The American Spectator
It's become an article of faith among
policy makers and analysts in the West that Syria is a nation of
minorities. Various sources put the share of non-Sunni Muslim minorities
at around one quarter of the population. These minorities are believed
to constitute the bulk of the support base of the Syrian regime. Some
ventured as far as to suggest that the regime was deliberately stoking
sectarian tensions with the massacres in Houla and Qubeir in order to
consolidate its minority support base.
The commonly accepted percentages of Syrian
minorities are: Alawites and Shia -- 13%, Christians -- 10%, and Druze
-- 3%. Syria, however, does not collect or publish data related to the
sectarian composition of its population and trying to track the origin
of common estimates usually leads nowhere.
For example, all observers commenting on
Syria believe that Syrian Druze live primarily in Jabal al Druze and
constitute 3% of the Syrian population. This claim, however, does not
square with the results of Syria's last population census. According to the census,
in 2004 the population of the province of Sweida, where Jabal al Druze
is located, had only 313,231 inhabitants against 17,920,844 of the total
population of Syria. This makes for 1.7% and not 3% of the population.
On top of this, in 2004 the birth rate of Sweida stood at 1.7% against
the national average of 2.5%. At this rate, discounting migration flows
between Syrian provinces, by 2012 Sweida should have already shrunk to
1.6%, including not only the Druze but also a sizeable Christian
community in the city of Sweida and some Muslim population.
Activists in Sweida often explain the low level of Druze participation in the Syrian uprising by widespread emigration of young Druze. Many young Druze have left the unemployment-stricken province for greener pastures.
If they left for Damascus and other bigger cities, this could
compensate for the decline of Sweida's share in the general population.
The contention that Syrian Druze remain concentrated in Jabal al Druze
would be still wrong, though. Yet, according to the same sources,
many of these young people have emigrated out of the country
altogether. If true, it leaves almost a half of the estimated Druze
population unconfirmed.
Another case in point are Syrian Christians
who are generally believed to have declined from 14% in 1943 to 10%
today. Syria Comment is one of the most comprehensive blogs and link
aggregators on Syria. One of its contributors Ehsani
recently estimated that Christians make up only between 4% to 5% of
Syria's population. Ehsani attributed this dramatic decline, again, to
emigration and anemic birth rates.
Ehsani's research into the subject was
triggered by a conversation with a priest in Aleppo who remarked on his
futile attempts to dissuade young Christians from emigrating. It turned
out that Christians priests and bishops in Aleppo keep track of the
families under their respective churches as well as the births and
marriages of their members. After the examination of available data,
Ehsani's conclusion was that the share of Christians in the population
of Aleppo is not 12% as claimed by Wikipedia and other sources, but can
be as low as 3.5%.
The difference in birth rates between
Syrian provinces, by the way, can be rather dramatic. In Sweida,
Latakia, and Tartous, the three provinces with a Druze or Alawite
majority, the birth rate ranged in 2004 from 1.7% to 1.9%. In the
heavily Sunni provinces of Idlib, Deraa, and Deir ez Zor, it was 3.1%.
The census of 1943 put the share of the
Sunni population at 69%. Almost 70 years later, it's estimated to have
grown only to 74%. Yet, considering the emigration and paltry birth
rates of the non-Sunni minorities, it seriously beggars belief that they
can be still retaining a share of as much as 26% of the population .
As far as Syria's most important minority
is concerned, the consensus goes, the Alawites dominate Syria's armed
forces. At the very least they dominate that part of the army that
remains loyal to Bashar Assad, while the rest of the army is locked in
barracks.
Yet, this estimation of the sectarian
composition of the Syrian army conflicts with numerous interviews with
army defectors published during the last year. According to their
presentation of the situation in their units, the rank and file soldiers
appear to be mostly Sunni. True, many officers seem to be Alawites, but
other officers don't. David Enders
who traveled to Idlib with a convoy of UN monitors, used that
opportunity to interview government soldiers unobstructed by the
presence of minders. The soldiers told him that four months ago the
commander of their unit defected himself and started a rebel brigade.
It's highly unlikely that that officer was an Alawite.
