Celebrating Continuity: The Role of State Holidays in Syria (1918–2010)

Abstract

National holidays are one of the major instruments of regimes and rulers aiming to legitimise their hegemony and maintain the social and political order. This article deals with the way in which successive Syrian regimes have celebrated the national—secular and religious—holidays. It compares the various Syrian regimes: the monarchy (1918–1920); the mandate period (1920–1946); and the republic period (1946–present).Although the latter period will be treated as a whole, the analysis differentiates between five periods: post-independence (1946–1958); the United Arab Republic (UAR; 1958–1961); the secessionist regime (1961–1963); and the Ba‘th regime (1963–present), with Bashar replacing his father in June 2000. The main thesis of this article is that Syrian regimes prefer continuity over change in the realm of state holidays. Thus, in contrast to Iraq, where each new regime has attempted to delegitimise its predecessor by abolishing the national calendar and inventing a new one, Syrian regimes have added new holidays to the calendar without erasing the old ones. In this way, Syria's calendar resembles an edifice occasionally renovated according to the regime's needs, but never demolished. This policy emanated from a desire to demonstrate continuity even in times of change and upheaval, while at the same time consolidating the local national identity, which has often competed with other supra-identities, such as pan-Arabism and Islam.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Professor Eyal Zisser from Tel Aviv University and Dr Elie Elhadj, a Syrian independent scholar, for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this article.

Notes

¹Al-Hayat, 14 July 2003.

² Eviatar Zerubavel, ‘Calendars and History: A Comparative Study of the Social Organization of National Memory’, in Jeffrey K. Olick (ed.), States of Memory: Continuities, Conflicts, and Transformation in National Retrospection (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003), pp. 315–337.

³ On this process, see Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger (eds), The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), pp. 1, 4, 13.

⁴ Pierre Nora, ‘General Introduction: Between History and Memory’, in Pierre Nora and Lawrence D. Kritzman (eds), Realms of Memory: Rethinking the French Past. Vol. 1: Conflicts and Divisions, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), p. 7.

⁵ See Elie Podeh, ‘From Indifference to Obsession: The Role of National State Celebrations in Iraq, 1921–2003’, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 37 (2010), pp. 179–206. The present article is part of a more comprehensive study, published under the title The Politics of National Celebrations in the Arab World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011). The book, however, does not deal with Syrian holidays but with Egyptian, Iraqi, Jordanian, Lebanese and Saudi state celebrations.

⁶ Only one study deals with this issue, although it confines itself to spectacles held during the Hafiz al-Asad regime (1970–2000). Lisa Wedeen, Ambiguities of Domination: Politics, Rhetoric, and Symbols in Contemporary Syria (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1999).

⁷ See Podeh, ‘From Indifference to Obsession’.

⁸ Robert N. Bellah, ‘Civil Religion in America’, Daedalus, 97(1) (1967), pp. 1–21.

⁹ Mona Ozouf, Festivals and the French Revolution, trans. Alan Sheridan (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988), p. 199.

¹⁰ Anthony Smith, National Identity (Reno, NV: University of Nevada Press, 1991), p. 78.

¹¹ George L. Mosse, ‘Mass Politics and the Political Liturgy of Nationalism’, in Eugene Kamenka (ed.), Nationalism: The Nature and Evolution of an Idea (London: Edward Arnold, 1976), pp. 39–54.

¹² W. Lloyd Warner, American Life: Dream and Reality (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1953), p. 2. See also the anthropologist David Kertzer, Ritual, Politics and Power (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1988).

¹³ Clifford Geertz, ‘Centers, Kings and Charisma: Reflections on the Symbolics of Power’, in Sean Wilentz (ed.), Rites of Power: Symbolism, Ritual and Politics since the Middle Ages (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1985), p. 15.

¹⁴ See the introductory article in Sally Moore and Barbara Myerhoff (eds), Secular Ritual (Amsterdam: Van Gorcum, 1977), pp. 3–4.

¹⁵ David Cannadine, ‘Introduction: Divine Rites of Kings’, in David Cannadine and Simon Price (eds), Rituals of Royalty: Power and Ceremonial in Traditional Societies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), p. 9.

