The Syrian Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamic Revolt in Syria (1976-1982)

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The Syrian Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamic

Revolt in Syria (1976-1982)

An analysis of the use of framing by a resistance movement

MA Middle Eastern Studies Supervisor 1: P.G.T Nanninga Supervisor 2: R.Nikolsky Tomas Riemens

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In March, the civil war in Syria entered its fifth anniversary. The battle between President Bashar al-Assad and various other parties, such as the al-Nusra Front, remains fierce and unpredictable. In 2010, the unrest started with a popular uprising against the regime of Assad. For insiders, the outbreak of a conflict in Syria was not all that surprising. The country has a lot of religious and ethnic minorities and a majority of Sunni Muslims. The Assad family is Alawi, a religious community that makes up for about 11% of the entire Syrian population and lives in more rural areas like Latakia. This sect was known as Nusayri’s until 1920 and places Ali, Mohammed’s cousin, above the Prophet himself.1

The Sunni Muslims make up for about 68% of the population and live mostly in urban areas like Hama, Damascus and Aleppo.2 The population exists further of other minorities like Christians, Shi’ites and Druzes. For decades, the political situation in the country had been harsh, but stabile due to the authoritarian rule of the Assad family. Hafez al-Assad took over power in 1969. He ended years of political turmoil in Syria and started an era of authoritarian, military rule. Despite a context of stiff and sustained authoritarianism, there has been an uprising under his rule as well. Explaining popular mobilization in such a political context is difficult. The risk of taking the streets in a situation like Syria’s is so high that organized and wide scale resistance against the regime seems unlikely.

During the end of the 1970’s and start of the 1980’s the Sunni Muslims in Syria organized in the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood and challenged the rule of the Hafez al-Assad. However, the uprising ended in the destruction of the entire city of Hama and the mass executions of the people that had tried to overthrow the regime of Assad. This incident would be become known as the ‘Hama massacre.’

An article on an archive blog of the English newspaper The Guardian on August 2011 describes the massacre as follows:

“The 1982 (Hama) massacre is regarded as the single bloodiest assault by an Arab ruler against his own people in modern times and remains a pivotal event in Syrian history.” 3

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The series of clashes between the regime of Hafez al-Assad and the Sunni resistance movement called the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, eventually culminated in the massacre at Hama. This thesis tries to analyze and clarify the chain of events that lead to the mass killing in 1982. It highlights the roles that the regime of Assad played on the one hand and the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood on the other hand. The thesis tries to offer a tool for understanding uprisings in the political context of Syria using Social Movement Theory.

Social Movement Theory is not a single comprehensive theory, but should be regarded as a tool to understand different types of contentious action of social movements. Social movements are defined as “collectivities acting with some degree of organization and continuity, partly outside institutional or organizational channels, for the purpose of challenging extant systems of authority or resisting change in such systems, in the organization, society, culture or world system in which they are embedded.”4

Together with the media, government and the state, social movements are involved in a social-ideological struggle to establish social understandings. This is a process of signification that takes place in an economic, political and ideological context. For a social understanding to be established, it must achieve credibility and legitimacy.5

The cultural process of achieving social understanding in order to mobilize parts of society is referred to as framing, an important part of signification. The process of framing is described as the social process for articulating a variety of private beliefs and preferences into shared meaning and values for joint action. Frames are interpretive devices that arrange and process the underlying reasons for actions, like ideology. Frames offer interpretive schemes of both the political and social context such a movement behaves in, as well as its ideas how to change this context.6 In other words, during a process of framing a certain event is interpreted and translated into a message for the greater public in a specific way.

Theoretical Framework

In Social Movement Theory, framing processes consists of three steps, called core framing tasks, as distinguished by David Snow and Robert Benford, two influential American sociologists, in their article “Framing Processes and Social Movements: an Overview and

4

Benford et. Snow (2000) p.619

5

Herzog (2008) p.1093

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Assessment”. The first step in constructing a frame is to recognize a problem and delineate the issue that is to be addressed. This part of the process is referred to as diagnostic framing. A second step is coming up with a solution or alternative state of affairs to the problem and strained situation in the part of the process that is described as prognostic framing. The last phase in the construction of a frame is to mobilize the masses in order to address the problem and reach the proposed solution. This step is called motivational framing. 7

Next to the core framing tasks, several other processes play a role in the construction of a specific frame. These series of actions overlap in several aspects and can be described as discursive, strategic and contested processes. With strategic processes a frame is developed to achieve a specific goal, while contested processes focus on the variety of challenges confronting all those who engage in movement framing activities. However, this study concentrates mainly on the discursive process of frame development, which refers to the speech acts and written communications in the context of movement activities. Frames are constructed by two specific discursive processes; frame articulation and frame amplification. The first one aligns different events and experiences to present them in a compelling and unified fashion, while the latter highlights some of these events and experiences as being more important than others.8

Framing processes influence the way different actors look at political opportunities. In this research political opportunity is interpreted according to the definition posed by William A. Gamson, a sociologist at Boston College, and David S. Meyer, an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the City College of New York, who describe political opportunity as the ‘opening and closing of political space.’9

According to Sidney Tarrow, Professor of Government at Cornell University, looking at collective action through the lens of political opportunity means focusing at either changes within the regime or changes in the way the opposition perceives their ability to challenge the authorities.10 In other words, framing influences not so much political opportunity itself, but has more to do with the perceived political opportunity.11

The ability to actually grab the presented opportunity and use a political opportunity as the power to transform a potential mobilization structure into contentious action is determined by

7

Benford et.Snow (2000) p. 611

8_{Benford et. Snow (2000) p. 615-618} 9

Gamson et. Meyer (1996) p. 277

10

Leenders (2013) p.275

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its frame resonance. According to Snow and Benford, the concept of resonance is about the effectiveness or mobilizing potency of the frames at stake.12

Quintan Wiktorowicz, an American scholar and former security advisor in the White House, describes frame resonance as ‘one of the most critical dimensions of the process of framing’ and offers several different aspects where the resonance of a movement’s frame with its potential participants depends on. A frame has to incorporate indigenous culture, symbols and language, also called narrative fidelity. Furthermore, a frame’s resonance depends on the reputation of the individual or group articulating the frame, the personal salience of the frame for potential participants and the frame empirical credibility in real life.13

Frames have the ability to influence the way a movement sees its ability to change the political and social context. In other words, framing influences an actor’s perceived political opportunity. The way this perceived opening of political space is actually used to achieve the alternative state of affairs the movement prescribes is determined by the way its frames are picked up by its audience. Consequently, frame resonance determines the way a perceived political opportunity is transformed in actual mobilization and contentious action.

