Before These Memoirs - Part 16: Nasser's General Congress Speech and Hasan al-Hakim's Proposal for an Arab Confederation

Saturday the 26th

I was pleased today by the appearance of a new Baath Party statement, calling for the restoration of union with Egypt, "while avoiding the errors of the past." It was dated the 18th of this same May, and reached me only belatedly. I do not know who would ever accept the continuation of errors, supposing errors truly existed.

Those who drafted this statement did not forget to devote a passage to calling for "washing away the shame of the secession."

I have learned that it was Mr. Salah al-Bitar himself who drafted this statement, one that weighed so heavily on the hearts of the men in power.

What is astonishing about the political scene is that the secessionists pour the full force of their own anger upon us, "the Nasserist Five," while showing the Baathists a certain courtesy, even though the Baathists have their own newspaper and circulate statements among the people freely, while we ourselves rarely issue any statements at all.

The statement is long, running to six foolscap pages, and deserves a moment's real reflection, for it arrived like a cool breeze in a feverish, suffocating atmosphere. It opened by speaking of "washing away the shame of the secession," an expression that had unsettled and irritated President al-Qudsi when we ourselves had used it in the memorandum we addressed to him.

It then moved on to focus on "the errors of one-man rule," since "union is not the annexation of one country to another, but a step forward on the path toward a comprehensive Arab union."

It went on to "demand that the people's own freedom be unleashed, and that party, union, and professional organization be strengthened," insisting "that the goal of Arab unity is the strongest and deepest motive for the existence of the Arab Socialist Baath Party, as a progressive popular movement."

As for the other politicians, union to them was "nothing but an abstract, general slogan, one they never intended to actually realize, but instead abandon and sacrifice at the very first obstacle, for the sake of the smallest personal or party gain."

But who, in the eyes of this statement's authors, were the enemies of this union?

In short, they were:

Colonialism, which occupied the Arab homeland's soil and worked to entrench its fragmentation.

Worldwide Zionism, which, with colonialism's help, established the state of Israel.

The Communist parties.

Arab reaction, and its kings and princes.

Opportunistic progressivism.

Opportunism cloaked in the guise of progressivism.

The residue of bigotry and intellectual backwardness, namely sectarianism, ethnic chauvinism, and regionalism.

The answer to these enemies lay in the fact "that Arab unity is synonymous with the very existence of the Arabs, as a nation possessing a civilizational identity of its own, though it cannot achieve this unity on its own."

The statement then went on to affirm socialism, since "there is no true freedom and no true liberation alongside fragmentation, nor any true socialism alongside fragmentation."

Nor did the statement neglect to refute the secessionists' own justifications, who raise general slogans meant to rule out achieving union altogether, such as claiming that Syria must become a fortress for the unionist struggle in itself, or that Syria's own separate being is necessary for the sake of union itself. These, it said, are slogans used "as weapons of falsification and deception, since they fight the union that is actually possible in the name of some distant, comprehensive union." The secessionists, "the enemies of union, struggle desperately to turn back the wheel of time."

The party closed its statement by saying it now believed, as did the great majority of the people, "that the question of union has clear boundaries, and that the immediate goal it aims at is the union of Egypt and Syria, as a first and fundamental step."

Sunday the 27th

President Abdel Nasser spoke at the General Congress of Popular Forces. The following points in his speech caught my attention:

a. His belief in collective leadership.

I could not quite grasp exactly what he meant by this belief. Did he mean by it a retreat from his own well-known disdain for parties and for the principle of rotating power?

Or did he mean instead to reaffirm his ties with his own fellow members of the Revolutionary Command Council, having come to consider himself responsible, if only implicitly, for the union his own colleagues, Abdel Latif al-Baghdadi above all, had opposed, as he himself had confirmed?

b. His refusal to accept the presidency for life.

I had never before heard that he harbored any wish to remain president for life, though we sensed he had no intention of giving up the presidency either, so long as nothing forced him to, whether from his own fellow Revolutionary Command Council members or from internal or external circumstances. In truth, those who wished him to step down were not the ones raising their voices. We ourselves considered him, personally, a great guarantee for safeguarding the present, and for securing the entire Arab future, despite certain shortcomings that never rose to the level of errors serious enough to justify wanting him gone.

His presence at the head of government was itself something of great importance. As for the future, that lies in God's own hands. It is enough credit to him that he was among the very few Arab leaders who considered Zionism the crushing danger to the Arabs and to Islam, seeing in Communism nothing more than a political doctrine, one that could never be compared to the dangers of Zionism.

