THE RISE OF SYRIA’S POOR

The Rise of Syria’s Urban Poor:

Why the War for Syria’s Future Will
Be Fought Over the Country’s New
Urban Villages
BY DAVID KILCULLEN AND NATE ROSENBLATT

The divisions between town and country or between the main cities and the country towns are
very old social and cultural divisions and, historically, their interests have tended to be intrinsi-
cally at variance. For long the peasants lived at the mercy of the cities.

–Hanna Batatu
Syria’s Peasantry, the Descendants of its Lesser Rural Notables, and Their Politics

S
yria’s urban poor fight the Assad regime for the soul of Syria’s cities. Syrian government
troops have abandoned large swaths of countryside to a fractured opposition, focusing
resources on key loyalist leverage points: keeping connected the big four cities Aleppo,
Damascus, Homs, and Hama, and maintaining a path to the coast. This intensely urban conflict
is a byproduct of over ten years of rural village migrations into the outskirts of Syria’s ancient
cities. Fueled by economic necessity and a persistent drought, these villagers created vast, insulated
neighborhoods of urban poor. Three things characterize these communities: they are predomi-
nantly controlled by the opposition, they have been among the hardest hit during the conflict,
and their guns and recent political activism mean they will be a key power broker in the post-
conflict order.
Syria’s ancient cities long reigned over the surrounding villages. Urban elites traditionally
wielded significant leverage over villagers: they were the landowners, market-setters for farm
produce, and funders of major religious institutions. This balance has shifted over the past decade.
Nepotistic economic policies and an ongoing drought fueled unprecedented migrations of rural

Dr. David Kilcullen is the Chairman and Founder of Caerus Associates.

Nate Rosenblatt is a Senior MENA Analyst at Caerus Associates.

SYRIA SUPPLEMENTAL FEATURES | 33

 KILCULLEN AND ROSENBLATT

villagers into Syria’s cities. An explosion in assimilate such large numbers of rural
Syria’s population amplifies the effects of this migrants. Today, these vulnerable communi-
migration. Syria’s population doubled over the ties bear the brunt of the conflict: their young
past twenty-five years, with a disproportionate male residents are armed and fighting the
majority occurring in its main cities. This regime. No matter how the conflict ends, these
growth has not only stretched Syria’s limited groups will have guns and grievances associ-
urban infrastructure, but has also forced these ated with a lack of services, high unemploy-
once-rural communities to come in near-direct ment, and extreme income inequality in an
contact with the wealth of the city itself. Long indebted, post-conflict economy. For many
separated from cosmopolitan city life, these armed groups, particularly Islamists, this is an
urban poor now see the rich beneficiaries of a opportunity to build political constituencies.
new economic policy that has tripled Syria’s Though the future of Syria is highly uncertain,
GDP in the past ten years, magnifying their one thing is clear: the urban poor have risen.
relative deprivation. This acute delta between
Syria’s “haves” and “have-nots” exacerbated
Coming Down the Mountain
historic urban-rural tensions, as a flood of Despite the present conflict, rural-urban
rural migrants sought assimilation into city migration is not new to Syria. Ibn Khaldun
life. In Arabic, the word commonly used to recognized this phenomenon seven hundred
describe the countryside is rif. The city itself is years ago. “The desert is the basis and reservoir
the medina. In Syria today, one can hardly dis- of civilization and cities;” he wrote, “the
cern where the medina stops and the rif toughness of desert life precedes the softness
begins. of sedentary life. Therefore, urbanization is
found to be the goal to which the Bedouin
No matter how the conflict ends, these groups aspires.” 1 Six hundred years later, Philip
will have guns and grievances associated with Khoury describes a similar phenomenon after
a lack of services, high unemployment, and the creation of modern Syria: “With the ongo-
extreme income inequality in an indebted, ing settlement of the tribe,” he writes, “the
post-conflict economy. shaykh developed a taste for city life… He
built homes in Damascus and Aleppo and
began to participate in the life and politics of
Today, the words rif and medina have the cities.”2 Traditionally, the city dominated
developed not just geographic connotations, the country, and was able to assimilate those
but social ones as well. The rif not only that decided to settle permanently inside its
describes village farmers but those urban poor walls.
living in the slums sprouting up around Syria’s Hafez al-Assad lived this rural-urban
cities. This “village-izing” of Syria’s ancient cit- migration and understood it as the key to
ies has changed the complexion of urban space social mobility. Assad once described to histo-
with the growth of large unplanned, parallel rian Patrick Seale that, “coming down the
communities of urban poor. Syria’s cities are mountain,” from the northeastern Alawite vil-
still the gateway to economic and political lage of Qardaha was, “the crucial turning point
power, but they no longer have the capacity to of my life.”3 Hafez went to Lattakia in 1945 as

