Michel Aflaq

Michel Aflaq
Secretary General of the National Command of the Iraq-based Ba'ath Party
In office
February 1968 – 23 June 1989
Preceded by Munif al-Razzaz
Succeeded by Saddam Hussein
Secretary General of the National Command of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party
In office
1954 – April 1965
Preceded by None–post established
Succeeded by Munif al-Razzaz
Personal details
Born 1910
Damascus, Ottoman Syria
Died 23 June 1989
Paris, France
Political party Arab Ba'ath Movement (1940–1947)
Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party (1947–1966)
Baghdad-based Ba'ath Party (1968–1989)
Religion Greek Orthodox

Michel Aflaq (Arabic: ميشيل عفلق‎, born Damascus 1910, died in Paris on 23 June 1989) was a Syrian philosopher, sociologist and Arab nationalist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of ba'athism and its political movement; he is considered by several ba'athist to be the principal founder of ba'athist thought. He published various books during his lifetime, the most notable being The Battle for One Destiny (1958) and The Struggle Against Distorting the Movement of Arab Revolution (1975).

Born into a middle class family in Damascus, Syria, Aflaq studied at the Sorbonne, where he met his future political companion Salah al-Din al-Bitar. He returned to Syria in 1932, and began his political career in communist politics. Aflaq became a communist activist, but broke his ties with the communist movement when the Syrian–Lebanese Communist Party supported France's colonial policies. Later in 1940 Aflaq and al-Bitar established the Arab Ihya Movement (later renaming itself to Arab Ba'ath Movement, taking the name from Zaki al-Arsuzi's group by the same name). The movement proved successful, and in 1947 the Arab Ba'ath Movement merged with al-Arsuzi's Arab Ba'ath organisation to establish the Arab Ba'ath Party. Aflaq was elected to the party's executive committee and was elected amid, literally the party's leader.

The Arab Ba'ath Party merged with Akram al-Hawrani's Arab Socialist Party to establish the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party in 1952; Aflaq was elected the party's leader in 1954. During the mid-to-late 1950s the party began fostering relations with Gamal Abdel Nasser, the President of Egypt, which eventually led to the establishment of the United Arab Republic (UAR). Nasser forced Aflaq to dissolve the party, which he did but without consulting with party organs. Shortly after the UAR's dissolution, Aflaq was reelected Ba'ath Party party leader. Following the 1963 Syrian coup d'état Aflaq's position within the party was weakened to such an extent that he was forced to resign as the party's leader in 1965. Aflaq was ousted during the 1966 Syrian coup d'état, which led to a schism within the Ba'ath Party, and escaped to Lebanon, but later went to Iraq. In 1968 Aflaq was elected Secretary General of the Iraqi-led Ba'ath Party; during his tenure he held no de facto power. He held the post until his death on 23 June 1989.

Aflaq's theories about society, economics and politics, which are collectively known as Ba'athism, hold that the Arab world needs to be unified into one Arab Nation in order to develop into an advanced state of development. He was critical of both capitalism and communism, and critical of Karl Marx's view of dialectical materialism as the only truth. Ba'athist thought took much emphasis on liberty and Arab socialism — a socialism with Arab characteristics which was not part of the international socialist movement as defined by the West. Aflaq believed in the separation of government religion, and was a strong believer of secularisation, but was against atheism. Althought a Christian, he believed Islam to be proof of "Arab genius". In the aftermath of the 1966 Ba'ath Party split, the Syrian-led Ba'ath Party has accused Aflaq of stealing al-Arsuzi's ideas, and calling him a "thief". The Iraqi-led Ba'ath Party rejects this however, and don't believe that al-Arsuzi contributed to ba'athist thought.

