Syria STRUCTURE OF SOCIETY
A coppersmith plying his trade in a suq
Courtesy Mona Yacoubian
A settled beduin family living in Al Qamishli
Courtesy Susan Carter
In the mid-1980s, Syrian society was in a state of flux. The
social, political, and economic developments of the preceding two
decades precipitated profound changes and realignments in the
social structure, but the implications and probable outcomes of
these changes were not entirely clear. This uncertainty arises
from the division of Syrian society by vertical cleavages along
religious and ethnic lines, as well as by horizontal cleavages
along socioeconomic and class lines. Minority groups tend to
segregate themselves in their own neighborhoods and villages.
Although within a minority group there is a high degree
of integration and homogeneity, the group as a whole is often
ascribed a certain social status. Traditionally, Syrian society
has been divided between landlords and tenants, between urban
dwellers and rural peasants, and between a Sunni elite and
minority groups.
Until the revolutions of the mid-1960s, a syndicate of
several hundred Sunni Muslim extended families living in Damascus
and Aleppo had dominated life in Syria. Some of these families
were of the Sharifan nobility, which claims genealogical descent
from the Prophet Muhammad. Most had accumulated great wealth and
wielded virtual feudal power as landlords possessing vast
agricultural and real-estate holdings. Others made fortunes in
industry and trade in the late ninteenth century. Another
component of the ruling class was the ulama (sing,
alim). This group consisted of religious scholars, Islamic
judges (qadis), interpreters of law (muftis), and
other persons concerned with the exposition of Sunni Islam.
Prosperous Sunni bazaar merchants allied with the great families
occupied the next level in the social heirarchy.
The Syrian elite was at the forefront of anticolonial
struggle against the Ottoman Empire in World War I and later
against the French Mandatory regime. At independence in 1946,
Syria's first government was dominated by the old ruling class.
However, the elite had never been a monolithic entity, and the
new parliament was splintered by factionalism, feuding, and
generational differences. These divisions provoked a military
coup d'état in 1949 that ushered in a new era in Syrian society.
The armed services and the Baath Party were the mechanisms
for the rise of a new ruling elite. Although military service
traditionally had been disdained by the old Sunni elite, a
military career was often the only avenue of upward mobility open
to rural minority group members who could not afford an
education. Such men enlisted in disproportinate numbers and came
to dominate the officer corps and the enlisted ranks of Syria's
armed forces. Likewise, disenfranchised elements of society
joined the Baath Party. These dual trends culminated in the 1963
Baath Socialist Revolution and the 1970 takeover by the military
of the Baath Party.
The land reform legislation of 1963 and the nationalization
of larger financial, commercial, and industrial establishments
virtually eliminated the economic and political power base of the
old elite. At the same time, the new elite, comprised of the
upper echelon of military and civilian leaders, consolidated its
position by cultivating the support of peasants and the
proletariat, who benefited from the new economic order. The
regime's socialism eroded the position of the bazaar merchants
while its secularism removed power from the ulama.
After coming to power in 1970, President Hafiz al Assad
reversed or relaxed the more strident socialist economic measures
instituted in 1963. His expansion of the role of the private
sector led to the emergence of a relatively small, but highly
visible new class of entrepreneurs and businessmen who made
fortunes in real estate, importing, and construction. This class,
nicknamed in Syria "the velvet generation," includes higher-
ranking government bureaucrats and their relatives who have
capitalized on their official positions to monopolize lucrative
government contracts. It also has assimilated many members of the
old Sunni elite, who have been coopted by the Assad regime and
have accommodated themselves to the new elite. To some extent,
the old and new ruling classes have merged through business
partnerships and marriages that combine the money and prestige of
the old elite member and the power and prestige of the new elite
member. Despite a well publicized anti-corruption campaign,
patronage and favoritism have remained important forces in Syrian
society.
