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.