Contents

Early life: 1910–1939

Born in Damascus to a middle class Greek Antiochian Orthodox Christian family,[1] Aflaq was first educated in the westernized schools of French Mandate of Syria.[2] In 1929 Aflaq left Syria to study philosophy abroad at the Sorbonne in Paris. During his stay Aflaq was influenced by the works of Henri Bergson. It was during his stay in Paris that Aflaq met his longtime collaborator Salah al-Din al-Bitar, a fellow Syrian nationalist.[3] Aflaq founded a Arab Student Union at the Sorbonne, and discovered the works and writings of Karl Marx for the first time. He returned to Syria in 1932, and became active in communist politics, but left the movement when the government of Léon Blum, supported by the French Communist Party (FCP), continued France's old politics towards its colonies. Aflaq, like many likeminded individuals, believed that the FCP followed a pro-independence policies towards the French colonies. It did not help that the Syrian–Lebanese Communist Party (SLCP) supported FCP's decision, from then on Aflaq saw the communist movement as a tool of the Soviet Union.[4] He was impressed by the organisation and ideology of Antun Saadeh's Syrian Social Nationalist Party.[2]

Arab Ba'ath Movement: 1940–1947

Upon their return back to Syria, Aflaq and al-Bitar became teachers at Tajhiz all'-Ula, "the most prestigious secondary school in Syria". Aflag taught history, while al-Bitar taught maths physics. By 1940 Aflaq and al-Bitar had managed to set up a student circle, which usually met on Fridays. In 1940 the Arab Ihya Movement, a political party, was established by Aflaq and al-Bitar. They used most of their spare time in 1941 to agitate for the party, in 1942 both Aflaq and al-Bitar quit their jobs as teachers to focus on politics. It was around this time when Aflaq showed his skills as "a compelling speaker" who was able to utilize the "theatrical pause" almost cunningly.[5] The party changed its name to Arab Ba'ath Movement to signify the radical changes which was sweeping the Middle East; Rashid Ali al-Gaylani, the Prime Minister of Iraq, had challenged Britain's domination over Iraq. The replacement of the word "Revival" with "Ba'ath" (Arabic: بعث‎, literally means resurrection) was to signify that Arab revival had been replaced ideologically by the need of an Arab rebirth. The change of names led to Zaki al-Arsuzi, leader of the Arab Ba'ath Party, to accuse Aflaq and al-Bitar of stealing his party's name from him. With both men promoting a party platform on an Arab nationalist stance, Aflaq and al-Arsuzi became bitter rivals.[6]

On 24 October 1942 both Aflaq and al-Bitar resigned from their teaching positions, now determined to devote their full efforts to the political struggle.[5] In 1941 the Syrian Committee to Help Iraq was established to support the Iraqi Government led by Rashid Ali al-Gaylani against the British invasion during the Anglo–Iraqi War.[7] al-Arsuzi, the leader of the other Arab Ba'ath movement, was skeptical of the new committee, and opposed helping the Iraqis on the ground that they would loose anyway.[8] In 1941 the movement began publishing documents under the name the "Arab Ihya Movement". Three years later, in 1945, Aflaq and al-Bitar asked the French mandate authorities to grant the movement a party license. The Arab Ba'ath movement did not become an official party until 1947, when it merged with al-Arsuzi's Arab Ba'ath movement to found the Arab Ba'ath Party.[9] The Arab Ba'ath movement led by Aflaq and al-Bitar drew supporters from al-Arsuzi's led Ba'ath movement; during the 1940s, al-Arsuzi started to seclude himself from the public eye, he developed a deep distrust of others and became, according to of his associates, paranoid.[10] When the two ba'ath movements merged and established the Arab Ba'ath Party in 1947, the only subject which was up for the discussion was how much socialism should be included; Wahib al-Ghanim and Jalal al-Sayyid from the al-Arsuzi led ba'ath movement wanted Aflaq and al-Bitar to adopt more radical socialist policies.[11]

