Articles, Radio Addresses, and Interviews Recorded at the Time in My Own Papers - Part 2: His 1951 Radio Address Defining Democracy Under the New Syrian Constitution

Dear citizens,

Democracy is defined as the rule of the people, by the people, over itself, and this understanding of government reached a particularly high level during certain periods of Greek and Roman life, though it reached its truest height during the era when the Rightly Guided Caliphs ruled in Islam.

Democracy, then, is not foreign to Islam at all. Rather, it is an inseparable part of its own philosophy, and one of the great pillars on which it built its own organization of governance.

Democracy, properly understood and properly applied, is quite simply the finest form of government there is, since it is the political and social system in which the true aims and purposes of communal life are actually realized.

If every human being lived alone on some island cut off from the outside world, there would be no need at all to think of laying down rules of government, since every person in such a state would act purely on his own, guided by his own inclinations, in whatever manner satisfied his own instincts and the whims of his own heart.

But man, living alongside his fellow man within a family system, one in which the father managed its affairs as father, ruler, and religious authority all at once, came to live alongside his fellow man in a more refined and elevated way as the rules of life themselves evolved, and communal life shifted toward a system built first on the unity of the clan, then the tribe, then the city. In these systems, which humanity took thousands of years to reach and to live under, the head of the community served as both political ruler and sole religious leader, and his own conduct toward his people was drawn from their own needs and wishes, but should he ever stray from the path of established custom, the people would remove him and install another in his place, one more attuned to the public good.

Communal development eventually arrived at the formation of the state itself. The span of land grew wider, the population grew larger, interests grew more entangled, and the old rules of family, tribal, or municipal governance were no longer adequate. Philosophers and thinkers set out in search of the best system of government, and arrived at all manner of theories, upon which one form of government after another was built, until this whole process of refinement was ultimately distilled down to two: democracy and dictatorship.

I am not here to lay out democracy's own virtues, for its virtues are many, nor am I here to wage a campaign against dictatorship, for its own vices are likewise many. But the bitter experiences our own people have lived through these past five years have convinced every fair-minded person of the failure of one-man rule, and each of us has come away with these two truths:

The first: any one-man rule drives a wedge between peoples and their own governments, since it is a system built on coercion and exhaustion, and for this reason, rulers in internationally weak countries find themselves forced to throw themselves into foreign arms, seeking support and help to remain in power against the will of their own people. This is precisely what used to happen in our own country.

Such a system, then, is a danger to the homeland's own reputation and very being, given that it becomes, in effect, an international arrangement seeking only to preserve the conditions of its own survival.

The second: it is a system that aims not at the good of the people, but rather serves the interests of a class of hawks, circling constantly overhead, ready to swoop down mercilessly and without pity the moment they spot their own prey. Among these hawks we find politicians, officials, merchants, and landowners alike. In fairness, we should note that a certain class of those who benefited from the fallen regime did so in good faith, some out of a genuine, if mistaken, hope for reform, others simply carried along by a wish to lessen the harm. But their numbers steadily shrank, disillusioned and despairing, until not one of them remained alongside the defeated dictator in the final days of his own dark era, an era in which the country never advanced a single step forward, but rather retreated many wide steps backward, in a world where everything else marches forward with the strides of a mighty giant.

But if dictatorship is a violation of human dignity, a dagger thrust into the very heart of freedom, an exposure of the homeland's own interests to danger, and a harnessing of the machinery of the state in service of the dictatorship and its own henchmen, then democracy, in turn, must be sound and clear in its own aims, so that the highest ideals of freedom may be realized under its shade.

Democracy holds within it a vast good. It holds respect for the dignity of the individual, and reverence for the will of the community. It expresses, too, the constitution of sound government, directing the machinery of the state toward serving the public good, and strengthening the human personality, whose millions gather together into a single bouquet, from which the personality of the whole homeland itself is formed.

But these aims can only be realized if their own supporting conditions exist. These conditions are freedom, on the one hand, individual and public awareness, on the other, and, third, a law that safeguards order.

Freedom is life itself, in its noblest and loftiest sense, and in my own view, no life holds any true value at all unless every fiber and thread of it swims in the surging river of freedom. Freedom has no true meaning unless every person is enabled to express his own opinion exactly as he wishes, and unless the people as a whole are enabled to choose their own representatives freely, and to steer the government in whatever direction they see fit to serve their own interests and aims.

