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Syria's Society Upended. Societal Rifts Pose a Massive Challenge to Pursuit of a Political Solution

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Syria's Society Upended. Societal Rifts Pose a Massive Challenge to Pursuit of a Political Solution Introduction Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik German Institute for International and Security Affairs Syria’s Society Upended Societal Rifts Pose a Massive Challenge to Pursuit of a Political Solution Khaled Yacoub Oweis SWP Comments The Syrian civil war has profoundly altered established business structures, a delicate balance of religious values, and long-standing ties between urban and rural areas. New networks, identities, and social hierarchies have emerged in connection with the war economy, the militarization of the public sphere, and signs of ethnic cleansing. Any formal end to the conflict is unlikely to halt the violent societal transformation. Co- existence will remain a major challenge due to the nature of the cleavages. However, an inclusive political system that ends the marginalization of the Sunni majority, accepts diversity, and protects minorities is a prerequisite for reducing the levels of profound mistrust between the different societal groups. Virtually all Middle East regimes used divide- system – apart from the security apparatus – and-rule tactics to manage their societies were partnerships between the top Alawite prior to the “Arab Spring” revolts. Day-to- tier and Sunni merchants, mainly in Da- day, they employed tarheeb wa targheeb (ter- mascus and Aleppo. The regime subjugated rorization and inducement) – their version the largely Sunni tribes, which, as a result, of the carrot-and-stick approach. Rulers of disintegrated over the decades. At the same republics coming from a religious minority, time, it gave them a role in communal such as was the case in Syria and Iraq, tend- management. Peasants were subsidized ed to use a more brutal version because before the partial liberalization of the eco- they needed to domesticize the majority nomy in the mid-2000s, and the lifting of sect of the population, in whose eyes they subsidies contributed to socio-economic had little legitimacy – neither democratic, havoc. The Kurdish community was mal- “traditional,” nor religious. treated and disenfranchised, except for on- The fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003 and and-off regime backing of the Turkish Kur- the demise of Sunni minority rule in Bagh- distan Workers’ Party (PKK). dad did little to change the strategy of the As the first wave of the Arab Spring hit Alawite regime in Damascus. The Assad North Africa in late 2010, Bashar al-Assad clan seized upon chunks of the economy tried to preempt the Syrian revolt by mak- and awarded enormous privileges to other ing rhetorical commitments to improve the elites associated with it. Underpinning the lot of the regime’s non-Alawite base, but Khaled Yacoub Oweis is a fellow in the project “Mapping Local Landscapes in the Syrian Conflict: Actors, Networks, and Structures,” SWP Comments 27 realized by the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP) and funded by the ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen) with a grant July 2017 from the German Foreign Office. 1 societal and economic rifts had grown too became big business. The new profiteers deep to be contained by the system that had sought to enhance their social stature. fostered them. For instance, the regime no Backed by their own private militias, they longer could manage the young jihadis and bullied former pillars of the business com- other Islamist actors who it had, in part, munity in order to take over their positions, nourished in order to present Assad as the as a more outwardly violent mode of doing only alternative to chaos and to pressure business developed after 2011. the West into ending periods of limited A main figure and typical representative isolation on the regime from 2005 to 2008. of this new business elite is Samer al-Foz. A previously unknown young figure in Latakia, Foz apparently bought assets in Social Impacts of the War Economy 2017 belonging to Imad Ghreiwati – one The dynamics of the civil war, which fol- of a generation of businessmen known lowed the crackdown on the 2011 revolt, as “friends of Bashar” before the revolt – produced massive social fragmentation. It with cash from war profiteering. Among broke down social, economic, and genera- Foz’s new reported assets is the Orient tional hierarchies, and it fueled new mili- Club, which is a fixture of the old Damas- tary-economic networks. The power balance cene elite. The purchase of the club signals between religious and ethnic groups was Foz’s success in entering the bourgeois altered. Social mobility no longer depended hierarchy in the capital. on having links to the regime; as a result, Former junior actors came to the fore the Assad clan’s control over a governing as well in opposition areas. In the suburbs system that fused cronyism and sectarian of Eastern Ghouta on the outskirts of Da- rule abated