During nearly five decades in power, Syria's Baath Party has evolved from an Arab nationalist movement into a vast organisation that has infiltrated every aspect of public life.
When Hafez al-Assad seized power in a coup in 1970, the party became a vital tool to instil loyalty, as well as help control the government and military alongside the pervasive security services. The party's senior leaders have remained loyal to the late president's son, Bashar, despite a call from the main opposition coalition, the Syrian National Council (SNC), for them to defect in protest at the violent crackdown on anti-government protests that began in March 2011.
Pan-Arabism
The Baath Party was founded in 1947 by Michel Aflaq, a Syrian teacher, whose brand of radical Arab nationalism won supporters across the region. The party's early slogan "unity, freedom, socialism" attracted a generation of Arab political activists who wanted to overthrow the European-backed governments of the Middle East and create a modern industrial economy. Former Syrian President Hafez al-Assad (2000) Hafez al-Assad used the Baath Party to help control the Syrian government and military
In 1953, the Baath Party merged with Akram Hawrani's Arab Socialist Party to become the Arab Socialist Baath Party. The shrewd alliance helped the new group quickly become a serious challenge to its rivals. However, it was army officers who played the leading role in establishing Baathist rule. Hafez al-Assad was among a group of Baath supporters in the Syrian army who seized power in 1963.
Growing disagreements between the civilian Baathists, such as Aflaq, and the party's Military Committee, led by young officers such as Assad, caused a split in the pan-Arab movement. Aflaq's supporters were forced from the Baath Party leadership. They found refuge in Iraq, where the Baath Party returned to power in a coup in July 1968. The Iraqi Baathists elected a new pan-Arab leadership, which included Saddam Hussein and Aflaq. After Hafez al-Assad launched his own coup in Syria in 1970, dubbed the "Corrective Movement", the rift between the rival wings of the Baath Party deepened. A Syrian court condemned Aflaq and other veteran Baathists to death, after trials held in their absence.
Indoctrination
In 1973, the Syrian constitution was amended to give the Baath Party unique status as the "leader of the state and society", ushering it into all areas of public life.
Its main role was to issue directives from the central government to regional representatives, mobilise the masses for political activities, and gauge the "mood" of the general population. Bashar al-Assad shakes hands with Baath Party members before being elected chairman of its Regional Command in 2000 Bashar al-Assad sought to present himself as a reformer at first. Children were indoctrinated with the party's ideology at school, Baathists controlled trade unions, and the Military Committee monitored the armed forces.
Many posts in the public sector, the military and government were generally reserved for Baathists, which helped boost party membership. By 1981, some 375,000 people had joined the party. By 2010, this number had reportedly risen to 1.2 million - nearly 10% of the population. The only other legal parties were from the National Progressive Front (NPF) - an alliance of nationalist and left-wing supporters of the government who accepted the Baath Party's "leading role".
Baathist officials were, however, targeted during an armed insurrection by Sunni Islamist groups in the late 1970s and early 1980s, which culminated in a rebellion in Hama in February 1982 that was brutally crushed, leaving between 10,000 and 25,000 people dead. Over the next two decades, the Baath Party remained hugely influential, but real power was increasingly collected in the hands of President Assad, his family, close advisers, the military and security services. Despite this, in the eyes of many Syrians the party embodied the corruption, nepotism and stagnation that became so widespread. When he was elected president and chairman of the Baath Party's Regional Command in 2000, Bashar al-Assad sought to present himself as a reformer.
Bashar al-Assad addresses the Baath Party conference (2005) Many Syrians were disappointed by the lack of change after the 2005 Baath Party conference
Ahead of a rare Baath Party regional conference in 2005, state media talked of an opportunity for the party's "revitalisation". But expectations that the constitution would be amended to remove the article making it the leader of state and society were never met. The political party law was also not changed to permit the existence of groups outside the National Progressive Front. In fact, it was only in February 2012, after nearly a year of anti-government protests and bloodshed that threatened the dominance of the Assad family and the Baath Party, that the constitution and the political party law were changed. They did not, however, have much of an impact at the subsequent parliamentary elections in May, which were boycotted by the opposition and saw pro-government parties win almost all the seats.
Holding on
At the start of the uprising, a large number of officials publicly left the party in protest at the government's suppression of dissent. And in March 2012 the then Deputy Oil Minister, Abdo Hussameddin, announced his defection to the opposition.