To illustrate what I am saying, I need only quote what Dr. Bashir al-Azma wrote in his book Jeel al-Hazima, p. 251, where he says:

"I met Prince Faisal (bin Abdulaziz Al Saud) in New York in 1962 (Dr. al-Azma was then head of the Syrian mission to the United Nations), in the corridors of the United Nations, and he asked me: are you still a Nasserist, as they say of you?[1] I said, and is it permissible to hang our own dirty laundry on the enemy state's own line? He asked: and where are these enemies? I said: the United States, the great supporter and mainstay of Zionism in the world. The Prince laughed mockingly and answered, word for word: 'Zionism is a simple matter. We can pressure our American friends and ask them to end their support for Israel. Israel represents the lesser danger. The greater danger is worldwide Communism and Nasserism, and you are its agents.'"

Time proved the soundness of Abdel Nasser's own view, for the Communist regimes of the world collapsed, even within their own home ground, while Zionism has remained, and still remains, a third of a century after this very conversation took place, its two speakers now both resting beside their Lord, the crushing and ever-worsening danger to the Arab nation.

c. Nor did the President forget, in this speech, to recall to memory "the intrigues the Syrian ministers used to weave, some against others." Among what he said was that Akram al-Hourani had demanded the dismissal of Amin al-Nafouri as "a traitor," and the dismissal of Afif al-Bizri (the first commander of the army) as a Communist. Salah al-Bitar, meanwhile, had been scheming against Abdel Hamid al-Sarraj, and when the two were brought together, al-Bitar was left speechless, and fell silent.

d. He acknowledged that the Egyptians had committed errors in Syria, whether military men or civilians. This was one admission that errors had indeed occurred, though no one has ever claimed that no errors occurred at all during the union's three and a half years. But they were the errors of individuals, never the errors of a state.

Perhaps most of those who committed these errors have since met their Lord's own face. Yet the crime of the secession remains, and still remains, a treacherous stab in the Arab nation's own heart.

e. Nor did he forget to speak of "the Arab committee" the Syrian Prime Minister had formed, from which we had resigned. He said its majority stood against union.

This was plain enough, hidden from no fair-minded observer. Which is why we chose not to fall into the trap that had been laid, whether the intentions of those who laid it were good or ill.

f. It was as though he wished to reassure the officers who had brought about the union's destruction, and to dispel the rumors circulating among them that Abdel Nasser would "hang them from the gallows," turning to address them directly, saying: he raised gallows for no one, but the one who would raise them was Akram al-Hourani. The President did not quite strike the heart of the truth in this passage, and misjudged, as any man might misjudge.

For Akram al-Hourani was himself forced out of the country only months later, wandering from place to place, along with some of his own followers. I heard that he took up residence as a guest of King Hussein of Jordan, once among the fiercest enemies of union and of socialism, and whom the "unionists" used to call "Ibn Zein." His own inevitable hour came in Amman in 1996.

Monday, 28 May

His Excellency Mr. Hasan al-Hakim sent me, "with the finest greetings and the sincerest feelings of brotherhood," a study he had written on union, saying he had sent it to the newspaper Al-Ayyam for publication, but that the censors had not permitted its publication, and so, as he told me in the note accompanying the study, he had instead "sent it on 28 May 1962 by registered mail to His Excellency the President of the Republic."

Mr. al-Hakim had been Prime Minister in 1951, and had chosen me, God rest his soul, as Minister of Education. No one is unaware of the fragrant reputation this politician enjoyed throughout the country, built on the cleanliness of his own hands, his indifference to worldly gain, and his own part in the armed revolution, for which I gave him the title "the freedom fighter." He belonged to no political party, though he was inclined toward Dr. Abdel Rahman Shahbandar, and stood in rivalry, though never enmity, with the National Bloc. God rest his soul, he held Hashemite sympathies he never hid.

He hated colonialism, though he used to say he handled it carefully, to guard against its harm and malice.

This study runs to six typewritten pages.

Out of my own personal regard for its author, I thought it worth reviewing here as follows.

His Excellency President al-Hakim says:

"There can be no dispute that Syria is the very homeland of Arab unity, and that it has striven to achieve it with every ounce of resolve and faith at its disposal, considering it the strongest means of repelling ambitions and warding off dangers from the Arab countries, especially once colonialism had created that malignant cancer and descending calamity, Israel.

Nothing better demonstrates Syria's own devotion to the pursuit of Arab unity and its attachment to it than its sacrifice of its own separate identity, for the sake of a partial union between itself and its great sister Egypt.

Despite the setback that befell this union, the successive Syrian governments since the 28 September 1961 uprising have continued to declare their strong commitment to this loftiest of national goals, on condition that union this time be built on sound foundations and firm principles of brotherhood, justice, and equality, so much so that the present government has formed a special committee (the Arab Affairs Committee) whose task is to study this union, in order to draw up a project defining its shape and framework. It is no wonder, for the present age is an age of nationalisms and blocs, and any country that clings to a narrow regional policy, closing in on itself, cannot hope to preserve its own being. The great powers, with their vast armies and their nuclear and hydrogen weapons, have not hesitated to surround themselves with numerous blocs and alliances of their own, which is exactly what makes the pursuit of Arab unity a sacred goal.