Early political career and the UAR: 1947–1963

Founding and early years

The Arab Ba'ath Party's first congress was held in Damascus in 1947.[12] Aflaq took the pre-eminent position of amid, sometimes translated as "doyen";[13] and was elected to a four-member executive committee, under the constitution adopted at the congress, this made him effective leader of the party, with sweeping powers within the organisation; al-Bitar was elected Secretary General of the National Command. Zaki al-Arsuzi, the leader of the Arab Ba'ath, was not given any position, or membership in the party.[11] Aflaq as amid was responsible for ideological affairs and became the party's mentor, while al-Bitar controlled the party's day-to-day management.[14] The merger would prove problematic, several members of the al-Arsuzi-led Ba'ath Party were more left-leaning, and would become, later in Aflaq's tenure as leader, to be highly critical of his leadership.[15]

In the late 1940s, Aflaq and al-Bitar gave free lessons on ba'athist thought for free, and in 1948 the established al-Ba'ath (English: rebirth). Aflaq tested the Ba'ath Party's strength during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War after early Syrian defeats – he led several demonstrations against the government led by President Shukri al-Quwatli. He personally led demonstrations, and claimed that al-Quwatli, a landowner, was a corrupt and capitalistic politician who was to blame for the Syrians army's defeat during war. Aflaq called for al-Quwatli's resignation, and wrote several al-Ba'ath articles criticising his presidency and his prime minister, Jamil Mardam Bey.[14] Aflaq was later arrested on the orders of al-Quwatli's prime minister Bey.[16] al-Quwali's government was brought down in a coup d'état led by military officer Husni al-Za'im. al-Za'im banned all parties, claiming that Syria was not ready to establish a liberal democracy yet. Aflaq, who had been set free, was rearrested during al-Zai'm's presidency at sent to the notorious Mezzeh Prison. al-Za'im rule did not last for long, and in August 1949, he was toppled, and Hashim al-Atassi, who was democratically-elected, took his place. al-Atassi estblished a national unity government, and Aflaq was appointed to the post of Minister of Education, the first and only government post he would ever hold, and held it from August to December 1949. al-Attasi's presidency did not either last for very long, and in 1951 Adib Shishakli took power in a military coup.[17]

Aflaq, at first, extended his support for the new government, believing that he and the Ba'ath Party could collaborate with Shishakli because they shared the same Arab nationalist sentiments. His analysis of Shishakli proved to be wrong, and one of Shishakli's first decision as ruler was to bann all political parties, including the Ba'ath Party.[17] The Ba'ath Party leadership, and several leading members, escaped to Lebanon in the wake of increased government repression. It was in Lebanon that Aflaq and al-Bitar agreed with a merger of the Arab Ba'ath Party and the Arab Socialist Party (ASP), led by Akram al-Hawrani, to establish the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party in 1952.[18] The newly-formed party worked as a base of operation against Shishali's rule – Aflaq and the rest did cooperate with non-ba'athist opposition forces to. Shishakli was toppled in February 1954.[17]

Power politics: 1954–1963

Following the overthrow of al-Shishakli, Syria held its first democratic elections in five years. The Ba'ath Party, led by Aflaq, al-Bitar and al-Hawrani, had 22 members elected to parliament.[note 1] This increase in influence can largely be blamed upon al-Hawrani – several old ASP strongholds voted for the Ba'ath Party because of al-Hawrani's presence.[19] By this time Aflaq was losing much of his power to al-Hawrani and his supporters, who were in a majority in the party. A proof of this was the decision of the Ba'ath Party to collaborate openly with the Syrian Communist Party (SCP), a move Aflaq opposed.[20] Aflaq was elected the party's Secretary General of the newly-established National Command, a titlte synonymous with party leader, by the party's Second National Congress.[21]

