Year 1961 - Part 12: The al-Sarraj-Amer Power Struggle and the September 1961 Secession That Ended the Union

Tuesday the 29th: Laying the Foundations of Decentralization

The President issued Decision Law No. 150 today, amending the Local Administration system issued under Law No. 124 of 1960.

This law firmly establishes the principle of decentralization, one the country had long yearned for and pursued in vain, since those who benefited from narrow centralization had always fought every expansion of local authority.

For this reason, a great many regions never received their own fair share of progress in construction, the economy, and education, since every matter, large or small, had to be sent up to the center for approval, only to sit dormant in some drawer.

Article 5 was amended as follows:

"Each province shall have a governor, appointed and removed by a decision of the President of the Republic, to whom the provisions governing deputy ministers apply, with respect to salary, pension, and seniority, and the provisions governing ministry undersecretaries shall likewise apply to him.

Before taking up his own post, the governor shall take the following oath:

I swear by Almighty God to faithfully preserve the republican order, to look after the people's interests and the safety of the homeland, to respect the constitution and the law, and to carry out my duties with integrity and honesty.

Governors are considered to have resigned, by operation of law, upon the end of the President of the Republic's own term."

Article 6 was amended to read as follows:

"The governor shall be considered the representative of executive authority within his own jurisdiction, and shall oversee the implementation of the state's general policy.

The minister may delegate some of his own powers to the governor."

It is clear that this amendment granted governors broad powers, and raised their own standing, in rank, to that of deputy ministers.

There is no doubt the provinces will greet its issuing with the warmest welcome, for it fulfills a cherished wish, long delayed.

On this same day, Presidential Decision No. 1360 was issued, dividing the Syrian region into eleven provinces: Damascus, Daraa, al-Suwayda, Homs, Hama, Idlib, Aleppo, Latakia, Deir ez-Zor, al-Rashid (al-Raqqa), and al-Hasakah.

The President also issued three decisions today, forming three ministerial committees:

The Economic Ministerial Committee, chaired by Vice President Nour al-Din Kahhaleh, made up of 7 ministers, including the Minister of the Treasury and the Minister of Economy.

The Legislative Ministerial Committee, chaired by Vice President Kamal El-Din Hussein, including Fakhir al-Kayali and Farid Zeineddine (from the Northern Region).

The Executive Ministerial Committee, chaired by Vice President Abdul Hamid al-Sarraj, including eight ministers.

Surveying these chairmanships, we find that two of the three belong to men from the Northern Region.

Wednesday the 30th: The President and al-Sarraj's Intelligence Service

We went out to Cairo International Airport, to see off Abdel Nasser and the Republic's own guests, King Hassan II of Morocco, the new Algerian President Youssef Ben Khedda, and Modibo Keïta, all on their way to Belgrade, to attend the peace conference.

I had met, the evening before, with Ben Khedda, who succeeded President Ferhat Abbas as head of the Algerian government, and Mr. Saad Dahlab, the new Algerian Foreign Minister, at an official dinner the state held for the Algerian freedom fighters.

Saad Dahlab told me of France's own stubbornness in its negotiations with the Algerian fighters in Switzerland. In his own view, the Algerian war of liberation would drag on much longer still, owing to French folly, and would prove extremely bloody.

He believed the Algerian question ought to be internationalized, bringing in the People's Republic of China and other communist states to support the fighters, help them obtain weapons, and pressure France in international forums.

As we shook hands with the heads of state passing by us, Abdel Nasser stood before his own deputy, Abdul Hamid al-Sarraj, and told him, hand in hand, that the time had come "for the good fellows to come to Cairo for treatment, and I hope to see them here upon my return from Yugoslavia, in four days' time."

Al-Sarraj answered with a slight nod of his head, and a few words murmured in a low voice:

"God willing, God willing."

I learned that the President had requested "al-Sarraj's own men from the intelligence service" be transferred to Cairo, to clear the Syrian atmosphere of their own pressure on the people, who feared and despised them.

He knew of their own violations of personal freedoms, and the sheer number of arrests, arbitrary in so many cases.

Al-Sarraj opposed this view, saying that the Union's own enemies had bared their fangs and shown their claws. They were a disparate coalition, yet all pursuing a single goal, bringing down the Union.

Some of them worked for international communism and the Iraqi regime.

Others cooperated with colonialism, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan.

Still others, no one could deny their own national integrity or socialist leanings, yet their own resentment had sealed off every avenue of open thought, so that they answered only the call of their own instinctive political opposition, or the wish to seize power at any price.

And still others were men of vast economic interests, concerned with nothing but their own continued prosperity, no more and no less.

For this reason, these adversaries had to be confronted and intimidated, so that they could never seize the state's own neck with their own bloodied hands.

Thursday, 31 August, through Thursday, 7 September

I spent this week in Damascus, taking the occasion of the President's own trip to Belgrade, to reach a decision with my family on whether to move to Cairo in time for the children's school opening, or keep them in Damascus while I carried out my own work in Cairo, away from them.

We concluded it was in the children's own best interest to hasten our move to Cairo, and take up "permanent" residence there, as the base for work whose own end I could not foresee.