34 | FEATURES SYRIA SUPPLEMENTAL

 THE RISE OF SYRIA’S POOR

the first member of his family to receive a basic “liberalization” policies. But that money was
education. “Rich boys didn’t bother to work,” not for everyone.
Hafez later recalled, “but simply gave them- Nowhere was Syria’s expanding wealth
selves what marks they wanted at the end of more clearly denied than to the residents of its
the year, and very few were the teachers who burgeoning suburbs. Mojahed Ghadbian, a
dared to stand up to them.” Hafez’s now- young activist now based in the United States,
embattled son, Bashar, was not shaped by this watched the posh developments of rich new
history. He knew nothing of this “toughness of Damascus neighborhoods from Al Tal, a
desert life.” Unlike his father, who was careful northern suburb of the capital. He remembers
to pay attention to rural provincial capitals like his parents’ childhood stories of raising live-
Suweida and Dera’a, Bashar built a state stock. Rare then was the trip to the city itself.
enjoyed by friends and relatives like Rami Today, these burgeoning suburbs bleed into
Makhouf.4 This city-centric nepotism margin- city life. The first protest of the Syrian revolu-
alized a peasant class frustrated by misman- tion occurred on February 17, 2011 in the heart
aged resources and scarce economic opportu- of Damascus.5 But residents of Douma, a blue-
nity. It also accelerated a decade of mass collar Sunni Muslim suburb, not Damascenes,
rural-urban migration. Impressively, Syria’s were the participants. “The reality of this revo-
GDP nearly tripled from $21 billion to $59 lution,” says Mojahed, “is that the people who
billion under Bashar’s economic started it did not have economic opportunities
that those close to the regime did. They did

Ammar Abd Rabbo

People chant and dance during an anti-regime demonstration in Bustan Al Qasr area in Aleppo, Syria on
May 10, 2013

SYRIA SUPPLEMENTAL FEATURES | 35

KILCULLEN AND ROSENBLATT

not have the wasta (influence) to get a good neighborhoods of urban villagers. Twenty
job, nor did they have the baksheesh (bribe years ago, Charles Glass observed the early
money) to buy one, either.” days of this phenomenon in his travelogue,
The lack of economic opportunity in Syria Tribes with Flags. From Aleppo’s poor eastern
was exacerbated by unprecedented population suburbs, the section of the city most firmly
growth. Despite unreliable statistics, consider- under opposition control today, he wrote,
able indirect evidence suggests Syria’s recent “Now, I realized the village had come to the
population boom occurred disproportionately city, planting itself outside and growing in. The
in its cities. Syria’s population almost doubled poor farmers were bringing their customs… to
in the past 25 years, from 10.9 million in 1986 cosmopolitan Aleppo. …They were turning
to 20.8 million in 2010.6 This population rose their apartments into compact versions of their
predominantly in the slums surrounding mud houses. It was not poverty, but tradition,
Syria’s cities. From 2000 to 2010, Syria grew by that had put a whole family in one room.”7 For
4.92 million people; 3.23 million of whom – thousands of years, rural migrants were assim-
or nearly 65 percent - were born into urban ilated into urban life. Today, rapid population
areas. Today, Aleppo and Damascus together growth and unprecedented urban migration
hold approximately 4.5 million people. This have upset the historical balance between vil-
means that these cities have likely doubled in lage and city life.
population in the past decade. Al Tal residents
used to raise livestock; today, it is a popular
The Country and City in the Present
Conflict
destination for Syria’s underground nightclub
industry. The relatively ungoverned urban sprawl
The sheer mass of new urban migrants on the outskirts of Syria’s cities is the breeding
makes them impossible to assimilate ground for opposition activity. Baba Amr, a
smoothly. Instead, they transform large swaths slum of Homs adjacent to the orchards that
of Syria’s cities into stagnant, transplanted once fed the city, is synonymous with the

