered by the history books of the Syrian Arab Republic, namely that there was a far-reaching Persian conspiracy against the Arabs and the Abbasids (in reality the Abbasid empire was practically Persian from its inception). But back to the Jordanian TV, for its narrative was the most preposterous of them all.

Not only did the TV version emphasize the Arab-Persian divide, but it also went a step further by adding a religious dimension. The Barmakids were not Muslims at all. They were Majūs and fire worshippers. They professed loyalty to Hārūn during the day and worshipped fire at night in their cave-like dwellings. Forget about Jaʿfar of the Arabian Nights and his soirées of drunkenness with his Hārūn, the Commander of the Faithful; forget the fact that it was Persian men and Persian arms that brought the Abbasids to power to begin with and maintained them on their throne for generations.

The ugly sectarian narrative lives on. Recently the “fire-worshipping Majūs Persians” earned another denigrating epithet, “Safavids.” The latter description applies more or less to the Šīʿā, perhaps more so to the Twelvers, and implies that they are heretics, wicked, and treacherous. They do not necessarily “worship fire,” but they are no less wretched and would surely earn hellfire sooner or later.

Who were the Majūs? Zoroastrianism is an old dualistic Iranian religion the adherents of which indeed worshipped in fire temples—fire serving as a symbol—and was no less developed than Abrahamic religions. As for the Safavids, they were an Iranian dynasty that ruled for 200+ years, starting with Shah Ismāʿīl in the early 16th century until they were deposed by Nādir Shah in the 18th.

Iran’s history stretches for thousands of years, and its culture is as proud as any. The cities of Persepolis, Susa, Tehran, Tabriz, and Shiraz are or were no less glorious than Memphis, Alexandria, Cairo, Damascus, and Baghdad. To be a Zoroastrian (some survive as Parsees) is no vice, and Safavid heritage should be a subject of pride, as would testify the treasures of art and architecture still on display in Isfahan. As for Šīʿā Islam, it is no more or less legitimate than Sunni Islam, Christianity, or Judaism. It is about time we put all those antiquated disputes to rest.

The Fall of Andalusia

January 25, 750 C.E. The fate of the Umayyad Dynasty was sealed on the banks of the Great Zāb as the victorious Abbasids chased survivors of the hitherto invincible rulers of Damascus, exterminating them to a man but for one notable exception.

ʿAbdel-Raḥmān I (ad-Dāẖil, or Ṣaqr Qurayš) managed to escape the massacre. He ended up in the Iberian Peninsula in 755 C.E., where he proceeded to conquer a kingdom for himself and his descendants, thereby duplicating—and surpassing—the exploits of the Barcids all the way back in the 3rd century B.C.E.

Whatever their shortcomings, the Umayyads were Syrians, loved Syria, and promoted its welfare. They ruled an immense empire and were constantly combating foreign foes while suppressing "domestic" rebellions in Ḥiǧāz, Iraq, H̱urāsān, and elsewhere. They constructed the Great Mosque of Damascus and the beautiful Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, among other architectural marvels. Syria has never forgotten its caliphate and has unsurprisingly cherished the distant Spanish branch of its beloved rulers and, by extension, the entire Eldorado that was Andalusia. The Arab conquerors of Spain would have their names bestowed on Syrian schools and Damascene quarters; even the national Tobacco Company would market brands named after Alhambra and Granada.

Reality is, however, less romantic. Whatever was the origin of those “Arab Conquistadors,” it was a matter of time before they would acquire the identity of their adopted land. It took me less than eight years from my arrival to the USA in 1985 to become a US citizen in word as well as in deed, whereas my kids are literally Native Americans. One could, of course, argue that the situation was dramatically different in the Dark Ages, as the concept of “nation” was nonexistent, but I would nevertheless maintain that the accumulation of years and miles is bound to have the ultimate say on creating a new identity, all the more so in an age when the means of communication were precarious and travel was downright dangerous. Conclusion? The “Arabs” of Spain were as Spaniards as anyone else, if not in the first generation, then certainly in the numerous generations that spanned hundreds of years since the original conquest; alas, neither East nor West seems to have seriously entertained what should be as elementary as ABC.

So what should we call those 8th-century newcomers to Spain? Were they Syrians? The answer would most certainly be no, though to be sure some of them were. They were not Arabs either, for quite a few of them, including Ṭāriq ibn Zīād, were Berbers from North Africa. They were not “Saracens,” since many came from “al-Maġrib.” Closer to reality would be that they were Muslims, but one should keep in mind that when Catholicism reclaimed Spain, its adherents evicted (or exterminated)—in addition to Iberian Muslims—not only the Jews but also the Moriscos (that is, the Spanish Muslims who converted to Christianity in the vain hope of earning toleration). Very well, let’s call them—by default—the way Catholic Spain did: the Moors, a term loosely—and contemptuously—employed to describe “others” who looked darker, adopted (or were suspected to adopt) a different faith, and whose ancestors came from “somewhere else in the Southeast.”

