Before These Memoirs - Part 14: Formation of Bashir al-Azma's Ministry and a Direct Meeting with President Qudsi on Union

Monday, 16 April: Formation of Bashir al-Azma's Ministry

The moment he returned to the presidential chair, Dr. al-Qudsi insisted that the deputies submit their resignations, and authorize him to govern the country by legislative decree.

Mr. Rashad Barmada worked energetically to secure the signatures of a majority of the deputies on a resignation reading as follows:

"In appreciation of the critical circumstances the country is passing through, and out of our own concern to preserve the unity of ranks that safeguards a sound path toward stability on national foundations, we submit our resignation from the constituent and legislative assembly, and authorize you to select a transitional government invested, alongside yourself, with legislative authority, hoping in God that you will succeed in laying national foundations that prepare the country for a system of government resting on sound democratic principles, and that secure the national aspirations, social justice, freedom, and prosperity for every member of the people."

He obtained this resignation and presented it to Dr. al-Qudsi, who accepted it and signed it himself.

Al-Qudsi is well known as a prominent legal scholar, and one of the staunchest advocates of parliamentary government and democratic rule.

He had chaired the committee that drafted the 1950 constitution, the very first constitution written in the independence era, which is why we found his insistence on obtaining authorization from the deputies to rule by legislative decree, like any ordinary coup-maker, so strange. Was this a hunger to monopolize power after his own failure before the military, now that the detainees from the 28 March movement had been released?

Mr. Abdel Latif al-Younes, who had himself been a member of that same chamber of deputies, recounted the story of this resignation in his own memoirs,[1] which we summarize here as follows:

"While Nazim al-Qudsi was in prison, a number of officers visited him and asked him to return to the presidency without the chamber of deputies. He set the condition that all the deputies submit their resignations, to give him a justification for his return, on the grounds that there would then be no parliamentary council left for him to be restored over the ruins of. He had sworn an oath to uphold the constitution, whose provisions did not permit dissolving the council before eighteen months had passed since its election. That period had not yet elapsed, so the resignation of every deputy became necessary in order for the dissolution to be constitutional. Some deputies carried petitions and went about collecting signatures. When the plan to dissolve the chamber through its members' resignation failed, al-Qudsi accepted his return to the presidency regardless, and worked to secure the release of the Prime Minister (al-Dawalibi), the ministers, and the detained deputies.

The President of the Republic was bound either to act in keeping with his constitutional duty, or to resign. A majority of the deputies submitted a memorandum demanding the council be summoned to convene immediately.

Al-Qudsi made every effort to persuade the deputies to withdraw their demand for an immediate session, but failed, and so contacted the officers and threatened that if the chamber were not convened at once, he would resign. The officers agreed to allow the meeting, on condition that it not take place inside the chamber of deputies itself, and so the deputies held their meeting instead at Khaled al-Azm's own house, a grave mistake on the deputies' part.

Al-Qudsi pledged not to dissolve the chamber, and the deputies held a single session after forcing Ma'mun al-Kuzbari to resign the presidency of the council, electing Said al-Ghazzi in his place. In that very session, the constitution was buried for good. The President of the Republic did not keep his promise to the deputies not to dissolve the council, for he dissolved it only two days later."

Dr. al-Qudsi formed the transitional ministry under the presidency of Dr. Bashir al-Azma, with Rashad Barmada entering it as Deputy Prime Minister.

What draws attention is that most of its ministers were either civil servants or men who had lost their seats in the general elections, and that Dr. al-Azma was himself a member of the "Friends of the Soviet Union Society."

He had also been one of the central union's own ministers, though he had submitted his resignation from it, a resignation President Abdel Nasser had accepted.

The prominent politicians of this era accused Rashad Barmada of colluding with the army against them, and Khaled al-Azm criticized him sharply in his own memoirs.

Tuesday, 17 April

Today saw the traditional military parade marking Evacuation Day, the day the last foreign soldier left the country, in 1946.