36 | FEATURES SYRIA SUPPLEMENTAL

 THE RISE OF SYRIA’S POOR

revolution.8 Ghouta, once farmland outside frustrations are the same ones that drove
Damascus, is another example of a boomtown Mohamed Bouazizi to self-immolate in Sidi
now besieged by Syrian government troops. Bouzid, Tunisia, on December 17, 2010. Civil
The map of opposition-held neighborhoods in activists were prominent while the revolution
Aleppo is almost exactly that of the blue-collar remained peaceful, but they have been side-
working class Sunni neighborhoods: densely lined by this mass of urban poor who now
packed, poorly planned relatively recent urban drive the violent conflict. “Syria had been emp-
growth. These areas share similar characteris- tied of most of its peaceful activists,” confirms
tics in that they are religious, conservative, pre- an anonymous writer in Syria.11 Unlike such
dominantly Sunni Muslim working class com- activists, Syria’s urban poor cannot leave.
munities with transplanted villagers long Armed groups take advantage of neighbor-
ignored by the government and deprived of hoods like Tadamon by providing residents
services and economic opportunity. with jobs, services, and basic necessities. That
These neighborhoods of urban poor are is how they get them to fight. Today, these
the most heavily contested in Syria. According groups spend as much time fighting each other
to Syria Tracker, a collaborative, crowd-sourced as they do the Syrian government, recognizing
effort to document and geo-tag deaths in Syria, the economic and political benefit of control-
there have been 14,125 deaths since the begin- ling these neighborhoods. Tadamon could not
ning of 2013. Of those 14,125 deaths, over half afford to keep armed groups out.
have occurred in Aleppo and Damascus and Nowhere is this divide clearer than in
their surrounding suburbs. Syrian Martyrs, one Aleppo. The rebels started the insurgency there
of the contributors to this effort, was able to in late July 2012, dragging the city’s eastern
track deaths at the neighborhood level. By suburbs into the fight. “We liberated the rural
December 2012, they estimated that more than parts of this province,” said a rebel fighter in
half of all deaths in Aleppo occurred in only the first days of the rebel offensive. “We waited
15 of 56 city neighborhoods.9 In Damascus, and waited for Aleppo to rise, and it didn’t. We
65% of all deaths occurred in only seven couldn’t rely on them to do it for themselves
neighborhoods.10 These neighborhoods gener- so we had to bring the revolution to them.”12
ally share three things in common: they have The attack was poorly organized because the
grown rapidly over the past decade, they align rebels thought the city would fall to them
closely with the opposition (in many cases easily. “Insurgents went in divided and
they are controlled by the opposition), and are overconfident,” writes International Institute
predominantly poor, working class city sub- for Strategic Studies scholar Emile Hokayem.
urbs. “The mostly rural fighters made no attempt at
I n Ta d a m o n , a n e i g h b o r h o o d o f outreach and offered no guarantees to the
Damascus, people were considered criminals c i t y ’s t e r r i f i e d r e s i d e n t s a n d a n x i o u s
and homeless. “These were the projects,” said minorities.”13 Most Aleppans had little interest
one activist. “You don’t start a revolution from in the conflict; many came to the city from
these places.” For these communities, the rural communities and did not know their way
Syrian revolution is not about new govern- around. This only reinforces the reality that the
ments; it is about the economy. Their

