Ashes of Hama: The Muslim Brotherhood in Syria Page 6

  In the early context of the Cold War, the Muslim Brotherhood’s “Islamic socialism” and its attempt to strike a middle ground between the material systems of capitalism and communism meant that it had to walk a fine line between rejecting Western imperialism while not completely embracing the USSR—which, to the outrage of the Ikhwan, had voted in favour of the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine in November 1947.51 Gradually, however, the Ikhwan came to tacitly support the USSR in its struggle against the West. The rationale for this was quite clear and straightforward. The Syrian Brotherhood, according to a British diplomat, considered that “any enemy of the Western ‘imperialists’ was a friend of the Arabs and that therefore the Soviet Union and its policies should be supported.”52 This was a view particularly represented by Ma’ruf al-Dawalibi, a close associate of Mustapha al-Sibai, who advocated a rapprochement with the USSR and went as far as stating, during a visit to Cairo in April 1950, that “the Arabs would prefer to become a Soviet Republic rather than be judaized as a result of American pressure.”53 Other prominent members of the Islamic Socialist Front, such as Muhammad al-Mubarak, argued in favour of a Treaty of Friendship with the USSR.54

  The growing sympathy displayed at that time by the Syrian Ikhwan towards the Soviets did not, however, translate into affection for Syria’s communists. In fact, quite the opposite was true. If the Muslim Brotherhood was prepared to support Soviet policies in the Arab world in the name of the struggle against Western imperialism, it was not ready to condone the ideology professed by the followers of Khalid Bakdash, the leader of the Syrian Communist Party. Clashes between the Ikhwan and the Syrian communists were reported as early as May 1944, when the former accused the latter of spreading an ideology “contrary to the Muslim way of life”.55 “Combating communism in Syria” was even listed by Mustapha al-Sibai as one of the most pressing priorities of the Muslim Brotherhood, which had historically despised Marxism, seeing it as “anti-religious” and a “foreign doctrine not needed by Muslims because they already have a better one derived from Islam”.56 It is perhaps in this framework that Mustapha al-Sibai’s “Islamic socialism” should be seen: wary of the threat represented by “Godless communism”, the Ikhwani leader strove to provide the Syrians with an appealing ideological alternative. For him, “[Islamic] socialism should be embraced by every zealous defender of our nation who is anxious to avert the danger of extreme left-wing socialism.”57

  While the Ikhwan’s struggle with domestic communism was certainly ideological, it was first and foremost political. During the 1940s and 1950s, the Muslim Brotherhood and the Syrian Communist Party fought to a large extent for the same constituencies made up of the educated, lower and middle classes found in urban areas. This was true to the extent that Mustapha al-Sibai’s own family in Homs was itself divided between communists and members of the Ikhwan. In the social sphere, this meant that the Ikhwan devoted much energy to supporting workers’ rights. The Syrian Brotherhood set up its own Workmen’s Committees tasked with creating co-operative companies in which all workers participate and share profits. In addition, the Ikhwan was involved in offering loans to help small craftsmen open shops. It also assisted poor working men by providing them with medical care and offering illiterate people a free education.58 In the Damascus trade unions, the Muslim Brotherhood’s influence was growing.59 By challenging communism on its own ground, the Syrian Ikhwan were “urging workers to abandon foreign doctrines, to rally to the Muslim Brotherhood and to follow the teachings of Mohammed rather than those of Stalin, Lenin and Molotov.”60 By the early 1950s, the social and economic activities of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood covered so much of Syrian life that, according to one analyst, the organization had become “a state within a state”.61 But to what extent was it sincerely committed to a “new revolution”,62 as its historic leader once put it?