Anti-government demonstrators at a rally in Idlib, Syria The Baath Party has been a target of anti-government demonstrations across Syria
Such incidents gained a great deal of coverage in the world's media, but the Baath Party officials involved were appeared to be relatively minor. The party's main leadership bodies, the Regional Command and the National Command, have remained steadfastly loyal to Bashar al-Assad. Analysts say top officials in the Baath Party lead a privileged life, and stand to lose the most from a change of government. Many also belong to Syria's minority groups, including the president's own Alawite sect, and see the uprising as a struggle for survival.
It therefore seems unlikely that Baath Party leaders will abandoned the president in the near future, regardless of the increasing international pressure and rising death toll.
Source: BBC News
Showing posts with label Hafez al-Assad. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hafez al-Assad. Show all posts
Monday, July 9, 2012
Tuesday, February 15, 2005
Rafik Hariri, Ex-Premier of Lebanon, Dies at 60
Rafik Hariri, a billionaire contractor who plunged into the maelstrom of Lebanese politics to rebuild his war-ravaged country and twice served as prime minister, died on Monday in a huge car bomb explosion in Beirut. He was 60. Mr. Hariri, who had always surrounded himself with bodyguards and lived in a heavily fortified compound, was killed when the bomb hit his motorcade in the city center that he helped restore. He had served as prime minister a total of 10 years, stepping down last fall over Syrian interference in Lebanon.
Born poor in southern Lebanon, Mr. Hariri was a self-made man who amassed a fortune building hotels, palaces and conference centers for the royal family in Saudi Arabia, and remained very close to the Saud family. He was as extravagant in his charitable works as he was in his big-game hunting, yachts, private jets and multimillion-dollar real estate projects. Always impeccably dressed, he was stout with bushy eyebrows and a commanding manner. As a politician, though, he was obliged to keep his domineering nature in check to placate Lebanon's powerful neighbor, Syria.
While Mr. Hariri was accused by some Lebanese of driving the country into debt with his ambitious rebuilding plans, he was also praised as the architect of its rebirth and renewed confidence after the devastation of 15 years of civil war, from 1975 to 1990. He was a well-known figure in Washington and European capitals, where he was largely successful in obtaining Western help to overcome Lebanon's intermittent financial crisis. Yet his political fortunes were always hostage to his up-and-down relations with Syria's presidents, now Bashar al-Assad and before him his father, Hafez al-Assad. For the most part, he appeared to steer an even course. Unlike some of the more impetuous Lebanese clan and religious leaders, Mr. Hariri carefully avoided direct criticism of Syria's role as Lebanon's overlord.
Yet his frustration with the limits that Damascus set sometimes showed. In an interview with The Boston Globe in 1993, he was asked whether the ubiquitous portrait of the elder Mr. Assad on every wall of the old Beirut airport was a problem for him. "It's not a problem to put it up," Mr. Hariri said. "It's a problem to take it down." His long-running rivalry with Émile Lahoud, the pro-Syrian Lebanese president, defined much of his political career. It prompted him to resign in 1998, after his first six years in office. He was re-elected in 2000. His irritation with Mr. Lahoud drove him to another break last year. When Damascus insisted on keeping Mr. Lahoud in office beyond the constitutional limit, Mr. Hariri resigned, a move that was widely interpreted as a definitive rupture with Syria. He had a big enough bloc in Parliament that he could have stopped Syria's order last summer to amend the Constitution to extend Mr. Lahoud's term. He agreed not to after traveling to Damascus and then to the office of Syrian intelligence, which serves as a kind of proconsul in Lebanon. He appeared for the hastily called Parliament vote on the constitutional change with his left arm in a sling from a fall, leading to jokes that the Syrians had twisted it too hard.
The downtown area was already plastered with freshly printed Lahoud posters and pre-positioned fireworks went off as soon as the vote was taken. "He could bypass criticizing Syria because he was able to criticize people who were supporting Syria, like Lahoud," said Edward S. Walker, a former American diplomat who knew Mr. Hariri from his service in the Middle East. "But he never went so far as to make himself a direct target."
Mr. Hariri was born in 1944 in Sidon, an ancient port city on the Mediterranean. The son of a vegetable vendor, he earned a degree in business administration at Arab University in Beirut and then chose the path taken by many enterprising young Arabs of his day: In 1965, he left home to seek his fortune in Saudi Arabia. After a short stint as a teacher, he turned to construction, amassing a fortune in the building frenzy that swept the kingdom in the early years of its oil boom. He became a favorite of the Saudi royal family, even gaining Saudi citizenship, a connection that would prove invaluable after he returned to Lebanon and sought to re-establish its reputation as a tourism and financial center after the civil war.