According to the census of 2004, the
combined population of Latakia and Tartous does not reach even 9% of the
population. It's true that there is a significant Alawite presence
outside the Alawite heartland. But it's also true that the numbers for
Tartus and Latakia also include a significant Sunni minority. Cities
like Banyas in Tartous and even the capital of Latakia itself are
majority Sunni. In fact, parts of Latakia are now infested with
insurgents. So it's not that Syria is teeming with Alawites, either.
Besides, the notion of an Alawite-dominated
Syrian army simply does not square with the daily death tolls published
by the Syrian official agency which list both the names and home
provinces of fallen soldiers. For example, on June 9, one of the
bloodiest days for the Syrian army until now, 57 army and
law-enforcement martyrs were laid to rest according to the official SANA.
To these Tartous and Latakia had contributed ten martyrs. While it's
more than their share in the population, they are hardly dominating the
list. "We all know that most of the security forces shooting at us and
killing us are Sunnis, not Alawites, " a Sunni activist from the
Damascus suburb of Douma was quoted by Phil Sands on Jun 21, 2012.
As the civil war in Syria has escalated and
taken on an increasingly sectarian dimension, many observers took to
predicting a prolonged and drawn out conflict. With the minorities
rallying behind the regime of Bashar Assad, these people reason, the
regime can mobilize enough support in the population and armed forces to
delay the inevitable. They are wrong. Wikipedia notwithstanding, Syria
is not such a nation of minorities as it used to be in 1943. Neither
these minorities are present in Syria's armed forces in such
overwhelming numbers. Their loyalty alone is not enough to prolong the
agony.
It remains a very underappreciated fact,
but at the beginning of the uprising the regime in Syria was commanding
loyalty of a significant section of its Sunni Arab population.
Since the beginning of the uprising and
until quite recently, reporters in Damascus have repeatedly noted that
the regime appeared to enjoy widespread support among urban classes in
the capital that transcended sectarian affiliations.
A rebel leader in Aleppo, quoted by Anthony Loyd
on June 19, 2012, has confirmed that many Sunnis in the province joined
the pro-government shabiha militias and identified two clans, the Bari
and Baqqarah, as supporters of the regime in Aleppo. With more than one
million members, the Baqqara is also a major tribe in Deir ez Zor.
Even the notion of the Syrian uprising as a poor Sunni man revolt does not do full justice to this reality. According to Phil Sands,
as late as January of this year, a senior tribal figure in the
impoverished Deir ez Zor estimated that the Sunni tribesmen in the
province were still almost evenly split between supporters and opponents
of the regime.
It's this hidden minority of Sunni
supporters that was keeping the regime on its feet until now. Losing
this support to the sectarian polarization would set the regime on fast
track to oblivion.
Meanwhile, according to the latest reports
from Deir ez Zor, the alliance between the Sunni tribes in the province
and the regime finally unraveled at last. But, once it happened, large
chunks of the province and the city of Deir ez Zor quickly fell under
opposition control. This is not the first time that the opposition has
taken over center of the city of Deir ez Zor. But this was the first
time a government-assault to recapture the city was repelled, leaving
the streets of Deir ez Zor strewn with destroyed tanks and other
military equipment.
At stake have been most of Syria's oil and
control over the border with Iraq which is known to be used to smuggle
weapons and foreign fighters into the country. In fact, Deir ez Zor has
well-armed and battle-hardened tribal allies on the Iraqi side of the
border. Bashar Assad had been having it bad enough in Homs. But
"Benghazi" turned out to be an even tougher nut, with the Free Syrian
Army claiming to control 70% of Deir ez-Zor.
Now, as fighting reaches Damascus itself, with the Defense Minister reportedly killed
in a suicide bombing, things look ever more bleak for the regime. The
end appears to be at hand, with chaos set to rule the day. Where is this
supposed Syrian army of more than 600,000 now?
Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi is a student at Brasenose College, Oxford University, and an adjunct fellow at the Middle East Forum. Oskar Svadkovsky is a computer networking professional based in Tel Aviv, and the owner of the Happy Arab News Service blog. He graduated in Indian and Chinese Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
No comments:
Post a Comment