A LITTLE HISTORY OF SYRIA

BEING MUCH IN THE NEWS, SYRIA SHOULD BE UNDERSTOOD BY US THINKING CITIZENS 

Geography of Syria

   Syria is a small, poor, and crowded country. On the map, it appears about the size of Washington state or Spain, but only about a quarter of its 185,000 square kilometers is arable land. That is, "economic Syria" is about as large as a combination of Maryland and Connecticut or Switzerland. Most is desert --- some is suitable for grazing but less than 10 percent of the surface is permanent cropland. 
   Except for a narrow belt along the Mediterranean, the whole country is subject to extreme temperatures that cause frequent dust storms and periodic droughts. Four years of devastating drought from 2006 to 2011 turned Syria into a land like the American "dust bowl" of the 1930s. That drought was said to be the worst ever recorded, but it was one in a long sequence : Just in the period from 2001 to 2010, Syria had 60 "significant" dust storms. The most important physical aspect of these storms, as was the experience in America in the 1930s, was the removal of the topsoil. Politically, they triggered the civil war. 
   In addition to causing violent dust storms, high temperatures cause a lessening of rainfall. A map of the drought conditions of 2010 shows that, except for small areas of Israel, Jordan, and Lebanon, the whole eastern Mediterranean was severely affected. 
   Even the relatively favored areas had rainfall of just 8 to 15 inches --- where 8 inches is considered as the absolute minimum to sustain agriculture --- and the national average was less than 4 inches. Worse, rain falls in Syria mainly in the winter months when it is less beneficial for crops. Thus, areas with less than 15 inches are heavily dependent upon irrigation. Ground water [ aquifers] have been so heavily tapped in recent years that the water table in many areas has fallen below what a farmer can access, while the country's main river, the Euphrates, is heavily drawn down by Turkey and Iraq. Consequently, as of the last years before the civil war, only about 13,500 square kilometers could be irrigated. 
In recent years, according to the World Bank, agriculture supplied about 20 percent of national income [GDP] and employed about 17 percent of the population. Before the heavy fighting began, Syrian oil fields produced about 330,000 barrels per day, but Syrians consumed all but 70,000 of that amount. Sales supplied about 20 percent of GDP and a third of export earnings. Production subsequently fell by at least 50 percent, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Syria's oil is of poor quality, sour, and expensive to refine. Industry [mainly energy-related] employed about a third of the adult male population and provided a similar percentage of the national income. Before the war, moves were being made to transport oil and gas from farther east across Syria to the Mediterranean. Obviously, these projects have been stopped. Now there is a sort of cottage industry in crude refining of petroleum products for local use and smuggling. 
  Syria is not just a piece of land ; it is densely populated. In 1946, the total Syrian population was less than 3 million. In 2010, it reached nearly 24 million. Thus, the country offered less than 0.25 hectares [just over a third of an acre] of agricultural land per person. Considering only "agricultural Syria," the population is about five times as dense as Ohio or Belgium, but it does not have Ohio's or Belgium's other means of generating income. If the population were much smaller, Syria could have managed adequately but not, of course, richly. 
   The bottom line is that the population / resource ratio is out of balance. While there has been a marginal increase of agricultural land and more efficient cropping with better seed, neither has kept up with the population growth. Moreover, as the number of people in the country has increased, they have been unable to agree on how to divide up what they have. So it is important to understand how their "social contract" --- their view of their relationship with one another and with government --- evolved and then shattered. 

THE SYRIAN HERITAGE 

   Since before history was written, Syria has been fought over by foreign empires ---Egyptians, Hittites, Assyrians, Persians, Macedonian Greeks, Romans, Mongols, Turks, British, and French. Only during the Umayyad Caliphate in the 7th and 8th centuries was it the center of an empire.But that relatively short period left Syria with Islamil  heritage. For many centuries, the society has been overwhelmingly Muslim. 
   Syria also has historically been a sanctuary for little groups of peoples whose differences from one another were defined in religious and / or ethnic terms. Several of these communities were "leftovers" from previous invasions or migrations. During most of the last five centuries, when what is today Syria was part of the Ottoman Empire, groups of Orthodox, Catholic, and other Christians ; Alawis, Ismailis, and other sorts of Shia Muslims; and Yazidis, Kurds, Jews, and Draze lived in enclaves and neighborhoods in the various cities and towns alongside Sunni Muslim Arabs. 
   During Ottoman rule the population was organized in two overlapping ways. First, there was no "Syria" in the sense of a nation-state, but rather provinces that were centered on the ancient cities. The most important of these were Damascus, which may be the oldest city in the world today, and Aleppo. The concept of a state, much less a nation-state, did not enter into political thought until the end of the 19th century. Inhabitants of the various parts of what became Syria could move without feeling or being considered alien from one province of the Ottoman Empire to the next. Thus, if the grandfathers or great-grandfathers of people alive today were asked about what entity they belonged to, they would probably have named the city or village where they paid their taxes. 
   Second, its centuries of rule, the Ottoman Empire generally was content to have its subjects live by their own codes of behavior. It did not have the means or the incentive to intrude into their daily lives.  Muslims, whether Turks or Arabs or Kurd, shared with their imperial government Islamic mores and law. Other ethnic /  religious "nations" [Turkish] were self-governing except in military and foreign affairs. 
   Whether in enclaves or in neighborhoods, each non-Muslim community dressed according to its custom, spoke its own languages and lived according to its unique cultural pattern ; it appointed or elected its own officials, who divided the taxes it owed to the empire, ran its schools, and provided such health care facilities and social welfare as it thought proper or could afford. Since this system was spelled out in the Quran and the Traditions [Hadiths] of the Prophet, respecting it was legally obligatory for Muslims. Consequently, when the Syrian state took shape, it inherited a rich, diverse, and tolerant social tradition. 

       MORE TO COME. STAY TUNED.