Mr. Hariri's charitable works - among them a hospital, a teaching university and scholarships for Lebanese students - first reintroduced him to his homeland and grew in tandem with his expanding financial interests. He invested heavily in the reconstruction of central Beirut along the former Green Line, which separated warring militias during the war, and later formed television and radio stations in Lebanon. Although there was some initial criticism, the downtown is now an architectural gem and very popular, particularly with tourists during the summer, when the outdoor cafes are buzzing until 3 a.m. Mr. Hariri's political career began in 1983, one year after an Israeli invasion of Lebanon and at a time when the country was paralyzed by sectarian fighting. He arrived as an envoy of King Fahd of Saudi Arabia, with a mandate to mediate between sectarian militias, dodging bullets in typically swashbuckling fashion as his small plane flew into the besieged capital. His mission failed that time, but he was later involved in the successful Saudi effort to end the war and establish the Syrian military as a peacekeeping force.
Under Lebanon's Constitution, the prime minister must be a Sunni Muslim like Mr. Hariri. He was first appointed prime minister in 1992, in the hope that his reputation as a savvy businessman would attract investment and restore confidence in the shattered Lebanese economy, and held onto the post after the country's first postwar elections in 1996. When he first took office, he pledged to lead the country in a "quantum leap" to the future. "I want to go down in the history books," he said at the time, "as the man who resurrected Beirut." Regularly cited as one of the richest men in the world, Mr. Hariri did some of that resurrection with his own money. He was a major shareholder in Solidere, the private company set up to rebuild downtown Beirut, and reportedly paid $10 million for the project's engineering plans. While he was able to pursue an independent economic policy, one that provided wealthy Syrians a safe haven for their money, Mr. Hariri had little control over Lebanon's foreign policy. The militant Shiite party, Hezbollah, supported by Syria and Iran, was left in control over southern Lebanon for years, operating without consultation or coordination with Mr. Hariri's government.
When Hezbollah attacked an Israeli patrol at the border in 2001, prompting a retaliatory airstrike by Israel, for example, Mr. Hariri said he was not surprised that he had not been given advance notice. "Maybe they wanted to make a point that they don't take advice from the government," he said. Last September, the United Nations Security Council adopted a resolution calling on Syria to respect the sovereignty of Lebanon. The vote followed the moves by pro-Syria politicians in Lebanon to change the Constitution to allow President Lahoud to remain in office. Mr. Hariri, while making his opposition known, acquiesced to the change. Then he resigned. Before his death, he had been promoting a new movement he called Al Mustaqbal (The Future), and seemed intent on remaining in Lebanese politics.
He is survived by his wife, Nazik Hariri, and six children.
Source: New York Times
Wednesday, August 26, 1987
SYRIA: STRUCTURE OF SOCIETY
In the mid-1980s, Syrian society was in a state of flux. The social, political, and economic developments of the preceding two decades precipitated profound changes and realignments in the social structure, but the implications and probable outcomes of these changes were not entirely clear. This uncertainty arises from the division of Syrian society by vertical cleavages along religious and ethnic lines, as well as by horizontal cleavages along socioeconomic and class lines. Minority groups tend to segregate themselves in their own neighborhoods and villages. Although within a minority group there is a high degree of integration and homogeneity, the group as a whole is often ascribed a certain social status. Traditionally, Syrian society has been divided between landlords and tenants, between urban dwellers and rural peasants, and between a Sunni elite and minority groups.
Until the revolutions of the mid-1960s, a syndicate of several hundred Sunni Muslim extended families living in Damascus and Aleppo had dominated life in Syria. Some of these families were of the Sharifan nobility, which claims genealogical descent from the Prophet Muhammad. Most had accumulated great wealth and wielded virtual feudal power as landlords possessing vast agricultural and real-estate holdings. Others made fortunes in industry and trade in the late ninteenth century. Another component of the ruling class was the ulama (sing, alim). This group consisted of religious scholars, Islamic judges (qadis), interpreters of law (muftis), and other persons concerned with the exposition of Sunni Islam. Prosperous Sunni bazaar merchants allied with the great families occupied the next level in the social heirarchy.
