The Second Year of the Union - Part 1: The First Union Anniversary and Marshal Tito's State Visit

Sunday, 22 February

Today is the first official anniversary of the establishment of the Union, and state departments were closed to mark the occasion.

The Vice President of the Republic assigned me to deliver a radio address for this happy occasion, a task he might well have assigned himself. I accepted the charge.

The following are excerpts from this address, delivered in the name of the state:

"A full year has now passed since the laying of the first stone in the building of the Arab nation, with the establishment of the union between Egypt and Syria.

"The Arab nation is a nation of glory, civilization, and history, one that built its own glory on the sword and on learning, on construction and on light, that preserved for later generations the civilizations of Rome and Athens, and safeguarded the lofty civilization it had built with its own sweat and struggle, enriching it further still with the finest fruits of the noble civilizations around it.

"The time has come for humanity to draw the curtain on the Crusades, whose fires were first kindled by the follies of the Middle Ages, and have since been kept burning by the unjust colonial spirit of our own present day.

"I recall, as a student at the University of Paris (during the Second World War), that one of our professors, who taught us the history of law, at a time when Hitler's armies were poised to overrun France, which surrendered without a fight, without manhood or heroism, and fell to its knees at the very first blow, leaving me to wonder at the secret behind the very crimes the French are now committing in valiant Algeria (Algeria was then fighting the French colonizers to win its independence). I recall this professor telling us, on that very day: 'The danger to Western civilization does not come from Hitler, but from over there,' pointing toward the southeast, toward the Arab world.

"At that time, there was not a single independent Arab state.

"Yet scarcely twenty years had passed since this 'prophecy' before the Arab nation rose to take its own seat under the sun, becoming a power of real weight, one whose favor is sought and whose sanctities are respected.

"From among its own toiling classes there emerged a young man, granted by God strength of resolve and far-sightedness, Gamal Abdel Nasser, who gathered up the Arab nation's own struggle and led its cause. And here he stands today, marching at the head of the procession of victory, from glory to glory, and from triumph to triumph.

"We shall not be, God willing, a danger to world civilization, as our professor once claimed, but rather a strong building block in the edifice of civilization, working to spread brotherhood and to establish the principles of fraternal coexistence with the rest of the peoples of the earth." But these colonizers, and their followers, gave us little time at all.

I think it worthwhile now to cast an evaluating eye over the general situation, after this first year of the Union's life has passed.

It seems to me that the scorpions of sedition, sought after by certain frightened and resentful men, have begun to grow quiet, shrinking in both number and strength, though they still spread their poison in whatever atmosphere feels safe to them.

They criticized the Agrarian Reform Law, but once they despaired of having it repealed or amended, and became certain it would indeed be applied with full firmness, they set about preparing themselves to adapt to it, since they had never truly been able to dominate the peasants except through the weapons of the state, weapons that have now abandoned them, leaving them nothing left but to accept reality.

They said the danger of communism would spread through the country, so the President struck at the Syrian Communist Party and imprisoned its prominent figures, and the merchants took comfort in this measure, satisfied that the state was, after all, Muslim and believing. Some of them confided these very feelings to me directly.

We applied the Agrarian Reform Law in a spirit of goodwill.[1] I am a member of the Higher Committee entrusted with interpreting it and ruling on the fundamental objections to its application raised by the landowners subject to its provisions.

As an example, we interpreted irrigated land as land receiving half a liter of water per second per hectare, meaning it was necessary to measure the water basin to determine its capacity, with anything exceeding this capacity to be treated as rain-fed land instead.

We interpreted "fruit-bearing trees" as meaning only pistachio trees (and there was, in fact, no owner of pistachio trees subject to the Reform Law) and olive trees. As for other trees, those already bearing fruit fell under the law, while those not yet bearing fruit fell outside its application.

This interpretation brought joy to the farmers struck by the frost of 1951, among them Rushdi al-Kikhya, Riyad Abd al-Razzaq, and many others.

Likewise, the Union brought good fortune to a great many people.

The domination of the strong over the weak came to an end.

Tribal and local leaderships faded away.

The peasant found new life once he realized the feudal landlord's own claws had been clipped. The officers no longer had any real role to play in public life, once the President had removed their rebellious elements from it and put an end to the factionalism within its ranks, taking some of them on as ministers and sending others home, or into civilian posts.

Some important projects were completed, and the rule of law prevailed in the state's own relations with its citizens.

Today we were invited to the home of Mahmoud Riad, the President's special advisor for the Northern Region, who told us the President was arriving today, together with the Yugoslav President Tito and his wife.

We received them at the airport.

That evening, he delivered a speech to the crowds gathered in the Guest Palace square, and we then had dinner at his table, together with his guests. The ministers' wives attended the dinner as well, and the atmosphere was more "capitalist" than "socialist."