When the United Arab Republic (UAR) Aflaq was forced by Nasser to dissolve the party, instead of convening a congress on the matter, he disbanded the party by himself.[22] The UAR proved to be disastrous for the Ba'ath Party – the party was minimalised to a great extent by Nasser's regime. The ba'ath movement which was on the verge, in 1958, to become the dominant Arab nationalist movemment found itself in disarray after three years of nasserist rule.[23] Only a handful of ba'athists were given public office in the UAR's government, al-Hawrani became Vice President and al-Bitar became Minister of Culture and Guidance.[24] Several members, mostly young, blamed Aflaq for this situation; it was he who dissolved the party in 1958 without consulting the National Congress. Hafez al-Assad and Salah Jadid amongst others, eventually established the Military Committee to save the Syrian ba'ath movement from annihilation.[25] The party's Third National Congress in 1959 supported Aflaq's decision to dissolve the party, but a 1960 National Congress, in which Jadid was a delegate representing the-then unknown Military Committee, reversed the decision and called for the Ba'ath Party's reestablishment. The Congress also decided to improve relations with Nasser by democratising the UAR from within. A faction within the party, led by al-Hawrani, called for Syria's secession.[26] When the UAR broke-up in 1961, some members applauded the dissolution, among them was al-Bitar.[24]

The Ba'ath Party captured 20 seats, down from 22, in the 1961 election.[27] In 1962, after "four miserable years", Aflaq convened the Fifth Congress in Homs – al-Hawrani was not invited, cells which had stayed active and defied Aflaq's orders and ba'athists who become nasserists during the period of the UAR were not invited to the congress. Aflaq was reelected the National Command's Secretary General, and ordered the reestablishment of the Syrian-regional ba'ath organisation. During the congress Aflaq and the Military Committee, through Muhammad Umran, made contact for the first time; the committee asked for a permission to initiate a coup d'etat, Aflaq supported the conspiracy.[28] Following the success of the February 1963 Iraqi coup d'état, led by the Ba'ath Party's Iraqi cell, the Military Committee hastly convened to hatch out a coup against Nazim al-Kudsi's presidency. The Syrian 1963 coup d'état proved successful, and a ba'athist government in Syria was established.[29] The plotters first order was to establish the National Council of the Revolutionary Command (NCRC), consisting entirely of ba'athists and nasserists and controlled by military personnel and not civilians from the very beginning.[30]

The struggle: 1963–1966

The beginning: 1963–1964

The relationship between the ba'athists and the nasserists were at best, sore. The Ba'ath Party's rise to power in Iraq and Syria put Nasser, according to himself, "between the hammer and the anvil". The establishment of a union between Iraq and Syria would weaken his credentials as a pan-Arab leader.[31] Nasser started launching bitter propaganda attacks against the party; Aflaq was dismissed as an ineffectual theorist who was scaffed as a puppet "Roman emperor and accused of being a "Cypriot Christian".[32] In several Ba'ath Party meetings Aflaq responded with pure anger, and became a anti-Nasserist. Because of his position, Aflaq had a falling out with al-Bitar who still believed there was a chance to reestablish good ties with Nasser.[33]

The break with Nasser weakened the traditional leaders of the Ba'ath Party, this is turn gave the Military Committee room to expand. After taking power, the Military Committee, looked for theoretical guidance, but instead of going to Aflaq to solve the problems (which was usual before), they got in contact with the party's Marxist faction led by Hammud al-Shufi.[34] At the Syrian Ba'aths Regional Congress, the Military Committee "proved" that it was rebelling equally against Aflaq and the traditional leadership, as against their moderate social and economic policies. The Military Committee was bent on removing Aflaq from a position of power, believing that he had become old and frail. At the Sixth National Congress held in October 1963, Aflaq was barely able to hold on to his post as Secretary General – the Marxist factions led by al-Shufi and Ali Salih al-Sadi in Syria and Iraq respectively were the majority group. Another problem facing Aflaq was that several of his colleagues were not elected to party office, for instance, al-Bitar was not reelected to a seat in the National Command. Instead of the traditional civilian leadership, a new leadership consisting of military officers was growing gradually; Jadid and Amin al-Hafiz from Syria and Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr and Salih Mahdi Ammash from Iraq were elected to the National Command. While the Military Committee was in fact hijacking the Ba'ath Party from Aflaq, they were sensitive to such criticism, and stated, in an ideological pamphlet, that civilian-military symbiosis was of major importance if socialist reconstruction was to be reached.[35] To the outside world Aflaq seemed to be in charge. As the Tunisian newspaper L'Action put it; "The philosopher who made two coups [Iraqi and Syrian coups] in a month".[36]

