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The Great Syrian Revolt and the Rise of Arab Nationalism
The Great Syrian Revolt of 1925 was the largest and longest-lasting anti-colonial insurgency in the inter-war Arab East. Mobilizing peasants, workers, and army veterans, rather than urban elites and nationalist intellectuals, it was the first mass movement against colonial rule in the Middle East. The revolt failed to liberate Syria from French occupation, but it provided a model of popular nationalism and resistance that remains potent in the Middle East today. Each subsequent Arab uprising against foreign rule has repeated the language and tactics of the Great Syrian Revolt. In this work, Michael Provence uses newly released secret colonial intelligence sources, neglected memoirs, and popular memory to tell the story of the revolt from the perspective of its participants. He shows how Ottoman-subsidized military education created a generation of leaders of modest background who came to rebel against both the French Mandate rulers of Syria and the Syrian intellectuals and landowners who helped the colonial regime to function. This new popular nationalism was unprecedented in the Arab world. Provence shows compellingly that the Great Syrian Revolt was a formative event in shaping the modern Middle East.
209 pages, Paperback
First published July 1, 2005
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March 25, 2015
Provence's text is basically a historiographical corrective. His thesis is as follows:
The great Syrian revolt of 1925 emerged out of the countryside, not the major cities (like Damascus and Hama), contrary to the anticipation of the French colonial authorities that urban centers would be the hotbed of anticolonial resistance. The rural leaders of the uprising did NOT come from the class of rural notables. It is Provence’s contention that this uprising, which broke the mold of Arab revolutions and insurrections, served as the template for future Arab acts of anticolonial resistance, such as the Palestinian insurgency against British rule. Provence suggests that this 1925 event signaled the emergence of “mass politics” in the Arab world, precisely because the elites were, to an extent greater than ever before, sidelined by the masses in this particular conflagration.
Provence has a means of explaining the uprising’s ‘rustic’ origins. It hinges on the grain trade. The southern Druze-dominated region of Syria is where the bulk of the country’s grain was grown and harvested in the early 20th century, and from whence it was transported to Damascus to be sold at market. A relationship of economic symbiosis existed between the Druze peasantry in the countryside, who grow the grain, and mostly Sunni merchant leaders in the city, who sold the grain. Provence claims that this mutually beneficial relationship created a network of inter-sectarian communication and cooperation that served as the catalyst for the rapid spread of rural anticolonial grievances from the countryside to urban centers, their permeation of the merchant class’ consciousness, and the resultant formation of a common front between the two populations to see the said grievances redressed. The relatively broad base of the resistance movement belied the colonial French conviction of the period that the outrage was the result of Syrian elites’ – especially putative rural feudal lords’ – agitation in the face of mandate reforms inimical to their interests. The French desperately wanted to believe this fiction, as it would theoretically dispel evidence of mass Syrian discontentment with French colonial rule. What was the common cause under which the broad masses of anticolonial Syrian resisters fought? This is the question Provence seeks to answer in the book.
On a historiographical note, Provence notes that the current Syrian Baathist regime has downplayed the role of the Great Revolt in the history of Syria. The Alawi minority played no meaningful part in the Great Revolt, and the collusion between southern Druzes and Damascenes in that struggle is a fact the Baathist leadership would sooner have Syrians forget, so as to obviate their development of any dangerous ‘delusions’ of recreating such a collaborative effort, perhaps with an effort to overthrow the Baathist-Alawi cabal in Damascus. The Alawi leadership has engineered Syrian historiography in a manner than pigeonholes the Great Revolt of 1925 as merely one rung of a ladder of anticolonial struggles and insurrections – among which was the Aleppo uprising, in Alawi territory – canalizing such incidents into a teleological narrative that ‘logically’ culminates in the Baathist regime as a kind of forgone conclusion. As previously hinted at, it was also the practice of the French at the time (and perhaps even after) to play up sectarian divisions and internecine hostility in Syria in order to justify their continued colonial presence. The reality of an inter-sectarian resistance movement completely undermined French pretensions and arrogations. The historiography also reflects the biases of historians, most of whom are urban and thus privilege urban intelligentsia in their treatment of the history of Arab nationalism. However, it should be pointed out that the Syrian revolt of 1925, as previously mentioned, had its origins in the countryside and that the current leadership cadre of Syria is also very rural in background. Provence thus attempts to redress these shortcomings in the literature.
