This article shows the self-contradiction of the position that still prevails in the mainstream media: if the jihadists are really a tiny minority of extremists whose understanding of Islam is rejected by the great majority, then why should anyone be concerned about an Islamic revival in Syria? But this article is closer to the truth: the resurgence of Islam itself makes for a revival of jihadist sentiment, and that's why secular Syrians are worried.
From the Washington Post, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:
NASIRIYAH, Syria -- A religious revival is sweeping Syria, challenging the secular, ruling Baath Party to allow more Muslim influence in government and frightening many Syrians schooled for decades to fear political Islam.Growing religious feeling can be seen across the landscape, from the proliferation of head scarves worn by young women in Damascus to an enormous privately funded mosque nearing completion in downtown Aleppo, Syria's second city. Muslim clerics, meanwhile, are growing increasingly bold in asking for democratic political reforms that could give them a larger role in government.
Alarmed by the trend, some within Syria's secular intelligentsia and middle class have begun writing and organizing against it. From his airy home in Nasiriyah, a town 35 miles northeast of Damascus, Nabil Fayyad, a secular writer, accused the government in print last September of softening its stand against the increasingly popular Islamic movement, its chief rival for power, amid pressure from the United States to reform.
It's quite possible that the US pressure for further reforms is stirring the motivations of the political islamists to push for a more islamo-centric government system. So in effect the US's desire to see the extension of a secular state in Syria is forming exactly the opposite to what is deired.
We should tread carefully here, the British governments use of Internment to quell Republican dissent in Northern Irelnad impelled the republicans to take greater steps to be heard. I'm not inferring here that the secular government or u.s intends to use such a method. But rather any external involvement from the u.s or any soveriegn nation should fully engage with the secular and islamic to push for reforms in goverment.
"Alarmed by the trend, some within Syria's secular intelligentsia and middle class have begun writing and organizing against it."
I wonder how long it will take for CAIR to classify them as "Islamophobic".
The ruling class is almost overwhelmingly Alawite, who make up 12% of the population. Save for Mustafa Tlass, a Sunni and close adviser both to Hafez al-Assad and to his son Bashar, the Sunnis are not represented at the very top. The Alawites, like the Druze, are not regarded as completely orthodox, and it does not take much to convince members of the Muslim Brotherood that Alawites are, even aside from being Shi'a, are not "real Muslims" because of their worship of Miriam (pictures of her can be seen on the outside of Alawite houses).
This syncretism (Islam plus Miriam-worship) logically follows from Syria's location, farther from Arabia, and for centuries, before the Seljuks and then the Ottomans, arrived, close to the Christian lands of Byzantium. Such ancient Christian centers as Edessa (where Ephraim the Syrian lived)were seized by Islam late. It takes centuries to slowly asphyxiate the conquered non-Muslims, and naturally some remain.
The Alawites know that they are not regarded as full Muslims. And it is more than a matter of suspicion. Members of the Muslim Brotherhood murdered 82 Alawite military cadets at a graduate ceremony circa 1980 in Haleb (Aleppo). The Alawites went to work, and in 1982 at Hama showed what they would, and could, do. But the Christians, themselves existing on a kind of sufferance, need the Alawites, and Hafez al-Assad had, among his household guard, a group of Armenian Christians, but did not allow himself to be guarded by a group of "real" (i.e., non-Alawite) Muslims.
On the other hand, in order to prove their Muslim credentials, outside Syria the Alawites are plus islamiste que l'ayatollah, serving as a conduit for Iranian aid to Hezbollah, choosing pliable puppets for the Lebanese government, including some collaborationist Lebanese Christians, and, of course, doing what they can to cause trouble in Iraq.
The American government has ways to make the Alawites understand that we understand this game, and will not tolerate it. They can be severely damaged, and thrown to the Muslim wolves of the Brotherhood. It can be done by so damaging Syria's capacity to project power -- destroying its air force and some other installations would be a nice start -- which, in turn, would embolden Muslims within Syria. Do the Alawites want that to happen? What really scares them are their domestic enemies, not the relatively benign Americans. But the United States has the ability to so damage the Syrian state, its prestige, and its ability to crush internal rebellions, that the Alawites will not prevail.
