Appendix 4: The People's Party Memorandum to the President, 23 November 1948

His Excellency the Esteemed President of the Republic

When the deputies met with Your Excellency on the occasion of the opening of the regular session of the Chamber of Deputies, you graciously gave a full account of the grave dangers to which the homeland is exposed at this difficult time, dangers without precedent in past eras and ages, and you made an appeal calling for unity and concord to save the country from the threatening catastrophe, thereby echoing what stirs in the conscience of every citizen. The dangers you referred to have indeed become plain to see, and they require every individual to keep them before his eyes and to prepare himself for every sacrifice to ward them off.

The People's Party deputies have shown their full awareness of this duty for no short time, by approving all the decisions, measures and legal and financial powers requested by a government that announced its resolve to save Palestine, even though they had not given it their confidence when it was formed. But the unity of the nation, its solidarity and its determination to go on fighting the dangers did not by themselves ensure the saving of Palestine, nor did they spare the country the catastrophes that threaten it, because this is directly bound up with the policy on which government rests. It is therefore our duty to examine the causes of failure, and then to resolve firmly to avoid them and remedy them in the present and the future; living nations take a lesson from the past, and draw from failure a strength that breathes into them a new spirit to struggle for survival.

The People's Party considers it one of its most sacred duties to set out to Your Excellency its conviction about the causes that have led to the situation we are in, guided by the interest of the homeland at a time when many truths can no longer be overlooked. These causes go back not months but years, and the most important of them are not military in character but more general and comprehensive. On various occasions, distant and recent, we have warned successive governments of the internal and external dangers threatening the country as a result of the harmful policy by which it is run and of the conduct and mistakes committed, and we have demanded, inside the Chamber of Deputies and outside it, that those responsible be condemned for failing to root out the evils and abuses. For this we were accused of being negative at one time and destructive at another, until others were recently forced to share our view, and until a reference to it appeared in the direction Your Excellency graciously gave in your appeal. The explanation is as follows:

First: it is clear and evident that successive governments did not prepare in good time to face the dangers threatening the country at home and abroad, the Zionist danger in particular, but confined themselves to handling day-to-day administrative and political business as the inspiration of the moment dictated, while conditions in the country grew worse at home and Zionism grew more prepared before our eyes and ears. This showed a lack of the foresight that every government must have if it wants life and survival for its people and to fight the forces of decay and the dangers of extinction.

Second: successive governments failed to find a successful solution to any of the major questions that arose, and resorted to procrastination, postponement and evasion of responsibility.

Third: the principle of a person's responsibility for what he does was lost: the able man who does well is not rewarded for doing his duty, and the wrongdoer who persists in wrongdoing is not called to account for what his hands have done. In place of this distinction, without which nothing can go right, came other considerations that have nothing to do with the public interest, the least of them being the pursuit of private interests and personal aims, and favoritism in applying laws and regulations, especially in collecting taxes from taxpayers.

Fourth: state funds were spent recklessly, by lawful but useless means and by unlawful and harmful ones, squandered on extras and trifles, and state posts and the treasury were made a means of silencing and placating people, whereas a new state seeking to build its existence afresh should not spend a single piastre on anything that does not directly serve the public interest.

Fifth: officials were not required to make real efforts, in an era that ought to be one of construction and mighty effort; instead, the rules of comfort, pleasing and leniency were followed.

All this left the worst effects on the people's spirits: resolve slackened, confidence weakened and moral strength dwindled, and moral strength matters more than material strength in facing crises and warding off catastrophes. The People's Party holds that this situation can no longer be dealt with by ordinary means; it requires, before anything else, the gathering of moral strength and the restoring of confidence in people's hearts, then the carrying out of fundamental solutions and a complete overturning of the method of government, aimed at eliminating these evils with unbending resolve, making up for what has been lost and arousing a spirit of energy, seriousness and sacrifice out of conviction that this is worthwhile and beneficial to the whole.

The party holds that no government can remedy all these dangers except by following these courses:

1. Syria has reached a position in which it may be unable to ward off the Zionist danger alone, whatever material and moral forces it mobilizes, and the time has come to make immediate efforts to set up a union of Arab states including Syria and the other Arab countries in which the conditions for such a union are complete, and to make these efforts one of the government's main aims, as a first step toward achieving Arab unity, which is the hope of the Arabs in all their countries. This aim is imposed by political, defense and economic necessity. The painful events of this year have shown that the present Arab situation tends to obscure responsibilities and let them be lost, and that the individual efforts each Arab state makes leave each of them an easy target for Zionist tyranny and foreign ambitions.

2. Correcting the general political situation, in government and in parliament, so as to bring it into line with the principle of constitutional and legal responsibilities and their definition.

3. Reforming the machinery of government soundly and quickly, in keeping with the state's capacity and needs.

4. Enacting without delay a law on the procedure for trying ministers, and applying it regardless of all political considerations.

5. Holding a swift and thorough inquiry into the grave mistakes committed and condemning those responsible.

6. Enacting legislation guaranteeing the rights of the provinces in their various vital affairs and interests, and widening the administrative powers of the governors.

7. Applying the system of provisional monthly budgets (one twelfth at a time) until the figures of the draft budget are reviewed, so that it covers the expenditure needed for productive construction, for armament and for running the government departments at the least possible cost.

The People's Party has the honor to inform Your Excellency that, with full appreciation of the various dangers and crises and of the difficulty and delicacy of the present circumstances, it is ready to bear the burdens of government if the form of the government and the position of the Chamber of Deputies give it sufficient assurance that the basic matters set out above will actually be carried out, and that they will be taken as the measure for debating the government and judging its responsibilities in its work as a whole and in detail.

Please accept, Your Excellency, the assurance of our highest respect.

Damascus, 23 November 1948
The Executive Bureau of the People's Party