The protocol office invited me to attend the parade, but I declined, not wishing to watch "the men of this era" on so magnificent a national occasion, men who held no real power over their own affairs beyond standing when the national flag passed and sitting back down, in gestures fit for a stage play.

Abdel Nasser, truly and honestly, used to fill this very place with awe and dignity, for he held the reins of affairs firmly in his own hand. The men of today, by contrast, have their own necks held fast by strong threads, pulled by hands working from behind the curtain, or even openly in front of it.

A number of this era's own "heroes," who had gone unmentioned of late amid the events, crouched watchfully in the shadows, as was their habit. Perhaps Badawi al-Jabal had men like them in mind when he said:

When the spoils appear, safe for the taking,

they rush forward, but once the fire of battle rages, they fall still.

Wednesday, 18 April: A Meeting with Dr. Nazim al-Qudsi

For reasons genuinely unknown to us, General Intelligence arrested our colleague Nihad al-Qasim, along with some of the true, unfeigned unionists, a few days earlier.

Before the transitional government was announced, we thought it best to request a meeting with the President of the Republic, to speak with him on several matters, including:

Demanding the release of our unionist brothers, and voicing support for Rashad Barmada's own nomination as head of the ministry, on the grounds that he presented himself as a moderate unionist who would surely work energetically toward establishing a union with Egypt, since he used no term but "union" itself.

Even though three of our own brothers did not trust him on the question of union, seeing him instead as:

Rightward, if rightward it must be, and should

it turn leftward, my own devotion will meet it there just the same.

And third, to speak with him in person, to learn his true leanings after his own arrest, and after his radio address.

But the appointment was not fixed until this very morning. For my own part, I had not met Nazim Bey since the secession took place on 28 September, save once, for a dinner at his own table, with my wife, a dinner that was "exceedingly cold."

Another time he spoke with me by telephone, trying to persuade me to run as a candidate for Aleppo, but I had already resolved not to enter the labyrinth of the secession, so as not to lend it any air of legitimacy.

"His Excellency the President" received us in his office at the Muhajireen Palace with his own well-known graciousness. Our delegation was made up of myself, Ali Bouzo, Ratib al-Husami, and Zaki al-Rikabi.

We spoke of the general political situation, starting from "the unionist face of the transitional ministry."

We told him that the ministry's general direction was a leftist one, in keeping with the radio address he had delivered on the 14th of that same month, the day of his own "return" from his journey into detention, but that its leftists fell into two camps:

One camp, secessionist, known to be so and making no secret or concealment of it. And a leftist camp resentful of Abdel Nasser, such as the Prime Minister and Ahmad Abdel Karim, over old disputes from the days they had served as his own ministers and submitted their resignations to him. This second camp were Communists, such as Subhi Kahhale, or were at least regarded as such. We therefore did not believe any rapprochement with Egypt could ever be achieved through this ministry. Indeed, this very ministry had come into being to freeze the third point of the Homs military conference's own resolutions, the point demanding "union among the liberated Arab states," it being well understood that these liberated states meant, in fact, Abdel Nasser's Egypt.

I addressed the President directly, given our own former ties as party colleagues, and told him plainly: I say this to you frankly. If they wish to play some filthy game, I ask that you not lend them your own name and standing.

He answered, saying:

They wanted a leftist ministry (meaning the officers), so a leftist ministry was formed for them, and these ministers were the men we managed to find who were willing to cooperate with us. Turning to me directly, he said: and I asked about you, and was told you refuse to cooperate with us.

He did promise, however, to raise the matter of releasing the detained unionists "with those concerned," and I felt real regret on his behalf. For who, exactly, were these "concerned parties"? Was His Excellency not himself the highest authority in the land, holding, by virtue of his very office, the position of "the concerned party" himself?

Sunday, 21 April

Five days after the government's formation, Dr. Bashir al-Azma broadcast his government's ministerial statement, which read in part:

"Arab Syria, which circumstance has prepared to stand at the very forefront of the Arab vanguard, recognized from the earliest days of its struggle against Ottoman rule and foreign occupation that all the Arab nation's ailments trace back to three great causes: colonialism, fragmentation, and backwardness.

