Upper Jazira was sewn onto Mandatory Syria by the French in large part for this reason—rapidly transformed from a restless frontier of wandering tribes to a modern breadbasket by a planned “civilisation” project which could occupy the waves of refugees pouring in from Anatolia.
In ~20 years, radically new infrastructure was laid down to exploit the fertility of the Khabur basin b/w Tur Abdin & Sinjar-Abdulaziz, looking to recall ancient prosperity literally studding the landscape—the myriad tells & other sites visibly laying outlines of empires past.
Historically and culturally, Jazira had much more to do with Mardin, Mosul, and Diyarbekir than Homs, Hama, or Damascus—but the French saw the power in the land and pushed hard to secure it for their holdings in Syria, tangling with Turks, Brits, and hostile locals in the process
Though the traditional mobile lifestyles of the Arab & Kurd tribes who lived there were arguably more ecologically sustainable than intensive modern agriculture, the French scorned this and looked instead to pick up on the abortive Ottoman idea to sedentarise & urbanise the land.
Both Ottomans & French found the existing locals to be too troublesome to pin down, so turned to their respective refugee crises to provide manpower. The former used Chechens/Ingushes fleeing Russian depredations in N Caucasus to limited but lasting effect
For the French, WWI genocides + subsequent turmoil (e.g. Sheikh Said) sent 100s of 1000s of Assyrians, Armenians, Kurds, Ezidis, & even Jews southwards seeking safety. Largely from village backgrounds & amongst them many “fellow” Christians, these seemed a good fit for the task.
By a mixture of hierarchical French planning & local self-initiative, new towns & cities rose up quickly in the plains, mainly along the new border line of the yet-incomplete Bagdadbahn, the best export route for the region’s earthly riches, linking directly to markets in Aleppo.
Qamishli, located optimally to mirror & sap old Nusaybin on this line, sprang up as chief city. A vibrant & unstable mix of peoples—Jews from the old city, Assyrians+Armenians, & then Kurds+Arabs—progressively settled in the shadows of the French barracks & old mill of Qudur Beg
The French, with characteristic Euro fixation on racial typology, loosely shaped a social hierarchy—Christians (Catholics first, ofc), then Kurds (cooperative newcomers first), then finally ever-restive Arabs. The favoured concentrated in the new urban/market town middle class.
As the New Jazira was being put together, the French were also grappling with serious control problems in the rest of Syria. Communitarian partition didn’t subdue as hoped, & the pan-Arab-with-Muslim-undertones National Bloc emerged as the main front of resistance to French rule.
Against this backdrop, and with the NB bloc prone to anti-Christian/anti-refugee spasms, a coalition of Jazirans, principally Kurd & Assyrian newcomers with some Arab hangers-on, began to agitate for regional autonomy for Jazira, recognizing their geographic power in the country.
This intercommunal partnership seems perhaps improbable so soon after the Seyfo, but nevertheless the Regionalists constituted a robust current in the Mandatory Jaziran political scene, engaging in bitter struggle against the NB’s local camp w long-lasting national repercussions.
Concurrent & even linked with other minority movements such as the inter-Christian White Badge militia active in western Syria, the Regionalists sought French backing to secure autonomy for their rich homeland, a wish partly granted in 1939—a status that was ultimately temporary.
Dominated by Syriac Catholic notables & newcomer Kurd elders like the maverick Haco Agha of the Heverkan, vied for power against NB partisans, heavily Arab with support from older Kurd tribes led by the border-flaunting Daham al-Hadi of the Shammar—yes, Humaidi Daham’s own dad.
The struggle was punctuated by bouts of violence such as the 1937 pogrom against Assyrians in Amuda carried out by pro-NB Kurds with Arab support, a chilling echo of the Simele massacre in Iraq a few years before which sent yet another refugee wave into French-controlled Jazira.
Ultimately, Regionalists lost. Causes were manifold: reliance on lukewarm & finite French support, rise of divisive nationalist thought in the Kurd wing, the decision of the long-silent Syriac Orthodox hierarchy to cast their lot with the ascendant nationalists in Damascus, etc.
Under the new arrangement of power, Christians tacitly agreed to political quiescence to preserve much of their community life. Kurds were a thornier problem, to be harshly grappled with by successive Arabist regimes. Jazira was tenuously subdued into a land to be extracted from.
Still, Jazira’s social mosaic continued to be an arena for struggles over land-power throughout the 20th century. Nationalist liquidations of large landholdings beginning in the 50s targeted elites of all communities, but the spoils were often disproportionately dealt to Arabs.
One of the notable expropriation cases seized the holdings of the Assyrian Asfar-Najjar clan of Ras al-Ayn, pioneers of mechanised agriculture in Jazira. They & many others of the community left during the mid-century. Armenians began to relocate to the USSR around the same time.
The later Arab Belt plan also came from similar schemes. Designed not to split Kurd enclaves in Syria, as commonly misremembered, but cribbing a Zionist template to create a string of border-guard villages to split Jaziran Kurds from cousins in Turkey and dampen political ties.
Still, movements such as the Communists could still find considerable support across the underrepresented communities living east of the Euphrates—once mocked as a “Kurdish party” yet also having lingering support today amongst some Raqqawi Arab tribes. (Cf. also the ICP in Iraq)
The unresolved problem at the heart of modern Jaziran history revolves around control of land and its resources—agri primarily, oil and hydroelectricity are icing on the cake—and the representation of its communities in that control, both amongst themselves & vis a vis W Syria.
In the present situation, one finds a positively eerie mirror for so many themes in the long-buried history of the Mandate. Abandoned by their powerful international backer, with their vital inter-ethnic coalition increasingly strained, the 21st c Regionalists are in a bad spot.
Difference now is that the state whose tradition of genocide sent so many fleeing Jazira now threatens to invade beyond its borders to hunt again. Damascus finds itself at risk of losing its most productive region in the process—choice should be clear to both Syrian parties. /END
fleeing *to jazira, dammit. when’s that edit button coming :(
