Hama Rules

1. Hama Rules From Beirut to Jerusalem Thomas L. Friedman

2. Introduction • Hama, a once-picturesque city in Syria, was the site of a brutal massacre in February of 1982 (Friedman 76). • The massacre, undoubtedly the work of the Syrian government, specifically the Syrian President, Hafez al-Assad, was estimated to have left 10,000-25,000 dead and thousands more homeless (77). • The cause of the massacre was mostly friction between the Sunni Muslim guerilla groups of the city, called the Muslim Brotherhood, and the mainly Alawite Muslim/Christian government and military (77-78). • It is from his visit to the city of Hama post-attack and the tragedies he witnesses that Friedman formulates his “Hama Rules,” a set of rules that not only pertain to Syria but to most of the Middle East, highlighting the ruthlessness and gore of the conflict in the area. • The logic of Hama Rules is “a combination of three different political traditions all operating at the same time” (87).

3. Tribe-Like Politics • The first tradition is tribe-like politics, “characterized by a harsh, survivalist quality and an adherence to certain intense primordial or kin-group forms of allegiance” (87). • Groups are bound together by solidarity and allegiance to the tribe takes precedence over the national community (87). • Alliances begin with “the most basic blood association” of the family and slowly expand to the tribe (88). • When a tribe is dishonored, a price must always be exacted to the furthest degree. Otherwise, the tribe looks weak and will be attacked again. The only way a tribe will make compromises with another tribe is “from proven strength or magnanimity in the wake of victory” (88). • When the Muslim Brotherhood seized control of Hama, al-Assad saw it as a threat to his Alawite tribe and retaliated (90).

4. Authoritarianism • The second political tradition in the Middle East is authoritarianism, “the concentration of power in a single ruler or elite not bound by any constitutional framework” (91). • People of the Middle East rarely created nation-states of their own because various tribe affiliations negated the need for people to rule themselves and defend themselves against foreign invaders (92). • Clans and sects would rarely submit and allow themselves to be governed by others. Rather, when a government was in place, it was usually imposed by sheer physical force. (92).

5. Authoritarianism Continued • “The ruler was often a stranger: someone to be feared, dreaded, avoided, submitted to, and, occasionally, rebelled against, but rarely adored; there was usually a tremendous gulf between the ruler and he society at large” (92). • Gentle Authoritarianism: A government sustained through negotiation and less by brute force (92-93). • Brutal Authoritarianism: A government sustained by beating the population into submission (94). • “Hama was not just what happens when two tribe-like sects – the Alawites and the Sunnis – decide to have it out; it was also what happens when a modern Middle Eastern autocrat who does not enjoy full legitimacy among his people puts down a challenge to his authority by employing twentieth-century weapons without restraint” (96).

6. Modern Nation-State • The modern nation-state is another factor in tragedies such as Hama – most states in the Middle East today “were not willed into existence by their own people or developed organically out of a common historical memory or ethnic or linguistic bond,” but were instead imposed upon the people of a country (98-99). • Not only were borders and leaders imposed, political institutions, too, were forced, often with the imperial powers leaving before these institutions could fully take root (99). • The leaders boosted into power by imperial invaders most then search for ways to legitimize their new governments (100). • The Hama massacre, then, can be seen as “the natural reaction of a modernizing politician in a relatively new nation-state trying to state off retrogressive… elements aiming to undermine everything he has achieved) (100).

7. Conclusion • Friedman ends the chapter with an anecdote about a landlord in Beirut who would not only eat an egg for breakfast, but also its shell. He closes: “That was what Hama was all about and that is what politics in places like Syria, Lebanon, the Yemens, and Iraq are so often about – men grabbing for the egg and its shell, because without both they fear that they may well be dead” (105).

8. Bibliography • "The Flag of Syria." Student Resource Center - Gold. Gale. Upper Arlington High School. 8 Sept. 2009 <http://find.galegroup.com/gps/start.do?prodId=IPS> • Friedman, Thomas L. From Beirut to Jerusalem. New York: Farrer Straus Giroux, 1989. • "Hafez al-Assad." (al-Assad, Hafez, photograph. Archive Photos, Inc. Reproduced by permission. ).Student Resource Center - Gold. Gale. Upper Arlington High School. 8 Sept. 2009 <http://find.galegroup.com/gps/start.do?prodId=IPS>. • "Map of Syria." (Maryland Cartographics ).Student Resource Center - Gold. Gale. Upper Arlington High School. 9 Sept. 2009 <http://find.galegroup.com/gps/start.do?prodId=IPS>. • :"President Saddam Hussein." CRSN. Gale. Upper Arlington High School. 9 Sept. 2009 <http://find.galegroup.com/gps/start.do?prodId=IPS>. • Walsh, John. "Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood: understanding centrist Islam. (World in Review)." Harvard International Review 24.4 (Wntr 2003): 32(5). Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. Gale. Upper Arlington High School. 9 Sept. 2009 <http://find.galegroup.com/gps/start.do?prodId=IPS>. • Watson. “Hama Waterwheel.” Syria Pictures. Bugbog. September 9, 2009. http://www.bugbog.com/gallery/syria_pictures_photos/syria_pictures_20.html