The gathering's joy was heightened further by the President's own graciousness and warmth. Should I say that he was, in fact, closer to simplicity than to any real complexity?

Monday, 23 February

We attended, in the morning, the military parade held on Shukri al-Quwatli Street, on the riverbank. I made sure my own family could see it, seating my mother and my two children in the car, with the driver stationed where they could get a clear view of the proceedings. My wife, however, had her own place reserved on the platform, which she took for the first time, since women had not previously been invited to this ceremony.

This was a commendable step, honoring the mothers of the young cubs, the officers and soldiers of the future, a joyful departure from a stale tradition whose time had long since come to be forgotten.

That evening, an enormous tent was set up on the grounds of the municipal stadium, for the distribution of ownership deeds to lands the state had taken from the feudal landlords and given to the peasants. It would be fair to call this the day of the liberation of the hired peasant laborers, rescuing them from the condition of slaves of the land and raising them to the rank of owners, who would now plow the land to reap the fruits of their own labor.

I can attest that their joy, as they received their ownership certificates, defied all description.

Afterward, delegations from the villages poured in, and the forces meant to keep order proved unable to hold them back. They broke through the barriers and took up positions facing the President.

The splendor of the ceremony was heightened further still by the passing of the scout troops, saluting their President.

Emotion reached its highest pitch, and I caught sight of tears streaming down cheeks, tears of joy.

I wept too.

God have mercy on Omar al-Amiri, who said:

Let not the fault-finders marvel at a man

who weeps, for if he did not weep, that would be the marvel.

Far from it, not all weeping is weakness.

I am a father, though the resolve of men lives within me.

We then moved on to the Presidential Palace, for dinner at the table of Mr. Nureddin Kahhaleh, head of the Executive Council, held in honor of the President and his Yugoslav guest and their two wives.

The ministers' wives were invited to this dinner as well.

At the end of the meal, Tito "bestowed" upon us medals of the Yugoslav flag, first class.

I still have this medal today, a keepsake of those unforgettable days.

Yugoslavia today (1995) is the stage of ethnic and religious massacres, and it is its Muslim sons who have borne the brunt of the slaughter.

Who could ever have imagined that this progressive state, once a friend of the Arabs and the Muslims, would descend into a swamp of blood and vile religious fanaticism?

Thursday the 26th

The two presidents left Damascus for the northern provinces, their convoy forced by a fierce snowstorm to stop for two hours in bitter cold, until the road and emergency crews managed to clear the way.

They reached Aleppo, where they were given the most magnificent reception, and spent two days there before heading on to Latakia, where the cruiser "Galeb," Tito's own vessel, awaited to carry the Republic's great guest by sea to Yugoslavia.

Saturday the 28th

The President surrounds his movements with an air of secrecy, as an added precaution.

And who can say?

We therefore do not know whether he will return to Damascus, or head from there to Cairo instead, alone or with his guest.

We heard today that a representative of the British government had traveled to Cairo to sign the financial agreement between Egypt and Britain, which had been suspended over the dispute concerning the property of the British Jewish businessman "Smouha."

If this signing goes ahead, the last outstanding issue left over from the Suez war will have been resolved.

Wednesday, 4 March

The ministers were hastily summoned to Latakia, since the President was still there and about to inaugurate its port, which would play a major role in exporting Syrian goods and receiving imported materials. We had relied heavily until then on the port of Beirut, bearing considerable expense as a result, expense that inevitably drove up prices for Syrian consumers.

Had Lebanon ever closed its borders with us, the country would have suffered greatly from the disruption of its imports and exports.

A state without a port of its own is like a person without a lung to breathe with, forced to live on an artificial one, which could cause its owner trouble at any moment.

We answered the summons, and set off for the bride of the Mediterranean.

Flags fluttered from every balcony and in every public square. Latakia had dressed itself in a fresh gown of green and celebration.

At ten in the morning, the President inaugurated the port and the grain silos.

He then delivered a speech, in which he announced:

That clean, wholesome drinking water must reach every village in the region.

We had once passed, in his own company, through a village in the Qalamoun, and had seen its people drinking from a stagnant, green pool of water, from which they also watered their livestock. We were all appalled at this wretched state of affairs, unworthy of human dignity, and we had tried to remedy it, but ran up against a lack of resources. If it is true that the state's own resources come from the pockets of its subjects, then merchants and farmers alike resisted any increase in taxes. I admit that I once tried to raise the price of a kilo of bread by two and a half piasters, or add a small tax, only to run into a wall of refusal, and a threat from shopkeepers, the merchants of the famous Hamidiyah market in Damascus foremost among them, of a strike capable of tearing the government's own unity apart, if not bringing it down altogether.

And that the railway must link Latakia with Aleppo and the Jazira, to ease the movement of citizens and the transport of agricultural produce by heavy freight train, at rates far cheaper than the cost of trucking, which requires fuel, oil, tires, a driver, and a driver's assistant.

