Among Assad’s opponents, moderation reigns

David Pollock is the Kaufman Senior Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and an adviser to Pechter Polls.

Reporting about violence in the Middle East often focuses on Islamic extremists, and this is increasingly true for much of the coverage of Syria’s uprising. But in the Syrian political opposition, Islamic extremism is truly the exception that proves the rule. The vast majority of Syrian opposition activists, according to a new, systematic survey of more than 1,000 of them, express relatively moderate views about Islamic issues. They also voice support for many key democratic values — and most look to the West and other democracies for inspiration and protection. These findings offer support for the view that mainstream Syrian opposition fighters merit the increased aid that would enable them to defend themselves, defeat Bashar al-Assad’s dictatorship and restrain any extremists infiltrating their movement.

The survey, completed in July, was commissioned by the nonprofit International Republican Institute, a nongovernmental organization, and conducted by Pechter Polls of Princeton, N.J., in consultation with Conrad Winn of Compas Research and Carleton University. Native Syrian interviewers conducted the poll, using secure Skype and online links in Arabic. To minimize regime interference or intimidation, the sampling employed a referral (or “snowball”) methodology, starting with five trusted opposition activists, men and women, from different locations and different ethnic, religious, political and socioeconomic backgrounds. They sampled their own networks of opposition contacts and other networks identified as the fieldwork proceeded.

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The result was a representative (though not random) sample of 1,168 Syrian opposition activists. Demographically, the sample is a cross-section of that population. The activists are from across the country and around the world. Just more than half are 35 or younger; two-thirds have more education than a high school diploma. By ethnicity, 80 percent are Arab; 14 percent Kurdish; and 5 percent Assyrian, Turkmen, Circassian or other. By religion, 80 percent are Sunni Muslim, with the remainder identifying as not religious, Christian, Alawi, Druze or other. As for gender, 85 percent are male. Of the total, 315 reported that they still lived in Syria, while the rest were operating from exile.

Asked if the opposition leadership “should support the rights and freedoms of minorities,” the average response score was 6.36 out of 7, indicating very strong and widespread agreement. Among those inside Syria, this view was particularly intense, with 79 percent giving it the highest possible score; the comparable figure for opposition activists outside the country was 68 percent. Asked whether “religious minorities should have equal rights in all aspects of society,” responses were similarly positive. And equal rights even for “non-believers” were accorded the highest possible agreement score by 64 percent of opposition activists, whether inside or outside Syria. Fifty-nine percent, inside and outside the country, said they would vote for a qualified Alawite candidate — one from the Assad regime’s most favored and most loyal sect — in a free election, an impressive share given the bloodletting and sectarian polarization in Syria since the uprising began in March 2011.