Provence's text begins before the French Mandate. It examines the development of the rural-urban Syrian economic relationship (“the political economy of grain”) and the influence of Ottoman secondary schooling initiatives [read, military academies] that also served to catalyze feelings of nationhood and belonging among Syrians leading up to the Mandate. The Syrian Druze peasantry couldn't afford to send its youth to Ottoman liberal arts schools; instead, they went to the cheaper military academies offered by the Ottomans prior to WWI. These youths became leaders of the Great Revolt, applying their military skills to the struggle against French colonialism while being able to culturally identify with the rural population of Syria. By way of the comparison, the children of the Syrian urban elite/literati, who did manage to go on to Istanbul for a liberal education geared towards taking up a civil servant capacities in the Empire, played a relatively timorous role in the Great Revolt.
The Great Syrian Revolt of 1925 had three profound legacies, according to Provence:
(a) It was the first instance of broad-based cross-sectarian and cross-geographic resistance to European colonial rule.
(b) It was the occasion of the genesis of new rural elites who eventually replaced the old Ottoman urban notable elites, the latter of whom collaborated with the European Mandate powers and whose position was solidified by the colonial masters once they realized they needed local allies to hold their colonies together; the rural elites, leaders of the resistance, were vessels of much more radical notions of social and revolutionary change. They never forgot the treachery of the urban notables, and eventually replaced them when independence was granted. This rural-elite class currently makes up the leadership cadre in places like Iraq and Syria.
(c) The material, infrastructural destruction wrought by the heavy-handed repressive measures adopted by the French to pacify rebellious territory set, Provence would have us believe, and example that was later adopted by subsequent regimes in the Arab world [what a stretch!].
Provence's text is an interesting angle on the Great Revolt and Syrian historiography. I particularly like his insight into the Baathist historiographical agenda, one shaped by current Alawi sectarian concerns. His point about the French 'need' to exacerbate sectarian divisions in Syria is also compelling and useful. However, Provence' tone typifies the postcolonial scholar's penchant for Manichean division of colonized and colonizer into rigid moral categories of 'good' and 'evil' respectively. One is reminded, sometimes, when reading the work of Western scholars of the Middle East or colonialism, of the bleating sheep of George Orwell's animal farm: "colonized gooood, colonizer baaaaaaaaaad!".
The great Syrian revolt of 1925 emerged out of the countryside, not the major cities (like Damascus and Hama), contrary to the anticipation of the French colonial authorities that urban centers would be the hotbed of anticolonial resistance. The rural leaders of the uprising did NOT come from the class of rural notables. It is Provence’s contention that this uprising, which broke the mold of Arab revolutions and insurrections, served as the template for future Arab acts of anticolonial resistance, such as the Palestinian insurgency against British rule. Provence suggests that this 1925 event signaled the emergence of “mass politics” in the Arab world, precisely because the elites were, to an extent greater than ever before, sidelined by the masses in this particular conflagration.
Provence has a means of explaining the uprising’s ‘rustic’ origins. It hinges on the grain trade. The southern Druze-dominated region of Syria is where the bulk of the country’s grain was grown and harvested in the early 20th century, and from whence it was transported to Damascus to be sold at market. A relationship of economic symbiosis existed between the Druze peasantry in the countryside, who grow the grain, and mostly Sunni merchant leaders in the city, who sold the grain. Provence claims that this mutually beneficial relationship created a network of inter-sectarian communication and cooperation that served as the catalyst for the rapid spread of rural anticolonial grievances from the countryside to urban centers, their permeation of the merchant class’ consciousness, and the resultant formation of a common front between the two populations to see the said grievances redressed. The relatively broad base of the resistance movement belied the colonial French conviction of the period that the outrage was the result of Syrian elites’ – especially putative rural feudal lords’ – agitation in the face of mandate reforms inimical to their interests. The French desperately wanted to believe this fiction, as it would theoretically dispel evidence of mass Syrian discontentment with French colonial rule. What was the common cause under which the broad masses of anticolonial Syrian resisters fought? This is the question Provence seeks to answer in the book.