sharply. mascus, a long siege fueled a tunnel trade that resulted in traditional merchants giving way to a younger generation. The New Markets for Junior Actors “new capitalists” made their fortunes The progressive loss of central authority during sieges by sourcing basic supplies diluted the concentration of economic and goods and transporting them through spoils among the regime’s top tier. New or tunnels. They partnered with the rebels, bigger markets opened to previously junior and in many cases with the regime, and actors, typically in their 30s, in regime needed clerics for legitimacy. Many of the areas and in rebel territory. clerics maneuvered between the changing Among the loyalist ranks, loot and a social strata, earning figurehead member- slice of the black market were the main ship in various religious consultation and incentives for thousands recruited into the adjudication councils tied to rebel brigades. regime’s militias. Relatively low-ranking These councils legitimized the brigades’ personnel in the intelligence apparatus involvement in the war economy and war- who had lived off relatively petty bribes fare against other rebels, which in many enriched themselves by charging for infor- cases involved competition over resources mation of detained persons in the regime’s as well as religious ideology. jails and al-mukhabarat (intelligence) dun- The tunnels ran from Eastern Ghouta to geons. It has been common for families to rebel territory near the Damascus district sell all their assets for cash just to learn of al-Qaboun. However, under a surrender whether their sons are dead or alive. Others deal in the first half of 2017, the rebels were rose to the top of the extortion rackets of bussed out of the district to opposition the besieged areas. Fuel supplies to regime areas away from the capital. Most tunnels territory and energy dealings with areas closed after the rebels lost Qaboun, giving under the control of the so-called Islamic a former small trader called Mohieddine State (also derogatorily called Da’ish) Manfoush a virtual monopoly of supplying SWP Comments 27 July 2017 2 Eastern Ghouta. Manfoush had built solid In contrast to the countryside and the slums, relations with – and a network of – inter- the military and the regime’s security mediaries with the regime as well as the tended to be more entrenched in the more rebels, enabling him to move goods openly well-off sectors in cities. The rebel capture overland. of territory, mostly on the periphery, re- The new hierarchies could be challenged inforced social demarcation lines, not only by political developments. Eastern Ghouta, between the countryside and the cities but a main target of a nerve gas attack that between richer and poorer districts in the killed hundreds of civilians in 2013, is sup- cities themselves. These lines had developed posed to be included in the planned “de- in large part because of the regime’s neglect escalation zones.” The zones were proposed of the rural poor and the development of in May 2017 by the three guarantors (Russia, patters of legal and illegal dwellings tied to Turkey, and Iran) of the Astana peace talks, corruption, zoning, and social engineering. which have been held in Kazakhstan since early 2017. With Moscow acting as the zones’ most ardent proponent, it is unlikely Old Rural Nobility Hit New Low that the zones will result in a West Berlin- The economic changes that accompanied style scenario, that is, an island surrounded the war have further diminished what is by “enemy” territory, but with relatively left of the old rural nobility, which had free access to the outside world. Delinea- survived waves of nationalization and tion and levels of access to the zones would socialist agrarian policies in the past. One likely again reshape local societal dynamics. such example is the town of Qalaat al-Madiq, in Hama governorate. Here, rural social tensions have simmered since agrarian Revenge of the Rural Poor reform in the 1950s. It pitted former tenant The militarization of the revolt since the farmers who were awarded land against the second half of 2011 placed marginalized old nobility who had managed to retain Sunnis at the center of the armed resistance some of their original lands. During the to Assad. They comprised inhabitants of the civil war, Qalaat al-Madiq, which is situated countryside and those of rural origins who near the Roman ruins of Apamea on the lived in poorer districts of cities and nearby. edge of the Ghab Plain, lost its agricultural The military role provided them with the holdings. The loss was mostly due to regime power to redress the socio-economic im- shelling intended to prevent cultivation in balance in relation to the richer segments rebel areas. The former tenant farmers in of society allied with the Alawite elite. the town joined rebel brigades, in particu- After Assad’s grip lessened, social mobility lar Ahrar al-Sham, which is a large Salafist for many rural Sunnis became dependent group that controls a main crossing with on local parameters and communal dynam- Turkey.
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