The situation for the Ba'ath movement did not run as smoothly as the rest of the world believed; the Ba'ath Party cell in Iraq was already starting to lose party. The Iraqi military and the party's militant arm, the National Guard, detested each others. al-Sadi, leader of the Iraqi-Ba'ath Party cell, was eventually exiled to Madrid, Spain on 11 November by several military officers and moderate ba'athists.[37] An anxious Aflaq hastly traveled to Syria and dissolved the Iraqi-cell's Regional Command, exclaiming that the National Command would rule Iraq in its place until a new Regional Command was elected. This was not greated warmly by the majority of Iraqi military officers and ba'athists – the idea that a Christian was to rule over a Muslim country was considered "insensitive". The situation in Iraq did not improve, Abdul Salam Arif, the President of Iraq and a nasserist, plotted a coup against the Ba'ath Party on 18 November, which succeeded. The dream of cornering Nasser's pan-Arab project was over, instead of cornering Nasser, instead it was the other way around, it was Nasser and the nasserists who were cornering the ba'ath movement. On hearing the news, Aflaq and several ba'athists fled Iraq for Syria.[38]

The schism: 1964–1965

After a falling out with the Military Committee, which he was a member of, Muhammad Umran told Aflaq about the Committee's hidden plans; their plans to oust the civilian leadership led by Aflaq and take over the Ba'ath Party. Shortly after, Umran was sent to exile as Ambassador to Spain. Aflaq responded to the threat posed to his leadership by invoking his office as Secretary General, and calling for the National Command to dissolve the Regional Command. He was forced to turn back his request, when the majority of Ba'ath Party members proved to oppose such a move. A contest for power against Aflaq and the Military Committee ensued in the open, but it was a struggle Aflaq was losing.[39] It was plain from the very beginning that the initiative laid with the anti-Aflaq forces from the very beginning. To counter the military threat, Aflaq invoked party rules and regulations against them. To counter this, the Military Committee befriended a staunchly anti-Aflaq civilian faction calling themselves the "Regionalists" – this group had not dissolved their party organisations as ordered by Aflaq in the 1950s.[40]

The Ba'ath Party's Syrian-cell's Regional Congress in March 1965 devolved power from the center, the National Command, to the Regional Command. From then on, the Regional Command was to be considered Syria's ex officio's head of state. The Regional Secretary had the power to appoint the Prime Minister, the cabinet, the chief of staff and top military commanders. Aflaq was unsettled in the ways things were moving, and in May he convened the Eighth National Congress in order to get a showdown between his followers and those of the Military Committee. However, this never came to fruition, several civilian members of the National Command, such as the Lebanese Jibran Majdalani and the Saudi Ali Ghannam, adviced caution, believing that if he pressed the Military Committee to hard the military would take over the Syrian-cell, and then the Ba'ath Party, as had happened in Iraq following the Ba'ath Party's Iraqi-cell's ouster. Because of their concerns, Aflaq kept quiet. But to his astonishment, keeping quiet made him loose his post as Secretary General – Aflaq was succeeded as Secretary General of the National Command by Munif al-Razzaz, a Jordanian of Syrian origins. However, the power between the two camps was unexpectedly reshuffled when Amin al-Hafiz defected to Aflaq's camp. Sadly, in contrast to other military officers al-Hafiz had very little influence within or outside the party.[41] al-Hafiz's defection led to a resurgence of activity within Aflaq's faction, al-Bitar and Umran were shipped from Spain to form a new government.[42]