On a historiographical note, Provence notes that the current Syrian Baathist regime has downplayed the role of the Great Revolt in the history of Syria. The Alawi minority played no meaningful part in the Great Revolt, and the collusion between southern Druzes and Damascenes in that struggle is a fact the Baathist leadership would sooner have Syrians forget, so as to obviate their development of any dangerous ‘delusions’ of recreating such a collaborative effort, perhaps with an effort to overthrow the Baathist-Alawi cabal in Damascus. The Alawi leadership has engineered Syrian historiography in a manner than pigeonholes the Great Revolt of 1925 as merely one rung of a ladder of anticolonial struggles and insurrections – among which was the Aleppo uprising, in Alawi territory – canalizing such incidents into a teleological narrative that ‘logically’ culminates in the Baathist regime as a kind of forgone conclusion. As previously hinted at, it was also the practice of the French at the time (and perhaps even after) to play up sectarian divisions and internecine hostility in Syria in order to justify their continued colonial presence. The reality of an inter-sectarian resistance movement completely undermined French pretensions and arrogations. The historiography also reflects the biases of historians, most of whom are urban and thus privilege urban intelligentsia in their treatment of the history of Arab nationalism. However, it should be pointed out that the Syrian revolt of 1925, as previously mentioned, had its origins in the countryside and that the current leadership cadre of Syria is also very rural in background. Provence thus attempts to redress these shortcomings in the literature.
Provence's text begins before the French Mandate. It examines the development of the rural-urban Syrian economic relationship (“the political economy of grain”) and the influence of Ottoman secondary schooling initiatives [read, military academies] that also served to catalyze feelings of nationhood and belonging among Syrians leading up to the Mandate. The Syrian Druze peasantry couldn't afford to send its youth to Ottoman liberal arts schools; instead, they went to the cheaper military academies offered by the Ottomans prior to WWI. These youths became leaders of the Great Revolt, applying their military skills to the struggle against French colonialism while being able to culturally identify with the rural population of Syria. By way of the comparison, the children of the Syrian urban elite/literati, who did manage to go on to Istanbul for a liberal education geared towards taking up a civil servant capacities in the Empire, played a relatively timorous role in the Great Revolt.
The Great Syrian Revolt of 1925 had three profound legacies, according to Provence:
(a) It was the first instance of broad-based cross-sectarian and cross-geographic resistance to European colonial rule.
(b) It was the occasion of the genesis of new rural elites who eventually replaced the old Ottoman urban notable elites, the latter of whom collaborated with the European Mandate powers and whose position was solidified by the colonial masters once they realized they needed local allies to hold their colonies together; the rural elites, leaders of the resistance, were vessels of much more radical notions of social and revolutionary change. They never forgot the treachery of the urban notables, and eventually replaced them when independence was granted. This rural-elite class currently makes up the leadership cadre in places like Iraq and Syria.
(c) The material, infrastructural destruction wrought by the heavy-handed repressive measures adopted by the French to pacify rebellious territory set, Provence would have us believe, and example that was later adopted by subsequent regimes in the Arab world [what a stretch!].
Provence's text is an interesting angle on the Great Revolt and Syrian historiography. I particularly like his insight into the Baathist historiographical agenda, one shaped by current Alawi sectarian concerns. His point about the French 'need' to exacerbate sectarian divisions in Syria is also compelling and useful. However, Provence' tone typifies the postcolonial scholar's penchant for Manichean division of colonized and colonizer into rigid moral categories of 'good' and 'evil' respectively. One is reminded, sometimes, when reading the work of Western scholars of the Middle East or colonialism, of the bleating sheep of George Orwell's animal farm: "colonized gooood, colonizer baaaaaaaaaad!".
January 30, 2018
This is a very good and straightforward narrative history of the Syrian Revolt. The author explores and highlights the themes of the connects made between the Druze of Jabal Hawran and Damascene notable through the grain trade, as well as the cross-sectarian and -regional bonds formed at the Ottoman military schools. I would have appreciated a little more detail on the gradual end of the revolt and the internal political division from the rebels' perspective. (Other than discussion about the bombardment and ties formed between Syrian elites and the French Mandate officials, that is.) Overall a must read for a better understanding of the Mandate period, the Syrian revolt, or the formation of early Syrian nationalism.