He pledged that work on this line would begin within just six months, and that the Southern Region would supply the steel rails and locomotives from its own steel plant.

I bid the President farewell at the dusty airfield of Hmeimim, excusing myself from traveling on his plane, since I would be passing through Safita, where my office manager awaited me, to return with me. In Tell Kalakh, my driver very nearly struck a child who had slipped from his mother's grip to dart across the road. It seems the air pressure from the speed of the car alone stopped him only centimeters short of it.

God kept him safe, and I gave thanks.

Friday, 6 March / 26 Sha'ban 1378 AH

We were invited today to perform the Friday prayer with President Abdel Nasser, at the Great Umayyad Mosque. The driver and the policeman made an extraordinary effort to clear a path for the car through the surging crowds.

President Shukri al-Quwatli and the Yemeni Prince Muhammad al-Badr, Crown Prince of the Mutawakkilite Kingdom of Yemen, performed the prayer alongside the President.

The preacher singled out for praise the "two Nasirs" (a play on the word meaning "helpers" or "granters of victory") who had liberated the al-Aqsa Mosque from the claws of the Crusaders, Nur al-Din the Martyr and Saladin al-Ayyubi.

He then recited a couplet, whose author I do not know, though it worked its own spell upon our ears and our hearts, directing it toward Abdel Nasser:

A Nasir freed it the first time,

and a Nasir freed it the last time.

And he added: now comes the turn of "the third Nasir," to cleanse it of the filth of Zionism.

I sat to the President's left, as protocol required, since I was "the minister responsible for receptions," and I looked into his eyes, and noticed something burning within them. He was deeply moved, and leaned toward my ear slightly, saying: "God willing, within ten years."

But the secessionists gave him no such time.

My attention was caught by a man with an Iraqi accent, fervently praying for the President's victory, beseeching God to make it easy for his own Iraq to join the Union, so that the family might finally be reunited.

But his own leader, Qasim, held a different view: "a republic, not a mere region." And the feelings of peoples never quite align with the calculations of their own rulers.

Saturday the 7th

Today we were, in effect, encamped at the Guest Palace, taking both lunch and dinner at the President's own table.

Among the foremost guests were President Shukri al-Quwatli, Prince Muhammad al-Badr, Hussein Oweini, Prime Minister of Lebanon, the President's vice presidents, al-Hourani and Boghdadi, the central Minister of Interior Zakaria Mohieddin, the executive ministers, General Jamal al-Faisal, commander of the First Army, and the former ambassador Mahmoud Riad, now the President's advisor on Syrian affairs.

These meals were an occasion to touch on everything, from politics and economics to trade and urban development, and it is at such "gatherings" that people's true metal reveals itself.

At the table, self-restraint tends to loosen, and those of lesser rank hear a great deal from those above them in the hierarchy, and it is up to them to benefit from it, to learn, and to take it to heart.

Sunday the 8th

Today is Syria's "Independence" Day.

It has become customary for government departments to close in its honor.

On this very day in 1920, Syria's independence was declared, and Faisal bin al-Hussein, Sharif of Mecca, was installed as its king.

But the Union's own state did not "repeat" this holiday, choosing instead 22 February, the anniversary of the Union itself, as its official feast day.

Radio broadcasts carried the news today of a revolt breaking out in Mosul against Abd al-Karim Qasim's rule, led by Colonel Abdul Wahab al-Shawwaf.

It was said that the people of Mosul killed every communist to be found in the city.

But Qasim moved swiftly, shelling the barracks where al-Shawwaf had taken his stand, killing a number of his own nationalist officers, and inflicting destruction on parts of the city. The uprising's own ranks were scattered.

Al-Shawwaf met his end, assassinated, it is said, by one of his own followers.[2]

Some Iraqi officers made their way to Syria, among them a wounded officer who died shortly after crossing the border in the Jazira region, whom we learned was named Muhammad Said Shihab.

Those arriving related that Abd al-Karim Qasim had given his soldiers free rein in Mosul for five days, during which the city became a stage for killing, chaos, and fires.

Today is also the feast of "Union with Yemen."

The President held an official dinner reception for this occasion, with President al-Quwatli and Prince Muhammad al-Badr foremost among the guests.

We noticed a visible gloom on the President's own face. He did speak, it is true, of the gift of apricots President al-Quwatli had sent him, but something far greater was clearly weighing on him.

It appeared he had become certain of the failure of al-Shawwaf's movement.

Or perhaps he was harboring resentment toward al-Sarraj, who had acted alone in stirring and encouraging this movement, and in supplying weapons and support to its men.

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Endnotes:

[1] We have already given a full account of this earlier.

[2] Anthony Nutting, "Nasser," p. 302.