Map of the thesis

The thesis describes the moves of a social movement (The Syrian Muslim Brotherhood) and the system of authority it tries to change (the regime of Hafez al-Assad) in their battle for signification. Signification is necessary for both sides to help them mobilize (parts of) society in order to try to change or preserve the social order.

As Line Khatib, a senior research fellow at the ICAMES, describes; “Social Movement Theory can help to explain the shift of the hitherto peaceful and democratic Islamic movement towards violent contention by shedding light on the operant mechanisms precipitating the shift, as well as the level and the timing of the outbreak of violence in the 1970s. It is also useful for assessing the possibility of violence today.” 14

This study aims at explaining this shift by combining several aspects of Social Movement Theory. By describing and clarifying the mechanisms that precipitated violence in Syria in the

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Snow et. Benford (2000) p.618

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Wiktorowicz (2001) p. 16

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end of the 1970s and early 1980s, it hopes to improve the understanding about the current conflict in the country. The main research question for this thesis is:

“Why did framing processes influence the conflict between the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood and the regime led by President Hafez al-Assad from 1976 to 1982?”

The first two chapters focus on the political and social context of both the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood and the regime’s Ba’ath Party and how this context influenced the ideological premises of both actors. Chapters three and four concentrate on the perceived political opportunities experienced by both the movement and the regime and the way they mobilized and participated in contentious action. Finally, the fifth chapter focuses on the processes of framing, while the sixth chapter elaborates on the frame resonance of the different frames and counter-frames.

While using the various concepts from Social Movement Theory, the different sections of the thesis concentrate on the events and mechanisms that led to the revolt of the Islamic opposition in Syria between 1976 and 1982. The first chapter describes the differences in ideology between the Egyptian and the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood and does this by comparing the lives of two key figures of the movements, Hassan Banna and Mustafa al-Siba’i. Next to that, it also parallels the political and social context in which both movements developed to underscore its effect on the evolution of ideology.

The second chapter concentrates on the stormy post-colonialist period the Ba’ath Party went through and that ended with the installment of the Assad-regime in 1970. The section elaborates on the evolution of Ba’athist ideology and the events it had to deal with since its inception in 1941.

The third chapter discusses the political opportunity perceived by the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood from 1976 onwards and the reasons the movement resorted to violent action. In this chapter, the political opportunities and constraints are discussed from the movement’s perspective. In the fourth chapter the political opportunities and constraints are analyzed from the regime’s perspective, while at the same time the regime’s violent retribution against the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood’s contentious action is discussed.

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10 Chapter 1: Historical Background & Ideology of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood

Introduction

To be able to understand the frames the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood employs in its struggle against the regime, it is important to know something about the movement’s ideology and historical background. As we will see in this chapter, these aspects form the foundations for the movement’s framing processes.

In the summer of 1946, about a month after the departure of the French colonialists, the Syrian branch of the originally Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood was founded. The establishment of the movement ended a process of mergers of several so-called jam’yiah’s or political and religious ‘societies’. The ulama or religious community had been organized in this sort of movements under the rule of both the Ottoman Empire and the French colonialists. The Muslim Brotherhood that emerged could be characterized as a “social welfare society”, focusing on all aspects of life according to the Islamic tradition.15

Just like its Egyptian brother, the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood started off as an education program aimed at reviving the religious ideals and values of the Islam. The organizations share their ideological foundations and were founded by charismatic Islamic intellectuals with a shared vision on politics. Despite those similarities, it would be too much to characterize the Syrian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood as purely Egyptian import. Nevertheless, the different political and social environments Egypt and Syria provide for a different development of political theory, organizational structure and judicial processes.16

The role of ideology

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Wiktorowicz sees ideology as providing a relatively stable set of ideas that sets the parameters for the movement’s participants.17

Following this line of thinking, ideology can be seen as a motivation for certain decisions, influencing and being influenced by the political and social context, constituting the choices made by individuals or the movement as a whole. This motivation stems from an actor’s beliefs on how political and social context ought to be. When incorporating ideology into a social movement approach and analyzing the behavior of both a social movement and a regime, this research assumes that individuals and organization operate as rational actors. However, they are influenced by a social and political context that provides them with opportunities and constraints. As thus, it is both interesting and necessary to explore the parameters that an ideology sets for the decision-making of individuals and movements and the social and political environment that influences both these parameters as the decision-making process itself.

Political life in Syria at the start of the 20th century

At the end of the 19th century organizations dubbed as social welfare societies spread rapidly through the countries in the Levant. The Muslims living under Ottoman authority organized their social and political life in jam’iyah’s, which took special pride in their educational programs.18 The educational method they used was aimed at teaching the ulama the Islamic ideals and values. By doing so, the organizations tried to lay the foundations for a future Islamic society.19 At first, the lessons were given in informal study circles called halaqats. However, from the Mandate period on, education was institutionalized in Islamic schools based on the Western model.20

At the same time, the start of the 20th century, the different jam’iyahs started to politicize and over time they became interchangeably with hizbs or political parties. First, these hizbs focused at independence from the Ottoman Empire and later they would challenge the French colonialist rule. The parties consisted mainly of the Syrian upper-class elite, the same figures that would play a prominent role in Syrian politics in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s.21 An example of such an organization is the Jam’iyat al-Gharra, a popular society in Damascus of

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the 1920s which struggled for the right to have religious scholars teach the Islamic religion in private schools and had significant influence on civil society in the capital.22

The way political life was organized and institutionalized in this period reflected the deeply divided Syrian society at the time, where connections between cities were weak and the politics of notables reigned supreme.23 However, a new type of political Islam would soon change the exclusive nature of political life in Syria in the early 20th century and involve the lower and middle classes in their political program. This new reformist movement had to come from outside the country and took a flight in Egypt in the late 1920s, when a charismatic figure called Hasan al-Banna emerged.