April 7, 2018
As so often happens with such monographs, The Great Syrian Revolt by Michael Provence edified me in a number of ways. It confirmed a couple of things I had already suspected; it taught me a great many more things I simply did not know; and, showing me where my knowledge of the subject was lacking, it expanded my reading list considerably.
A convincing overview and analysis of the primary source documentation and ‘official history’ of the Syrian Revolt, Provence’s work not only sets out to provide a different angle on the revolt which doesn’t reduce it to class, tribal or sectarian dimensions; but in the process it also demonstrates a certain set of patterns of orientation and behaviour that are helpful in understanding the modern war in Syria going on as we speak. It tackles the Syrian revolt from the point-of-view of those most directly affected by it and those who most directly participated in it. Provence argues effectively not only that the revolt was more than just a ‘feudal’ Druze uprising. He also demonstrates that it served as a crucible for a flexible and expansive definition of the Arab nation, in which localist and religious concerns played key rôles, and which would come to colour the various liberation movements which arose in its wake.
Provence uses the official French propaganda surrounding the revolt as a kind of literary foil for his study. The mandatory government’s ideology positioned it as the protector, patron and enlightener of an unchanging, hopelessly-primitive ‘oriental’ society. France saw herself – and her mandatory administrators did also, of both political left and right – as bringing technology, infrastructure, liberal rule of law, civilisation tout court, to the backward tribal Arabs, mired as they were in ‘feudalism’, tribalism and barbarism. In short, France’s view of her mandatory mission was precisely the sort of orientalism described and criticised by Dr Edward Sa‘îd. Provence, rejecting this view as simplistic and outdated, instead shows that the Syrian Revolt was motivated by genuine attempts at building an alternative multi-ethnic, multi-religious and sæcular order in place of the French mandate. Far from being an exclusively ‘feudal’ or rural revolt, its œconomic basis lay in routes of trade that linked the peasantry and smallholders of Hawrân to the independent grain dealers of Damascus.
Although Provence places himself in diametric opposition to the French self-image and perspective on the conflict, he is far too shrewd a scholar to omit where the French had judged the situation rightly. The colonial French were masters of manipulating tribal conflicts, and thus not only had a keen understanding of the religious and ethnic differences that divided Mandatory Syria, but were experts at exploiting them. The French carefully cultivated client-patron relationships with the Maronites and the Melkites. They dexterously isolated troublesome Druze and Alawites with religious propaganda aimed at the Sunni majority. And they fanned ethnic tensions – in particular, by using North African and Armenian mercenaries to commit the worst acts of ethnic cleansing and plunder.
Provence does not deny that these tactics were effective. After all, it was no ideological slogan that the city-dwellers shouted as they rose up against the French, but rather: ‘The Druze are coming!’ Religious and ethnic differences did matter. But the French had somewhat misread the milieu. Countervailing against the tribalist tendencies they assumed obtained within Mandatory Syria, were not only the œconomic linkages between small Damascus merchants and the peasantry of southern Syria which Provence takes pains to illustrate, but also the old Ottoman institution of the state-funded military academy, which Mandatory Syria under French rule left largely intact. The military academy served two major purposes: it was the instrument of social advancement for boys of poor peasant families, and it exposed these boys to both practical knowledge and a broader awareness of nationalism.
Thus, there were in rural areas a number of well-educated, erudite and effective military commanders of humble peasant origins, who took command of the revolt and stuck it good to the French for two whole years despite their colonial opponents’ overwhelming military superiority and total lack of humanitarian scruple. Sultân al-Atrash, the Druze leader of the revolt and the chief protagonist of this study, was one of these. Hâfiz al-’Asad, too, would later rise to prominence through the military from similar poor peasant stock. As one might expect, the guiding principles of the Revolt were quite vague from the start. Were they guided by Muslim pieties, or by French Revolutionary principles about the equality and dignity of man? Was the ‘homeland’ they sought to defend, merely the village? Was it Mandatory Syria as a whole? Was the Lebanon included? What about Iraq and Palestine? Provence notes, with perhaps a trace of mischievous enjoyment, that the governing ideas of the Syrian Revolt were kept deliberately vague, pragmatic and adaptable to the exigencies and needs of the moment.
