Ashes of Hama: The Muslim Brotherhood in Syria
Page 25
Rhetorically, Brotherhood leaders stressed the coherence of their support for the FSA by insisting that “the right of self-defence does not contravene with the principle of the peacefulness of the revolution.”33 On the ground, however, some observers started to draw parallels with the situation prevailing in the early 1980s when fighting units affiliated with the Ikwhan’s “military branch” flourished throughout the country. Figures suggest that, at the time of writing, the Muslim Brotherhood already supported close to 20 per cent of the fighting units throughout the country and up to 60–65 per cent of those located in the region of Homs—leading to accusations that the organization was now “administering the revolution”.34 It is also undeniable that the Ikhwan gave the bulk of their logistical and financial support to Islamist fighters. Syrian Brothers explain this by insisting that they prefer to provide help to their relatives and trusted contacts, who often happen to be fellow Islamists, rather than to unknown militants who could either be extremists or mobsters. “We have on the ground our networks,” confirmed a prominent member of the Ikhwan, “and we make sure they don’t distribute arms to those who are not within the streamline of the revolution.”35 A commander of the FSA summed it up this way: “al-Qaeda finances the jihadists, the Muslim Brotherhood funds the moderates.”36 In turn, the seeming caution of the Syrian Brotherhood when it comes to arming rebels and its attempts to strike a middle ground between secular groups and radical jihadists underline the extent to which its comeback as a social and political actor is felt not only in exiled SNC meetings but also at home.
Back to Syria: opportunities and challenges
In a reflection of its growing profile, the Syrian Brotherhood announced, at a four-day internal conference held in mid-July 2012 that it would create a political party to run for elections once Bashar al-Assad is gone. “We are ready for the post-Assad era,” announced a prominent member of the Ikhwan, “we have plans for the economy, the courts, politics”.37 Critics of the organization have long pointed to its relatively modest electoral showings in the 1950s and early 1960s to suggest that it would score if allowed to compete in free and fair elections.38 But recent Ikhwani estimates suggest that the Brotherhood’s political platform could well gather as much as 25 to 30 per cent of the votes—hence giving the Islamist group enough seats, in a parliamentary system, to form and lead a coalition government.39 And, in fact, there is evidence that, if the Ikhwan were allowed to return to Syria, they would certainly score many more votes than they did in the past.
Those analysts who forecast such a trend often point to the “Islamist Spring” which followed the toppling of secular autocrats in Egypt and Tunisia as an explanatory factor, suggesting the same would certainly happen with Syria. The seeds of the Islamist victories in these countries are indeed present, at least to a certain extent, in Damascus: the long history of Islamist opposition to autocratic secular rule, the seeming failure of leftist parties to address the concerns of the religious corners of society, or, again, the exponential growth of “poverty belts” around urban areas traditionally prone to vote for conservative parties. But there are other factors, all specific to Syria, which suggest that the Ikhwan would improve their electoral performance by comparison with their past experience—at least in the medium and long term.
One factor is that the Brotherhood would probably fare much better in Syria’s countryside nowadays than it did in the past. In the 1950s and early 1960s, the organization’s electoral reach was limited to the “big cities”, essentially Aleppo, Damascus, Hama and Homs. During the uprisings it led in the late 1970s, the Muslim Brotherhood found its social base, once again, in the urban centres of Syria (see Chapter 3). With time, however, the regime’s pro-rural economic programme—which had helped Hafiz al-Assad gain the support of the countryside in the early 1980s—turned into mildly liberalized policies. In addition, throughout the 1990s and 2000s, the Ba’athist state seemed increasingly unable to cope with the harsh weather and the difficult socioeconomic conditions encountered in the countryside Growing rural dissatisfaction with the regime meant that, when the uprisings began to erupt in Syria in the framework of the Arab Spring, they were first and foremost located in the countryside before spreading to the cities. Rejecting the Ba’ath Party could therefore mean, for the inhabitants of rural Syria, embracing its historical rival: the Syrian Brotherhood. Such a trend would only be reinforced by the organization’s recent inroads in the countryside. Sources within the Brotherhood indeed indicate that the Ikhwan had been trying to gather support for their cause in the countryside even before the current uprisings erupted. This is partially because the regime’s security scrutiny was always less intense in rural areas, which made them more suited to underground activity. But, perhaps most importantly, this is also a by-product of the Islamist struggle of the early 1980s, when many members of the Brotherhood fled harsh repression in Hama and Aleppo to the rural periphery of these cities.