History as taught in modern Syrian schools maintains that the Arabs presence in Andalusia lasted almost eight centuries, starting when Ṭāriq crossed Gibraltar in 711 C.E. and ending with the fall of Granada in 1492. While there is some truth in this narrative, it is so imprecise as to be misleading.

For Andalusia, for all practical purposes, did not fall towards the end of the 15th century, but rather in the middle of the 13th. Abu al-Baqāʿ ar-Randī, whose beautiful ode poignantly mourned the fall of his beloved Utopia, died in 1285, more than 200 years before the fall of Granada. The protracted conflict that pitted Europeans versus Moors began shortly after Ṭāriq brought the Visigothic Kingdom to an end and his successors raided Southern Gaul before they were repulsed at Poitiers by Charles Martel. Charlemagne, the first Holy Roman Emperor, continued the struggle, and it seems neither he nor the Abbasid Hārūn ar-Rašīd had scruples about joining efforts against their common Umayyad enemy in Spain, their religious differences notwithstanding.

For more than two centuries, the Moorish presence in Spain was not just secure but prosperous and bountiful. The Umayyad Caliphate rivaled its Abbasid and Fatimid counterparts in wealth and prestige, while the European North languished in the Dark Ages throughout the 9th and 10th centuries. The end of the beginning was when the Córdoba Umayyads followed their Damascene ancestors into oblivion early in the 11th century to be replaced by the “Mulūk aṭ-Ṭawāʾf,” petty principalities warring among themselves and often enlisting the aid of their “Spanish” enemies against each other. To be sure, the Moorish cities hosted a brilliant civilization despite their political decline, bound sooner or later to translate into economic decline even were we to exclude outside predators.

Toledo fell in 1085, never to be recovered. The Andalusian Moors reacted by calling on their North African brethren, who mounted a credible counterattack, first under the Almoravids (who defeated Alfonso VI) and secondly under the Almohads (followers of Ibn Tumart). The struggle lasted about 150 years before the Moors were decisively defeated in 1212 at the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa. One great city after another fell to the Reconquista: Córdoba in 1236, Seville in 1248, etc. By 1252 only the Kingdom of Granada remained, protected by its mountainous terrain and a heavy tribute paid by its king to his Castilian overlord. Granada went so far as to help Castile conquer Seville along with other Moorish strongholds.

Granada was thus capable of enjoying a long Indian summer during which Moorish culture and architecture flowered as seldom before. Refugees from the Spanish Reconquista flocked into the tiny kingdom that thrived on the trade of the Western Mediterranean, at least till the geographic discoveries of the 15th century started to bypass that sea altogether. Insulated from reality in their gardens and palaces, the hedonistic Naṣrid rulers seemed to have forgotten that Andalusia was virtually no more. To them, ar-Randī was a distant memory, if they remembered him at all. 

Old habits die hard. Muhammad XII “Boabdil,” the last king of Granada, was incapable of comprehending—let alone facing—the imminent danger that the united Kingdoms of Aragon and Castile represented. The Naṣrids continued the Moorish tradition of internecine fighting inaugurated in the eleventh century by “Mulūk aṭ-Ṭawāʾf,” including a Faustian deal every now and then, with their covetous Northern neighbors. Granada finally succumbed to the inevitable and surrendered to the triumphant Crusaders on January 2nd, 1492. The curtain descended on this tragedy with the immortal words of Boabdil’s mother, reproaching him for weeping like a woman for a lost kingdom he could not defend as a man.

Post-mortem analysis is easy. Perhaps Andalusia was bound to fall in a fanatical age when victors offered no quarter. It also is true that the “Spaniards” quarreled among each other just as Muslims did and were no less ready to call on outside help when push came to shove. The fall of Constantinople—first to the Crusaders in 1204 and secondly to the Ottomans in 1453—clearly illustrates the universality of this phenomenon, namely seeking the help of your natural enemies for the sake of temporary gains at the expense of your kinsfolk. 

Corrupted from within and devoured from without, Andalusia imploded by the middle of the 13th century, and its surviving remnant finally crumbled in 1492. Let’s keep beloved Syria in our thoughts. 

Identity Crisis

Syria's condition is critical.

December 2010. It was business as usual when a certain Muḥammad Būʿazīzī set himself on fire and unwittingly released a hurricane that would claim the presidents of Tunis and Egypt and inaugurate a series of demonstrations in Bahrain, Libya, Syria, Yemen, and elsewhere. Būʿazīzī was the Arab World’s Gavrilo Princip, who did no more than light the fuse to initiate a chain reaction and release the immense energy of a deceptively silent volcano.

Still unfolding, the Arab Spring—an expression to be accepted with caution if at all—is not the subject of this post; Syria is. 