The union of Syria and Egypt arose as a first attempt to realize the loftiest of the Arabs' fundamental goals. But the union experiment suffered a setback, for many reasons, responsibility for which rests on many factors. Arab Syria did not stand by as a pained spectator to this setback, especially once it saw the schemes of reaction and the conspiracies of colonialism working in earnest to entrench and perpetuate the secession, and to turn Syria away from its own Arab and socialist mission. Rather, it set about gathering all its strength to emerge from this setback, to take up new work within a new framework, in pursuit of a firmer and more lasting union.

Our transitional government has come to answer the free, genuine popular will, which aims at establishing an Arab union on carefully studied foundations that guarantee its survival and growth, at a socialism serving the mass of the people, and at firmly establishing the pillars of democratic life in its fullest sense.

For this reason, the government will take a serious step toward realizing an Arab union whose goals and political and social content answer to the will of our Arab people in every one of its countries.

It has decided to establish contact with the liberated governments, beginning with sister Egypt, in order to then place before a popular referendum a carefully studied, mutually agreed project, so that the people may have their own say on it."

Dr. al-Azma added that the government would grant full public freedoms for discussing the union project, since it believed "that bringing ideas into the light, rather than leaving them in the dark, is the true path to the hoped-for national unity," and that the best means to this discussion was the free exercise of speech and opinion, especially freedom of the press, "though it will take a firm and resolute stand against any subversive attempt aimed at undermining these greater goals."

The statement then turned to the socialist direction the government would adopt, announcing a return to the nationalization of the Five-Man Company and the regulation of the banks' status, while stating that it "sees the encouragement of national capital as a goal from which the people, in all its classes, stands to benefit, bringing good to every citizen alike, just as it accepts the entry of Arab and foreign capital within the framework of the economic plan, provided it remains free of any political purpose."

"But the foundations on which your own government, O people, wishes to build a democratic, socialist, Arab rule, must inevitably rest on drafting a constitution for the country that establishes governance on firm foundations, drawn from the country's own spiritual and material reality."

The statement announced the adoption of a policy of positive neutrality in international affairs, "keeping clear of alliances, blocs, and the Cold War, and holding fast to the United Nations Charter," "though we cannot conceal from you, O people, that these national goals we commit ourselves to fulfilling demand effort, sacrifice, and cooperation from every citizen."

It is clear that the government's own stated direction was, on its face, beyond reproach. It had dropped the phrase "the necessity of preserving the being of the Syrian people, so dear to the heart of the President of the Republic," but what mattered was whether the intention behind it was sincere and genuine. We would see what the coming days would reveal.

The Arab world rejoiced at the French release of the Algerian freedom fighter Djamila Boupacha, after several years of detention.

Wednesday the 25th

Rashad Barmada (Deputy Prime Minister) told us, over lunch with him at his own farm, that the government had adopted a firm, irreversible unionist direction, and denounced, in the harshest terms, "the secession that wounded the feelings of the Arab nation." Our own ties with Rashad had never been secret or hidden from anyone. Khaled al-Azm wrote of them as follows:[2]

Yet the truly reassuring event was the powerful, unionist-leaning speech delivered by Dr. Abdullah Abdel Da'im, Minister of Information in this same many-colored ministry.

He pressed, with sound logic and genuine national feeling, the justifications for union with Egypt, and its positive national return for Syria and the Arabs alike.

No one should be unaware of the strong tie linking Dr. Abdel Da'im to Mr. Salah al-Bitar, who himself took an uncompromising stance in calling for union with Egypt, as though seeking to atone for the very sin he had committed in supporting the crime of secession.

And so the three missing epithets returned to appear once more in government statements: Egypt "the beloved," Egypt "the sister," Egypt "the dear."

The late Faidi al-Atassi used to shorten them to "loved," "sistered," and "deared," whenever he wished to mock "those dancing at the weddings of union."