Hasan al-Banna and the foundation of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood

Hasan al-Banna (1906-1949) was born in a rural town in Egypt and moved to Cairo in 1923. He was shocked by the lifestyle he encountered there. To al-Banna, the secularization of the Cairenes constituted an attack on the norms and values of the Islam.24 After he graduated from the University of Cairo, al-Banna was appointed as a teacher on a primary school in Ismailia in the north-east of Egypt. In this town he found that the presence of British soldiers influenced the process of secularization. In Ismaila, al-Banna gave his first teachings and it was there that he founded the Muslim Brotherhood or al-Ikhwan al-muslimin in 1928.25

According to Mohammed Zahid the movement’s rapid expansion between the late 1920s and 1940s can be attributed to three key factors.26 First, the Muslim Brotherhood operated like the aforementioned social welfare societies, focusing on education as well as providing other services that helped Muslims in their daily lives. Next to that, the organization made extensive use of the mosque, the only place where large gatherings were allowed by the authorities. This way, the Brothers were able to expand their movement without being monitored by the government and the organization bolstered its religious image. A third factor named by Zahid is the charismatic leadership of al-Banna himself, as he was able to attract large audiences who were recipient to his message.

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Next to these three factors, a fourth aspect can be added to the explanation of the Muslim Brotherhood’s immediate success. The movement started in the rural areas of the country, attracting a lower class audience and thus avoiding the purely elite image of politics that was often projected in this period of time. By securing broad popular support through their geographical build-up and provision services, the Muslim Brotherhood emerged in a relatively short time as a politically influential force. This process reflects al-Banna’s bottom-up approach towards the Islamization of society, one of the main goals of the Muslim Brotherhood.27

The organization tried to achieve a higher, religious goal. In her article “A Genealogical Inquiry into Early Islamism” Andrea Mura, from the Department of Politics and International Relations of the University of Aberdeen, extracted the highest goal of the Muslim Brotherhood out of a pamphlet written by al-Banna himself, in which he describes the organization’s ideal as follows.

“To establish Allah’s sovereignty over the world. To guide all of humanity to the precepts of Islam and its teachings (without which mankind cannot attain happiness).” 28

This statement fits the movement’s core belief that Allah provided the ideal social and political organization for mankind, which is described in the Koran and its interpretations. It is the aforementioned alternative state of affairs the Muslim Brotherhood strives for as a movement. Just like Islam is as a religion, the Brotherhood considers itself a universal and all-encompassing movement. It is a player in the global arena and tries to cover all aspects that are considered part of a religious life, while its central aim remains the Islamic reformation of Arab politics.

The imprisonment of the organizations leadership during the 1940s troubled the relationship of the Muslim Brotherhood with the authorities.29 In the meanwhile, the continuing British colonial presence led to a more violent resistance by al-Banna’s Brotherhood. This change in tactics sprung from the strong anti-imperialist attitude that is central the movement’s ideology. From his early writings on, al-Banna describes the need “to protect the homeland against its aggressors”.30

The Islamic homeland is attributed a territorial dimension which true Muslims are obliged to protect against “attacks from the aggressor” referring to the Western

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colonialists. During the 1940s the originally defensive act of protecting the Islamic territory changed into a more aggressive stance as al-Banna writes that the Muslim Brotherhood must strive to liberate its territory from all “un-Islamic or foreign control.”31

It was al-Banna’s ideology that inspired a group of Islamic students at the University of Damascus to found the halaqat or study circle that would become the first “office” of the Syrian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.32

Mustafa al-Siba’i and the rise of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood

Mustafa al-Siba’i (1915-1964) had met Hasan al-Banna during the period he studied at the University of Cairo. The two shared a social and political activism and had the same view on the secularization of the society they lived in. Unlike al-Banna, al-Siba’i grew up in an influential Syrian family in Homs. Like al-Banna, he enjoyed religious education from a young age.33 Al-Siba’i became politically active in his youth, which lead him to the found several Islamic movements and got him imprisoned and tortured in the early 1940s, a period that he would physically never restore of.

In 1941, al-Siba’i was arrested for his active role in the organization of the Islamic movement called Shabab Muhammad or the Youth of Muhammad, one of the societies that would be incorporated in the Muslim Brotherhood. The new movement was the result of a merger of several jam’iyah’s, including the study circle in Damascus. Hence, there is no clear date on which the Syrian branch of the Ikhwan was founded. The movement emerged gradually between roughly 1937 and 1946.34 Umar F. Abd-Allah, an American professor in Islamic Studies at the University of Jeddah, attributes a lot of the organization’s success in the early days of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood to the charismatic leadership of al-Siba’i, while Radwan Ziadeh, scholar at the Institute for Middle East Studies, states that it retained a form of group leadership that lead to the rapid expansion and growing influence of the movement in the different Syrian provinces. Either way, it’s obvious that al-Siba’i played an influential role in the organization until his death in 1964.35

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The period following its inception in the summer of 1946, between 1947 and 1952, proved to be of the most fertile years in the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood’s history. The Brotherhood could act, publish and take part in political life openly, which resulted in successes in the elections of 1947 and 1949. Just like its Egyptian brother, the organization tried to cover all aspects of Muslim-life and provided a wide array of services to the people. This led to support amongst the middle class in Syria, while until then politics had been something exclusively for the elite. Next to that, the Syrian Ikhwan acted within the boundaries of the politicial system and it embraced some democratic values, albeit in an Islamic fashion. According to Itzchak Weissmann the Egyptian and Syrian organizations differed mostly in their “democratic experience”.36

Both al-Banna and al Siba’i agreed that the Islam propagated a democratic political theory, but, although the Egyptian Ikhwan had a good relationship with the authorities, it was never involved in the political process. Meanwhile, their Syrian brothers played an active role in the parliamentary elections and were much more organized as a political party.37 Whereas al-Banna had always rejected the notion of participating in the non-Islamic liberal system, the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood had actively embraced this same system in the chaotic republican period in Syria.