¹⁶ George Mosse, ‘Caesarism, Circuses and Monuments’, Journal of Contemporary History, 6 (1971), pp. 170–173.

¹⁷ Christel Lane, The Rites of Rulers: Rituals in Industrial Society—The Soviet Case (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), p. 16.

¹⁸ Cannadine, ‘Introduction: Divine Rites of Kings’, p. 9.

¹⁹ Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, translated from the French by Alan Sheridan (New York: Vintage Books, 1995), pp. 187–188.

²⁰ Kertzer, Ritual, Politics, and Power, p. 1; Smith, National Identity, pp. 74–75.

²¹ Sigmund Freud, ‘The Future of Illusion’, in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, translated under the general editorship of James Strachey (London: Hogarth Press, 1961), vol. XXI, pp. 5–56, see particularly pp. 30, 35.

²² The following discussion will analyse the national holidays celebrated by the Syrian polity since 1918. It will focus only on the formal holidays, particularly Evacuation Day and Martyrs' Day. A full list, including informal holidays, is provided in the Appendix to this article.

²³ James Gelvin, Divided Loyalties: Nationalism and Mass Politics in Syria at the Close of Empire (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), pp. 242–243.

²⁴ For details on the two holidays, see Gelvin, Divided Loyalties, pp. 243–247.

²⁵ For details on the executions, see Eliezer Tauber, The Arab Movements in World War I (London: Frank Cass, 1993), pp. 46–55; Ghassan Twayni and Faris Sassine, al-Burj: Sahat al-Huriyya wa-Bawabat al-Mashreq (Beirut: Dar al-Nahar, 2000), pp. 24–31.

²⁶ Twayni and Sassine, al-Burj, p. 24.

²⁷ Twayni and Sassine, al-Burj, pp. 177–178.

²⁸ Gelvin, Divided Loyalties, pp. 248–249.

²⁹ Gelvin, Divided Loyalties, pp. 249–250; Khairiyah Kassemiyyah, al-Hukuma al-‘Arabiyya fi Dimashq, 1918–1920 (Beirut: al-Mu'asasa al-‘Arabiyya lil-Dirasat wa-al-Nashr, 1982), pp. 162–164.

³⁰ Kassemiyya, al-Hukuma al-Arabiyya, p. 166, note 1. It is claimed that the white star is connected to a Hashemite decision that the Kingdom of Hijaz was to have no stars in its flag, the Arab Kingdom of Syria was to have one star, and the Arab Kingdom of Iraq was to have two stars—a plan, it was thought, that anticipated an ultimate union or federation of Arab states. See the report of the American Consul in Baghdad, John Randolph, USNA, 890G.015, 11 May 1925. Iraq, it should be added, adopted the same flag with two stars in 1925. See in this connection Elie Podeh, ‘The Symbolism of the Arab Flag in Modern Arab States: Between Commonality and Uniqueness’, Nations and Nationalism, 17 (2011), pp. 419–442.

³¹ On the Bay‘a ceremony, see Elie Podeh, ‘The Bay‘a: Modern Political Uses of Islamic Rituals in the Arab World’, Die Welt des Islams, 50 (2010), pp. 117–152.

³² Gelvin, Divided Loyalties, pp. 250–251.

³³ Sati‘ al-Husri, The Day of Maysalun: A Page from the Modern History of the Arabs, trans. Sidney Glazer (Washington, DC: The Middle East Institute, 1966), p. 79; Philip S. Khoury, Syria and the French Mandate: The Politics of Arab Nationalism, 1920–1945 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987), p. 97.

³⁴ Husri, The Day of Maysalun, p. 12. The myth was well founded already in the 1930s. See, for example, ‘Abd al-Rahman Shahbandar, ‘Kayfa Kharaja al-Malik Faysal min Dimashq’, al-Hillal, 45 (March 1937), pp. 485–487. Shahbandar served as Foreign Minister in the short-lived Syrian Kingdom.