Under Assad, rural peasants have reaped significant gains in
their standard of living, primarily through government transfer
payments and grants of land redistributed from the original
upper-class owners. However, land reform has not been entirely
successful in transforming the social structure of the
countryside. In many cases, farmers who had previously depended
upon their urban landlords to give credit for financing their
crops until harvest and to deal with the government have drifted
back into similar relationships with urban interests. The
landlord's role as an influential advocate and local leader has
not been filled by elected Baath Party representatives. In other
cases, rich proprietors have begun to regain control over
agricultural land and reconstitute large estates.
Since the 1963 Baath Revolution, the approximate middle of
Syrian society has remained remarkably stable, both as a
percentage of the workforce and in terms of the standard of
living and social mobility of its members. Because Syria has not
yet developed a large industrial sector, it lacks a true
proletariat of wage-earning factory workers. The number of
persons employed by private and public sector industry in 1980
was 207,000, or 12 percent of the working population, according
to statistics compiled by the Syrian General Federation of Trade
Unions. This approximates the size of Syria's "working class."
Syria compensates for its lack of a large proletarian class
of industrial factory workers by a large and flourishing group of
artisans and handicrafters who produce basic commodities such as
soap, textiles, glassware, and shoes in small cottage industries.
This group is a main component of Syria's traditional middle
class, which also encompasses small proprietors, tradesmen, and
white-collar employees, and has remained at about 30 percent of
the population.
Since the 1963 revolution, a new and upwardly mobile class of
teachers, scientists, lawyers, technocrats, civil servants,
doctors, and other professionals has slowly emerged. This new
upper-middle class consists of men and women who rose from the
old lower or middle classes by virtue of technical or secular
higher education.
Even before the revolution of 1963, secular education had
become a criterion of status among many ordinary Syrians,
especially as higher education ensured a virtually automatic
entry into admired and well-paying occupations. The importance of
education in this context will probably grow.
Values taught in the schools and emphasized in the media
reflect those of the group controlling the government and have
gained some currency. Nevertheless, the traditional conservatism
of the peasants as well as the economic problems of daily
survival that have not been alleviated by changes in government
policy militate against any sudden change in the values or way of
life of the masses.
As in other Middle Eastern countries, Syrian society has for
millennia been divided into three discrete systems of
organization based on ecological factors; these are the town, the
village, and the tribe. Although closely interrelated, each
fosters a distinct and independent variation of Arab culture. The
cities of the Middle East are among the most ancient in the
world; urban life has been integral to the society of the region
throughout recorded history. Therefore, the townsman and his role
are well known to all segments of the population. The tribesman,
or beduin, although suffering irreversible changes since the mid-
twentieth century, has also been a widely known and admired
figure throughout history. The peasant farmer, or fellah
(pl., fellahin), although less admired than the townsman
or the tribesman, also occupies a position of recognized value.
The members of each of the three structural segments of
society look on the others as socially distinct. This social
distance is symbolized by easily recognized differences in
clothing, food, home furnishings, accent, and custom;
intermarriage between village, town, and tribal families is
usually considered irregular.
Traditionally, the cities have been an expression--at the
highest level of sophistication and refinement--of the same Arab
culture that animated the villages. As Western influence grew,
however, during the late nineteenth and the twentieth centuries,
the social distance between the city and village increased.
Western customs, ideas, techniques, and languages were adopted
first in the cities, especially by Christians, while the villages
remained ignorant of them. The introduction and adoption of
elements of a radically alien culture opened a gap between the
city and the village that has not narrowed with time. Only in
recent years have modern transportation and mass communication
begun to bring the countryside once again into the same cultural
orbit as the cities.
Although the town, village, and tribe are socially distinct,
they depend on each other for services and products and so are
related by overall functional ties. The town supplies
manufactured, specialty, and luxury products; administrative and
governmental services; education and higher learning;
sophisticated culture; law and justice; and financing. The
village supplies agricultural products; and the tribe provides
protection and navigation for caravans, travelers, and traders in
the desert. As more and more villagers become educated and move
to the cities, and as the beduin surrender their sole mastery of
the desert to motor vehicles and the police power of the modern
state and begin to adopt a sedentary life, the traditional
distinctions will continue to blur.
Data as of April 1987
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