Let's make a deal. Stop supporting the wrong side in Iraq. Cut off all support to Hezbollah in Lebanon. Get out of Lebanon. Then if Secretary Rumsfeld is feeling kindly, he will let the Alawite regime -- and the Alawites -- survive, but only because in their own ruthless way, and for their own reasons, the Alawites help protect the Christians in Syria. And right now, the United States just can't take on that task itself.
Okay?
You seem to have forgotten that the Ba'ath party in Syria is not a nice bunch of humanist academics, but a reproduction of the very same SECULAR party led by a certain SADDAM HUSSEIN who was INSTALLED IN POWER by the CIA in Iraq. President Assad persecuted his people as much as Saddam. But this website's support of Syria's Ba'ath party demonstrates that it prefers ruthless suppression, torture and arbitrary arrests, as long as it is not against US interests. This can be seen in the number of ruthless dictatorships that the US supports around the world. Religious Muslims have a right to have a religious government.
whitequee~ what support? show me the exact words, please. And please stop running in place- even if you run off the mouth Twice as Fast! You'll never get anywhere.
The extremists that fuel the fire are running out of hiding spaces in Iraqi and Afghanistan thus they will follow the path of least resistance finally pooling together in the last place they can go and then the trap is set and the target snared.
"There is no such thing as inevitable war. If war comes it will be from failure of human wisdom".
Bonar Law
When I was in Aleppo, Syria, I could see the resurgence because of the number of veiled women. Years back the government cracked down and prevented women from veiling, nowadays it's much different. Aleppo is where a large number of the terrorists in Iraq traffic from, because of its close parallel with Mosul.
In Damascus, I passed many newsstands with pictures of OBL or American symbols burning. I was very happy to reach the Jordanian border.
NASIRIYAH, Syria -- A religious revival is sweeping Syria, challenging the secular, ruling Baath Party to allow more Muslim influence in government and frightening many Syrians schooled for decades to fear political Islam.
I would suggest to the governing elite of Syria that if they wish to remain in power they follow the example of Algeria and be completely and absolutely ruthless. This is the only course that works with Islamos and it has work reasonably well in Algeria.
A reminder regarding whitequeen and his fellow travelers, don’t feed the trolls. If they wish to sit and watch, that is fine, but DO NOT encourage them by speaking or debating with them.
Canuck, why are you so afraid of discussion? Or are you bowing to your 'mullah' Fitzgerald and shutting out any possibility of having your thinking de-programmed?
Athena,why should women be FORCED not to wear a scarf? Women should have the right to wear it or not to wear it as they CHOOSE. I have also been to Syria, and a sad situation it is. People too afraid to speak about Assad, even though he is dead. True knowledge and esoterism has been oppressed. Poverty is spreading owing to mis-management of the government. If you want to stamp out Islamism, get rid of poverty.
For references on Iraq and US sponsorship of terrorism go and read William Blum's Rogue State.
People shouldn't be forced not to wear it. I'm just noting the changes that have occured at the government's will. One second they're ripping them off womens' heads, the next they're gently persuading it.
But you say women should be able to choose. Yes, yes they should. But how much of it really is "free choice?" How much of that choice is dictated by society's demands? I'd argue a lot. The scarf is political, not religious in nature. Islam is the conduit to merge the two hand-in-hand.
Assad is evil, the legacy and the son. There's no doubt about that. Ridding the country of him won't end it's problems; poverty still pervades. But ridding the country of poverty won't stop Islamism either. While the malaise of no work, no money certainly adds to Islamist sentiment, it's not the core, end-all, be-all solution. How do we account for the number of martyrs who had university educations and come from wealthy families?
Let's just say we dump billions upon billions into Palestine without any direction for that money and without any political reforms. Some Palestinians will build nicer homes, send their kids to university and live well-off. And some will just purchase more sophisticated bombs, funnel money for more violence and ruin the lives of the other Palestinians who want peace by inciting more war. Nice solution.
Freeing a country, implementing gradual democratic reforms (the pefect is the enemy of the good), and taking away the intense power of politics infused with Islam is the only alternative. Free choice rather than directed fatalism is certainly an answer to Islamism and tyrannical governments who use it as a buffer. It's also certainly an answer to the economic situations. They go hand-in-hand, you know.
whitequeen:
As an adherent of a "faith" whose very name means "submission" you are a fine one to talk about deprogramming.