What is Syria? Etymologically it was the name the Greeks—and subsequently the Romans—loosely applied to the area bound to the north by Asia Minor, to the south by the Arabian Desert, and to the west by the Mediterranean Sea. It was a geographical, not a geopolitical, designation; its boundaries changed a great deal throughout the long history of the Near East. The same area would be called “Bilād aš-Šām" by the Arabs; that is, the country located to the north of Hijaz as opposed to “Yemen,” which referred to the south, and the Levant (from soleil levant, or east, as opposed to the west, or soleil couchant) by the French.

As every schoolkid in Syria knows, modern Syria was a creation of France in the aftermath of WWI. The Near East was carved by Mark Sykes and Georges Picot on behalf of the British and the French empires into mandates and spheres of influence. France was accorded the mandate for Syria, including Lebanon (a hundred years ago the Lebanese called themselves Syrians, but that’s another story), and Britain those for Iraq, Transjordan, and Palestine.

According to Syria’s official history, the French proceeded with a deliberate policy of “divide and conquer” right from the start. The country was partitioned into six different entities: the States of Aleppo, Damascus, Drūze, al-ʿAlawīyyīn, Greater Lebanon, and Alexandretta. The last one was eventually ceded to Turkey, and Lebanon (enlarged by four “Syrian” districts) was kept separate even after administrative and financial considerations convinced the French of the desirability of unifying the remaining four statelets into one “Syria.”

In their political and administrative divisions, the French emphasized Syria's religious differences. I say "emphasized," for certainly they did not create those differences. The Maronite Christians were given Lebanon (enlarged by the aforementioned “Syrian” districts to make it economically viable); the Alawites were made “independent,” and so were the Drūze; and the rival cities of Aleppo and Damascus were each granted its own realm. The partition, to be sure, had many flaws, as was bound to happen in an ethnically, linguistically, and religiously diverse country the way Syria was and still is. There was an important Kurdish concentration in al-Jazīrā, to name but one example. As for Syria’s Christians, they were too scattered across the emerging country to be granted their own dominion. The French probably debated those issues and more but could not come up with a definitive remedy. They realized, and so did their embittered Syrian subjects, that the division was artificial but reckoned that it would be impossible to come up with a solution that satisfies everyone and did not suspect at the time that they would soon be evicted from the Levant and lose control over the subsequent development of their creatures.

Syria became fully independent in 1946. Alexandretta and Lebanon were lost, it is true, but the rest of the country remained united and was now a full-fledged state, a member of the United Nations, and governed by its own people. Its borders, with the exception of the Golan Heights lost to Israel in 1967, have seemingly stabilized and acquired permanence through the recognition of its neighbors as well as the international community. Those borders, however, have always been denounced by Syrian patriots of different political orientations as artificially imposed by foreigners. For better or for worse, Syrians kept looking beyond their borders in search of a Greater Syria, a Fertile Crescent, an Arab Nation, etc. Generations of Syrians were sustained on an imaginary diet of a Syria that never was.

Fast forward to March 2011, when the fever of the so-called “Arab Spring” reached Syria. It is not my intention to elaborate on Syria’s simmering civil war, as the final chapter in that sad narrative is yet to be written, and I fear we’re in for a long ride. Suffice it to point out the increasingly ethnic-sectarian nature of the current strife. Whereas our parents and grandparents incessantly raised the banner of Arab or Syrian union, a sizable part—some think a majority—of the current generation appears hopelessly divided along sectarian lines and utterly bent on settling scores and pursuing vendettas. Some have even gone to the extent of asking help from the same “colonial” powers that our grandparents denounced and “evicted.”

Is this surprising? Well, it shouldn’t be. One only needs to look next door at the Lebanese and Iraqi models. Of course, in both cases outside intervention played a crucial—in Iraq’s case a decisive—role, but there is no denying that the soil was fertile with sectarian hatred that was bound to explode with outright war when a timely stimulus came. More to the point, if tiny Lebanon can plunge into a bloody civil war for almost a generation, why wouldn’t Syria, several times Lebanon’s size area-wise as well as population-wise and just as complex from ethnic and religious standpoints?

Are Syria’s borders artificial? Absolutely! But this can be interpreted in two diametrically opposite manners, and an inescapable conclusion would be that the French may have created a Syria that is too large for its own good after all. Why not re-partition Syria, give the Kurds the Northeast, the Druze the Southwest, and the Alawites the coast? It may not sound pretty, but it definitely is better than endless fighting and bloodshed, and it sure as hell beats any “humanitarian” military intervention by the cynical western powers and a NATO that has all but outlived its usefulness. If, and that’s a big if, it could be done peacefully.

I don’t know what the solution is. I don’t know if a reasonably accepted one even exists. Anyone who practiced medicine long enough knows that not all diseases are curable, “miracles” of modern science and technology notwithstanding. Can Syria be kept united with no recourse to violence? Would a day dawn on this tormented land when Syrians love their country, however artificially created, more than they distrust and resent each other?

There has never been a shortage of dreamers singing Syria’s praises and professing an everlasting love for their fatherland, but what is desperately needed are responsible leaders and enlightened citizenry willing and capable of making difficult decisions and living with their consequences, however painful in the short run. Syria needs less poetry and more action.