The Syrian elite was at the forefront of anticolonial struggle against the Ottoman Empire in World War I and later against the French Mandatory regime. At independence in 1946, Syria's first government was dominated by the old ruling class. However, the elite had never been a monolithic entity, and the new parliament was splintered by factionalism, feuding, and generational differences. These divisions provoked a military coup d'état in 1949 that ushered in a new era in Syrian society.
The armed services and the Baath Party were the mechanisms for the rise of a new ruling elite. Although military service traditionally had been disdained by the old Sunni elite, a military career was often the only avenue of upward mobility open to rural minority group members who could not afford an education. Such men enlisted in disproportinate numbers and came to dominate the officer corps and the enlisted ranks of Syria's armed forces. Likewise, disenfranchised elements of society joined the Baath Party. These dual trends culminated in the 1963 Baath Socialist Revolution and the 1970 takeover by the military of the Baath Party.
The land reform legislation of 1963 and the nationalization of larger financial, commercial, and industrial establishments virtually eliminated the economic and political power base of the old elite. At the same time, the new elite, comprised of the upper echelon of military and civilian leaders, consolidated its position by cultivating the support of peasants and the proletariat, who benefited from the new economic order. The regime's socialism eroded the position of the bazaar merchants while its secularism removed power from the ulama.
After coming to power in 1970, President Hafiz al Assad reversed or relaxed the more strident socialist economic measures instituted in 1963. His expansion of the role of the private sector led to the emergence of a relatively small, but highly visible new class of entrepreneurs and businessmen who made fortunes in real estate, importing, and construction. This class, nicknamed in Syria "the velvet generation," includes higher- ranking government bureaucrats and their relatives who have capitalized on their official positions to monopolize lucrative government contracts. It also has assimilated many members of the old Sunni elite, who have been coopted by the Assad regime and have accommodated themselves to the new elite. To some extent, the old and new ruling classes have merged through business partnerships and marriages that combine the money and prestige of the old elite member and the power and prestige of the new elite member. Despite a well publicized anti-corruption campaign, patronage and favoritism have remained important forces in Syrian society.
Under Assad, rural peasants have reaped significant gains in their standard of living, primarily through government transfer payments and grants of land redistributed from the original upper-class owners. However, land reform has not been entirely successful in transforming the social structure of the countryside. In many cases, farmers who had previously depended upon their urban landlords to give credit for financing their crops until harvest and to deal with the government have drifted back into similar relationships with urban interests. The landlord's role as an influential advocate and local leader has not been filled by elected Baath Party representatives. In other cases, rich proprietors have begun to regain control over agricultural land and reconstitute large estates.
Since the 1963 Baath Revolution, the approximate middle of Syrian society has remained remarkably stable, both as a percentage of the workforce and in terms of the standard of living and social mobility of its members. Because Syria has not yet developed a large industrial sector, it lacks a true proletariat of wage-earning factory workers. The number of persons employed by private and public sector industry in 1980 was 207,000, or 12 percent of the working population, according to statistics compiled by the Syrian General Federation of Trade Unions. This approximates the size of Syria's "working class."
Syria compensates for its lack of a large proletarian class of industrial factory workers by a large and flourishing group of artisans and handicrafters who produce basic commodities such as soap, textiles, glassware, and shoes in small cottage industries. This group is a main component of Syria's traditional middle class, which also encompasses small proprietors, tradesmen, and white-collar employees, and has remained at about 30 percent of the population.
Since the 1963 revolution, a new and upwardly mobile class of teachers, scientists, lawyers, technocrats, civil servants, doctors, and other professionals has slowly emerged. This new upper-middle class consists of men and women who rose from the old lower or middle classes by virtue of technical or secular higher education.
Even before the revolution of 1963, secular education had become a criterion of status among many ordinary Syrians, especially as higher education ensured a virtually automatic entry into admired and well-paying occupations. The importance of education in this context will probably grow.
Values taught in the schools and emphasized in the media reflect those of the group controlling the government and have gained some currency. Nevertheless, the traditional conservatism of the peasants as well as the economic problems of daily survival that have not been alleviated by changes in government policy militate against any sudden change in the values or way of life of the masses.