The ideological differences between the two organizations reflect the effects of the different social and political environment that the branches of the Muslim Brotherhood developed in. Egypt did not know such regionalism as Syria and, for example, freedom of speech was valued higher in Syria than in Egypt.38 Next to that, the ever-changing political realities in both countries provided for complete operational independence of the Syrian Ikhwan. Despite the fact that the Syrian Muslim Brothers saw themselves as part of an international movement, there was virtually no coordination between both organizations and no recorded trace of any financial support.39

Another difference is that the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood never attracted such a broad base of support as the Egyptian Ikhwan, as its members were mostly drawn from the ‘urban traditional classes; consisting of notables, the middle class and professionals. These people lived in the popular quarters of bigger cities like Damascus and Aleppo and in the older sections of smaller towns like Hama.40 Despite its attempts to become an activist mass

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movement, the popular base of the Syrian Brotherhood did not extent much beyond these classes. While the Egyptian Brotherhood refused any cooperation with for instance the Christian or Coptic minorities, the Syrian Brothers tried to incorporate the different minority groups in Syria.

The core of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood consisted mostly of religious scholars and in a move to gain more support, the movement organized itself in the Islamist Socialist Front in 1949. A closer look at the party’s ideology reveals that it’s not so much socialism it propagated, but a form of populism that reflected the economic interests of the urban-middle and lower classes.41 The move away from the Orthodox Islam was exemplified by al-Siba’i’s book “The Socialism of Islam” which became his most renowned literary work. Al-Siba'i considered the socialism of Islam to be a third way between the materialist systems of capitalism and communism, acting in the interests of the group and not to the interests of capital as it was in Western capitalism.42

Al-Siba’i’s health forced him to resign from the Ikhwan’s leadership in 1957 and turn it over to Isam al-Attar of Damascus. This period was a rough one for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt as well as in Syria, due to the Egyptian head-of-state Gabd el-Nasser’s crackdown on both religious movements. Ironically, it is often stated that the roots of Nasserism lay in al-Siba’i’s writings on socialism, which found much resonance in Egypt at the time.

Conclusion

This chapter described the influence of a specific political and social context on a social movement. As became clear, the ideological foundations of both the Egyptian and the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood are roughly the same. Due to different circumstances both movements developed differently. Pivotal to the establishment and development of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood is Mustafa al-Siba’i. He shared some aspects of his view on political Islam with his Egyptian counterpart al-Banna, but used different means to establish the Islamization of society. In other words, al-Siba’i and the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood chose a different strategy than their Egyptian counterpart.

41

Teitelbaum (2011) p. 220

42

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18 Chapter 2: The Historical Background and Ideology of the Ba’ath Party

Introduction

AL Tibawi, a Palestinian historian and educationalist, describes the ideological force of Ba’athism in his book A Modern History of Syria as the political stabilizer that Syria was in need of after the stormy first period following the country’s independence from France.43 The young state experienced eight coups in the first decade following its inception and would only see some continuity in its ruling circles after the Ba’ath or ‘Resurrection’ Party rose to power in 1963. 44 At that moment, the party was lead by two ideology-driven individuals; Michel ‘Aflaq and Salah al-Bitar. They had laid the ideological roots of the party years before and envisioned a brighter future for Syria and its people under Ba’athist rule.

To grasp some of the politics and decision-making endorsed by the Assad regime it is important to elaborate on its ideological roots, which are to be found in Ba’athism. As mentioned before, this kind of ideology is influenced by a political and social context, so the chapter discusses Syria’s political development up to the installment of the Assad regime. Next to that, the following section concentrates on the rise and organizational structure of the Ba’athist Party as well as the ideological aspects of Ba’athism to find out something about the motivations and “parameters” the regime of Hafez al-Assad followed, being a Ba’athist at heart.

These motivations and parameters played a huge role in the series of events that would mark the conflict between the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood and the regime. To understand why the regime acted in this specific way and why it tried to frame the conflict in a certain way, it is important to explore its ideological foundations and development.

The origins of Ba’athist ideology

The Party began its existence as a movement standing for Arab nationalism, an open-minded foreign policy and desire for the establishment of a single Arab state. Its First Communiqué published in July 1943 stated their ideas as follows;

“We represent the spirit of Arabism against materialistic Communism. We represent living Arab history against dead reaction and contrived progressivism. We represent complete Arab nationalism expressing

43

AL Tibawi (1969) p.369

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19 the product of the personality against the empty nationalism which does not go beyond lip-service and which all ethics refute. We represent the gospel of Arabism against professional politics. We represent the new Arab generation”.45

According to David Roberts, British ambassador to Syria between 1973 and 1976, the text reflects the Arab nationalist origins of the organization and shows that the Ba’ath has no reference to Islam or socialism, while it rejects the materialistic aspects of Communism46. Ba’athism is portrayed as a secular and centralist ideology. Secular since it set itself off against Islam and centralist since it focuses on Arab unity to be achieved through the reorganization of government or “professional politics”.

Central to the Ba’athist ideology is the hypothesis that the Arabs were once a great and united state and that many of the troubles in the different Arab regions existed due to interference of external forces. According to the Ba’ath Party it were the “agents of imperialism” that blocked the way to Arab unity and that they were to be removed in order to achieve this goal. The establishment of a pan-Arab party could help to pave the road towards the establishment of a united, Arab state in order to overcome the current social and political issues.47

The Rise of the Ba’ath Party

The Ba’ath Party is considered a full-fledged political party since 1947, but it started as a politicized study circle in 1941. The hizb agitated against the French colonialist rule, but it can be called rather unsuccessful in this period, as well as in the relatively democratic period in the late 1940s. While the Muslim Brotherhood flourished in these years, the Ba’ath Party only succeeded in mobilizing broader support after the series of coupes that took place in 1949.48 In this year, three coupes d’etats were executed by the army, ending in General Adib Shishakli’s rise to power on 19 December 1949.49

According to Itzchak Rabinovitch, an Israeli historian, the Ba’athists didn’t benefit from the situation because their party fared well under military rulers, but because the coups had undermined the old system in Syria, opening up the political space for a new movement.50

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The Ba’ath Party would operate on the “fringes of the parliamentary and government activity” during the years, 1950 and 1951, that General Shishakli and his army ruled Syria from behind the scenes.51 However, Shishakli would soon prove more of a dictator than he had shown in his first years in power and in 1952 he would allow only his own Arab Liberation Front to be politically active. For the Ba’ath this meant formal and practical oppression, its leadership fleeing to Lebanon to become political refugees. Although the party had benefitted from the toppling of the old system in the country and had participated in Syrian political life, they would have to make a change in order to reach the state’s power centre.52