³⁵ Husri, The Day of Maysalun, p. 166. For the various flags of Damascus, Aleppo, the Alawite region and Jabal Druze, see http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/sy-his.html; http://www.fotw.net/flags/sy-his.html; http://www.syrianhistory.com/en/pages/syrian-flag.

³⁶ Khoury, Syria and the French Mandate, p. 377.

³⁷ See http://www.cometosyria.com/en/national-symbols.htm.

³⁸ For reports on 14 July celebrations, see Alif Ba' around that date annually.

³⁹Alif Ba', 8–9 May 1934, p. 3.

⁴⁰ Yusuf al-‘Isa, Alif Ba’, 7 May 1937.

⁴¹ For an account of the ceremonies in Damascus, Aleppo and Antakya, see Alif Ba', 6–9 May 1937.

⁴²Alif Ba', 6 May 1942.

⁴³Alif Ba', 20 April 1947. Quwwatli had several titles, but one is of particular interest: ‘the faithful and trustworthy’ (al-sadiq al-amin), usually ascribed to the Prophet. See Muhammad ‘Abd al-‘Azim al-Zarqawi, Manahil al-‘Urfan fi ‘Ulum al-Qur'an (Beirut: Dar al-Fikr, 1996), vol. 2, pp. 270–271.

⁴⁴ The description of the celebrations in 1946–1947 is taken from Alif Ba', 17, 19 April 1946; 20 April 1947. On the 1947 celebrations, see a later report in Tishrin, 17 April 1976.

⁴⁵Alif Ba', 7 May 1946; 7 May 1947; 7 May 1949.

⁴⁶ See, for example, al-Thawra, 6–7 May 1962; 6–7 May 1964; 6–7 May 1968; 6–7 May 1973.

⁴⁷ For the text, see Alif Ba', 19 April 1946.

⁴⁸Alif Ba', 11 April 1946.

⁴⁹Alif Ba', 19 April 1949.

⁵⁰ See, for example, a report on the 1951 celebrations, Alif Ba', 18–19 April 1951.

⁵¹ USNA, RG 59, Moose to Department of State, 6 April 1954, 883.424/4-654.

⁵² For details on the celebrations in the mid-1950s, see al-Ayyam, 17, 18, 20 April 1956; 18 April 1957.

⁵³ In 1957, for example, Ba‘th members clashed with members of the Muslim Brotherhood at Martyrs' Square. See al-Ayyam, 18 April 1957.

⁵⁴ Fouad Ajami, The Dream Palace of the Arabs (New York: Pantheon Books, 1998), p. 12.

⁵⁵ See, for example, al-Ayyam, 15–23 February 1960.

⁵⁶Al-Ayyam, 16–17 April 1961. On 17 April 1959, Nasser attended the Syrian celebration. See photo at http://www.syrianhistory.com

⁵⁷ See in this connection Elie Podeh, The Decline of Arab Unity: The Rise and Fall of the United Arab Republic (Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 1999), p. 56.

⁵⁸Al-Ayyam, 22 February 1962.

⁵⁹Al-Thawra, 23 February 1965.

⁶⁰Al-Ba‘th, 18 April 1963.

⁶¹ USNA, RG 59, Knight (Damascus) to Secretary of State, Tel. 601, 10 March 1964, POL 17-4 SYR.

⁶² USNA, RG 59, Knight (Damascus) to Secretary of State, Tel. 601, 10 March 1964, POL 17-4 SYR.

⁶³Al-Ba‘th, 21 February 1969.

⁶⁴ See, for example, al-Thawra, 17 April 1994; 17 April 2003.

⁶⁵ The new entity adopted a new flag, which remained until the establishment of the Federation of the Arab Republic, consisting of Egypt, Syria and Libya, in 1971. In April 1980, however, the Syrian constitution was amended and the original UAR flag was once more adopted. On the history of the Syrian (and Arab) flags, see Podeh, ‘The Symbolism of the Arab Flag’.

⁶⁶ The first was taken from al-Thawra, 17 April 1963; the second from al-Ba‘th, 17–18 April 1963.