I returned to my work today, to be present for the President's reception on his return from Belgrade, as the government's own "protocol" custom required.

In all honesty, this custom, already followed in Damascus before the Union, forces ministers to waste long hours receiving the heads of "friendly" states, heads of government, and certain prominent ministers, only to see them off again at the airport. Between going, returning, and waiting, more than three hours of work are lost each time.

And there is no end to these farewells and receptions.

In any case, it is a firmly established tradition. It would only make sense for the farewell and reception to be limited to the minister concerned, and a few protocol officials from the Foreign Ministry.

The time otherwise wasted could then be devoted to the state's own affairs, and to citizens' interests.

Saturday the 16th

My family arrived from Damascus this morning.

I took them to the home the state had rented for us, in a new building, furnished elegantly, owned by a wealthy Kuwaiti, located at 102 Nile Street.

Mr. Nihad al-Qasim and his family lived in the neighboring apartment.

Even so, we were struck by how the "military" ministers had been given extremely lavish apartments in the Union Building.

While the civilian ministers were "scattered" across God's own wide earth.

My office was in Heliopolis, at the grand hotel in Misr al-Gedida, converted into the new government's headquarters.

An Egyptian secretarial staff was chosen for me, until I could bring in some officials from Damascus who had expressed their own wish to join me, first among them my office director, Kamal Khoury, and second, Dr. Abidin Hamada.

A decision of the President of the Republic provided that an official transferred to the other region draw double his own salary. This was a considerable enticement, especially since life in Cairo was comfortable and cheap, and brought its own holder closer to the very center of decision-making.

It was an "advantage" not without its own temptations.

One of my office staff was tall and broad in build, and it was his own habit to enter my office and stand before me at full attention, and, on leaving, never to turn his own back to me, but to withdraw walking backward instead. He once stumbled while doing so, and very nearly fell to the floor.

I brought him back to continue our conversation, and asked him to sit, but he would not, until I pressed him hard, "out of propriety and respect."

I made clear to him that I disliked this kind of "display," and that he should treat me exactly as he would a fellow colleague at work. He was astonished, and said: "How can that be, Sir?"

I asked him what his own work at the office actually was, and he said he was "director of special affairs."

He explained to me what these "special affairs" actually were: buying vegetables, mangoes, and meat for the minister's own household, taking the children to school, and accompanying them home in the ministry's own car.

He helped me enroll the two children in school, and my daughter Maysa entered the French Orman School for Girls, while my son Ghassan entered the French Lasalle School as well.

It was never my own intention that my children study at schools for "the elite," but simply that they learn a modern foreign language, one that would help them, one day, keep pace with scientific progress through some famous university, or a widely spoken language in which authors and researchers can stay abreast of every new discovery or modern theory.

No one is unaware of the neglect our own Arabic language suffers.

Or the exploitation and disdain "authors" writing in it are subjected to.

I once came across a university textbook, written by a brilliant professor of civil procedure, in the hands of a student, and asked him whether he had bought it for deeper study. He was puzzled, and answered that it was, in fact, the very textbook prescribed for his own faculty.

I leafed through the book, whose author, may God have mercy on him, had passed away twenty years earlier.

I found no alteration in it at all, except that its own publication date had been removed, so that no one could tell when it was actually printed, and the name of the printing house that had produced it had been stripped away as well, to avoid any pursuit under copyright law.

Apart from this, it was that very same old edition we had once admired, and admired its own author for, back when we studied together as law students in Damascus.

No one is unaware that law is a living subject, keeping pace with the evolving legal relationships between people, and that the Court of Cassation may well change its own view from one day to the next, so that lawyers' own pleadings change, and court rulings shift along with them.

A professor must stay abreast of every fundamental change in jurisprudence and legal interpretation, and, all the more so, of new laws, to pass them on to his students, day by day.

When we studied at the University of Paris, the textbook was reprinted once every single year.

Supplements to the university course materials were issued every time a new law or a major judicial ruling was handed down.

On this day, the military coup leaders in Turkey executed Foreign Minister Fatin Rüştü Zorlu and Finance Minister Hasan Polatkan.

Prime Minister Adnan Menderes, Syria's own old enemy, was not executed that day, for he had taken poisonous pills, intending to take his own life, though he was saved at the very last moment.

Sunday the 17th: The Execution of the Turkish Ministers

The military coup leaders in Turkey did not disappoint the "hopes pinned" on them. They carried Menderes bodily to the gallows, on a small island among the islands of the Bosphorus called "Dog Island."

Had these ministers truly been dogs, they would never have met so tragic a fate.

When the premises are alike, the conclusions must be alike as well.

Syria had already come to know what a first coup truly means. It means it is merely the first in a series, with more still to come. It is a bitter experience, unfolding chapter after chapter, whose own unjust consequences no one can foresee, had it not been for the Union, and Abdel Nasser's own strong hand, sparing the country its evils.

Sunday the 17th: The Field Marshal Sent to the Northern Region

President Abdel Nasser sent Abdel Hakim Amer to Syria "to protect individual freedoms."