  How far Mustapha al-Sibai’s “Islamic socialism” was either a genuine attempt at social reform or a mere opportunistic bargain to attract the lower classes is still the subject of debate in Ikhwani circles today. While some hail al-Sibai’s approach as a unique attempt to strike an “Islamist middle ground” between socialism and capitalism, others insist that the Ikhwani leader was a gifted and charismatic politician ready to use populist rhetoric in order to make his way through Syrian politics. The reality probably lies somewhere in the middle as a closer look at the substance found in the doctrine of “Islamic socialism” signals a moderate rather than revolutionary approach. While private property is seen as an “inalienable right”, it should not be used as a “means of oppression and exploitation”. Similarly, while the state should ensure the limitation of land ownership, this should be done with fairness and “not merely to satisfy rancour and vengeance”. Striving to strike a fine line between capitalism and socialism, Mustapha al-Sibai concluded: “to the workers, [Islamic socialism] grants a decent standard of living and an assured future; to the holder of capital, it opens up wide horizons.”63

  At the time, however, the Ikwhani leader’s mixed message seems to have stirred ambiguity, if not controversy, within his organization’s ranks. It was well-known that Muhammed al-Hamid, for instance, despised the leftist rhetoric assumed by the Syrian Brotherhood upon the formation of the Islamic Socialist Front in 1950. Muhammed al-Mubarak, for his part, dismissed the Front as being a mere “Muslim drink in a Marxist cup”,64 which also led him to resign from the Ikhwan in 1954—although a British diplomat noted that “this seemed to make little difference to his continuous political activity” since “al-Mubarak was persistently referred to as a Brotherhood candidate”.65 Nevertheless, it seems that the rift which then emerged within the Ikhwan was quickly healed through the mediation of Hassan al-Hudaybi, leader of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, who paid a visit to Syria in the summer of 1954. Mustapha al-Sibai’s re-election at the helm of the Ikhwan a few weeks later sealed the controversy.66

  One result of the internal debates amongst Ikhwani circles was that a clearer line gradually emerged in the mid-1950s. While the “Islamic socialist” rhetoric of the Syrian Brotherhood remained broadly similar, the organization nonetheless reinforced its links with the pro-business People’s Party through the mediation of Mar’uf al-Dawalibi, who was affiliated with both organizations.67 Current members of the Syrian Ikhwan are also keen to remind their audience that, for all its left-wing populist rhetoric, the Muslim Brotherhood often came to be supported by economically liberal political forces. That was made clear, for instance, when those forces backed up Mustapha al-Sibai’s candidacy against the Ba’athist candidate Riyadh al-Maliki in the 1957 by-elections in Damascus.68 But these by-elections, lost by al-Sibai, also came to represent a turning point: they reflected the growing influence of the Ba’ath Party on Syria’s political life and marked the first open political confrontation between the two forces.

  Losing ground to the Ba’ath Party

  Created in 1940 as a reaction to the continued French presence in Syria, the Ba’ath Party was, at first, a purely intellectual movement emphasizing Syria’s nationalist struggle in pan-Arab terms. Led by the Christian Michel Aflaq and the Sunni Salah Eddine al-Bitar, it assumed a political nature only after the granting of independence when in 1946 it started to publish its newspaper, al-Ba’ath, and in 1947 held its first national congress. Initially, the main ideological drive behind the Ba’ath Party’s emergence in Syrian political life was its insistence on the existence of an “Arab nation” whose particular historical legacy would give the Arab world sufficient strength, if united, to face the challenges of Western imperialism. Progressively, however, elements of socialism were also integrated into its revolutionary pan-Arab rhetoric. This culminated in the emergence of a doctrine of “Arab socialism” exemplified by the Ba’ath Party’s merger with Akram al-Hawrani’s Arab Socialist Party, forming an “Arab Ba’ath Socialist Party” in 1953.