⁶⁷ For examples of this new narrative, see al-Thawra, 17 April 1964; 17–18 April 1965; 17 April 1968; 18 April 1969.

⁶⁸ See, for example, Tishrin, 18 April 1976.

⁶⁹ See, for example, Amin al-Hafiz's Evacuation Day celebration in 1964: USNA, RG 59, USARMA to Department of Army, 18 April 1964, POL 17-4 Syria.

⁷⁰ See a list of popular slogans in al-Ba‘th, 18 April 1963.

⁷¹Al-Manar, 28, 30 September 1962; al-Nasr, 30 September 1963.

⁷²Al-Thawra, 28 September 1966.

⁷³Tishrin, 22 February 2010.

⁷⁴ See, for example, al-Thawra, 6–9 March 1965. On the ‘faceless’ nature of the regime, see Patrick Seale, Asad: The Struggle for the Middle East (Berkeley: University Press of California, 1988), pp. 162–165.

⁷⁵ According to Patrick Seale, the cult was instigated by Ahmad Iskandar Ahmad, Asad's Minister of Information (1974–1983). See Seale, Asad, p. 339. See also Wedeen, Ambiguities of Domination, pp. 18–40.

⁷⁶ For examples of this personality cult, see al-Thawra, 17 April 1973; 18 April 1974; 17 April 1984; 18 April 1994; 17 April 2000. See also Mordechai Kedar, Asad in Search of Legitimacy: Message and Rhetoric in the Syrian Press under Hafiz and Bashar (Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2002), pp. 61–77.

⁷⁷Al-Ba‘th, 13 March 1971.

⁷⁸Al-Thawra, 8–9 March 1978.

⁷⁹Al-Thawra, 8–9 March 1984; 8–10 March 1994.

⁸⁰ Seale, Asad, pp. 339–340.

⁸¹ This is certainly true with regard to the 1970s. See al-Ba‘th, 18 April 1974; Tishrin, 17 April 1976; 18 April 1978. According to Wedeen, from the mid-1980s, following a power struggle with his brother, Rif‘at, Asad's personality cult became more visible. See Ambiguities of Domination, pp. 37–38. See also Tishrin, 18 April 1983; 18 April 1984.

⁸² See, for example, Atrash's interview in al-Thawra, 17 April 1975; and interviews with other fighters, al-Ba‘th, 16 April 1999.

⁸³ See, for example, al-Thawra, 17–18 April 1974; 18 April 1975; 16–18 April 1976; 17 April 1994; and during the Golden Jubilee celebrations, Tishrin, 17 April 1996.

⁸⁴ Already in 1974 Asad termed the event ‘the most important change in contemporary Arab history’. See al-Thawra, 18 April 1974. See also al-Ba‘th editorial, 16 April 1999, ‘In Memory of the Great Evacuation’.

⁸⁵ See, for example, al-Thawra, 17 April 1994; 17 April 2000. See also Wedeen, Ambiguities of Domination, pp. 37–38; Kedar, Asad in Search of Legitimacy, pp. 93–100.

⁸⁶Tishrin, al-Ba‘th, 16–18 April 1976.

⁸⁷ See, for example, 17–18 April 1973; 18 April 1974; 18 April 1975; 17–18 April 1984; 17–18 April 1994; 16–17 April 2000.

⁸⁸ See, for example, al-Ba‘th, 18 April 1999.

⁸⁹ Eyal Zisser, Faces of Syria: Society, Regime and State (Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 2003), p. 100 [Hebrew]; Kedar, Asad in Search of Legitimacy, pp. 136–142.

⁹⁰Al-Ba‘th, p. 147. In fact, the October War occurred in the month of tishrin al-awwal, while the November Corrective Movement occurred on Tishrin al-Thani, but this ‘unimportant’ fact is ignored for obvious reasons.

⁹¹Al-Ba‘th, pp. 145, 151.

⁹² The term used was hajja, which denotes the Islamic pilgrimage to the holy places in Mecca and Medina. See al-Thawra, 27 June 1974.

⁹³ The whole issue of al-Thawra, 27 June 1974 was dedicated to the event. See also the reports in the next two days.