Downfall: 1966–1968

al-Razzaz, Aflaq's successor as Secretary General, came from the pro-Aflaq faction. With the defection of al-Hafez, he ordered that the National Command was the de jure ruling body of the Ba'ath Party. He appointed al-Bitar Prime Minister, Umran defence minister, Manseur al-Atrash as Chairman of the National Council of the Revolutionary Command and al-Hafiz retained his post as President of Syria. Salah Jadid, the Military Committee's strongman, responded by arresting several Umran supporters – Umran responded by dismissing a handful of pro-Jadid officials. The most important of these officials was the removal of Ahmad Suwaydani from the post of head of the country's military intelligence to head of the Officer Administration.[43] On 23 February a coup d'etat led by Jadid and Hafez al-Assad overthrew the Syrian Government and the Ba'ath Party leadership.[44] Aflaq was exiled from Syria, and ordered to never to return his homeland. Members of the party's other factions fled; Aflaq was captured and detained, along with other pro-Aflaq supporters, in a government guest house.[45] When the new rulers launched a purge in August that year, Aflaq managed to make his escape, with the help of Nasim Al Safarjalani and Malek Bashour, both close trusted friends and colleagues, and hence was able to flee to Beirut, Lebanon,[46] and later to Brazil.[47]

Aflag's downfall caused a split within the Ba'ath Party; the party was de facto dissolved and two Ba'ath Party's established, one Iraqi-led Ba'ath Party and one Syrian-led Ba'ath Party. The Syrian-led party was led by Jadid and his supporters and hailed Zaki al-Arsuzi, the founder of the Arab Ba'ath in 1940, as the father of ba'athist thought, while the Iraqi-led party led by Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr and Saddam Hussein, still proclaimed Aflaq to be the founder of ba'athist thought.[48] In February 1966 at the Ninth National Congress, held after the coup which ousted the pro-Aflaq faction, the Iraqi delegation split with the Syrian ba'athists. The Iraqi's held the true Ninth National Congress in February 1968 in Beirut,[49] and elected Aflaq as Secretary General of the National Command.[43] Aflaq's election to the Secretary Generalship also proved to be his final break with al-Bitar; before the congress convened al-Bitar announced that he had left the Ba'ath Party and given up on the ba'athist movement as a whole.[50]

Iraqi-led Ba'ath Party: 1968–1989

He moved to Baghdad following his reelection to the Secretary Generalship in February 1968. Aflaq stayed their until 1970, when the Jordan–Palestine War broke out, he criticised the Ba'ath leadership of doing to little to help Palestine during the conflict. During the conflict, Aflaq lobbied extensively for Yasser Arafat and the Palestine Liberation Organisation. Aflaq wanted Iraqi intervention, al-Bakr, however, refused to get Iraqi involved in such a conflict. Because of this, Aflaq returned to Lebanon in self-imposed exile.[43] The government of Hafez al-Assad, the President of Syria, condemned Aflaq to death in absentia in 1971.[51] After four years of self-imposed exile Aflaq returned to Iraq In 1974, a year before the Lebanese Civil War broke out.[52] He refrained from taking part in Iraqi politics. He published several works during this period, the most notable being The Struggle Against Distorting the Movement of Arab Revolution in 1975. Aflaq regained some of his influence when he befriended Saddam Hussein, President of Iraq from 1979 until 2003. During the Iran–Iraq War the Iranian leadership accused Hussein of being under the control of a Christian, and Aflaq himself was labelled "a Christian infidel".[43] Effectively, throughout his tenure as Secretary General in Iraq, Aflaq was given all due honour as the founder of the ba'ath movement, but on policy-making, he was ignored.[52]

Aflaq died on 23 June 1989 in Paris, France after undergoing heart surgery there.[51] Hussein claimed that Aflaq had convered to Islam prior to his death – a claim that was later disputed by Aflaq's own family.[53] Even so, Aflaq was given an Islamic funeral.[52] Aflaq's so-called conversion is considered by his family as a tool used by Saddam to disassociate ba'athism with Christianity.[54] The tomb constructed on the orders of Hussein was later used by American soldiers after the 2003 American invasion of Iraq as a military barracks for stationed troops within the Green Zone.[55] During the invasion the tomb was badly damaged.[56] Following the 2003 invasion the Iraqi Governing Council, in pursuance of the de-Ba'athification policy, ordered the removal of his coffin and the destruction of his tomb.[57]