  Ideologically, the Ba’athists wished to draw a line between the communism inspired by Soviet Russia and the Arab socialis
m which had many of its roots in Tito’s nationalist and social agenda. Politically and tactically, the alliance with Akram al-Hawrani’s peasant movement considerably reinforced the Ba’ath Party’s appeal across Syrian society and especially in rural areas. While a political analyst at the British Embassy in Damascus noted, in 1952, the “weakness” and “insignificance”69 of the Ba’ath in Syrian political life, the same diplomat observed, in 1954, that “the growth and increased activity of this group [Arab Ba’ath Socialist Party] has been one of the main internal trends in Syria this year.”70 In terms of elected parliamentarians, the Ba’ath had gone from one seat in Parliament to twenty-two in 1954.71 This can, of course, also be explained in terms of a regional trend, with the growth of secular, left-wing parties across the Arab world at the time. In Egypt, Gamal Abdel Nasser had led the Free Officers coup in 1952, which paved the way for his complete takeover of Egypt two years later. The Egyptian leader’s Arab nationalist and socialist credentials certainly contributed to the spread of such ideology across the region. In Syria, the year 1953 saw “the increase in the strength of the left-wing”72—in particular in the army. But the Ba’ath Party’s improving electoral fortunes should also be viewed against the backdrop of the Syrian Ikhwan’s own announcement that they would not run for the 1954 electoral contest—a decision which surely greatly enhanced the Ba’ath Party’s appeal as both movements were then competing for similar constituencies—the educated and nationalist lower and middle classes.

  By 1954, the Muslim Brotherhood had decided to give up most of its political activities in a historical decision which would profoundly affect the movement’s organizational capacity to effectively stand for elections. Here, two factors seem to have been at play: the impact of state repression and the influence of major political events in Egypt. The Syrian Ikhwan had suffered repression early on, when Husni az-Zaim declared after his December 1949 coup that he would first destroy the Communist Party before turning to the Muslim Brotherhood. Under az-Zaim’s short rule, the movement was outlawed and steps were taken to limit its influence by, for instance, reorganizing the Waqfs administration.73 While members of the Ikhwan returned to Parliament following az-Zaim’s overthrow, their participation in Syria’s political life only lasted a few years as, by November 1951, Colonel Adib Shishakli had taken over most of the country’s institutions and installed a military dictatorship which lasted until February 1954. Shishakli’s particular “toughness”74 with regard to suppressing the Syrian Ikhwan was noted by a foreign diplomat at the time, who described the “numerous measures taken to suppress the Muslim Brotherhood and to weaken the hold of Islam” as “Colonel Shishakli feels that the Brotherhood had affiliations with foreign countries [Egypt] and that Islam is an aspect of Syrian life that he cannot entirely control.”75 In 1952, the leader of the Syrian Ikhwan, Mustapha al-Sibai, was imprisoned.76 The heavy repression suffered by the Muslim Brotherhood during the three years of Adib Shishakli’s authoritarian rule surely accounts for the movement’s decision to shrink from politics and turn to politically neutral areas such as education and social work after the military ruler was ousted in 1954 and parliamentary democracy restored in Syria.

  At the time, however, the Syrian Ikhwan’s decision to temporarily retreat from politics was also, perhaps most prominently, affected by the political situation in Egypt, which presented it with a dilemma. The growing popularity of Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egypt and across the Arab world coincided with a dramatic increase in government repression of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, culminating in January 1954 with the dissolution of the organization and the imprisonment of its leader, Hassan al-Hudaybi, who had succeeded Hassan al-Banna upon the latter’s death. The repression faced by the Egyptian organization at the hands of the Arab world’s most popular leader put the Syrian Ikhwan in a delicate situation: while it could only condemn Nasser’s harsh measures taken again the Egyptian Brothers, it had to tone down its critiques of the Nasserist regime because of the risk that it would seem out of touch with an Arab street hailing the Egyptian leader as the hero of resistance to Western imperialism. In that context, staying out of politics was a way for the Syrian organization to avoid taking a firm stance on Nasserism. Its leadership thought that in this way it would neither have to condone Nasser—while betraying its Egyptian sister—nor to condemn him, with the associated risk of losing popularity in Syria. For Mustapha al-Sibai, often seen as a gifted politician, this did not however mean that members of the Syrian organization were prevented from running for election—as long as this was done on an individual basis not involving the broader movement. Thus, while the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood did not directly participate in the 1954 elections, Muhammed al-Mubarak and Ma’ruf al-Dawalibi, known Ikhwani sympathizers, still ran as independents and were elected to Parliament. Similarly, Mustapha al-Sibai ran independently as a candidate in the 1957 by-elections in Damascus, which he lost to the Ba’athist Riyadh al-Maliki.

