ABSTRACT
Syria’s fleeting liberal moment is usually dismissed as a period of corrupt rule by self-serving agrarian and commercial elites, who retained power by manipulating democratic institutions and attempted to cultivate legitimacy through the use of populist rhetoric and the display of nationalist symbols. Tabitha Petran offers a succinct portrait:
The veteran nationalists who inherited rule from the French [in April 1946] seized on the social privileges and status of the departed masters as well. The National Bloc used its monopoly of political power to feather its own nest and ensure its continuance at the helm. Flagrant venality came to prevail in public life . . . The government, indifferent to the economic and social problems facing the people, embarked on a campaign of intimidation, purges, and arrests in an attempt to silence its critics and destroy all political opposition.1
