The Great Syrian Revolt and the Rise of Arab Nationalism

CHAPTER 6. The Politics of Rebellion

CHAPTER 6 The Politics of Rebellion The strength of the movement is in the middle and lower classes, who, indeed, reproach the notables for their lack of co-operation . . . What constitutes the difficulties at Damascus is universal popular support for the rebels . . . The guerrilla [war] in the city is rendered possible by the universal complicity of the humbler inhabitants, who are not far from regarding the rebels as heroes. My barber, for instance, did not hesitate to compare them to ‘‘Antar,’’ the hero of popular Arab legend, much to [his] disadvantage, who, he pointed out, never had to fight against artillery, tanks and aeroplanes.1 T he bombardment of Damascus changed the direction of the uprising. The nationalist leadership of Damascus had fled abroad or to Jabal Ḥawrân. Some were in jail. Impassioned and artful appeals to patriotism and nationalism nailed to shop doors and passed from hand to hand in the bazaar stopped too. Still, the insurgency expanded every day in the region surrounding Damascus. Intelligence records show that thousands of Syrian men and women took part in the revolt during these months. The documents of their enemies are the best and in some cases the only written record of their actions. Many of their names are recorded nowhere else. This chapter reads these records backward, in direct contradiction to what mandate chroniclers intended, to uncover the consciousness of the mandate’s enemies in its own records. And while there is a collective consciousness hidden in negative relief in the records of resistance and suppression, these same traces show that the elements that made up this collective consciousness differed from region to region and from person to person. The mandate authorities collected letters and directives passed between rebels and between other Syrian citizens. The letters speak in the name of the Syrian Arab nation and deal with matters both patriotic and venal. Memoir accounts also add to the composite picture of an insurgent consciousness and emerging national identity, made up of sometimes wildly disparate and seemingly inconsistent elements. This inconsistency could be a source of strength The Politics of Rebellion  for the insurgents, however; because while rebels agreed on common membership in a Syrian national community, they remained free to articulate and imagine independently what membership meant. The debates over the membership and meaning of national community were contentious. Some insurgents argued that the evolving nation should be secular and nonsectarian, while others argued for Islamic symbols of identity that excluded minorities. In this chapter I have not tried to impose order and consistency where little was evident. Instead, I have tried to let these fragmentary sources speak to demonstrate the uncompromised vitalityof a subaltern nationalist insurgency. France continued to fight the rebellion on a variety of fronts. The bombardment of Damascus and the resulting international outcry led to a shakeup in Paris and the recall and replacement of General Sarrail. His successor was Henry de Jouvenel, a prominent journalist and the first civilian high commissioner of the mandate. Meanwhile French intelligence officers carefully recorded all ongoing rebel activity—while doggedly arguing that all resistance was the work of bandits and outlaws. Disturbances were also blamed on a variety of outside elements, since French political leaders wished to avoid acknowledging the tremendous opposition to French rule among ordinary Syrians. Mandate forces continued to bomb and shell numerous villages, neighborhoods , and suburbs in the region of Damascus. Typically troops and armored vehicles entered only after intensive bombardment. Having learned the lesson of late October, and the fate of General Sarrail, mandate forces avoided shelling the areas of Damascus where foreign embassies and missions resided. Christian villages in the mountains were compelled to swear allegiance to France and to accept weapons to fight against insurgents. Oaths of allegiance were solicited and received from major urban notables in Damascus and Ḥamâh and from leaders of the various bedouin tribes. French intelligence and political agents cultivated spies and politicians among the Syrian population in an endless search for ‘‘friends of France.’’ Such people often made proclamations of undying loyalty to France and the colonial mission, which figured prominently in intelligence documents prepared for Paris and the new high commissioner, Henry de Jouvenel. Despite months of agitation and countless pamphlets and proclamations, the French bombardment of Damascus ended any organized mobilization in the city.The city’s destruction indelibly underscored the inabilityof the urban elite to lead resistance. But the effects of the bombardment were not what mandate...