Through an accident of family history, I was born in
the Syrian city of Aleppo 72 years ago, my father having been one of the
few French army officers stationed in Syria at the time – 12 out of 500
– to have sided with the Free French forces of Charles de Gaulle,
rather than with the Vichy regime of Philippe Pétain.
>>>>
>>>> How can I possibly describe the Syria of my birth? It
was a marvel of diversity, a true kaleidoscope of races and religions.
All the great empires of the past – from the Mesopotamians to the
Ottomans – had passed through, and all had left their traces. Clustered
around the citadel of Aleppo, the oldest continuously inhabited city in
the world, one found the Armenian quarter, next to the Jewish district,
itself next to the Greek settlement. All were surrounded by Muslim
areas, variously inhabited by Druze, Kurds, Alawites, Sunni, and Shia.
And for the most part all these various peoples lived peaceably
together, doing business with each other in good faith. Education was
provided by the religious orders. Boys attended schools run by the
Jesuits, and the girls were taught by Christian nuns – regardless of
denomination.
>>>>
>>>> Before the Conquest
>>>>
>>>> Really “Most of the Christian sects had lived in the
region since long before the Moslem conquest, and felt a perfect moral
right to live in what was, after all, their home. In the Iraqi capital
Baghdad, for example, half the 18th century population was Christian.
The Assyrians of Northern Iraq claimed to have been converted to
Christianity in the 1st century by Saint Thomas. In the mid-20th century
they were a strong community – a true nation. Today there are almost
none left. The survivors are in Sweden. In Egypt, the minority Copts,
descendants of the original Egyptian population, held important
positions in trade, the universities and in politics, with more than a
few appointed ministers.
>>>>
>>>> Throughout the region, the Jews were absolutely
essential to society and commerce. Of course, Jews had lived in Iraq
since the time of Nebuchadnezzar II. But they had also made up much of
the population of Alexandria in Egypt ever since it was founded by
Alexander the Great – it was in Alexandria that the Old Testament was
first translated from Hebrew to Greek. Elsewhere, in all the great
historic cities of the region – Cairo, Istanbul, Damascus, Aleppo –
Jewish communities made up the network through which different peoples
traded with each other.
>>>>
>>>> Each community was an intrinsic part of the social
system, and the result was a diverse and resilient society. Of course,
once in a while there were problems, such as the Damascus pogroms at the
end of the 19th century. But the authorities had little patience with
trouble-makers, and quickly restored order.
>>>>
>>>> Today, however, for the first time in history, there
are no longer any Jews on the southern shores of the Mediterranean and,
outside Israel, few in the Levant. Christians of all denominations have
either disappeared, or are under severe pressure, with the Egyptian
Copts facing daily attacks. The old social order has broken down
completely. The question is: Why?
>>>>
>>>> Family History
>>>>
>>>> To answer, it will be necessary to highlight two
historical missteps that have been slowly destroying the Middle East
since at least the middle of the 20th century. The first concerns my
family history. My grandfather, Ernest Schoeffler, was governor of the
predominately Alawite province of Latakia during the French mandate. The
Alawites, who are concentrated in north western Syria, are an offshoot
of the Shia branch of Islam. Today, they control the political power in
Syria, or whatever is left of it.
>>>>
>>>> Conscious of the extreme diversity of the local
population, my grandfather promised the Alawites that when the mandate
ended they would have their own independent, or at least autonomous,
state. Indeed, he lobbied hard in Paris for each Middle Eastern
population to have its own “state” as far as possible. He envisaged a
Kurdish state, a Christian state centered on Beirut, a Jewish state
around Jerusalem, a Druze state, an Armenian state and so on. The idea
was that none of these mini-states would be powerful enough to dominate
the others. And if there was trouble, the regional policemen – France,
Britain, or even Turkey – would step in to re-establish order.
>>>>
>>>> However, in 1936, the leftist Front Populaire was
elected in France. My grandfather was summoned to Paris by the Minister
of the Colonies, who informed him that thenceforth French policy would
be to create a “Greater Syria”. And of course this Greater Syria would
be a secular state, because the French left had one overriding
obsession: to destroy religion. In response, my grandfather did
something few people do today: he stuck to his principles and resigned.