SYRIA SUPPLEMENTAL FEATURES | 37

 KILCULLEN AND ROSENBLATT

revolution began with young activists but is destroyed infrastructure. The poorest neighbor-
now fought by the urban poor. hoods are home to many refugees – they are
The neighborhoods that accommodate among the most vulnerable populations
the rebel fighters do so out of economic neces- affected by some of the heaviest conflict.
sity. Rebel groups provide cash and arms to Unlike rich Syrians, the urban poor cannot
neighborhood kids, who often constitute the rent an apartment in Beirut to wait out the
informal police forces in opposition-held conflict; these are the areas from which many
areas. They are then called Ibna’ al-Hayy of the one million plus registered refugees flee.
(“sons of the lanes”), a loaded term suggesting The UN recognizes this, declaring recently that
that foreign-funded militant groups have local 10 million persons, or more than half of the
concerns in mind. Now, the majority of the pre-war population of Syria, will need human-
money and the training comes from Islamists itarian assistance by the end of 2013.14 If the
who provide economic opportunity, social ser- level of destruction and death in major city
vices, and law enforcement that both the suburbs is any indication of need, humanitar-
regime and the secular opposition fail to offer. ian agencies must prioritize the urban poor’s
The secular fighters once offered an alternative, needs.
but infighting and lawlessness among the so- In the absence of effective international
called “Free Syrian Army” has led to its demise. efforts to provide relief and security, intense
Basic services and honest dealing is how these localism blooms. Neighborhood gangs run
Islamists gained a foothold in the poor neigh- rampant. Lawlessness is rife. Warlordism is on
borhoods. Today groups like Jabhat al Nusra the rise. Iraqi sociologist Ali al-Wardi observed
and others are the most respected law of the this phenomenon in Baghdad fifty years ago:
land. the insularity of rural migrant communities
means that they continue to rely on group and
kinship ties to provide protection. In the
Unlike rich Syrians, the urban poor cannot rent absence of state or municipal efforts to provide
an apartment in Beirut to wait out the conflict; security and rule of law enforcement, these
these are the areas from which many of the groups reinforce their position as quasi-gov-
one million plus registered refugees flee. ernments.15 Before the conflict, these highly
insular communities built their own solutions
to basic service provision and, to some extent,
The Future of Syria’s Urban Poor even rule of law enforcement. Now these com-
This problem of unmanaged urban sprawl munities are armed. This has major implica-
will be even worse after the conflict. Syrian tions for the future of the Syrian state: for
average life expectancy is reportedly 75 years, when local militias take charge of their own
yet less than 8 percent of the country is over services, they are loath to return them to insti-
55. This means that Syria is due for a popula- tutions they do not control. If you are looking
tion bulge despite the deaths of tens of thou- for a model for Aleppo’s future, Libya’s second
sands of young men in the past two years. This city of Benghazi is not a bad place to start.
population growth compounds the damage Amid this chaos, one ideological frame-
inflicted on Syria’s already dwindling or work overcomes community insularity and

38 | FEATURES SYRIA SUPPLEMENTAL

 THE RISE OF SYRIA’S POOR

provides workable solutions for providing the lawlessness and religiosity of opposition-
basic necessities and an effective cross-neigh- held Syria. Central Damascus and parts of
borhood governing structure: religion. Islamist regime-held Aleppo remain the safest parts of
groups thrive in these neighborhoods. They are the country. But the fear felt by these loyalists
generously funded, well equipped, highly is more visceral than Islamism and the chaos
experienced and the least corrupt organiza- of opposition-led Syria. It is not the Islamists
tions among opposition groups in Syria. They they fear, but rather the cause of Islamism
also provide a framework for governance that itself that they fear: the uneducated, vulnera-
is familiar to each community: though civil ble, long-oppressed communities of the Rif
society was heavily repressed in Syria, religion who now rise up against them. “There was not
was afforded greater leeway to operate. In tap- one person who demonstrated in Harasta (a
ping into this network of frustrated urban Damascus suburb) who could read,” one
poor, Jabhat al Nusra is quickly becoming the Damascene industrialist explained to Daily
Hezbollah of Syria’s Sunni Muslims. In Star reporter Lauren Williams in March; “They
Aleppo, four Salafist Jihadist groups, led by were illiterate and angry. They would rather see
Jabhat al Nusra, have set up Sharia the country destroyed.”18 In Aleppo, an activist
Commissions that are to date the only effective in regime-held areas of the city describes the
law enforcement bodies in opposition-held feeling among those still loyal to Assad: “A lot
areas of the city. They have a police force, a of people are closer to the opposition in these
judicial body, a religious scholarship network areas (than you think),” he writes, “but after
that issues fatwas (legal rulings), and a services the theft and lawlessness that occurs among
branch that even runs public transportation elements of the Free Syrian Army, there is
services.16 Combining armed groups with civil- major concern among residents over newly
ian assistance delivery mechanisms like the freed areas.” When the opposition recently
Sharia Commission, these religious groups took the key strategic neighborhood of Sheikh
remain the only cohesive structure that pro- Maqsoud, he reports, armed elements stole
tects residents and provides basic services in more than 300 cars and looted local shops.
opposition-held areas. A new civilian council
was formed for Aleppo City recently after elec-
Conclusion
tions in Gaziantep,17 but has yet to display the While country towns Dera’a and Baniyas
capability to curb pervasive lawlessness or the sparked Syria’s revolution, their fight quickly
rigorous self-discipline to avoid local percep- metastasized to Syria’s cities. The first violent
tions of corruption. The longer the conflict outbreak of the Syrian conflict took place in
continues, the more powerful these Islamist Homs, where the frustration of the urban poor
groups will grow because they are winning boiled over into open hostility. Brought on by
over Syria’s urban poor. the grievances of village communities
This dynamic not only improves the lot of crammed into Baba Amr’s unplanned slums,
extreme Islamists among the opposition, but Syria’s rebels took a stand. Today the commu-
also reinforces the appeal of the Syrian govern- nities of urban poor in the hands of the oppo-
ment in pro-regime areas. To these residents, sition are the hardest hit during the conflict
the regime increasingly represents order amid