Aflaq's thought

Further information: Ba'athism

"Unity, liberty, socialism"

Era 20th century philosophy
Region Eastern Philosophy
School Ba'athism, Arab nationalism
Main interests Politics, philosophy, sociology, nationalism, philology history
Notable ideas Principal founder of Ba'athism (with al-Bitar and Zaki al-Arsuzi), The Battle for One Destiny, The Struggle Against Distorting the Movement of Arab Revolution
“ "What liberty could be wider and greater than binding oneself to the renaissance of one's nation and its revolution? The liberty we seek is not opposed to legislative measures to curb the exploitations of feudalists, capitalists and opportunists. It is a new and strict liberty which stands against pressure and confusion. Dictatorship is precarious, unsuitable and self-contradictory system which does not allow the consciousness of the people to grow." ”

— Aflaq in a speech, talking about one of the key ba'athist tenants; "freedom will come to the Arabs through unity [the establishment of the Arab Nation]"[58]

The Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party slogan "Unity, liberty, socialism" is the key tenant of Aflaq's and ba'athist thought. Unity ment the unification of the Arab people into one nation, the Arab Nation. The creation of an Arab Nation would have direct implications on Arab development; the establishment of this new state would lead to an Arab ba'ath (literally meaning "rennaisance").[2] The Arab nations of his time could only progressively "decline" if not unified; these nations had various ailments – "feudalism, sectarianism, regionalism, intellectual reactionism. The only way to "cure" the Arab nations was, according to Aflaq, through a revolutionary movement. Aflaq was influenced by marxism on the grounds that he saw the need for a vanguard party to rule the Arab Nation for an indefinite period of time (the period was a transition from the old to the new).[59]

The need for liberty was one of the defining features of ba'athism,[60] however, liberty not in the sense of liberal democracies.[61] Aflaq was a strong believer pluralism of thought,[60] but paradoxically, also against pluralism in the shape of votes. In theory, the Ba'ath Party would rule, and guide the people, in a transitional period of time without consulting the people[61] because the party knew what was right.[62] The last tenant, socialism did not mean socialism as its defined in the West, but rather a unique form of Arab socialism. Aflaq coined the word Arab socialism for his espoused socialism. Socialism in the Arab world, according to Aflaq, had, in original form, first come into being under the rule of Muhammad. The point of Arab socialism was not to answer the questions; how much state control was necessary or economic equality, but instead Arab socialism was a system that freed the Arab people from oppression and enslavement which in turn created independent individuals.[63]

Aflaq opposed Marx's view that dialectical materialism was the only truth, but believed that the "importance of material economic conditions in life" was one of the greatest discoveries in modern history.[64] Even so, Aflaq was critical of both capitalism and communism, and did not wish for any of the two power blocs to collapse during the Cold War – believing that the Cold War was a sort of check and balance on their power.[65]

Role of Islam

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What Aflaq saw in Islam was a revolutionary movement. In contast to other nationalities, the Arab awakening and expansion was attributed to a religious message. Because of this, Aflaq believed that the Arab's spirituality was directly linked to Islam, therefore, you could never take Islam out of the equation of what is and whas is not Arab. Arab nationalism, just as Islam had been during the lifetime of Muhammad, was a spiritual revolutionary movement which was leading the Arabs to a new renaissance, in other words, Arab nationalism was the second revolution to manifest itself in the Arab world. All Arab religious communities should, according to Aflaq, respect and worship the spirituality of Islam, even if they did not worship Islam in a religious sense – Aflaq was a Christian who worshipped Islam.[66] Aflaq did not support the notion that Muhammad was someone who a person needed to worship, instead Aflaq believed that Muhammad was a person all Arabs should strive to relive. In the words of Aflaq himself, Arabs "belongs to the nation that gave birth to a Muhammad; or rather, because this Arab individual is a member of the community which Muhammad put all his efforts into creating.... Muhammad was all the Arabs; let us today make all the Arabs Muhammad." The Muslim of Muhammad's days was, according to Aflaq, synonymous with Arabs – the Arabs were the only ones to preach the message of Islam during Muhammad's lifetime. In contrast to Jesus, who was a religious leader but not a political leader, Muhammad was both; the first leader of Islam and the Arab world. Therefore, secularisation can not take the same shape in the Arab world as it did in the West.[67]