As in other Middle Eastern countries, Syrian society has for millennia been divided into three discrete systems of organization based on ecological factors; these are the town, the village, and the tribe. Although closely interrelated, each fosters a distinct and independent variation of Arab culture. The cities of the Middle East are among the most ancient in the world; urban life has been integral to the society of the region throughout recorded history. Therefore, the townsman and his role are well known to all segments of the population. The tribesman, or beduin, although suffering irreversible changes since the mid- twentieth century, has also been a widely known and admired figure throughout history. The peasant farmer, or fellah (pl., fellahin), although less admired than the townsman or the tribesman, also occupies a position of recognized value.
The members of each of the three structural segments of society look on the others as socially distinct. This social distance is symbolized by easily recognized differences in clothing, food, home furnishings, accent, and custom; intermarriage between village, town, and tribal families is usually considered irregular.
Traditionally, the cities have been an expression--at the highest level of sophistication and refinement--of the same Arab culture that animated the villages. As Western influence grew, however, during the late nineteenth and the twentieth centuries, the social distance between the city and village increased. Western customs, ideas, techniques, and languages were adopted first in the cities, especially by Christians, while the villages remained ignorant of them. The introduction and adoption of elements of a radically alien culture opened a gap between the city and the village that has not narrowed with time. Only in recent years have modern transportation and mass communication begun to bring the countryside once again into the same cultural orbit as the cities.
Although the town, village, and tribe are socially distinct, they depend on each other for services and products and so are related by overall functional ties. The town supplies manufactured, specialty, and luxury products; administrative and governmental services; education and higher learning; sophisticated culture; law and justice; and financing. The village supplies agricultural products; and the tribe provides protection and navigation for caravans, travelers, and traders in the desert. As more and more villagers become educated and move to the cities, and as the beduin surrender their sole mastery of the desert to motor vehicles and the police power of the modern state and begin to adopt a sedentary life, the traditional distinctions will continue to blur.
Towns
Villages
Tribes
Thomas Collelo, ed. Syria: A Country Study. Washington: GPO for the Library of Congress, 1987.
Source: U.S. Library of Congress
Until the revolutions of the mid-1960s, a syndicate of several hundred Sunni Muslim extended families living in Damascus and Aleppo had dominated life in Syria. Some of these families were of the Sharifan nobility, which claims genealogical descent from the Prophet Muhammad. Most had accumulated great wealth and wielded virtual feudal power as landlords possessing vast agricultural and real-estate holdings. Others made fortunes in industry and trade in the late ninteenth century. Another component of the ruling class was the ulama (sing, alim). This group consisted of religious scholars, Islamic judges (qadis), interpreters of law (muftis), and other persons concerned with the exposition of Sunni Islam. Prosperous Sunni bazaar merchants allied with the great families occupied the next level in the social heirarchy.
The Syrian elite was at the forefront of anticolonial struggle against the Ottoman Empire in World War I and later against the French Mandatory regime. At independence in 1946, Syria's first government was dominated by the old ruling class. However, the elite had never been a monolithic entity, and the new parliament was splintered by factionalism, feuding, and generational differences. These divisions provoked a military coup d'état in 1949 that ushered in a new era in Syrian society.
The armed services and the Baath Party were the mechanisms for the rise of a new ruling elite. Although military service traditionally had been disdained by the old Sunni elite, a military career was often the only avenue of upward mobility open to rural minority group members who could not afford an education. Such men enlisted in disproportinate numbers and came to dominate the officer corps and the enlisted ranks of Syria's armed forces. Likewise, disenfranchised elements of society joined the Baath Party. These dual trends culminated in the 1963 Baath Socialist Revolution and the 1970 takeover by the military of the Baath Party.
The land reform legislation of 1963 and the nationalization of larger financial, commercial, and industrial establishments virtually eliminated the economic and political power base of the old elite. At the same time, the new elite, comprised of the upper echelon of military and civilian leaders, consolidated its position by cultivating the support of peasants and the proletariat, who benefited from the new economic order. The regime's socialism eroded the position of the bazaar merchants while its secularism removed power from the ulama.
After coming to power in 1970, President Hafiz al Assad reversed or relaxed the more strident socialist economic measures instituted in 1963. His expansion of the role of the private sector led to the emergence of a relatively small, but highly visible new class of entrepreneurs and businessmen who made fortunes in real estate, importing, and construction. This class, nicknamed in Syria "the velvet generation," includes higher- ranking government bureaucrats and their relatives who have capitalized on their official positions to monopolize lucrative government contracts. It also has assimilated many members of the old Sunni elite, who have been coopted by the Assad regime and have accommodated themselves to the new elite. To some extent, the old and new ruling classes have merged through business partnerships and marriages that combine the money and prestige of the old elite member and the power and prestige of the new elite member. Despite a well publicized anti-corruption campaign, patronage and favoritism have remained important forces in Syrian society.
