KABook Review (Weekend Reading): Ambiguities of Domination by Lisa Wedeen

Upon learning that I was writing a graduate level paper about a book on the “Asad cult”, my father immediately halted conversation, and without further explanation, made me promise him that I would not write this paper. This reaction, this fear of the potential impact back in the “watan”, reified much of enigmatic power of the Asad cult in Syria to maintain an obedient citizenry, as discussed in Lisa Wedeen’s “Ambiguities of Domination,” but at the same time it left a lot to be explained. Why is it, and what is it specifically that a man who lives in the United States, left Syria two years before the “Corrective Movement” and has not been back since fear? More generally, why would subjects of an economically disadvantaged state condone and participate in practices of political repression? Why are Syrian citizens complicit in the face of authoritarian rule? Is it cultural? Are paternalistic leaders the only kind Arab subjects respect and support? Especially Syrian citizens who practice obediancy to a non-rentier state and as such receive no viable economic benefits to buy off their complicity. According to Wedeen, “The book argues that Asad’s cult is a strategy of domination based on compliance rather than legitimacy. The regime produces compliance through enforced participation in rituals of obeisance that are transparently phony both to those who orchestrate them and to those who consume them” (6). She seeks to expose, “The ways in which (the) cult and spectacle both produce political power yet also, paradoxically invite transgressions” (4-5). As this quotes hint at, Wedeen’s book is a fascinating read, but in her attempt to understand what she calls “disciplinary symbolic power” of Asad cult’s spectacles, she falls short in two major areas, two keys factors are missing in her analysis. First, I will demonstrate what she has contributed to the discourse on nation-state power and elucidated about Syrian citizens “obedience” to Asad, then I will briefly discuss the 2 ways she falls short in her analysis, two categories I call: firstly, historical context out of context, and lastly, she scratches the surface of psychology. But before I discuss the short fallings of Wedeen’s analysis, I will briefly address what she does do right, what her contribution to the discussion of the “ambiguities of domination” looks like.

Wedeen’s strength as a political scientist is exposed in her discussions of the face of Syrian nationalism . The statement that resonated strongly was the one in which she characterized this totalizing fear of the state by Syrians as such a forceful current that unifies all Syrians, that it has become part of their nationality, as part of what it means to be a Syrian. According to Wedeen, “To be “Syrian” means” to, “to operate within this rhetorical universe.” And by “rhetorical universe” Wedeen means the ability to be discursively fluent in the official language of the cult which includes rhetoric and symbols, (and to have the formula for politically correct behavior down to a science.) This convincingly explains part of my father’s reaction to my paper. His fluency in what Havel calls “social auto-totality”, in self-enforced censorship is explained as an expression of his Syrian-ness. But, this man didn’t live in Syria during the reign of Hafez al-Asad, so where and when did this political education occur? The answer to this question can be best explained in what is missing from her analysis.

In dealing with the historical context of Syrian politics, Wedeen disappointingly presents a fragmented, superficial handling of historical context. Why might Syrians subtly subvert and still believe? Why might a man like my father who left the country two years before the “Corrective Movement” admonish his American-born and raised daughter not to comment on this book? This fear, this “obediancy” to the regime, what is it? What does he fear? More importantly “why” does a man who hasn’t even returned to his homeland since before the time of the mounting (and institutionalizing) of the Asad cult fear it? Why and how is he so well versed in the official language? And why is he so hesitant to vocally oppose a regime he harshly criticizes and is not governed by? In this instance, a proper understanding of the Syrian historical context and how it affects a Syrian’s psyche is needed. Wedeen’s handling of Syria’s political history is disjointed. At one point she discusses the colonial period of French domination, and then the next she moves on President Salah Jadid’s rule of the country, then she incorrectly defines the tenets of Ba’thism (43), and finally she ends up at the 1970 start of the “Corrective Movement.” In all this hop scotching from different rulers to different forms of domination in Syria’s history, she misses a key moment(s) to understanding where a significant source of Asad’s legitimacy as a ruler comes from. The decades that followed the intervention of French colonial domination into the region, in the moment of “infrastructure building” and “Westernization”, Syria’s 25 different rulers in 50 years time. There is a joke in Syria, that everyone is related to at least one president . Why is the 50 years of unstable rule by 25 different heads of states not addressed or factored into the formula of analyzing the power of the Asad cult? Wedeen brings in the Al-Quwalti quote that hints of this lasting impression left on the Syrian citizens of their “unruliness” as a ruled population, but she doesn’t unpackage the psychological commentary that is embodied in that quote.

The crux of her argument seems to focus in on a Syrian citizen’s reason for practicing, participating in unbelief, and the half-belief that the unbelief requires to be practiced. By half-belief I mean to say that Syrians, because of the debilitating effects of colonial rule, of the succession of weak, unsuccessful heads of state, there is this “mentalite of powerlessness” and inferiority, not just as subjects, but as Syrians. I do applaud Wedeen for handling the history of colonial domination of Syria, but again she does it superficially, especially considering she devotes a couple of pages to addressing and analyzing that phenomenon, as opposed to 20 pages on analyzing M’s dream.