SYRIA SUPPLEMENTAL FEATURES | 39

KILCULLEN AND ROSENBLATT

Their frustrations and their guns will motivate moves to Damascus from the fictional
a key power base in Syria’s post-Assad future. Christian village of Mala. There, he falls in love
Sixty years before Dera’a, a group of young with a Damascene girl: “She spoke fluent
activists sought to transform similar rural French,” Elias recalls, “which sounded to his
grievances into a revolutionary political move- ears like civilization, liberation from cow dung
ment. Much as now, these activists dreamed of and the smell of sweat.” In another chapter,
a revolution that would lift the Arab world out Schami writes of a Damascene police officer
of its collective myopia. “Ba’athism” was the sent to Mala to resolve a dispute between the
term they coined – “renaissance” – to describe village’s two main families: “The CID officer
their lofty aspirations. But the dreams of knew that by giving away the name he might
Michel Aflaq and Salah ad-Din al-Bitar, the cause a murder, but he hated peasants and the
movement’s co-founders, required the power very smell of them. In the city, he would never
of Syria’s rural community to channel their have revealed the identity of a man who had
ambitions into political power. Enter Akram laid a complaint, not for all the money in the
al-Hourani, a “Syrian Castro,” who rallied world.”20 Sixty years ago, the peasants rose up
hundreds of thousands of Syrian workers to and were granted Ba’athism. Today, this pan-
the cause of socialism. According to historian Arab socialism is tarred with the brush of
Patrick Seale, Hourani “roused the peasants, Hafez al-Assad and Saddam Hussein.
politicized the army, and gave the theorists of Today a new order grips Syria and much
the Ba’ath a cutting edge. The anger of country of the Arab world. Islamism is on the rise. Post
boys, raging against the entrenched privilege Arab-Spring demands for “one man – one
of the cities, was given a sharper focus by his vote” push the urban poor into government.
example.”19 In 1953, his socialism combined Their superstitions and suspicions are chan-
with al-Bitar and Aflaq’s Ba’athism to create neled into a new, untrained mandate for reli-
the modern-day Arab Socialist Ba’ath party gious-based government. When the conflict
that now rules Syria. The Ba’athist revolution finally subsides, many activists and regime
in Syria would not have been possible without l a c k e y s w i l l h a v e l e f t t h e c o u n t r y.
the support from the very same communities Picking up the scraps of what remains, Syria’s
they fight today. urban poor will try to rebuild it without the
Unlike sixty years ago, when the country- knowledge and experience of generations of
side rose up against the city during Hourani’s rich Syrians who have abandoned it for greener
time, contemporary urbanization in Syria pastures. PRISM
means the city has risen up against itself. The
fight for Syria’s future is a fight for the future
of its cities, pitting urban-rural tensions in
smaller, denser pockets of ungovernable
spaces. One remarkable work of recent fiction
captures the essence of the deeply-felt suspi-
cions of the city and the country. In The Dark
Side of Love by Syrian author Rafik Schami,
Elias, one of the book’s central characters

