Raphael Lefevre - Ashes of Hama

ASHES OF HAMA

The Muslim Brotherhood in Syria

RAPHAL LEFVRE

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lefvre, Raphal.
Ashes of Hama : the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria / Raphal Lefvre.
p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-19-933062-1 (alk. paper)
1. Jamiyat al-Ikhwan al-Muslimin (Syria)History. 2. SyriaHistory20th
century. 3. SyriaHistory21st century. I. Title.
BP10.J386L44 2013
322.42095691dc23
2013014739

1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2

Printed in India
on Acid-Free Paper

I would like to thank all the people without whom this research project would not have become a reality. I am primarily indebted to Professor George Joff who not only provided me with excellent supervision throughout my studies at the University of Cambridge but has also acted as an insightful adviser and a constant source of support ever since. My warmest thanks are also directed to Patrick Seale who, from the very beginning, supported my willingness to dig into Syrias history and shed light on previously little-discussed aspects by providing much advice. I am also deeply indebted to Ignace Leverrier whose expert knowledge of Syrian political life helped to guide me through the maze of Baathist politics. Without his numerous contacts and the quality of the material he kindly provided me with, this study would not have been possible. The same is true of Ahmed al-Othman whose generosity is a key pillar upon which this book rests. His willingness to introduce me into the world of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood proved invaluable. In this respect, I am also thankful for the access I was granted to numerous leaders and rank-and-file members of the Islamist organization as well as their opponents from various fieldssome of whom spoke on condition of anonymity. This study owes much to their trust. I would also like to express my warmest gratitude and friendship to Mehdi Laghmari in Paris, Mohammed Laroussi and Hadia al-Attar in Aachen, Abdullah Ali, Walid Safour, Obeida Nahas and Malik al-Abdeh in London, Emira Bahri and Yassine in Tunis, and Ahmed al-Othman in Istanbul and Paris, who all contributed greatly to the publication of this book by expressing their readiness to help translate original material from Arabic. I am also deeply grateful for Rana Kabbanis friendship and her early encouragements both of which acted as important sources of inspiration. Additionally, many experts and critical readers gave insightful feedback on earlier drafts of this study. In this respect, I am particularly thankful to Dr Bente Scheller, Dr Nikolaos Van Dam, Professor George Joff and Professor Philippe Droz Vincent for their time. Needless to say, any mistakes that remain are entirely my own.

As this book went through several rounds of drafts and re-drafts, I am deeply grateful for all the time Anne Wolf, Anna Carden and Banu Turnaoglu spent reviewing earlier versions, giving substantial feedback. The staff at Hurst were also very helpful in this respect and in particular I owe much to Michael Dwyer who, by immediately giving his trust and confidence, made the publication of this book possible. The process of writing took a long time, however, and at times proved challenging. All my thanks go to Anne Wolf who, in addition to reading and editing successive drafts, also proved to be a constant and unyielding source of support. Finally, I would like to stress how much support I received from my family, whose sustained encouragement was a great source of motivation.

When references to the advent of an Arab Spring started to emerge after popular uprisings toppled regimes in Tunisia and Egypt, many commentators suggested it was unlikely that this revolutionary Arab mood would reach Syria. Throughout the month of February 1982, the Baath regimes most loyal forces shelled entire quarters of the city and bombed many of its residential areasleaving between 25,000 and 40,000 dead.

Analysts were right to point out the significance of the memory of the massacre in the hearts and minds of the Syrian people. What they failed to foresee, however, was that this collective scar would not forever restrain Syrians from defying the regime that rules over them. Instead, it would fuel such a degree of resentment and anger that the uprisings which started in March 2011 at Dara soon spread throughout the country with ever increasing pace and intensity. In virtually every Syrian city, the message of local opposition leaders and protest organizers soon boiled down to a simple sentence: We will not let the massacres of 1982 be repeated!

Soon, however, these Syrians must have felt as if they were reliving their own history. In February 2012 Bashar al-Assads younger brother Maher ordered a three week artillery siege of the Baba Amr quarter in Homs which left thousands of inhabitants deadmuch as Hafiz al-Assads regime henchmen had done to Hama exactly thirty years before.

The memory of atrocities suffered in the early 1980s by Syrias Islamists at the hands of the regime seemed to be an increasingly important mobilizing factor in the uprisings. A journalist, reporting on the revolt from northern Syria, observed: A village elder with a handgun strapped to his side [] said he was arrested [in the late 1970s] as part of the regimes crackdown on suspected Muslim Brothers and served 15 years in prison. In Aleppos countryside, the rebellion is fuelled by memories of that crackdown. Men in every village, it seems, can recite the names of men who were killed or disappeared into regime prisons or were forced into exile.

It is against this background that the rebels uncompromising demand for the overthrow of the regime should be understood: their call for revenge resonates with the countrys bloody history of opposition between the regime and its Islamist rivals. For me, the revolution started a long time ago, when my brother was arrested, confirmed a rebel in Damascus. He was part of the Muslim Brotherhoods revolution of 1980. Then, one day the mukhabarat intelligence men came in three cars and arrested him. Nobody knows where they took himnot even until now, 32 years later, he explained. Now my revolution is getting bigger.

But such a sense of historical continuity between the current uprisings in Syria and the situation prevailing in the 1980s is not only characteristic of anti-regime militants. Much of the support the Baathist rulers still retain among certain segments of the Syrian population is also framed in terms only understandable when seen through the prism of history. For instance, the apprehension voiced by members of minority communities about the demise of the secular Baath regime and its potential replacement by a government dominated by Islamist forces emerged out of the fear that they could again be the target of violence perpetrated by extremist Sunni groups. The Alawis in particular, a religious sect from which most of the countrys decision-makers come, have since March 2011 expressed their fear of a return to a situation similar to that which prevailed between 1979 and 1982. Then, sectarian provocations ignited by a handful of radical Islamic militants brought the country to the verge of civil war, drawing the various religious communities into a seemingly endless cycle of retaliation against one another.