Also missing is a discussion on pre-colonial rule, on the rule of Amir Faysal, of the concept of Bilad-al-Sham, of a Levant before the presence of European colonialism. This is significant to the ways in which Syrians see themselves as Syrians, and who, besides “Salah El Din” is considered part of this constructed “national legacy.” Because of these omissions, it is hard for her to effectively locate the moment of Syrianization of the population. And as the daughter of two grandfathers who fought against the French in what they termed a “Syrian Liberation Movement,” she does an abysmal job of historically tracking articulations of Syrian-ness or Syrian nationalism. Why is this important to Wedeen’s argument? Without this tracking of the genealogy of Syrian nationalism, it is unclear how someone like Asad can both monopolize the definition of Syrian nationalism, elicit complicity and yet fall short based on those historical examples, and still elicit complicity. Appealing to a citizenry’s knowledge of what it means to be a Syrian is one of the easiest ways to produce obedient citizenry. At what point did they buy into the idea of being “Syrian” and how did the Asad cult successfully market itself as the authentic representation of this notion of being Syrian? And how does the cult’s transgressions from authentically representing what it means to be Syrian, still produce an obedient citizenry? This is all the result of the impact of the aforementioned history has on the psychology of Syrians.

Secondly, the book only scratches the psychological surface of why Syrians are obedient to and participate in a regime they don’t “believe” in; which I think would enhance her analysis. Her “Politics of As If” chapter, which attacked “M’s Dream” from almost every psychological angle, showed promises of engaging with the Syrian citizen’s psyche, but she only introduces loose threads of analysis, to leave them dangling, instead of tying them together. The real power of the Asad cult is found on manipulation and management (management signals or hints of a level of control) of the psychology of Syrians in three major arenas. One is fear of corporal punishment and the ambiguities of punishment/domination. Ambiguity in punishment means unpredictable disciplinary action that results in producing the ideal citizen. The ideal citizen is too hamstrung to act, too liberated to think they are hamstrung, so him or her is left without rational recourse to resist. The citizen is stuck in the middle, so the best solution is to act obediently, but also to maintain a disbelief in the state. The citizen of the state is conned into believing that possessing this disbelief in the declarations of the cult is enough. But since the lingering threat of state punishment hangs around every corner, as “good citizens” produced by these mechanisms of domination, become extensions of disciplinary power, the individual, instead of waiting for the state to punish him, or for the “good citizen” to turn him into the city, practices self-enforcing obediency. The measure of this production of the modern citizen is what the disciplinary power of the state strives for. Second is this psychology of post-colonial inferiority. The citizen convincingly believes that he or she is too unruly to rule, and therefore needs discipline. Thirdly is the psychology of nationalism, which is to say that to live in fear of Asad and of explicit political discussions defines someone’s Syrian-ness. Even though, psychological anthropology is out of vogue, there is much to be explained by this field of analysis in the study of state disciplinary power.

There are significant moments in which Wedeen comes close to answering fundamental questions raised in the book. But she seems to stop query and is hesitant to connect certain psychological observations, like in the case of “M’s dream” and the use of the family metaphor. What is the effect of colonial domination in the collective consciousness on the psychology of the ruled? The feeling of inferiority is felt and seen in subversive art, the self-portrayal is down right sad. By this, I mean the jokes surrounding the heads of state of France, the US, and of course of Syria. In one of these said jokes, Mitterrand, Reagan, and Asad have a conversation with God basically about the “development” or “advancement” of their respective citizenry. God gives the former two presidents a set of years when they can expect their citizenry to be modern. And when she comes to Asad, God cries. God cries because of the hopelessness of that development, of the Syrians ever becoming “modern.” It appears that Wedeen included this example to illustrate how Syrian jokes function to subversively attack and insult a man who they cannot directly criticize in a public, however it does something different. It shows deep roots of self-hate, a phenomenon not tied to her analysis of why Syrians actually permit the Asad regime to rule. She doesn’t account for this fact that Syrians actually believe in their inferiority; a belief very directly produced by the debilitating effects of colonial rule, a colonized mentality. This is all connected to how the Asad cult exploits and manipulates this belief, to manage power and produce obedient citizenry. She addresses all the key elements, the colonial history, the “unruliness” of Syrians, respect for paternalism, superficially, and, unfortunately, discusses them in isolation from each other. My father once confided in me that, “The French gave us infrastructure. And the truth is we are not capable of doing that.” According to this, in the “Syrian psyche,” there was no viable state before the French. “We don’t believe in him or the cult, but who else can rule Syria? ” I didn’t have to directly quote my father to get this point across, as this very sentiment laid on the lips of my Syrian host mother’s, and was poignantly expressed by the Quwatli quote provided by Wedeen. This sentiment becomes the quintessential example of the debilitating effect of colonial rule on the psyche of the colonized. “We are unruly, and not fit to rule. Only forceful paternalist rule can control the unruly.”

Why is all this important? Because, without a more detailed analysis of history and psychology, she wrongly attributes this sense of “obediancy” to the effect of the disciplinary power of the Asad cult. The point is that it isn’t or cannot all be attributed to Asad. However, I do praise Wedeen. Her book is a fascinating read; especially in the way it makes sense of the nonsense of the Asad cult’s spectacles. However, the read is fraught with marked historical omissions, loose psychological observations, and short-sided theoretical analysis. The theoretical analysis of the use of rhetorical and symbolic discipline by the state in its attempt to not only legitimate, but substantiate power, mistakenly confines the analysis to Asad. Much of the analysis is so very strongly rooted in a Foucauldian analysis of power and discipline. It doesn’t bring a much innovations to the table, or even demonstrate how the use of spectacles by the Asad cult in Syria is any different than from any other country’s imposition of national myth, hagiography and public participation. Not taking into the account the specificities of what it means to be a Syrian, the history of and psychology of Syrian nationalism, makes her argument too general of one to really address the ambiguities of domination by the Asad cult in Syria.