Aflaq called on all Arabs, both Muslims and non-Muslims alike, to admire the role Islam had played in creating an Arab character. But his view on Islam was purely spiritual, and Aflaq emphasised that it "should not be imposed" on state and society. Time and again Aflaq emphasised that the Ba'ath party was against atheism, but also against fundamentalism; the fundamentalists represented a "shallow, false faith." According to Ba'athist ideology, all religions were equal. Despite his anti-atheist stance, Aflaq was a strong supporter of secular government, and stated a Ba'athist state would replace religion with a state "based on a foundation, Arab nationalism, and a moral; freedom."[68]

Legacy

Fouad Ajami criticised Aflaq on the lack of real substance, stating; "Nearly three hundred pages of text yield no insight, on his part, into what went wrong and what needed to be done; there is only the visible infatuation with words and 'Aflaq summons the party to renounce power and go back to its 'pure essence'." In many ways, this is true. Aflaq used more time writing optimistically about the future, and the past, of the Arab Nation, and how the goal of the Arab Nation could be unified. As Kanan Makiya, the author of Republic of Fear: The Politics of Modern Iraq, notes, for "Aflaq, reality is confined to the inner world of the party." In contrast to other philosophers such as Karl Marx or John Locke for instance, Aflaq's ideological view of the world has no clear stance on the materialistic or socioeconomic behavior of humanity.[69] While other philosophers usually separate between what is real and what is not real, Aflaq does not define what is and what ought to be, instead both are molded into the same category, what is attainable.[70]

In contrast to his longtime friend and colleague Salah al-Din al-Bitar, who was more practical when it came to politics, Aflaq was a "visionary, the dreamer rather unfitted for political life".[71] Aflaq was desribed by his associates as an "ascetic, shy and intense figure living a simple and upretensious life." He has been accused of seeking help in others instead to fullfil his goals; he did this with Gamal Abdel Nasser, Abd al-Karim Qasim and Abdul Rahman Arif in 1958, to Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr and Ali Salih al-Sadi in 1963 and finally in the 1970s to Saddam Hussein.[72] There are several ba'athists, mostly from the Syrian-led Ba'ath Party, who believe Aflaq stole ba'athist ideology from its original founder, Zaki al-Arsuzi. These individuals have denounced, and labelled, Aflaq as a "thief".[73]

In his writings Aflaq had been stridently in favor of free speech and other human rights and aid for the lower classes. During the Military Committee's gradual take over of power in Syria, Aflaq rallied against what he saw as establishing of a militarised dictatorship, instead of a democracy which Aflaq had planned for.[44] These ideals were never realized by the regimes that used his ideology. Most scholars see the Assad regime in Syria and Saddam's regime in Iraq to have only employed Aflaq's ideology as a pretense for dictatorship.[74] In short, Aflaq's ba'athism was used to create dictatorships in Syria and Iraq.

Selected works

Notes and references

Notes

  1. ^ The figure of how many seats the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party won varies from a low 16 seats to a high 22.
    • Abdulghani, Jasim (1984). Iraq & Iran: The Years of Crisis. Taylor & Francis. p. 28. ISBN 978-0709905505. 
    • Beshara, Adel (2005). Lebanon: The Politics of Frustration – The Failed coup of 1961. Routledge. p. 40. ISBN 978-0415351138. 
    • Commins, Dean (2004). Historical Dictionary of Syria. Scarecrow Press. p. 66. ISBN 978-0810849348. 

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Bibliography

External links