  Yet such an ambiguous policy could not last too long, and its contradictions came to a head a year later. By early 1958, the instability into which Syria’s political system had been thrown following exacerbated tensions between civilians and the military and between the communists, Ba’athists and Nasserists led to the Syrian government’s decision to ask Gamal Abdel Nasser to accept a merger between Syria and Egypt in a United Arab Republic (UAR). Forced to take a stand, the Syrian Ikhwan accepted a union which, ideologically, was hard to refuse given its declared commitment to pan-Islamism and pan-Arabism. Ideologically and politically trapped by the Syro-Egyptian union, the Syrian Brotherhood was one of the few important groups that did not participate in its breakup when, in September 1961, a heterogeneous civilian-military coalition orchestrated Syria’s secession from the UAR. While the Muslim Brotherhood took part in the subsequent elections, held in December 1961, and won ten seats, its influence had already been greatly superseded by that of the Ba’ath Party which, beyond showing electoral success, had also been able to penetrate the army from the mid-1950s onwards.77 A British diplomat had then warned that “it cannot be expected that [this group of Ba’athist officers], who have strong political feelings, are relatively numerous and hold many key positions, will stay quiet indefinitely.”78 That forecast was eventually proved right on 8 March 1963, when a group of Ba’athist and Nasserist officers carried out a coup d’état bringing them to power—a historical turn which would profoundly affect Syria’s political and social institutions for the next forty years.

  PART II

  THE ISLAMIC OPPOSITION TO BA’ATHISM (1963–1982)

  3

  THE ISLAMIC REACTION TO THE BA’ATHIST REVOLUTION

  The opposition between the Ba’ath Party and the Syrian Ikhwan which came to dominate much of Syria’s political life between 1963 and 1982 was often portrayed by the regime as a struggle between modernity and religious fanaticism. Yet, although the Islamic opposition to Ba’athist rule over Syria naturally carried an ideological dimension related to the debate between political Islam and secularism, the roots of the clash were much more complex than the regime may have wanted to suggest. By the 1970s, large sections of Syrian society had become alienated by the regime’s policies in virtually every aspect of life. The Syrian Ba’ath’s pro-rural bias, its socialist policies, a growing sense that some regions were privileged over others, its sectarian makeup and, last but not least, a feeling that the ideology put forward by regime officials had not only been unsuccessful in mobilizing the masses but had in fact utterly failed—all these were elements fuelling strong popular resentment.

  In this chapter, little reference will be made to the debate on whether the regime’s sectarian features played a role in fomenting strong Islamic opposition to Ba’athist rule between 1963 and the crushing of the opposition in Hama in February 1982. As the issue of sectarianism in Syria is a very complex and highly sensitive one, it will be discussed on its own in the following chapter. It should be noted, however, that the roots of the increasingly polarized p
olitical atmosphere in late 1970s Syria can only be explained in reference to the overlapping of many factors. Devoting a distinct chapter to sectarianism does not mean, therefore, that the author believes the issue should be dealt with separately. Rather, it constitutes an attempt to simplify the reader’s understanding of such a complex issue. In addition, while the sectarian question emerged with the advent of Hafiz al-Assad’s rule over Syria in November 1970, or arguably with Salah Jadid’s ascent to power in 1966, the roots of the Islamic opposition to Ba’athism can be traced back to the 1950s and 1960s. These were first and foremost the result of an ideological clash which was bound to happen given the two parties’ inherently incompatible visions for Syrian society.

  A clash of ideologies

  There were political clashes between members of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Ba’ath Party from the early 1950s, following constitutional debates on the role of religion in Syrian society. However, the confrontation between the two political forces rapidly assumed a violent nature upon the Ba’ath Party’s accession to power in March 1963. Ideologically, the Ikhwan and the Ba’ath Party were at odds. While the former had always argued that “Islam is both religion and state”,1 the latter insisted that “religion is for God, country is for all”.2