Under Assad, rural peasants have reaped significant gains in their standard of living, primarily through government transfer payments and grants of land redistributed from the original upper-class owners. However, land reform has not been entirely successful in transforming the social structure of the countryside. In many cases, farmers who had previously depended upon their urban landlords to give credit for financing their crops until harvest and to deal with the government have drifted back into similar relationships with urban interests. The landlord's role as an influential advocate and local leader has not been filled by elected Baath Party representatives. In other cases, rich proprietors have begun to regain control over agricultural land and reconstitute large estates.
Since the 1963 Baath Revolution, the approximate middle of Syrian society has remained remarkably stable, both as a percentage of the workforce and in terms of the standard of living and social mobility of its members. Because Syria has not yet developed a large industrial sector, it lacks a true proletariat of wage-earning factory workers. The number of persons employed by private and public sector industry in 1980 was 207,000, or 12 percent of the working population, according to statistics compiled by the Syrian General Federation of Trade Unions. This approximates the size of Syria's "working class."
Syria compensates for its lack of a large proletarian class of industrial factory workers by a large and flourishing group of artisans and handicrafters who produce basic commodities such as soap, textiles, glassware, and shoes in small cottage industries. This group is a main component of Syria's traditional middle class, which also encompasses small proprietors, tradesmen, and white-collar employees, and has remained at about 30 percent of the population.
Since the 1963 revolution, a new and upwardly mobile class of teachers, scientists, lawyers, technocrats, civil servants, doctors, and other professionals has slowly emerged. This new upper-middle class consists of men and women who rose from the old lower or middle classes by virtue of technical or secular higher education.
Even before the revolution of 1963, secular education had become a criterion of status among many ordinary Syrians, especially as higher education ensured a virtually automatic entry into admired and well-paying occupations. The importance of education in this context will probably grow.
Values taught in the schools and emphasized in the media reflect those of the group controlling the government and have gained some currency. Nevertheless, the traditional conservatism of the peasants as well as the economic problems of daily survival that have not been alleviated by changes in government policy militate against any sudden change in the values or way of life of the masses.
As in other Middle Eastern countries, Syrian society has for millennia been divided into three discrete systems of organization based on ecological factors; these are the town, the village, and the tribe. Although closely interrelated, each fosters a distinct and independent variation of Arab culture. The cities of the Middle East are among the most ancient in the world; urban life has been integral to the society of the region throughout recorded history. Therefore, the townsman and his role are well known to all segments of the population. The tribesman, or beduin, although suffering irreversible changes since the mid- twentieth century, has also been a widely known and admired figure throughout history. The peasant farmer, or fellah (pl., fellahin), although less admired than the townsman or the tribesman, also occupies a position of recognized value.
The members of each of the three structural segments of society look on the others as socially distinct. This social distance is symbolized by easily recognized differences in clothing, food, home furnishings, accent, and custom; intermarriage between village, town, and tribal families is usually considered irregular.
Traditionally, the cities have been an expression--at the highest level of sophistication and refinement--of the same Arab culture that animated the villages. As Western influence grew, however, during the late nineteenth and the twentieth centuries, the social distance between the city and village increased. Western customs, ideas, techniques, and languages were adopted first in the cities, especially by Christians, while the villages remained ignorant of them. The introduction and adoption of elements of a radically alien culture opened a gap between the city and the village that has not narrowed with time. Only in recent years have modern transportation and mass communication begun to bring the countryside once again into the same cultural orbit as the cities.
Although the town, village, and tribe are socially distinct, they depend on each other for services and products and so are related by overall functional ties. The town supplies manufactured, specialty, and luxury products; administrative and governmental services; education and higher learning; sophisticated culture; law and justice; and financing. The village supplies agricultural products; and the tribe provides protection and navigation for caravans, travelers, and traders in the desert. As more and more villagers become educated and move to the cities, and as the beduin surrender their sole mastery of the desert to motor vehicles and the police power of the modern state and begin to adopt a sedentary life, the traditional distinctions will continue to blur.
Towns
Villages
Tribes
Thomas Collelo, ed. Syria: A Country Study. Washington: GPO for the Library of Congress, 1987.
Source: U.S. Library of Congress
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