40 | FEATURES SYRIA SUPPLEMENTAL

 THE RISE OF SYRIA’S POOR

Notes accessed at http://www.syrianassistance.com/6/

post/2013/02/syriaa-battle-royale.html
14
Martin Chulov, “Half of Syrian population
1
Franz Rosenthal, trans., The Muqaddimah: An ‘will need aid by end of year’,” The Guardian, April
Introduction to History (Princeton: Princeton 19, 2013, available at at http://www.theguardian.com/
University Press, 1967), 93. world/2013/apr/19/half-syrian-population-aid-year
2 15
Philip Khoury, Syria Under the French Ali al-Wardi, A Study in the Society of Iraq,
Mandate, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, (Baghdad, 1965).
16
1987). From a twitter post by reporter Jenan Moussa
3
Patrick Seale, Asad, the Struggle for the Middle while in Aleppo, dated April 7, 2013, Available at
East (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), https://twitter.com/jenanmoussa/sta-
11. tus/320964677851041792
4 17
See, for example: Oliver Holmes and See the council’s active web presence on
Suleiman al-Khalidi, “Syria moneyman is target of display here: https://www.facebook.com/
anti-Assad hatred,” Reuters, July 18, 2012, available at TheLocalCouncilOfAleppoCity and news about their
http://reut.rs/173NqFC election here: http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/
5
It was a spontaneous protest outside the syrians-vote-for-aleppo-council-.
famous Souq al-Hamidiyeh market in downtown aspx?pageID=238&nid=42271
18
Damascus. The Interior Minister himself arrived Lauren Williams, “Damascus Split on Support
quickly to disperse the protest after police were for Regime” The Daily Star, March 21, 2013, available
unable to stop the demonstrators. The first words at http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-
shouted in the video are “Haramiyeh! Haramiyeh” East/2013/Mar-21/210937-damascus-split-on-support-
(“Thieves! Thieves!”) in reference to the corruption of for-syrian-regime.ashx#ixzz2QySY8aqI
19
the regime, available at https://www.youtube.com/ Seale, Asad, Op.Cit., 49.
20
watch?v=qDHLsU-ik_Y Rafik Schami, The Dark Side of Love, Anthea
6
These figures are all courtesy of the World Bell (trans.), (Northampton, MA: Interlink Books,
Bank (databank.worldbank.org) and date from before 2009).
the start of the uprising.
7
Glass, Charles, Tribes with Flags: A Journey
Curtailed (London: Secker & Warburg, 1990), 165.
8
See, for example: Erika Solomon, “Syrian
army recaptures symbolic Baba Amr district in
Homs,” available at http://reut.rs/104zXWO
9
In order from most to fewest: Salah ad-Din,
al-Sukkari, Bustan al-Qasr, al-Sha’ar, al-Firdos,
Hanano, al-Haydariyah, Sakhour, Tariq al-Bab,
al-Marjeh, Qadi Askar, Saif al-Dawla, Karm al-Jabal,
Bustan al-Basha, and al-Amriyah.
10
In order from most to fewest: al-Qaboun,
Jobar, al-Hajjar al-Aswad, al-Qadam, Tadamon,
Yarmouk, and Sayyida Zeinab
11
An anonymous author from Syria under the
pseudonym “Rita” writes “Syrian Activist
Communities: The Battle Inside,” openDemocracy
weblog, April 16, 2013, available at http://www.
opendemocracy.net/rita-from-syria/syrian-activist-
communities-battle-inside
12
Erika Solomon, “Rural fighters pour into
Syria’s Aleppo for battle” Reuters, July 29, 2012,
available at http://reut.rs/1dwT1VT
13
Emile Hokayem, “Syria’s Battle Royale,”
Syrian Assistance (Blog post), February 12, 2013,

SYRIA SUPPLEMENTAL FEATURES | 41

REUTERS/Muzzafar Salman

Abu al-Taib, leader of Ahbab Al-Mustafa Battalion, during a military training for female fighters in a mosque in
the Seif El Dawla neighbourhood in Aleppo”