The Great Syrian Revolt and the Rise of Syrian Nationalism (review)

The Great Syrian Revolt against the French mandate took place from 1925 to 1927. It was brutally crushed by the French. Provence celebrates the Revolt as an early anticolonial movement, an early expression of Arab nationalism, and a formative influence on the shaping of modern Syria.

The actual fighting was the work of numerous and scattered bands. Provence repeatedly emphasizes that the revolt was led by subalterns, primarily Druze shaykhs from the Hawran region in alliance with the grain merchants of the Damascus Maydan quarter, Damascus village and quarter chieftains, townsmen of Hama, junior military officers, journalists, and writers. The Damascus landowning elites, who figure in other accounts of the development of Syrian nationalism, collaborated with French rule.

The revolt was clearly an anti-French movement in defense of local interests; it might even be called, an anti-imperialist resistance. But was it really a "nationalist" movement? The leadership was fragmented, and the bands of resisters had little connection with each other. Most of the population was not actively involved, and many minority groups and tribes fought on the side of the French. Sectarian conflicts took place among Druze and Kurds, and the Muslims and Christians. The revolt also involved battles for supremacy among local chieftains, plunder and pillage, banditry and extortion. Factionalism reigned. The manifestos issued during the revolt imply not only pan-Syrian Arab nationalism, but Druze autonomy, the liberation of Arabdom, and jihad for the glory of Islam. It is doubtful that nationalism had reached the masses.

According to Provence, however, "A central goal of this study has been to show that a collective national identity can exist without a unitary elite-guided notion of what such membership means." Insurgents "did not hold identical conceptions of their national identity . . . it was the common notion of membership that was important" (152). But how, from such disparate statements and uncoordinated actions, do we know that such a common notion existed?

Was the Great Revolt important in the later formation of Syrian nationalism and the Syrian national state? Surely it was important as a mythic ancestor. It was also, in part, an early contest for power between the old landowning elites, and the sons of rural notables educated in Ottoman and French military academies. This struggle ended in the 1960s with the victory of Alawi and other minority officers. Their victory, however, did not stem from the Great Revolt, nor from rural resistance to the central state, but rather from military coups. Syria as a nation-state is not a descendant of the Great Revolt but of the French colonial state.

"The Great Revolt" is a deeply researched and well-told story, but it seems over-committed to a populist vision of history that calls for more rigorous analytical judgments.