1975/76

BriefHistory–Politics–Ba’athParty–Assad–ForeignTrade

The history of Syria has been moulded by three historical processes: the move- ment of tribes from the Arabian Peninsula and their mingling with peoples of earlier settlement to form a rural population whose languages and customs have been Semitic for thousands of years; the movement of armies and goods along the great trade routes and the establishment of alien governments in the towns and valleys; and the resistance of the mountain communities to the in- cursionsofforeignpeoplesandideas. After forming successively part of the Egyptian, Babylonian, Hittite, Greek and Roman Empires, Syria fell to the Muslim armies in AD636. The majority of thepeoplebecameMuslim,and Arabicreplacedtheolder,Semitic,tongue. After the capital of the Islamic Caliphate moved from Damascus to Baghdad in AD750 parts of Syria came under external, including Crusader, domination until the whole area became part of the Ottoman Empire in 1516 and remained so until 1918. In the great days of Ottoman rule Syria prospered, but by the nine- teenthcenturyitwassociallyandeconomicallystagnant.

AlliedOccupation Following the defeat and disintegration of the Ottoman Empire in 1918 Syria was occupied by Allied troops. Prince Feisal (Feisal I bin Hussein bin Ali al-Hashemi), military leader of the Arab Revolt, established himself as King in Damascus but at the same time the Allies allotted the Mandate for the whole of Syria to France which had long-standing ties with the Levant states and aimed tocontrolthempolitically. In 1920 the French ousted Feisal and installed their own administration with separate autonomous governments for the Jebel Druze, the Alawite Provinces of Latakiaand Alexandretta(the Hatay). In the twenty years of the Mandate there was considerable economic and so- cial progress but prolonged political unrest as the Sunni Arab majority rejected French rule. In 1941 Syria was occupied by British and Free French forces and at the end of the war, with British support, Syria secured independence and the withdrawalofFrenchtroops. In its early years of independence, Syria acquired a reputation for political instability. In March 1949, during the first Arab-Israeli war, Syria underwent its

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���9 | doi:�0.��63/978900439�533_00� 2 1975/76 first military coupd’état. Two more followed before the parliamentary constitu- tion was restored in 1954. The next four years saw the increasing influence of neutralist and left-wing elements at the expense of the older political parties and in 1958 the Ba’ath Socialists led the country into a close political union with Egypt.

The Ba'athParty The Ba’athists, who had hoped to govern Syria under the aegis of Gamal Abdul Nasser, soon fell out with the President of the United Arab Republic (UAR) and withdrew from political life. During the 1958–61 union popular enthusiasm waned and middle-class opposition increased to the application of Egyptian socialistmeasurestoSyria.In1961Syriasecededfromthe UAR. Between 1961 and 1969 the Syrian political scene was unsettled. At first a se- ries of short lived governments drew steadily away from Egypt and towards Iraq until the seizure of power by the Iraqi Ba’athists in 1963 was followed by a similar coup in Syria. An agreement for a tripartite union with Egypt and Iraq came to nothing and in July 1963 an attempted Nasserist coup was ruthlessly suppressed. In a further coup in 1966, a group of radical Ba’athists seized power from the moderates. This group played a key role in the June 1967 Arab-Israeli war which resulted in the loss of the Golan Heights area to Israel. In the spring of 1969 the defence minister and army chief General Hafez al-Assad emerged as the strongest member of the government and in a military takeover in Novem- ber 1970 ousted his main opponent Colonel Salah Jadid and purged the ‘ideologues’ of the ‘civilian wing’ of the Ba’ath Party. Although General Assad remains a committed Ba’athist, he has broadened the base of his regime by giv- ing Nasserists and Communists representation in a People’s Council. In March 1971hewaselectedpresidentafterreceiving99.2percentofthevotescast. In May 1973 the Ba’athist provisional constitution was replaced by a new permanent constitution describing Syria as a ‘democratic, popular, socialist state’ and was approved by a 97.6 per cent vote in a referendum; elections were subsequently held for the 186 member People’s Council. Ba’athists won 70 per cent of the vote but only 50 per cent of the electorate voted and there were signs of opposition to the Ba’athists – especially from orthodox Sunni Muslims who used to dominate political life in Syria but since 1966 have been replaced byAlawites,suchasPresidentAssad,Druzesandotherminorities.

al-Assad President Assad has reversed his predecessor’s isolationist policies and initi- ated a general rapprochement with most other Arab states, making possible Syria’s entry into a Federation of Arab Republics, approved by a referendum on