Rural-Urban Relations in Syria: The 2011 Uprising and Beyond

Description

I argue in this paper that the existing literature on the role of rural-urban relations in shaping the Syrian 2011 uprising and its aftermath suffers from an economistic tendency, focusing mainly on the 2000s economic liberalisation and how it benefited certain urban groups at the expense of the rural population. The article does not call for a wholesale rejection of the economic dimension of the conflict but complements this literature by investigating the ideological and discursive dimensions of rurality and urbanity.
I use Social Identity Theory to present a new understanding of rurality and urbanity, which goes beyond qualitative data to comprise these identities' discursive and ideational aspects. This new understanding calls for studying these identities' processual and relational construction and how their reproduction has been dialectically interrelated with power relations and political and socioeconomic developments. It rejects the traditional understanding of identities as static and mutually exclusive categories. Therefore, the urbanity and rurality of any group or individual are continuously fluid and always subject to negotiation.
Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) is useful in this endeavour as it provides several ways to uncover embedded power relations and political and socioeconomic interests underpinning public discourses. I examine the lexical choices within certain forms of public discourse on rural-urban relations in Syria and pay special attention to ‘suppression’ (lexical absence) and ‘overemphasis’ (overlexicalisation). The former might signify glossing over certain events to conceal contradictions and build a consistent narrative. The latter gives a sense of over-persuasion and is normally evidence that something is problematic or of ideological contention’ (Machin & Mayr, 2012, p. 26).
I apply CDA to various works of Syrian drama and cinema. Many scholars have already established the significance of Syrian drama in reproducing public discourse in the country. Drama has always been one of the Syrian regime’s favourite tools to disseminate its worldviews and to tell people how they should think. The regime’s constant intervention in the drama industry is reflected in the continuing debate among scholars about the margin left for drama makers and the extent to which the regime’s intervention and censorship have compromised their agency.
The analysis of the selected drama works shows that the rural-urban conflict in Syria was not limited to contestation on what it entails to be categorised as rural or urban. It also comprised contentions on who should be classified as urban or rural in the first place. I show that the meanings of urbanity and rurality have been changing throughout the decades since the 1960s and that the interests and aspirations of the ruling elites have always influenced these changes. The major shift in this context was the regime turning its back since the 2000s to its traditional rural constituency and allying itself with specific groups within the country’s major cities. The analysis shows how this shift was clearly reflected in the drama of the 2000s. On the eve of the 2011 uprising, various rural and urban groups struggled with a hostile public discourse propagated through drama, among other outlets, undermining their claims to urbanity and eroding their social status.
Three conclusions could be drawn from the analysis conducted in this paper. First, the rural-urban dimension of the Syrian crisis may not be reduced into a dichotomic and neatly delineated conflict, which might be comprehended by economic statistics or population thresholds. More importantly, the Syrian uprising was more than a rural revolt against urban economic privileges. Among other factors, it was the outcome of the decades-long contestation over the fluid configuration of rural-urban relations in Syrian society. The actors in this contestation could not always be divided into strictly urban or rural groups. The different groups sustained varying identity claims and clashed over whose claims should be recognised. The contestation also comprised normative questions revolving around who should be categorised as urban or rural and what such categorisation should entail, not only economically but also politically and socially.
Second, the drama of the 2010s shows that the regime and its new-old elites have continued to use their leverage over the Syrian state to manipulate rural-urban relations to their interest. The drama of the last decade shows that the aspirations of the regime elites after the war have grown even bolder than what they used to be before 2011. A 2017 mini-series, which was analysed in this paper, presents an increasingly exclusionary discourse which encourages various urban inhabitants to leave their homes and move to less urban neighbourhoods and villages to allow the investors to rebuild the city. It is another instance where drama is used to legitimise and normalise the elites’ aspirations and their exploitation of the destruction resulting from the war in their self-aggrandisement endeavours.
Third, building on the previous two remarks, it is necessary to consider rural-urban grievances in any future political process or settlement in the country. Syria is a dynamic society, and the current conflict should not be reduced to its sectarian aspect. Other social cleavages, such as rural-urban divisions, should be addressed for any political settlement to be sustainable.

Period	2 Mar 2024 → 4 Mar 2024
Event title	The Arab Graduate Students Conference: Fourth Round
Event type	Conference
Conference number	4
Location	Doha, QatarShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International