Critics of the Ikhwan who downplay the chances of Brotherhood success in a post-Assad election also suggest that the country’s business community would be “more likely to ally itself with non-Islamist groups”40 than with the Ikhwan. But, in fact, significant parts of the business class were already supportive of the Brotherhood throughout the 1950s and 1960s—despite the populist tone of the Ikhwan’s “Islamic socialism”—and some businessmen even came to finance Islamist networks in the late 1970s (see Chapter 3). In a post-Assad Syria, that trend would only be likely to intensify as many exiled members of the Syrian Brotherhood have been active, over the past thirty years, in setting up business networks throughout the region. The challenge, here, will be to conquer the heart of the Damascene business class which has been co-opted by the regime for the past thirty years and which has been out of the Brotherhood’s reach since the split of its “Damascus wing” in the late 1960s. There are indications, however, that the Ikhwan—and in particular the organization’s youth—might be increasingly successful at making inroads within the Damascus merchant class, in particular the part affiliated with the religious Zayd movement active in the capital. The Islamist organization is also well equipped to deal with regional divides typical of Syrian politics. In the past, the Ikhwan teamed up with the People’s Party, an Aleppo-based pro-business platform, and this allowed the Islamist organization to increase its popularity in the northern metropolis and to double its participation in government, where it was represented by a Muslim Brother and by a sympathizer of the Ikhwan who was also a member of the People’s Party (see Chapter 2).
But, perhaps most significantly, what could put the Syrian Brotherhood back under the electoral spotlight is its unique organizational capacity to run a coherent and nationwide campaign without shifts in loyalty of the sort to be expected in recently formed political groups. Some have, of course, predicted, on a regular basis, the breakup of the Ikhwan into two distinct movements. While there is indeed a history of divisions within the organization—and in particular, between the “Aleppo faction” and the “Hama clan” until recently—they were more the product of ideological and then clan quarrels resulting from the Ba’ath regime’s repression than of diverging visions of the state, society, the economy or politics in general. Nothing, therefore, indicates that these two groups would split if the Brotherhood was allowed to go back to Syria and run for elections; nor would it be in their collective interest. There is, in addition, an element often overlooked in analyses of Muslim Brotherhood movements throughout the Middle East: the Ikhwan’s political education teaches their members to be, first and foremost, loyal to the tanzim (the organization). Institutional belonging is therefore a key component of Ikhwani culture—especially in Syria where all members, whatever their ideological and regional inclination, are bound by the tears and blood of the Ba’athist repression. “It’s normal that people sometimes get a little bit emotional or have personal feelings about things,” explained a prominent Syrian Brother, “but, overall, respect dominates”.41 Of course, there is a price to pa
y for Ikhwani unity. When, as sometimes happens, some internal reforms or policy proposals put forward by the leadership alienate one or the other group—for ideological or clan-based reasons—they have to be put aside for the sake of unity.
At the same time, however, it is precisely this loyalty to the tanzim and, as a consequence, the Syrian Brotherhood’s inherent difficulty in reinventing and reforming itself that increasingly seems to frustrate its younger members. Indeed, what observers who analyse the Syrian Ikhwan through the lens of the traditional division between the “Hama clan” and the “Aleppo faction” tend to overlook is the growing generation gap between leaders who were already in charge in the late 1970s but still run the organization and the group’s ambitious youth. This reflects two of the Syrian Brotherhood’s most pressing challenges. On the one hand, the youth’s frustration underlines the extent to which a generational handover is, in the short term, vitally needed if the Ikhwan are to survive. With only 20 per cent of Brotherhood members under the age of forty-five, according to internal estimates, a challenge for the organization will be to ensure its generational renewal—something which will only be effective if young and talented conservative politicians also feel represented at the leadership level.
