That the Syrian regime has been able to shield itself from a more substantive political transition process due to its ability to present itself as the protector of religious and ethnic minorities and because of the absence of a unified opposition are claims oft repeated to explain why progress in Syria seems so elusive. The former posits the Syrian people as insufficiently critical consumers of state propaganda and the latter suggests the lack of an alternative vision to the existing political system. My analysis centers on the political thought of sociologist and former Syrian National Council leader Burhan Ghalioun’s 1979 work, al-Mas’ala al-tai’ifiyya wa muskila al-aqalliyyat (The Question of Sectarianism and the Problem of Minorities), first penned in the midst of Syria’s Islamist uprising (1976-1982) and expanded, updated, and republished multiple times since the 2011 uprising. This text both forms a critique of the Syrian regime and articulates alternative notions of state, society, and citizenship. However, thought without reception counts for little in any political analysis. I attempt to bridge that gap by incorporating analysis of the context and reception of Ghalioun’s work. Audience reception, in this study, incorporates Syrian opposition documents and statements over the period studied. Thus, this reading of Ghalioun’s text engages and rethinks reception theory--that is, a reading of the work against an existing horizon of expectations—as a tool of socio-political analysis in order to contextualize Ghalioun’s political thought, to render a more nuanced and complex understanding of its relevancy, and to uncover historical changes affecting the reading public. To some extent Ghalioun’s analysis reflects the concern of many social scientists to not overstate the impact of sectarian identity or render it atavistic, but to instead draw attention to how issues related to persistent authoritarianism, social and economic inequalities, and foreign relations are integral to both understanding and dismantling this modern reality. However, Ghalioun’s distinction between political sectarianism (which he understands as a malign effect of elite competition for power) and social sectarianism (which he sees as a potential basis for a vibrant pluralism) further envisions a pluralist, civil and democratic alternative for Syria in which all of its citizens are equal. The aim of this analysis is not to predict the outcome of Syria’s conflict but to uncover an existent narrative of alternative possibilities and to gauge its course, development and reception amid a shifting terrain of opposition.

The toppling of Saddam Hussein’s regime in 2003, orchestrated by the American government and the Iraqi opposition abroad, transformed Iraq’s political and social landscapes through the unprecedented institutionalization of a sectarian quota system. The sectarian violence that followed led to a re-reading of Iraqi history. The concept of sectarianism became an overarching framework to understand Iraq’s past and politics. Most of the literature evokes Orientalist discourses on Iraq, and perceived post-2003 sectarianism as the resilience of primordial loyalties. A more nuanced literature has emphasized that sectarianism throughout the history of the Iraqi nation-state has been a modern phenomenon that needs to be examined in a political and historical context. However, the concept of sectarianism remains under-developed. Diverse episodes – such as King Faysal’s memorandum on the lack of national feelings among the fragmented Iraqi society, under-representation of Iraqi Shia under the monarchy, Saddam Hussein’s oppression of Iraqi Shia and Kurds – are interpreted as indications of the sectarian nature of the Iraqi state and society. Such an approach tends to reproduce the very concept it attempts to criticize by reading sectarianism retrospectively throughout the history of Iraq. The notion of sectarianism emerges as historically unchanging and as self-evident. In this paper, I will historicize and conceptualize the concept of sectarianism through examining the often-quoted King Faysal’s memorandum of 1932. Faysal’s description of the “ailments” inflicting the Iraqi society is advanced as attestation of the deeply rooted sectarianism in the country. What is fascinating about this document is that King Faysal does not use the word sectarianism. Rather, he speaks of “(religious and sectarian) narrow-mindedness,” “religious differences” and “ignorance” as undermining national sentiments. These terms raise the question: can we speak of sectarianism in this case? Are “narrow-mindedness” (ta‘asub) and “sectarianism” (ta’ifiyya) indistinguishable, especially in light of Faysal’s divisions of Iraqis into: modern young men, the narrow-minded (muta‘asbun), the Sunnis, the Shia, the Kurds, the non-Muslim minorities, the tribes, the religious clerics, and the ignorant majority? In this paper, I will analyze the implication of King Faysal’s terminology. I will argue that this document focuses on a specific state of affairs in the history of the nascent Iraqi state (established in 1921), and that to treat it as a chronicle of sectarianism is to project a contemporary reading of it. I contend that a historicized notion of sectarianism calls for its conceptualization as a recent and distinctive phenomenon in Iraq.