Though there were some exceptions, the urban élites of Damascus – the well-connected landlords from Ottoman days, big businessmen and politicians – did not join the revolt, and indeed sought a negotiated settlement with the French government fairly early on. In the rare cases where they did join the revolt, indeed, they tended to do so with an eye to their own political and material advantage. In their setbacks and failures, the rural and petit-bourgeois leadership of the Syrian Revolt did not forget the compromises and betrayals of the élite class.
Another point of interest for students of postcolonial theory, is that for this ragtag, motley assortment of rural peasants, state academy officer-graduates, craftsmen and grain merchants, localism and local networks of contact took on a paramount importance – both tactically and in terms of the ‘national idea’, which was deliberately kept vague. It’s often implied that the only way to stay one step ahead of French propaganda – which was aimed, as often as not, at keeping Damascus quiet while the modern, civilised French systematically shelled, bombed, butchered and torched entire villages – was to rely on word-of-mouth from trusted sources, and clandestine village or neighbourhood meetings. Local affinities and loyalties were also one of the key appeals used to bring various families and village leaders into the revolt. Many working-class Arabs in rural areas still did not respond well to highfalutin nationalist ‘theories’, but they could understand perfectly well the more immediate and concrete demands of hospitality, brotherhood, honour and revenge.
As a result of this highly-localised, highly-personalised character, the revolt was sometimes tinged with banditry. At best, this banditry took on a Robin Hood aspect – it was patriotic and aimed at taking from the wealthy to liberate the poor. At worst, it was simple selfish robbery and feuding. The two tended not to be easily distinguished, either at the time or even with the benefit of hindsight; Provence offers what primary-source data exists, but it can be interpreted in multiple ways. Al-Atrash was forced, in several instances, to rein in his fellow commanders, institute discipline among the rebels, make restitution to ‘inconvenienced’ villages and make assurances that repeat incidents would not occur.
Provence’s book is fantastic at highlighting all of these different aspects, but could probably have done with a bit more commonsensical organisation. He groups events and sources thematically rather than chronologically, and thus it can be hard to tell who did what, to whom, when. On the other hand, this book sheds a certain degree of light of understanding on why and how the current civil strife in Syria has taken the shape and character that it has. The escalation of sectarian tensions by foreign powers, the horrific total war tactics, the back-and-forth bombing and shelling, the use of poison gas, the importation of foreign mercenaries to commit the worst atrocities – these were all presaged in the original Syrian Revolt. For this reason, the book becomes more important as a resource for the serious student of Middle East history and current events.
A convincing overview and analysis of the primary source documentation and ‘official history’ of the Syrian Revolt, Provence’s work not only sets out to provide a different angle on the revolt which doesn’t reduce it to class, tribal or sectarian dimensions; but in the process it also demonstrates a certain set of patterns of orientation and behaviour that are helpful in understanding the modern war in Syria going on as we speak. It tackles the Syrian revolt from the point-of-view of those most directly affected by it and those who most directly participated in it. Provence argues effectively not only that the revolt was more than just a ‘feudal’ Druze uprising. He also demonstrates that it served as a crucible for a flexible and expansive definition of the Arab nation, in which localist and religious concerns played key rôles, and which would come to colour the various liberation movements which arose in its wake.
Provence uses the official French propaganda surrounding the revolt as a kind of literary foil for his study. The mandatory government’s ideology positioned it as the protector, patron and enlightener of an unchanging, hopelessly-primitive ‘oriental’ society. France saw herself – and her mandatory administrators did also, of both political left and right – as bringing technology, infrastructure, liberal rule of law, civilisation tout court, to the backward tribal Arabs, mired as they were in ‘feudalism’, tribalism and barbarism. In short, France’s view of her mandatory mission was precisely the sort of orientalism described and criticised by Dr Edward Sa‘îd. Provence, rejecting this view as simplistic and outdated, instead shows that the Syrian Revolt was motivated by genuine attempts at building an alternative multi-ethnic, multi-religious and sæcular order in place of the French mandate. Far from being an exclusively ‘feudal’ or rural revolt, its œconomic basis lay in routes of trade that linked the peasantry and smallholders of Hawrân to the independent grain dealers of Damascus.