But the real problem lay in Dr. al-Qudsi's own position.

He would at times show one face while concealing another, the reason being that he found himself caught under the pressure of two warring currents among the officers: a secessionist current surrounding him, telling him things at odds with present reality, and a current working against the era, one he sensed without ever quite seeing, fearing and dreading them, without ever truly leaning toward them either.

This state of affairs troubled his own Prime Minister, Bashir al-Azma, who wrote in his memoirs:

"I followed, with the deepest unease, from the very first days of forming the ministry, the officers' constant attendance on the President of the Republic, sitting with him for hours, discussing matters and pressing demands.

The President tried to include me in these luncheon sessions with them, on more than a few occasions, and I objected to the repetition of such meetings, telling the President frankly that our own dealings with the command officers ought to be confined strictly to National Security Council meetings.

Perhaps what lay behind my own verbal courage was that I had never, in my whole life, known interrogation, detention, or a prison cell, whether justly or unjustly."[3]

The Minister of Information followed his own words with action, ordering that Egyptian newspapers and magazines be allowed into Syria once more, thereby opening a window through which we began breathing in the air of a higher culture once again. People rushed to snatch them up, as though they were "the poor man's bread," a scarce commodity for which needy citizens once lined up at the bakery doors to buy at a token price, sought after even by many who had no real need of it, their financial circumstances being perfectly comfortable, driven instead by a greed that blinded their own conscience and returned as a heavy burden on the state's own treasury.

At the same time, he banned the radio campaigns that had been assailing Abdel Nasser with every manner of falsehood, though the press, having recovered its own "freedom," continued its vilification of the union era it had once been so accustomed to, its own writers taking to the cafés to spread slander and lies.

Mr. Akram al-Hourani proved an inexhaustible wellspring for them, never failing to hurl at Abdel Nasser every epithet from agent to traitor to spy. The newspapers raced to publish his own insults in bold letters across their front pages.

But this opening did not last long, for the internal security forces intervened and banned and confiscated the Egyptian newspapers.

The Minister of Information had no choice but to submit his own resignation, going on to work instead with international organizations, freeing himself of this "heartache."

This action by the internal security command was followed by another that angered the head of government, the barring of Mr. Khaled Bakdash from entering the country. He had left it in disguise, as was his own habit, when the union was declared, since he had not approved of it. Dr. al-Azma was himself a peace advocate, sympathetic to the Soviet Union, and Khaled Bakdash was one of the leading figures of the Communist creed.

A genuine warmth and spiritual kinship bound him to Prime Minister al-Azma.

The Prime Minister's own shock, then, was severe, and it taught him just how much respect he truly commanded within "his new era."

Wednesday, 2 May

The secessionists' joy today defied description. Their local newspapers carried news from an Israeli paper, to the effect that Lieutenant General Ali Ali Amer had shot President Abdel Nasser and then taken his own life on the spot.

Israeli radio then dared Abdel Nasser to appear publicly on television. He did appear, at an official occasion, laughing with his whole heart.

But those who had spread the panic shed no tears over it, already waiting for the next fabricated plot.

Word reached us, through our friend Rashad, that President Nazim al-Qudsi had begun opening his eyes to his own true circumstances, and had asked the Foreign Minister, Mr. Adnan al-Azhari, to travel to Egypt and seek to open a dialogue with Cairo, to take up once more the question of establishing "a union on new foundations."

He traveled, but failure was his only companion, and he came back empty-handed, having brought his own ruin upon himself.

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Endnotes:

[1] P. 264 and following.

[2] Khaled al-Azm's own memoirs, Vol. 3, p. 340, record the following: "Rashad Barmada kept close ties with the leaders of the Nasserist movement in Damascus, namely Homad, al-Husami, Bouzo, and al-Qasim. He met with them daily, and would carry out the next day whatever they had agreed upon among themselves."

[3] Jeel al-Hazima (The Generation of Defeat), London, Riad El-Rayyes Books, 1991, p. 233.