On the other hand, the wide age gap between the organization’s leaders and its youngest members has also made the old-fashioned nature of the Brotherhood more obvious to some. Elderly leaders with a troubled past, clan divisions and a sometimes rigid ideology, played a role in fostering discontent in certain corners of the Ikwhani youth. “The Brotherhood’s autocratic, tribal structure has become antiquated and ineffective,” explained a Syrian Brother in his mid-forties, who fled Syria for Turkey thirty years ago. “The old generation is focused on leadership, we’re focused on solutions,”42 he stressed. Two broad trends emerged out of the Ikhwani youth as a result of its frustration. One wing is determined to remain within the Brotherhood’s fold but wishes, in exchange for its loyalty, that the current leadership engages in serious reforms and promotes capable young members to leadership positions. The other wing seems, for its part, to have already lost patience—to the extent that some of its members might soon split from the Ikhwan and act, in due course, as the organization’s most serious competitors.
Some even suggest that such a split has in fact already occurred when Ahmed Ramadan, an active opposition leader originally from Aleppo and now based in Bahrain, formed the National Action Group for Syria in February 2011, an important sub-group within the Syrian National Council (SNC) gathering young Syrian Brothers and other conservative activists. “Yes, there is a generational break within the Ikhwan,” recognized the young, media-savvy Syrian Brother Obeida Nahas, who is also the director of the Levant Institute, a think tank in London, and a prominent member of Ahmad Ramadan’s sub-group. “The National Action Group represents a new generation of conservative technocrats working on national projects for the future of Syria.” He also insisted that “the ideological component [in the new generation] is almost nonexistent.”43 Another young Syrian Brother, Hassan al-Hachimi, confirmed that the group came out of the frustration felt by the Ikhwan’s “second generation” at the traditional way in which the “old leadership” had handled the organization since the Syrian uprisings. “It’s not a split yet from the Muslim Brotherhood as some of our members are still part of the organization,” he insisted, adding that “it is also not taking place within the Ikhwani framework […] It’s about doing something different […] Our ambition is to be more political and less ideological than the Muslim Brotherhood but also more inclusive and democratic.”44 With a conservative, nationalist and pro-business rhetoric, allied with a social base expected to be strong in Aleppo where most of its activists originally come from, the National Action Group seems to want to replicate the successful pattern followed by the People’s Party in the past.
In addition to possible splits within their ranks along generational lines, the Syrian Ikhwan are also faced with a fierce political and ideological competition from other Islamist actors who, as well as seeking to occupy the middle ground claimed by the Brotherhood, are also deeply hostile towards the organization. Some argue that, inside the country, the ulama are best positioned to increase their political influence in a post-Assad Syria. However, the men of religion are divided between those who have been co-opted by a Ba’ath regime in which they have a vested interest and those who have lent their support to the Syrian protesters.45 Others argue that, outside Syria, the London-based Movement for Justice and Development (MJD) is increasingly acting as an efficient challenger to the Muslim Brotherhood’s hegemony over the opposition in exile.