The very first thing he did was remove Major Marwan al-Siba'i, director of intelligence, entrusting the post to Colonel Rashed al-Qutayni instead.

Al-Qutayni is, it is said, an Arab nationalist, known for his own calm, integrity, and measured, wise handling of matters.

This change was the first clear sign of a move toward a radical shift in the authoritarian system of government.

The second decision forbade the arbitrary detention the intelligence service had long resorted to, requiring instead a decision from an investigating judge, in accordance with the Code of Criminal Procedure.

We were truly delighted at this change, and it became the talk of the Syrian ministers, who rejoiced at the ship's own turn toward the shore of safety.

There is no doubt the President had come to believe that winning the people's genuine support was better than steering them through fear, and so decided to enable them to exercise their own freedoms, turning a deaf ear to the exaggerated reports of security men, who love nothing more than to live in the swamp of denunciation and intrigue.

Monday the 18th: The Death of Dag Hammarskjöld

Today, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Dag Hammarskjöld, a Swedish national, was killed in a plane crash in the Congo.

Rumors immediately spread that he had been killed at the instigation of the colonial agent Tshombe, acting under the direction of Belgian colonial interests, to separate his own province of Katanga, rich in gold mines.

Hammarskjöld had resisted this secession with real courage.

Just as he had stood by Egypt, with complete fairness and a genuine sense of responsibility, during the Suez War of 1956.

He had visited Damascus before the Union, and visited Mr. Akram al-Hourani, then Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, and I served as interpreter between them.

Monday the 18th

Abdul Hamid al-Sarraj hurried to Damascus, to be close to events.

As though he could not bear the removal of his own "right-hand man."

A "friend" from the National Union contacted me, and told me that al-Sarraj had summoned the National Union's Executive Committee, in his own capacity as its Secretary-General, and told its members that his own powers had been greatly curtailed, and that his own post as vice president had become nothing more than a mere honorary title.

This friend told me he was deeply troubled by the state his own affairs had come to.

His own men had been scattered, his own trusted deputy al-Siba'i removed, and he himself sidelined to Cairo. The Field Marshal had abolished "arbitrary detention," a decision received with great welcome. He had taken direct charge of the National Union's own affairs, released a great many detainees, closed some of the intelligence service's own basements, and issued a decision forming provincial councils.

These are measures al-Sarraj and his own men take no pleasure in at all, for they cast him in the light of an unjust tyrant, one the Field Marshal had come to save the people from.

Friday, 22 September

President Abdel Nasser summoned Field Marshal Amer and Abdul Hamid al-Sarraj back from Damascus, owing to the power struggle between them, their own dispute having become nearly public, and out of concern for the Northern Region's own safety.

We learned nothing of the lengthy private meeting that took place among the three of them.

But it is certain that al-Sarraj reminded the President of his own services and devotion to the cause, and that stripping away or curtailing his own powers would make him a target for criticism, accused of practicing terror and holding no regard at all for individual freedom.

But the method he had grown accustomed to, tracking down "conspirators" and exposing them, as he had done with King Saud's own conspiracy against Abdel Nasser at the start of the Union, had run its own course, and was no longer suited to a state of more than twenty million people, seventeen million of them in the Southern Region and three million in the Northern Region.

A state of this size and population has no need of "exceptional rule," for it can protect itself through its own ordinary laws, and through citizens rallying around it, once they sense it is working in their own interest, striving to preserve their own dignity and their nation's own honor.

Tuesday the 26th

We were taken by surprise by Abdul Hamid al-Sarraj's own resignation, and his departure for Damascus.

Some of our own brothers were sorry to see him go, for he had been the sword with which Abdel Nasser fought the Union's own enemies.

Even if he sometimes grew overzealous, and overstepped reasonable bounds.

Others among us felt this resignation should have come long before, for its own holder's method of governing had been overtaken by time, no longer of any real use in bringing the nation's own ranks together, working instead to fragment them, treating citizens on the basis of mere suspicion and fabricated reports.

It is the way of security men to exaggerate events and manufacture conspiracies and dangers, so that the President feels he cannot possibly do without them, to protect him and his regime from its own rivals.

And so he sinks ever deeper into the ground, ever more stifled within his own ivory tower, like the silkworm, spinning its own silk thread from its mouth around its own body, finding comfort in it, only to suffocate within it in the end.

It appears the President decided to flee, on his own, from this very silkworm's silk, mercy on its own surface, agony underneath.

Our own president drifted off into his own rose-tinted dreams.

And we drifted off along with him, upon a soft pillow, basking in a bright hope that the state of tension gripping the Republic would finally end, with exceptional rule coming to a close, and comfort, security, and individual freedoms spreading across the homeland.

But we enjoyed these dreams for only two days, and two days alone.

For the secessionist coup took place on the morning of Thursday, the twenty-eighth of this ill-omened month, and with it, a bright hope, one of the most honorable days in the Arabs' own modern history, was buried, and a dark page in Syria's own bleak history was opened.

The sweet hope had fallen, and the banners of the conspirators had been raised.