⁹⁴ Zisser, Faces of Syria, p. 114.

⁹⁵ See, for example, on the occasion of the first anniversary of Asad's death, Tishrin, 11 June 2001; and on the October anniversary, al-Thawra, 6 October 2002.

⁹⁶ It is unclear why this time was picked, as the war started at 14:00, yet it is possible that the idea was to differentiate it from the ritual held on Martyrs' Day. In any case, this ritual was not kept.

⁹⁷Al-Thawra, 6–7 October 1974.

⁹⁸ Seale, Asad, pp. 339–340.

⁹⁹Al-Thawra, 7–12 March 1974.

¹⁰⁰Al-Thawra, 7 May 1974. See a later report on Asad's directives, al-Ba‘th, 7 May 1990; 7 May 1999.

¹⁰¹Al-Ba‘th, 6 May 1998.

¹⁰²Al-Thawra, 7 May 1974; 5–6 May 1980; 6 May 1984; 1, 7 May 1994; Tishrin, 6–7 May 1986; 6–7 May 1992; 6–7 May 1997; al-Ba‘th, 6–7 May 1998; 6–7 May 1999.

¹⁰³ See in this connection Wedeen, Ambiguities of Domination, pp. 52–53; see the reports on the day in al-Thawra and al-Ba‘th in any year.

¹⁰⁴ A special institution was established to look after the martyrs' families. See al-Ba‘th, 7 May 1999. Asad transferred these schools to the Ministry of Defence and allocated a special budget for that purpose; see Tishrin, 6 May 1980.

¹⁰⁵ See, for example, al-Ba‘th, 6–7 May 1999.

¹⁰⁶Al-Thawra, 7 May 1974; 6 May 1984; 7 May 1994.

¹⁰⁷ See, for example, Riad Mahmud, al-Ba‘th, 6 May 1999; ‘Ali Qassem, al-Thawra, 6 May 2005.

¹⁰⁸al-Thawra, 6–7 October 1984.

¹⁰⁹Tishrin, 17–18 April 1996. In February, Asad participated in Friday prayers at al-Roda Mosque during Ramadan and hosted Muslim clerics at his palace for a fast-breaking meal (Tishrin, 17 February 1996); in late April he prayed in the same mosque on the occasion of ‘Id al-Adkha (Tishrin, 29 April 1996).

¹¹⁰Tishrin, 6–7 October 1994.

¹¹¹ Part of the monument exhibited five famous battles: Yarmuk (636); Hittin (1187); Maysalun (1920); Mount Hermon (1973); and Sultan Ya‘kub (1982). In addition, in the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier lay a soldier ‘who fell martyr for Syria and Arabism’. On the memorial shrine there is the Qur'anic verse: ‘Think not of those who are slain in Allah's way as dead. Nay, they live, finding their sustenance in the presence of their Lord’ (3/169). For details on the memorial site, see Tishrin, 6 May 1996. For some images of the site, see http://www.archnet.org/library/images/thumbnails.jsp?location_id = 2636.

¹¹² On the inauguration of the new site, see Tishrin, 6–7 October 1993; 6–7 October 1994.

¹¹³Al-Ba‘th, 7 May 1999. In 1998, the ceremony was still held in Najha, see Al-Ba‘th, 7 May 1998.

¹¹⁴Al-Thawra, 7 May 2000.

¹¹⁵Tishrin, 6–7 May 2001; Al-Thawra, 6–7 May 2002; 6–7 May 2005; Syria Times, 7 May 2008; al-Thawra, 7 May 2010.

¹¹⁶Al-Thawra, 7 May 2002.

¹¹⁷Al-Thawra, 8–9 March 2002. This, however, proved to be a short-lived innovation, as it was not continued in subsequent years.

¹¹⁸Tishrin, 17 July 2000. See also David W. Lesch, The New Lion of Damascus: Bashar al-Asad and Modern Syria (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005), p. 233; Flynt Leverett, Inheriting Syria: Bashar's Trial by Fire (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2005), p. 168.