Formed in late 2005, the MJD was considered as early as 2009 as “small but politically connected and increasingly active”46 in a cable from the American Embassy in Damascus. Led by Anas and Malik al-Abdeh, the sons of Muhammed al-Abdeh, a former prominent member of the Syrian Ikhwan’s “Damascus wing”, the MJD could at first glance be mistaken for representing the “second generation” of Issam al-Attar’s disciples. This, however, is denied both by the MJD leaders and by al-Attar’s closest associate, Muhammed Hawari, who insists that “even though we share common roots the fruits are different.”47 The founders of the MJD, for their part, are keen to emphasize that the creation of their group represents a triple break from the Muslim Brotherhood: generational, ideological and organizational. “The Syrian Ikhwan has a fundamentally undemocratic way of operating,” explained Malik al-Abdeh. “The same leaders have been in charge for decades: some of them even have a history of violence and are responsible for the exile of thousands of people in the early 1980s.” The co-founder of the MJD even went further: “on the top of that, the Muslim Brotherhood is a very rigid and hierarchical organization operating in secrecy as freemasons with an interdiction to formulate criticism of the leadership.”48
It is against this backdrop that the MJD insists it is more of a “network” than a “political party” strictly speaking: its founders are committed to quietly and progressively convincing Syrian elites of the MJD’s pragmatic agenda. Ideologically, the organization sees itself in line with the Islamo-conservative Turkish AKP Party. “Our ambition is to emulate the success of the AKP in Turkey,” Malik al-Abdeh explained. “Our members may be religiously devout or hold conservative views with regards to the role of religion, society and state but they want to be successful in politics without having to hold the narrow-religious view of Muslim Brotherhood members.”49 Despite its small size and the relatively young age of its members, the MJD has been increasingly successful at penetrating the core of exiled Syrian politics. When the Damascus Declaration group was formed in October 2005, Anas al-Abdeh was nominated as its chief coordinator. Very soon, however, the competition between the Ikhwan and the MJD was felt on both sides. “The Muslim Brotherhood adopted a very hostile attitude towards us right from the beginning,” claimed Malik al-Abdeh.
But the reverse also seems to have been true. When, in late 2005, the Syrian Ikhwan expressed willingness for closer cooperation with the Damascus Declaration umbrella, they were faced with difficulties as the leader of the MJD, Anas al-Abdeh, then also the coordinator of opposition activities, seemed quite reluctant. According to a cable from the US Embassy in Damascus in November 2009, “the MJD does not enjoy a cooperative relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood.” “As the Damascus Declaration has grown abroad, the MJD has tried to take an increasingly active role and endeavoured to prevent Muslim Brotherhood members from being elected to any Damascus Declaration committees,” the dispatch read. “With the Damascus Declaration’s increased exposure internationally, competition for influence is fuelling conflict between the two groups.”50 For a time, the Syrian Brotherhood must have felt relieved as the MJD came under fire for having accepted “US government money,” according to an article published by the Washington Post in April 2011. “The whole story blew out of proportion,” remembered Malik al-Abdeh, who went on to explain that “we never hid the fact that
the Democracy Council had been financing the MJD-linked Barada TV.” According to him, the episode is now behind the MJD and one could even argue that it might have, in fact, helped publicize its activities. “In the end, it worked to our advantage,” argued Malik al-Abdeh. “We became known and more Syrians became interested by our TV programmes—some of which are now very popular since the advent of the Syrian revolution.”51
The MJD, in addition, recovered some of its political strength over the past few months by capitalizing on the networks it has for long been seeking to establish with mildly Islamist and conservative personalities also opposed to the Brotherhood’s perceived hegemony over the opposition. From Radwan Ziadeh to Imad al-Din al-Rachid and others, they are part of the new generation of activists who left Syria only recently and consider Islam as a cultural framework within which to define the future Syrian state. While they put forward Islamic and democratic values, they clearly refuse to be associated with the Muslim Brotherhood.52 This, in turn, could reflect one other significant hurdle for the Ikhwan: bridging the gap of mistrust with a Syrian elite long accustomed to the regime’s rhetoric depicting the organization as inherently violent and radical. To counter this claim, the Brotherhood will have to ensure a transition as smooth as possible from being an underground political and social actor, with all its culture of secrecy, to being a visible group whose leadership and membership are open to all Syrians. Eventually, this could even attract the multiple political and social actors currently emerging in rebel-held enclaves of Syria and starting to run these areas independently, away from the regime’s scrutiny.