>>>>
>>>> Disastrous Policy
>>>>
>>>> The French government proceeded with its plan to create
a unitary state in Syria, with centralized institutions for the army,
police, civil administration, justice, education, and health. The
consequences of this policy were all too foreseeable. The main goal of
each and every different community became to seize control of the
apparatus of the state in order to protect its own community. In Syria,
by far the largest community, at 60% of the population, was Sunni. To
prevent the Sunnis, with their strength of numbers, establishing total
dominance over the country, the Alawites, with the tacit approval of the
other minority groups, established their own control over the state,
which they have ruled ever since.
>>>>
>>>> I have no doubt at all that the refugees fleeing Syria
today are minorities terrified that the Alawites will lose power, which
up until the Russian intervention looked highly likely. They know full
well that if the Alawites were to fall, the Sunni reprisals would fall
on all Syria’s minority communities, not just on the Alawites.
>>>>
>>>> The fundamental historical error here was the attempt
by the French and the British to create centralized states in the Middle
East, states which both the Quai d’Orsay and the Foreign Office
believed would, with a little diplomatic maneuvering, do their bidding.
This was a total break with the Ottoman tradition. The Turks generally
took a hands-off approach to running their empire, intervening only when
someone did something especially silly. When that happened, the
Janissaries were quickly sent in, and the old order promptly restored.
By imposing centralized structures on communities with little in common,
the European powers ensured that every local lunatic would attempt to
take control of these structures and use them to impose their vision on
the other minorities, all too often through “ethnic purification”. It
was a recipe for chaos and civil war if ever there was one.
>>>>
>>>> A Wahhabi Project
>>>>
>>>> This brings me to the second historical misstep. For
most of their history the Sunnis of Syria and Egypt were peaceful,
tolerant people, who lived in tribal groups under the authority of
elders who did a reasonable job of maintaining order. This tradition
crumbled in no time in the face of the pan-Arab socialism propounded by
Egypt’s President Gamal Abdel Nasser and Syria’s Baath Party. As a
result, the Sunnis were easy prey for the puritan Wahhabism exported by
Saudi Arabia in reaction to the rise of pan–Arab Socialism. Wahhabism is
by far the most retrograde of all the different sects of Islam. When
Ibn Saud created Saudi Arabia by federating the tribes of the Nejd and
Hijaz, he did so with help of the Wahhabi clergy. Now, for the last 50
years, money has flowed in a torrent from Saudi Arabia to the rest of
the Middle East, Africa, South East Asia, and Europe to build Wahhabi
mosques: “schools” where the only things taught – and only to boys – are
the Koran and religious extremism.
>>>>
>>>> The goal of this project is to “purify” the Middle
East, returning the region, and eventually the rest of the world, to an
“original” form of Islam unpolluted by non-Wahhabi religion, or indeed
by any influences from the last 1,400 years. Isis is nothing but a
Wahhabi project.
>>>>
>>>> Extraordinarily, this project has enjoyed the
unstinting support of French diplomacy under the guidance of Jacques
Chirac, Nicolas Sarkozy, and now François Hollande. I cannot imagine
that this support for the most regressive of Sunni religious movements
is due to the fact that close to 10% of the French electorate is Sunni,
and that 90% of those vote for the left. That may explain French policy
under Hollande, but it cannot account for the policy stance under
Sarkozy and Chirac. There can only be two explanations: sheer stupidity,
or that French presidents, both of the right and left, have been
“captured” by France’s arms exporters.
>>>>
>>>> At the end of this little historical survey – very much
influenced by the family history of the writer – the reader must ask
what can be done to stop the rot. The answer is simple. First, the West
must clearly identify the enemy, which is not the Muslim religion, but
the Wahhabi sect. And it must immediately break off all relationships
with the states, such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar, which are exporting
this virulent form of extremism.
>>>>
>>>> That means closing western embassies in those countries
and expelling their citizens from ours. Of course we will have to stop
accepting donations from these countries to finance our electoral
campaigns, which require ever-increasing amounts of money to win votes
for candidates of ever-decreasing legitimacy. That would be very bad
news for our media industry, so it may never happen. And needless to
say, we must also stop selling these countries warplanes, helicopters,
missiles, radars, tanks and other weaponry. That might be sad for our
defense industries, but one does not prosper by selling weapons to one’s
enemies. As Lenin said: “The Capitalists will sell us the rope with
which we will hang them”. Plus ça change…