For this reason, democracy is rule by the majority, within the framework of a constitution that safeguards and protects the minority, while public awareness is citizens' own correct understanding that they are active agents in public life, each one personally responsible for the sound conduct and direction of government, an understanding that the people are not a flock to be herded by a shepherd, nor a possession the government may dispose of according to its own inclinations, passions, and whims. For this reason, every citizen must understand the weight and importance of his own conduct, and if he does not understand why he acts as he does, and is not utterly convinced that his own conduct serves the good of the individual he is personally responsible for, then he commits a grave offense against democracy, and against himself as a citizen.

Public awareness is what dictates the principle of honest, honorable opposition, within a framework of meaningful freedom, and it is what stands in the way of chaos and laxity. If the people grow timid where boldness is called for, and rush ahead where patience and deliberation are called for, or indeed where they ought to stand firm against certain destructive currents, then they alone bear responsibility for whatever calamities and disasters befall them as a result.

Democracy, as I have said, is the rule of the people, meaning that the people themselves are the ruler, steering their own destiny. And yet, when I hear, for instance, that the pupils of some kindergarten have been made to march in protest of some external matter whose meaning they cannot possibly grasp, I take this as proof that the true concept of democracy has not yet taken firm root in people's minds, and that such democracy hands a sharp weapon to Nazism and fascism alike, to strike at the very heart of free thought. I regard the impulse behind those who push children into such acts as clear evidence of a real deficiency in political culture, and a real weakness in the sense of public responsibility.

As for the law, it is democracy's own guardian, its shield and its armor, and democracy can never truly prevail without it. The law remains quietly in the background, not interfering, so long as it need only safeguard people's rights and freedoms. But should some reckless, contemptuous person dare to harm the life of freedom itself, through conduct that runs counter to the good of the individual and the community, then the edge of the sword hanging over his own head exacts its due, to awaken in him a real sense of responsibility, and to make of him a lesson for anyone else who might be tempted to hold the rights of society in contempt.

For this reason, the role of the judiciary is a vast and weighty one in democratic life, and it falls to politicians, as a duty toward their own homeland, to strengthen its own independence, and to take real care in choosing its own men, choosing men of solid character and firm competence, men of understanding and integrity. And it is the homeland's own right, in turn, to demand of its judges that they remain impartial and honest, beyond the reach of any doubt, so that they may truly stand as the guardians of justice and democracy.

Whenever the law stands quietly waiting, and yet intervenes firmly the moment the social balance is thrown off, then democracy stands in good health.

My dear citizens,

Democracy means that the individual governs the homeland, and the homeland governs the individual in turn, so that each of us must conduct himself in public affairs exactly as he conducts himself in his own private affairs, seeking the good of both together, since the two are never truly in conflict, and must work diligently to spread awareness and respect for the law wherever possible. There is no doubt that spreading this awareness requires the right supporting conditions: more schools, limits on large landholdings, the laying down of sound, evolutionary socialist principles, and training both the university generation and the secondary-school generation to feel and bear real responsibility, convincing them that their first duty is to draw deeply from knowledge and equip themselves with the provisions of culture, except in the hour when real danger threatens the homeland itself. And whatever may be said about the abuse of freedom, however true it may be at any given moment, citizens will inevitably come, in the end, to hold it sacred, and to fight to the death in its own defense.

Democracy, then, is not a sickness, as its opponents claim, nor is it fit only for a nation of angels, as Montesquieu once said of it, but it is well suited to any people aware enough to love a life of dignity and freedom. The Syrian people, and the rest of the Arab peoples, are in greater need than ever of a fuller and truer measure of freedom, and I am convinced that the very turmoil now gripping and unsettling the Middle East is nothing less than a deep popular struggle to win freedom and to break free of the yoke of both domestic despots and foreign colonizers alike, the very colonizers who found their own support and backing in fascist dictatorial regimes, a chapter now closed forever in Syria, God willing.[1]

"A Talk on Nationalization"

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Endnotes:

[1] I delivered a series of radio addresses to acquaint the Syrian people with the provisions of the constitution I had the honor of helping draft, as rapporteur of the People's Assembly's constitutional drafting committee, a constitution that was then adopted as the permanent constitution of the Syrian Arab Republic.