A merger with the Arab Socialist Party, founded by the popular Syrian politician Akram Haurani, would combine his practical-minded and somewhat opportunistic political skills with the idealist stance held by ‘Aflaq and his movement to make up for a stronger opposition against Shishakli’s military rule.53

Next to that, the merger provided a broader numerical support for the Ba’ath Party as well as an increased number of followers in the middle levels of the Syrian army officer corps. The overthrow of Shishakli in 1954 and the successive electoral success for the Ba’ath Party in that same year, would establish ‘Aflaq and his party as a force to be reckoned with in Syrian politics, with military support and a broad popular base.54

Several significant events in the international sphere, like the Suez-crisis in 1956, shifted the focus of Syrian politics away from the internal struggle for power that had been going on since its independence and towards a focus on foreign relations. Syria would take a strong anti-Western stance and the ruling parties would increasingly express their pan-Arab concerns due to a growing influence of Nasser’s regime in Damascus. The strong Egyptian position in Syria was based on the appeal of Nasser’s leadership and his close relations with a group of Syrian army officers and the Ba’ath Party. A political crisis in 1957 would lead the Ba’athists and its military supporters to push Syria into a union with Egypt in 1958.

The Ba’athists and the failure of the Arab Union

After the appointment of a government for the new United Arab Republic, with two Ba’athists as functional ministers for Syria, Nasser dissolved all of Syria’s political parties. The way the

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Ba’ath party complied to their own dissolution would be a subject of much discussion within the party’s ranks years later.55

Their eager approval made clear how much the Ba’athists longed for Arab unity, one of their main ideological proponents. This devotion to pan-Arabism had its roots in the ‘Greater Syria’ theory which advocated the unison of Syria, Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon under one flag.56 Thus, ‘Aflaq was confident that the Ba’ath would play an important role in the new united state, considering its “sophisticated political philosophy.”57

However, the expected role of the Ba’ath Party in what was seen as the first step to a wider Arab unity proved much less appealing in reality. The relationship between Nasser and the Ba’ath deteriorated due to several misconceptions. First, there was no room in Nasser’s regime for the major ideological and political role for the Ba’ath that Michel ‘Aflaq had boasted of. Second, the unwillingness and inability of Iraq, which was also ruled by a Ba’athist regime, to join the Arab Union was a severe blow for the Ba’athist ambitions in terms of pan-Arabism. This meant there would not be Ba’athist hegemony in a future united Arab state.58

The relations only worsened when the four Ba’ath members of the UAR government handed in their collective resignation in 1959 and tried to convince several Egyptian colleagues to do the same.59 However, Nasser’s charismatic leadership held the Union together until a wing of the army and several conservative politicians handled business in a typical Syrian fashion; they staged a coup on 28 September 1961. Thus, the Ba’ath Party had sabotaged a move it had initiated and had only gained a disillusion.

Ba’athist rule (1963-1970)

The secession cost the resurrected Ba’ath a considerable loss of members through protest resignations. The internal discussion that followed after the proclamation of the Syrian Arab Republic lead to a new form of party ideology, also dubbed as ‘Neo-Ba’ath’.60

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22 “The party had new people in leadership roles, new emphasis in ideology and a new power factor – military officers acting in its name.” 61

However, the party only transformed completely after a coup on 8 March 1963. It was not the Ba’athists themselves who took the lead in the toppling of the government and hardly any important figures within the Syrian military belonged to the party. This would change when the newly established National Council of the Revolutionary Command (NCRC) recruited the important army officers Muhammed ‘Umran, Salah Jadid and Hafez al-Assad.62

The NCRC would be the supreme authority in the country in the first months after the coup, only to be replaced in that capacity by the Regional Command and, in certain aspects, the Military Committee.63

An internal power struggle undermined the hold of ‘Aflaq and Bitar on their party. A group of ‘regionalists’ saw the nation-state Syria as the appropriate focus for the party, thus leaving behind the ideology of a greater Arab unity. This ideological strand within the party had control of the Regional Command and a broader support in the military. On 23 February 1963 they staged a coup that would force ‘Aflaq and Bitar to flee and split the party in two.64

The rise to power of the Alawi Salah Jadid had also promoted Hafez al-Assad to his first seat in a Syrian cabinet as Minister of Defence. More importantly, while Jadid took care of the country’s internal affairs, Assad was left in charge of the armed services. Like Assad, Jadid had had a long climb through the military hierarchy ending as founding member of the Military Committee and Secretary General of the Regional Command. His rule meant a clear break with a lot of the ideological proponents the Ba’ath Party had stood for.

The power struggle that had lead to the 1966 coup made sectarian loyalties more important and at the same time increased the wariness between the different religious groups.65 Illustrative for the role of sectarianism in this period was the purge of Druze officers in the Syrian army. A failed coup by several Druze senior military officers forced them to flee to Jordan under the threat of an air-attack by Assad. The purge lead to a stronger sectarian and Alawi uniformity in the military.66

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Meanwhile, intra-Baath politics had Jadid espouse a doctrinaire socialist system domestically and to support the Palestinian war of national liberation against Israel. He was challenged by the more pragmatic Minister of Defence Hafez al-Assad. However, Assad’s position was touched by the defeat by Israel in the Six-Day War of 1967 and when in 1970 a party congress voted to remove him from his government posts, he staged a swift and bloodless coup.67

The Evolution of Ba’athist Ideology

What started as an ideological offspring of Arab nationalism had developed into a pragmatic ideology in service of an authoritarian regime. Despite the many alterations Ba’athism went through in the first three decades of its existence, it was always connected to, parts of the army and because of that stabilized to a certain extent. The militarization of the Ba’athist ideology was not what Michel ‘Aflaq and Salah Bitar had envisioned when they started a politicized study circle to express their thoughts on good governance, but they had to conform their ideas to political reality in Syria.

The previous chapter described how ideology sets parameters and offers actors a range of options they can choose from, based on their beliefs. These ideological aspects can be interpreted as the underlying reasons for action, arranged and socially processed through frames. Such frames create intersubjective meaning and facilitate movement goals.68

What becomes clear after a look at the rise of the Ba’ath Party is a shift in the way the Ba’athis ideology is framed by external factors and the way the different actors interpret its ideological framework. Within the Party there have been numerous individuals and factions with their own ideas concerning the movement’s prognosis and how to achieve this alternative state of affairs.69

So while these actors and factions within the Ba’ath Party share broadly the same ideology, Arab unity, socialism and nationalism, they had different ideas on what this should look like in reality and on how to get there. Look for example at the ideological founders of the party, who strived for Arab unity and held a strong pan-Arabist view on politics, and the later regionalists, who saw the region Syria as the appropriate focus for politics. Another example

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is the strong nationalist sense of Assad compared to the more socialist outlook of his predecessor Jadid.

Altogether, there were a lot of differences between the Ba’ath Party under ‘Aflaq and Bitar and the regime Hafez al-Assad established in 1970.70 Ideological differences were present despite the fact that it was Assad’s intention to return to the values installed with the coupe of 1963. That was at least where his “Corrective Movement” against the regime of Salah Jadid had stood for.

However, the government led by President Hafez al-Assad was much more based on rural support and sectarian ties than the Ba’ath Party under ‘Aflaq and Bitar had ever been. This was the result of the various purges that had taken place within the army and Syrian political life. Assad’s new regime was based on sub-national loyalties, with relatives from the Alawi sect on important strategic positions.71 One of his key ideas was that Syria itself had to be united first, before any other forms of joint Arab action could take place. Thus, Assad held a regionalist outlook focusing first and foremost on the strengthening of Syria, before looking at joint Arab politics and regional goals. But, eventually he aimed for joint Arab action, mainly to recover the territories lost to Israel.72

The authoritarian regime installed by Assad was still secular in nature. As Assad stated in a speech in the early years of his rule: “The government rejects every retrogressive interpretation of Islam that implies any form of detestable Puritanism and abominable fanaticism.”73 However, as becomes clear in thesis, through the years Assad started to employ religious aspects more and more to keep a hold on his legitimacy as a leader. An important difference with early Ba’athist ideology was that Assad had abandoned the Party’s direction collegiale, or joint governance. According to Roberts, this style of leadership was crucial to the ideological evolution of Ba’athism and the start of a personal cult around Assad made an end to this process.74

Conclusion

This chapter elaborated on the development of Syrian politics through thirty years as well as

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the way the Ba’ath Party developed as a party. The party that acted on “the fringes of the parliamentary system” succeeded in establishing a Ba’athist rule. Although there were some ideological changes, the Ba’athist ideological foundations remained. However, on the way to power the Ba’athists had to make some pragmatic choices.

What becomes clear after the first two chapters is that there were grave ideological

differences between the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood and the Ba’ath Party. Both movements seemed to have had a completely different outlook on membership, religion, strategy and style of politics.

There was a strong and important link between the Ba’ath Party and the Syrian army. The Party used their military resources to hold their grip on the institutional channels in Syria. The Syrian Muslim Brotherhood was pushed away from the confessional style of politics they tried to pursue in their earlier years, towards a more violent strategy. The Brotherhood increasingly had to act outside of the various institutional channels, thus trying to challenge the system of authority.

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26 Chapter 3: The Syrian Islamic Front and a militant strategy

Introduction

On 31 January 1973, the publication of a new Syrian constitution caused a series of protests, most of them staged in Hama. Protesters raised their voices against the authorities, because the document omitted to stipulate that the president of the state of Syria ought to be a Muslim. Since the 1930s, Syrian law had always laid down that the religion of the head-of-state had to be Islam and thus the matter enticed the public opinion throughout the country.75

The constitutional crisis did not become a conflict due to Assad’s choice to keep the Ba’ath’s traditional secularism on the background, while emphasizing that Islam “is a religion of love, progress and social justice”. Nevertheless, the regime’s oppressive measures against opposition movements like the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood increased. The mass demonstrations against the constitution showed the tense atmosphere in the country.76

The following section elaborates on the opportunities and constraints political and social context put on a social movement. Next to that, it describes in what ways this context allows a social movement like the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood to mobilize its participants for contentious actions.

The chapter offers a historical oversight of the events that took place in Syria between 1976 and 1982, the period the Islamic opposition waged a jihad against the regime lead by President Hafiz al-Assad and have a look at the political opportunities and constraints in this specific period of time through a Social Movement Theory-approach.

The start of a jihad

According to Nikolaos van Dam, a long series of political assassinations and attacks on prominent Ba’athist politicians started after Syria conducted their military intervention in neighboring Lebanon in 1976.77 This was not in the last place because the waging of a war in a foreign country had negative economic consequences for Syria.78 Although in the first

75_{Seale (1989) p.173} 76

Abd-Allah (1981) p. 181

77

Mostly members of the Alawi sect

78

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instance the attacks were not claimed by an organization, it soon became clear that a group of Mujahidin or Islamic fighters composed of Muslim Brothers was responsible for the attacks.79 The group appeared to belong to Marwan Hadid, a prominent figure in the Muslim Brotherhood who had become convinced that the “anti-Islamic” systems represented by Nasser and the Ba’ath Party were only to be removed positions by armed resistance. He was inspired by the ideas of the Islamic scholar and Egyptian Muslim Brother Sayyid Qutb, with whom he had worked closely during his studies in Egypt. Qutb was indirect also one of the ideological artisans behind the revival of anti-Alawism. However, Hadid never received the full support of the Brotherhood’s leadership and thus he and his followers became a sort of “fringe movement in the periphery of the organization”. 80

The strategy of armed resistance deepened the divide between two fractions in the Muslim Brotherhood. The Muslim Brothers of several northern cities, like Hama, supported Hadid and his splinter cell, while the leadership in Damascus kept on opposing the idea of an armed struggle. Consequently, the Syrian Ikhwan became divided in two separate branches after 1971, and unity would not be restored until the establishment of the Syrian Islamic Front.81 The view of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood on the outbreak of the jihad against the regime was that the “first bullet was the result of long and persistent suffering from oppression and terror” and that “the ordeal reached its climax when the oppression became concentrated against the (Sunni) Muslims and the Islamic religion in particular.” Some voices within the movement pointed to the death of Hadid as the direct inducement for the escalation of violence. In 1976, the moral leader of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood’s jihad died in prison after reportedly being tortured for hours and hours.

According to Abd-Allah, the death of Hadid angered the jihadi’s and increased the violent incidents from that year on.82 What should also be taken into account is the increasingly strong presence of Alawi’s in important political and army positions. They started to take over economic privileges that had previously belonged to Sunni Muslims, something that was not accepted by Syria’s biggest religious group. The rise of these Alawi nouveaux riches raised the general mistrust and anger towards the regime.83 The authorities reacted to the growing

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insubordination in Syrian society with an increase of repressive measures. State repression is regarded one of the more important variables in determining the width of political space in Social Movement Theory.

According to Mohammed M. Hafez, professor at the US institute for Peace, state repression creates a necessity for “exclusive mobilization structures” in which movement participants start to view their goals and strategies in emotive rather than strategic terms. Next to that, a repressive government facilitates the diffusion of anti-system frames within the movement. Such frames describe the institutionalized political system as fundamentally corrupt and depict the struggle as a “fight to the death between two irreconcilable forces.”84

Although Hafez studies the reactions to state repression of a resistance movement in Algeria, the same effects can be observed when looking at the behavior of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood in the second half of the 1970s. The Islamic movement clearly adopted an “exclusive mobilization structure” in the form of a separate branch within the organization and that specific branch adopted strong anti-system frames, something that will be elaborated on to more extent later on in this thesis. But, what has become clear by now is that at this point in history the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood has made the step from a party that until that point had been allowed by the regime to a split organization with one branch ready for a fight to the death against a political system they see as fundamentally corrupt.

The next stage of armed resistance

On 16 June 1979, one of the worst incidents of this period would take place, thus introducing the next stage in the armed resistance of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood against the regime. At least 32 cadets were murdered and 54 wounded at an artillery school in Aleppo. The attack showed that a Sunni, despite a military officer and member of the Ba’ath party as well, was prepared to kill because of his hatred towards the Alawi sect.85

While Abd-Allah in his account of the incidents in this period states that “the Muslim Brothers picked their attacks carefully” and “attacks are not made on innocent people, nor were persons attacked because of their sectarian communal ties.” Van Dam on the other hand describes the effort of the Islamic movement to portray the victims of the attack on the

84

Hafez (2004) p.39-40

85

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artillery school as exclusively Alawi, as a means to further destabilize the regime.86 This specific attack was an example of the mobilization achieved by the Islamic movement. Activists had infiltrated Ba’athist and military ranks, two institutions considered strongholds of the regime. Furthermore, the attack also made clear that the Muslim Brotherhood chose to strike at places with important symbolic value to the regime, to show its vulnerability.

The incident in Aleppo was followed by a country-wide campaign to uproot the Muslim Brotherhood. The Brothers continued their attacks on prominent Alawi figures and killed two of their leaders in Latakia in August 1979.87 Despite, or maybe because of, the violent campaign the government held against the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, the organization received support from other organizations like the Syrian Laywer’s Union and the General Conference of Engineers, who expressed their support in speeches and organized several protests against the retributions of the regime.

Thus, the Muslim Brotherhood had gained allies in Syrian politics. The prevalence of allies in the political sphere is considered another important variable in determining political space.88 The protests that these labor unions organized called for an end of the oppression and political arrests and the authorities responded by disbanding the Laywer’s Union and the other organizations cooperating. This move was met with massive demonstrations and protests in March 1980, a big step towards the establishment of the Syrian Islamic Front later that year, which would unite the “diverse Islamic and pro-Islamic elements in Syria.”89

When the regime found out about an attempt to assassinate President Hafez al Assad in June 1980, the repressive measures to curb the armed resistance increased. Military defense units shot down between 500 and 1000 imprisoned Muslim Brothers in Palmyra and later that year the authorities made membership of the Muslim Brotherhood forbidden by law, starting a period of random arrests.90 In 1981, the Islamic opposition succeeded in taking the battle to Damascus, which until then had been a safe haven for the regime of al-Assad, by bombing the President’s headquarters, the air force headquarters and a Soviet-experts center.91

In

86

Van Dam (1996) p.92, Abd-Allah (1981) p. 110

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combination with outbursts of violent protests and mass-demonstrations in the bigger cities like Hama, Homs, Idlib and Dayr al-Zur, the conflict was seemingly reaching a climax.92

The perception of political opportunity

Sidney Tarrow, professor emeritus in political science and sociology, describes political opportunities as the power that transforms potential mobilization structures into contentious action.93 Looking at collective action through the lens of political opportunity structure means focusing at either changes within the regime or changes in the way the opposition perceives their ability to challenge the authorities.94 As aforementioned, these opportunities are often combined with the perception of a threat or the actual presence of regime repression. Consequently, the response to such a threat is mostly combined with seizure of the perceived opportunity.95

Besides that, an interesting aspect in analyzing the “opening and closing of political space” is whether collective action occurred because of changes in the political structure or because the opposition movement perceived an opportunity. As Charles Kurzman, a professor in sociology at the University of North-Carolina, argues in his analysis of the Iranian Revolution of 1979, the Iranians based their perceptions of political opportunity on the perceived strength of the opposition instead of the weakening of the regime. “Iranians believed the balance of forces shifted. Not because of a changing state structure, but because of a changing opposition movement.”96

In the case of the Islamic revolt in Syria in the end of the 1970s and the beginning of the 1980s both changes in the state structure as in the strength of the opposition led to a better and broader mobilization of the Islamic opposition. The changes on both on the side of the regime as on the side of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood are best to be analyzed according to several factors described by Kurzman in terms of perceived state weaknesses and oppositions strengths.