Although Provence places himself in diametric opposition to the French self-image and perspective on the conflict, he is far too shrewd a scholar to omit where the French had judged the situation rightly. The colonial French were masters of manipulating tribal conflicts, and thus not only had a keen understanding of the religious and ethnic differences that divided Mandatory Syria, but were experts at exploiting them. The French carefully cultivated client-patron relationships with the Maronites and the Melkites. They dexterously isolated troublesome Druze and Alawites with religious propaganda aimed at the Sunni majority. And they fanned ethnic tensions – in particular, by using North African and Armenian mercenaries to commit the worst acts of ethnic cleansing and plunder.
Provence does not deny that these tactics were effective. After all, it was no ideological slogan that the city-dwellers shouted as they rose up against the French, but rather: ‘The Druze are coming!’ Religious and ethnic differences did matter. But the French had somewhat misread the milieu. Countervailing against the tribalist tendencies they assumed obtained within Mandatory Syria, were not only the œconomic linkages between small Damascus merchants and the peasantry of southern Syria which Provence takes pains to illustrate, but also the old Ottoman institution of the state-funded military academy, which Mandatory Syria under French rule left largely intact. The military academy served two major purposes: it was the instrument of social advancement for boys of poor peasant families, and it exposed these boys to both practical knowledge and a broader awareness of nationalism.
Thus, there were in rural areas a number of well-educated, erudite and effective military commanders of humble peasant origins, who took command of the revolt and stuck it good to the French for two whole years despite their colonial opponents’ overwhelming military superiority and total lack of humanitarian scruple. Sultân al-Atrash, the Druze leader of the revolt and the chief protagonist of this study, was one of these. Hâfiz al-’Asad, too, would later rise to prominence through the military from similar poor peasant stock. As one might expect, the guiding principles of the Revolt were quite vague from the start. Were they guided by Muslim pieties, or by French Revolutionary principles about the equality and dignity of man? Was the ‘homeland’ they sought to defend, merely the village? Was it Mandatory Syria as a whole? Was the Lebanon included? What about Iraq and Palestine? Provence notes, with perhaps a trace of mischievous enjoyment, that the governing ideas of the Syrian Revolt were kept deliberately vague, pragmatic and adaptable to the exigencies and needs of the moment.
Though there were some exceptions, the urban élites of Damascus – the well-connected landlords from Ottoman days, big businessmen and politicians – did not join the revolt, and indeed sought a negotiated settlement with the French government fairly early on. In the rare cases where they did join the revolt, indeed, they tended to do so with an eye to their own political and material advantage. In their setbacks and failures, the rural and petit-bourgeois leadership of the Syrian Revolt did not forget the compromises and betrayals of the élite class.
Another point of interest for students of postcolonial theory, is that for this ragtag, motley assortment of rural peasants, state academy officer-graduates, craftsmen and grain merchants, localism and local networks of contact took on a paramount importance – both tactically and in terms of the ‘national idea’, which was deliberately kept vague. It’s often implied that the only way to stay one step ahead of French propaganda – which was aimed, as often as not, at keeping Damascus quiet while the modern, civilised French systematically shelled, bombed, butchered and torched entire villages – was to rely on word-of-mouth from trusted sources, and clandestine village or neighbourhood meetings. Local affinities and loyalties were also one of the key appeals used to bring various families and village leaders into the revolt. Many working-class Arabs in rural areas still did not respond well to highfalutin nationalist ‘theories’, but they could understand perfectly well the more immediate and concrete demands of hospitality, brotherhood, honour and revenge.
As a result of this highly-localised, highly-personalised character, the revolt was sometimes tinged with banditry. At best, this banditry took on a Robin Hood aspect – it was patriotic and aimed at taking from the wealthy to liberate the poor. At worst, it was simple selfish robbery and feuding. The two tended not to be easily distinguished, either at the time or even with the benefit of hindsight; Provence offers what primary-source data exists, but it can be interpreted in multiple ways. Al-Atrash was forced, in several instances, to rein in his fellow commanders, institute discipline among the rebels, make restitution to ‘inconvenienced’ villages and make assurances that repeat incidents would not occur.
