Qunfuz

I’m really happy to have published this with New Lines Magazine, an excellent initiative in long-form journalism organized by some of the very best people in the field.

The world is worried about the jihadism of Syria’s new leaders, but the world may be missing the point.

Currently, Abu Muhammad al-Jowlani the jihadist is nowhere to be seen. His alter-ego Ahmad al-Sharaa the politician, however, is on television, and in the presidential palace. He has smoothly assumed the role of head of state, meeting foreign dignitaries, issuing wise advice to the nation, reassuring minorities that their rights will be protected.

So far, al-Sharaa’s political and communication skills match or even supersede al-Jowlani’s military prowess. Some years ago the man was an al-Qaida-linked jihadi, in turban. Then he lived through a Che Guevara stage, in fatigues. That lasted until his triumphant entry to the Ummayad Mosque in Damascus on December 8 last year. Now, going by his real name and no longer a nom de guerre, dressed in tie and suit, he stresses his – that is, Syria’s – desire for domestic and regional stability. And lest anyone still thinks he’s a backward-looking obscurantist, he mocks others for their weird obsessions with the distant past.

On December 22, sitting beside Lebanese Druze leader Walid Junblatt, al-Sharaa referenced Iran’s intervention to defend the Assad regime. Iran had organized Shia militias from as far away as Pakistan to fight in Syria, and had mobilized them with stories about power struggles amongst the immediate successors to the Prophet Muhammad. “Events that happened 1400 years ago… what have they got to do with us?” al-Sharaa asked rhetorically. “What is this mentality? What is this logic?”

It is simultaneously wonderful that Syria has such a skilful leader at this delicate moment and frightening that such a powerful personality overshadows the polity being born. Al-Sharaa’s immense abilities and newfound charisma, and the size of his victory (though it’s not by any means just his) makes it more likely that he will morph again, this time into a national strongman, and that’s probably not what Syria needs as it emerges from under the corpse of the old dictatorship.

Yassin al-Haj Saleh has written of necktie fascists and bearded fascists. It’s not the dress sense that’s the issue here, but the fascism. Thus far, al-Sharaa is doing what the people (presumably) want, and steering away from fascism. He says there will be elections, and that civilians will rule. Of course, what he means by elections remains to be seen. The Salafi-Jihadist current from which he emerges generally considers democracy un-Islamic. So has he genuinely changed his mind on this matter? Will the men under his command accept this change of mind? Will he, and they, henceforth seek to persuade society of their point of view, as would an ordinary political party?