¹¹⁹Al-Thawra, 17–18 April 2003.

¹²⁰Al-Thawra, 18 April 2006.

¹²¹ See, in particular, Al-Thawra, 17–18 April 2007.

¹²² ‘Arif al-‘Ali and Sana’ Ya‘kub, al-Thawra, 17 April 2007. The paper reported on official visits to Maysalun to the tomb of Yusuf al-‘Azmah.

¹²³ Editorial, ‘Ma‘bar al-Muqawmah’, Tishrin, 17 April 2010. On the event, see Tishrin and al-Thawra, 16–17 April 2010.

¹²⁴Al-Thawra, 8–10 March 2003.

¹²⁵Al-Thawra, 7–9 March 2006; 7–9 March 2007; Tishrin, 8–9 March 2010.

¹²⁶Al-Thawra, 5–7 October 2002; 6–7 October 2004; Tishrin, 6–7 October 2010.

¹²⁷Al-Thawra, 26–27 June 2006.

¹²⁸ See in this regard the famous speech by Ba‘th founder Michele ‘Aflaq, delivered on the occasion of Mawlid al-Nabi as early as 1943, ‘Dhikra al-Rasul al-‘Arabi’, in his Fi Sabil al-Ba‘th (Beirut: Manshurat Dar al-Tali‘a, 1959), pp. 50–61.

¹²⁹ See, for example, a speech by Amin al-Hafiz marking Mawlid al-Nabi, al-Thawra, 22 July 1964.

¹³⁰Al-Ba‘th, 27 April 1972; 16 April 1973.

¹³¹ Kedar, Asad in Search of Legitimacy, pp. 89–90.

¹³²Tishrin, 7 May 1989.

¹³³Al-Thawra, 28 June 1984 (on the occasion of a fast-breaking meal); 22 May 1994 (‘id al-adkha).

¹³⁴ Kedar, Asad in Search of Legitimacy, pp. 101–104.

¹³⁵Al-Thawra, 23 February 2002; 1 April 2007.

¹³⁶Al-Thawra, 24 May 2002 (on the occasion of Mawlid al-Nabi); and 30 November 2002 (for Ramadan's last Friday prayer); al-Ba‘th, 16 November 2004 (‘Id al-Fitr); 11 April 2006 (Mawlid al-Nabi).

¹³⁷ See Charles Rearick, ‘Festivals in Modern France: The Experience of the Third Republic’, Journal of Contemporary History, 12 (1977), pp. 435–460.

¹³⁸ Podeh, The Politics of National Celebrations in the Arab World, pp. 295–296.

¹³⁹ Wedeen, Ambiguities of Domination, pp. 28–29; Podeh, ‘From Indifference to Obsession’, pp. 196–198, 203–204.

¹⁴⁰ Wedeen, Ambiguities of Domination, p. 51.

¹⁴¹ Wedeen, Ambiguities of Domination, pp. 6, 156.

¹⁴² According to Raymond Hinnebusch, by the 1980s the Ba‘th incorporated some 500,000 members. See his Syria: Revolution from Above (London: Routledge, 2001), pp. 80–82. See also Seale, Asad, p. 175.

¹⁴³ Hinnebusch, Syria: Revolution from Above, pp. 67–69.

¹⁴⁴ On legitimacy, see Moshe Ma‘oz, Asad—the Sphinx of Damascus: A Political Biography (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1988), pp. 48–56. Ma‘oz also quotes a 1978 interview with Salah al-Din al-Bitar, the co-founder of the Ba‘th Party, shortly before he was assassinated in 1980, in which he told Asad that his regime lacked legitimacy (p. 69). On national identity, see Seale, Asad, pp. 459–460.

¹⁴⁵ Charles E. Merriam, Political Power (New York: Collier Books, 1964), p. 129.

¹⁴⁶ See in this connection, Tishrin, 8–9 March 2011; 17–18 April 2012; 6–7 May 2012; 2 August 2012; 7 October 2012.

¹⁴⁷ See Podeh, ‘Symbolism of the Arab Flag,’ pp. 425–427.