Provence’s book is fantastic at highlighting all of these different aspects, but could probably have done with a bit more commonsensical organisation. He groups events and sources thematically rather than chronologically, and thus it can be hard to tell who did what, to whom, when. On the other hand, this book sheds a certain degree of light of understanding on why and how the current civil strife in Syria has taken the shape and character that it has. The escalation of sectarian tensions by foreign powers, the horrific total war tactics, the back-and-forth bombing and shelling, the use of poison gas, the importation of foreign mercenaries to commit the worst atrocities – these were all presaged in the original Syrian Revolt. For this reason, the book becomes more important as a resource for the serious student of Middle East history and current events.
February 11, 2012
The book analyzes the history of "The Great Syrian Revolt" (1925-1927), the largest and longest-lasting anti-colonial resistance movement in inter-war Syria. Provence relies on series of intelligence reports, memoirs and primary documents to narrate the story of this revolt.
Provence shows how economic bondage and common state-subsidized (military) higher education, among rural leaders and urban grain merchants, served as channels trough which rebellion and national agitation was transmitted. While most urban elitists and landowning notables distanced themselves from the “radical” rebels, some of the urban elites joined them either to protect themselves from persecution by colonial forces or to conserve their political credibility.
The revolt was motivated by an anti-colonial, and sometimes religious, impulse. The freedom fighters were mainly farmers or urban salaried craftworkers, who fought under the command of the rural leaders and urban grain merchants.
The response of the French colonial authorities was brutal state repression. Damascus was bombarded and air raided for several days. Villages that supported the revolt were in many cases raised to the ground and their inhabitants were either massacred or expelled. Provence shows as well how the landowning notables played a role in suppressing the revolt, especially in Damascus. As a result of the repression, revolt leaders and fighters were either killed or expelled. Some were expelled to transjordan, some to Hijaz, and some of them went to Palestine, where they later participated in the Palestinian revolt in 1936.
The revolt lasted for 2 years and in many stages was victorious, but in the end it was halted by colonial state violence with the collaboration sometimes of some urban elites and notables. The revolt inspired the rise of Pan-Arab Nationalism in the region. In addition, many of the post-independence Arab leaders, who later revolted against the traditional urban elites and the aristocrats who emerged to power after decolonization, were from the same background of military educated, urban merchant or rural families.
Provence shows how economic bondage and common state-subsidized (military) higher education, among rural leaders and urban grain merchants, served as channels trough which rebellion and national agitation was transmitted. While most urban elitists and landowning notables distanced themselves from the “radical” rebels, some of the urban elites joined them either to protect themselves from persecution by colonial forces or to conserve their political credibility.
The revolt was motivated by an anti-colonial, and sometimes religious, impulse. The freedom fighters were mainly farmers or urban salaried craftworkers, who fought under the command of the rural leaders and urban grain merchants.
The response of the French colonial authorities was brutal state repression. Damascus was bombarded and air raided for several days. Villages that supported the revolt were in many cases raised to the ground and their inhabitants were either massacred or expelled. Provence shows as well how the landowning notables played a role in suppressing the revolt, especially in Damascus. As a result of the repression, revolt leaders and fighters were either killed or expelled. Some were expelled to transjordan, some to Hijaz, and some of them went to Palestine, where they later participated in the Palestinian revolt in 1936.
The revolt lasted for 2 years and in many stages was victorious, but in the end it was halted by colonial state violence with the collaboration sometimes of some urban elites and notables. The revolt inspired the rise of Pan-Arab Nationalism in the region. In addition, many of the post-independence Arab leaders, who later revolted against the traditional urban elites and the aristocrats who emerged to power after decolonization, were from the same background of military educated, urban merchant or rural families.
June 26, 2008
I havent read this yet, but Grandma insists that my brother in law has written an amazing story, and insightful historical work. I just thought Id plug it until I do read it.
February 22, 2010
Another great step for a nation. Its a history of the great Syrian Revolt 1925. One of the most important three revolts (1919 in Egypt and 1920 in Iraq) that redraw the map of the middle east.
The worst point is how our modern history were built by a group of naive and foolish leaders (regardless their honest and innocence) without strategic goals nor political understanding. They were dreamers but not nation founders.
The worst point is how our modern history were built by a group of naive and foolish leaders (regardless their honest and innocence) without strategic goals nor political understanding. They were dreamers but not nation founders.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews