Local Intermediaries in post-2011 Syria Transformation and Continuity Local Intermediaries in post-2011 Syria Transformation and Continuity Edited by Kheder Khaddour and Kevin Mazur Contributors: Armenak Tokmajyan Ayman Al-Dassouky Hadeel Al-Saidawi Roger Asfar Sana Fadel Published in June 2019 by Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung P.O. Box 116107 Riad El Solh Beirut 1107 2210 Lebanon This publication is the product of a capacity building project for Syrian researchers that was designed and implemented by Kheder Khaddour and Kevin Mazur. Each participant conducted independent research and authored a paper under the editors’ supervision. The views expressed in this publication are not necessarily those of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung. All rights reserved. No parts of this publication may be printed, reproduced or utilised in any form or by any means without prior written permission from the publisher. Layout and Cover Design: Milad Amin Translation and Editing: Hannah Massih, Livia Bergmeijer, Niamh Fleming- Farrell, Rana Sa’adah and Yaaser Azzayyat CONTENTS Building from the Wreckage Intermediaries in Contemporary Syria........................................................4 Kheder Khaddour and Kevin Mazur Politics of Rural Notables...........................................................................21 Armenak Tokmajyan What We Can Learn from the Rise of Local Traders in Syria........................43 Ayman Al-Dassouky Informal State-Society Relations and Family Networks in Rural Idlib..........67 Hadeel Al-Saidawi The Role of the Christian Clergy in Aleppo as Mediators The Nature of Relationships and their Attributes.......................................93 Roger Asfar The Leaders of Damascus The Intermediary Activists in the 2011 Uprising.........................................119 Sana Fadel Building from the Wreckage Intermediaries in Contemporary Syria Kheder Khaddour and Kevin Mazur Seven years of war in Syria have shattered many of the social and political relations that existed before the conflict. The uprising that began in March 2011 turned into a multi-front war, and the violence and physical destruction that followed are unprecedented in their scale and intensity. Amicable relations between villages or urban neighborhoods have turned to hostility and mistrust as communities find each other on opposite sides of conflict; trust between local leaders and state authorities, built haltingly over decades, has been broken by the regime’s use of violence against civilians; and even family relations have been cut by relatives taking opposing sides and joining rival armed groups in the war. This destruction has redefined relations among Syrians and, out of the destruction, a new order has begun to emerge. New connections are being forged that will shape the internal politics of Syria for decades. 4 The violence, destruction, and displacement that have resulted from years of war raise the following questions: To what extent has the war changed the relations between individual Syrians and larger social units, such as families, tribes, and religious and national groups? How have these units’ relations with outside authorities evolved? And what remains of the previous socio-political order? The shattering of relations forged over decades does not mean their obliteration. Just as stone blocks of ancient ruins can be incorporated into contemporary dwellings, some of the connections and solidarities from the pre-2011 period are being put to new uses and combined into new ties and alliances to constitute the post-war Syrian socio-political order. Where rebel forces were able to expel the regime, local councils, sharia bodies, and other local institutions sprang up, often led by leaders of influential local families or local residents who were technocrats in state institutions. Yet the regime’s re-conquest of these areas destroyed the local revolutionary institutions and made the regime, once again, a central player in establishing order. In the areas retaken by the regime, vast swathes of the population have been displaced and much of the physical and social fabric has been destroyed—by indiscriminate violence and fighting involving regime forces, pro-government paramilitaries, local armed groups, and foreign-backed militias. Yet even in these locales, the relationship between the local community and outside forces governing it could not be remade out of whole cloth. The essays in this volume address questions of transformation and continuity during the uprising and war through the lens of intermediaries, which we understand as the social actors connecting individuals and local communities with the regime and other outside powers. This set of actors includes the »usual suspects«, like heads of historically influential local families and religious leaders, as well as actors in newer social formations, such as employees of state institutions and even members of clandestine activist networks. Intermediaries play an important role in establishing and maintaining political domination, facilitating communication, negotiation, and resource flows between outside authorities and local actors on the ground. But they can be a force impelling change; their defection from established patterns can promote conflict and competition, and incorporating them into new governing structures can promote the stabilization of a new political order. 5 Each piece in this volume describes social relations found in a locality or region of Syria before 2011 and traces out how conflict has altered relations among local residents and between average citizens and outside powers. By tracking the evolving role of existing intermediaries, as well as the rise of new mediators between local society and outside actors, the essays demonstrate concretely which relations were shattered by conflict, which legacies of pre-2011 rule persist, and how new relations build upon or negate older intermediary connections. Though the regions studied in this volume each have specificities and unique conflict dynamics, several themes emerge across the studies. First, the war has changed relations between local communities and the regime but it has not changed the methods used by the regime to connect with and manage local populations. Before the 2011, the relationship between the regime and many segments of Syrian society was shaped through agreements between local security agents and intermediaries from local communities. Armenak Tokmajyan’s study of security forces’ heavy but indirect influence on traditional dispute resolution practices in rural Idlib and Darʿa demonstrates a technique employed by the regime to coerce its citizens without resorting to direct violence. When faced with demonstrators from these same communities making demands for reform, the regime attempted to use these established techniques to achieve compliance. Yet, in the face of regime violence against civilians, intermediaries refused to play this role in some cases, and were shunted aside by local community members in others. This continuity of regime practices was not limited to the early months of the uprising; Ayman Al-Dassouky demonstrates how practices it developed during the 2000s, of relating to traders in small cities and localities, continued during the height of the war. Second, the continuity in regime personnel and strategies stands in contrast to the structures found in local communities, many of which proved to be malleable or, at least, prone to relatively rapid adaptation. The regime’s reliance on its established contacts in Darʿa to confront demonstrations had the effect of intensifying rather than moderating challenge. As Armenak Tokmajyan’s contribution demonstrates, local actors refused to recognize their elders’ authority when they perceived those elders as siding with the regime to the detriment of the interests of the local community. Similarly, Hadeel Al-Saidawi’s work on rural Idlib demonstrates 6 how rule through intermediaries forced many local residents to rely on extended family members, but the conflict greatly changed the socio-political position and even structure of many of these families. Some historically marginalized families became the leading lights of their town through new alliances with outside powers, some were split entirely by members taking opposing sides in the uprising, and still others managed to hold onto their pre-conflict position. A third theme that emerges from the pieces is that while the model of political control connecting the regime in Damascus to localities through security agencies, state bureaucracies, and local notables has shattered, important pieces of this structure remain, and will continue to be relevant in the future. For example, Sana Fadel’s work on youth mobilization in Damascus in 2011 suggests an important role for networks formed within neighborhoods, which enabled residents to participate in the uprising and persist in the face of state repression. These networks are indicative of divisions between the city’s original residents and more recent arrivals, which have not been erased by the uprising and war, and stand to structure future social relations in the city. Similarly, Roger Asfar’s work on the relations between Christian religious authorities and Aleppan Christians suggests another fragment of the pre-war order likely to be used in constructing a new order; the wide range of social domains in which Christian religious authorities played an intermediary role augurs strongly in favor of their continuation