The first weakening factor he mentions is the undermining of the regime’s social support due to reforms. In the case of the Islamic revolt in Syria the social support of the regime was

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undermined due to its reforms, especially its secular constitution and the important economic and political role for members of the Alawi sect. Both were seen as insults to the conservative, Sunni Muslims that were united in the opposition. Despite this loss of social support, the regime’s elite was strongly bolstered and, as van Dam states, this was crucial to the failure of the armed resistance. As long as they could not seize the large quantities of arms and strategic army units that were in hands of the Alawi elite, an end to the regime’s power was not likely to occur.97

A second alleged state weakness is international pressure on the regime. This was the case during the end of the 1970s, in which Egypt’s then-president Sadat chose a clear stance against the Alawi regime and the Gulf States stopped their flow of oil money in an outrage over Syria’s assault on the Palestinians in Lebanon. Despite the loss in international support, Assad still had his most important ally at hand; the Soviet Union whose interest was to maintain the Assad regime.98

The third weakness described by Kurzman is overcentralization and paralysis of the state. 99 This was not so much a weakness in the case of Syria in which the regime acted swiftly and effectively due to the bulk of executive power in the hands of Hafiz al-Assad. However, this same centralization of power in hands of the Alawi offered the opposition an advantage. They had a clear target, a unified field to attack; the Alawi sect, Ba’athist or not.100

A last alleged weakness in the state structure concerns the state’s inconsistent responses towards the protest movement. This is not the case in the response of the regime towards the Islamic opposition. The authorities retaliated without mercy after attacks of the Muslim Brotherhood and only increased their repressive measures against the movement over time. However, Assad’s avoidance of confrontation during the constitutional crisis of 1973 and late 1970s did put the regime in a position of “reactive repression”, which will be elaborated to more extent later on in the next chapter of this thesis.101

As strength for the opposition Kurzman states the effect of perception of the state’s coercive power. As was also argued earlier in this chapter, a perceived increase in the regime’s

97 Van Dam (1996) p.109 98_{Seale (1989) p.320} 99 Kurzman (1996) p.160 100

Tarrow (1998)p. , van Dam (1996) p.91

101

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repression leads to an increase in militancy of the opposition.102 A second strength is the perception of the opposition’s power. This power grew significantly through the years in which the Muslim Brotherhood gained allies, who eventually bundled their powers with the foundation of the Syrian Islamic Front. Next to that, the perception of the opposition’s power increased strongly due to incidents like the one in the artillery school in Aleppo, proving that even a Ba’athist and military officer was committed to the armed resistance because he was a Sunni Muslim.103

The last stand-off in Hama

Despite the perceived strength of the opposition and the few perceived state weaknesses the efforts of the Syrian Islamic Front were met by the regime in brutal fashion in the city of Hama in 1982. The conservative town had always been a stronghold of the Muslim Brotherhood and its relations with the authorities in Damascus had come to a historic low during the years of the jihad. Hama would be the setting for a last stand-off between Assad’s regime and the Islamic front that would last for three weeks.104

In February 1982 a large group of the Syrian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood took control of the northern city through an armed rebellion, killing dozens of government and military personnel on its way.105 The Islamic fighters went killing and looting through the city and declared the city ‘liberated’ in the morning of 3 February, not knowing they would soon face defeat by “a full-scale urban destruction such as had never before occurred under Assad’s rule.”106

It took the government troops about a week to regain control over the city and two weeks of hunting down the insurgents, killing between an estimated 5,000 to 10,000 people who were considered part of the armed resistance. The regime was to set an example and root out Hama’s revolutionary spirit once and for all.107_{According to Muslim Brotherhood’s analysis,} the troops battling the insurgents in Hama were composed in such a way that the chance of mutiny was reduced as much as possible:

102

Kurzman (1996) p.157, Wiktorowicz (2004) p. 44

103

Kurzman (1996) p.159, van Dam (1996) p.90

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33 “Collective insubordination under the leadership of a group of officers who shared an understanding and harmony in their mode of thinking and shared a similar background, was thereby made nearly impossible.”

Although the tensions between the regime and the Islamic opposition were certainly not resolved after the army’s massacre in Hama, it was clear the opposition had received a major blow it would not soon recover from.108

Conclusion

Both the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood and the Ba’ath Party slowly grew in to their roles of resistance movement and authoritarian regime. The Brotherhood was pushed more and more out of the institutional channels, forcing it to challenge the system through other means. On the other hand, the regime led by Hafez al-Assad increasingly found itself in a role where it had to protect its power and the current system, as we will see to a broader extent in the next chapter.

An opening in political space paved the way for the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood to push for the changes they had in mind. However, the strategy for doing so remained a subject of discussion. Eventually (part of) the Brotherhood chose for armed resistance, since the political way got blocked increasingly by Assad’s repressive regime.

Nevertheless, the growing popular support and increasing mobilization of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood made Assad employ more repressive policies. In combination with an increasing political opportunity for the Brotherhood and an Assad that desperately tried to hold on to his power over the institutions, the situation quickly escalated. Consequently, Syria spiraled into violence, which eventually led to the destruction of an entire city.

The opening in political space does not explain in full why such numbers of Sunni Muslims mobilized against the regime’s in these years. To see why this perceived political opportunity actually resulted in contentious action, we have to explore the frames used by the Brotherhood and how these frames resonated with the Sunni majority.

108

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34 Chapter 4: The regime’s violent retribution

Introduction

The regime wanted to root out the revolutionary spirit of the Islamic opposition once for all by striking it a major blow in their hometown. The full-scale military operation that followed would go down in history as the “Hama massacre”. The maneuver was the last of a long series of violent retributions conducted by the authoritarian regime under the leadership of Hafez al-Assad.

The measures taken by the authorities were deemed necessary by its leadership to maintain control over the state of Syria and its political institutions. As Thomas Friedman argues “This was the natural reaction of a modernizing in a relatively new state trying to stave off retrogressive, in this case Islamic, fundamentalist undermining everything he has achieved in the way of building Syria into a twentieth-century secular republic.”109

As Seale describes the iron fist policy conducted by Hafez al-Assad and his brother Rifat, who also held an important position within the Syrian army, probably saved the regime, but also changed its character.110

The next section aims at clarifying the decisions made by Assad and his trustees. In order to do so properly, the following part concentrates on the power struggle in the Syrian elite and the developments in the army, which consisted predominantly of members of the Alawi sect. This way, this chapter will try to describe the processes leading up to the “Hama-massacre” from the perspective of Assad and the important figures in Syria’s political elite.

The road to power of Hafez al-Assad

Hafez al-Assad was born as Hafez al-Wahash in 1930 in a town near Latakia. Coming from a poor Alawi family, he would symbolize the shift of his community from the periphery of Syrian society to its very core.111 His father worked himself up to an important figure in the village Hafez grew up in, consequently changing the family name from al-Wahash (savage) into al-Assad (lion). It was with this new name he entered the Party School and later Army

The Syrian Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamic Revolt in Syria (1976-1982)