But union requires that the leaders and statesmen of the Arab countries struggle against their own selves and their own base desires, and give up their selfishness and self-interest, and I do not know if any among them are truly prepared to give up their own thrones and their own presidencies. It has been said that the very last thing God removes from the hearts of the righteous is the love of high office.

Today, disputes and quarrels exist among the leaders and statesmen of certain Arab countries that sap their own strength and dissipate their own force. The Jews would never have been able to achieve what they achieved against us in the Palestine war, were it not for the failure of these same leaders and statesmen.

Likewise, those who have become ministers, ambassadors, directors, and heads of state in certain backward Arab countries, backward precisely because of the fragmentation colonialism itself created, must inevitably oppose union fiercely, believing that should it come about, they would stand no real chance of obtaining such posts, so long as there remain, in the more advanced Arab countries, men more deserving of them than themselves.

The subject of the wealthy oil states comes to mind in this same context, and it is inconceivable that these wealthy states would give up such resources, though they would never hesitate to contribute a certain proportion of those resources toward strengthening a federal army.

Nor did he forget, God rest his soul, to address the question of racial and sectarian minorities in the Arab countries, his own view being that they ought to be granted, within the machinery of government, a share equal to their own numerical proportion, so that they might accept integration into the wider Arab community.

The author closes his study by calling, given present circumstances, for a realistically achievable arrangement, a confederation of independent states rather than a centralized union, since the latter might stir in certain minds a measure of fear or a measure of doubt and suspicion, such as one country being annexed to another, or one ruling family being favored over another.

He believes this confederation, "the weakest form of union," should rest on the following principles:

1. That each state retain its own being, its own system of government, and its own internal and external sovereignty, except in matters specifically assigned to the confederation itself.

2. That the confederation be limited strictly to political, economic, military, and cultural affairs, and nothing beyond these.

3. That these affairs be managed by a supreme council, whose members would be delegated by the participating states, with equal votes among them, and the presidency rotating between them." My own comment on this section of the memorandum is that it aligns with our own thinking in spirit and in aim. But we do not believe the particular "form" His Excellency al-Hakim calls for is capable of enduring. Better than it, in my own view, is what union in its simplest sense actually means: the establishment of a federal state, one that preserves for its own member regions the powers of a state possessing its own local council of ministers and chamber of deputies, while politics, economics, defense, and perhaps culture as well, remain the responsibility of a single presidency, its holder chosen by election, with a federal council of ministers and a central chamber of deputies standing alongside him.

As for the second part of the study, it turns to internal politics, demanding that public freedoms be unleashed, especially freedom of the press, that the atmosphere between the Arab states be cleared, and that the radio campaigns be halted.

Whatever else may be said, this memorandum stands as the expression of a great, sincere political mind on the question of Arab unity, as he himself envisioned it, at a time when panic-mongers and liars raised false unionist slogans of their own, meant to serve as formidable obstacles on the path toward the real, achievable union.

Tuesday the 29th

Dr. Maarouf al-Dawalibi and Dr. Ma'mun al-Kuzbari were arrested once again. They had been arrested together with Dr. al-Qudsi, and released when he was released, but the authorities who had arrested them went on to release them once more a few days later.

I do not know what could possibly tempt them to remain on the political stage, at a time when neither they, nor their own president, nor any pillar of the regime, held any real power over anything at all.

I would add that, outwardly, they each seem to bless the other's own beard, yet the moment one of them finds himself alone with someone else, he gives the other his own full due, in curses and accusations of treason.

Rashad Barmada told me today that the army commander, Lieutenant General Zahreddine, had attacked Maarouf al-Dawalibi during a session of the Council of Ministers, and the army commander holds the powers of a Minister of Defense, though without the title itself, reminding him of what Voice of the Arabs radio had accused him of, that he had "taken money" from the Baghdad Pact group back in the 1950s. Rashad added that al-Dawalibi did not deny it, saying he had only taken five thousand dinars. Zahreddine answered him that they were referring an officer to military court for taking a far smaller sum.

Mr. Hamdi al-Saleh (Adib al-Shishakli's own chief of police) told me, on 27 March last, that when he returned from Europe in 1954, after al-Shishakli had been driven from the country, Ma'mun al-Kuzbari visited him and asked him whether "Abu Hassan," meaning Colonel al-Shishakli, had sent us any money through him. He told him no, and where would he even get such money, to spend on himself, let alone others? Al-Kuzbari answered: "He knows the road to America and Saudi Arabia well enough."

At that moment, Mr. Abdel Qader al-Aswad (first president of the Court of Cassation), Abdel Wahab al-Azraq, and our own colleague in the United Arab Front, Nihad al-Qasim, came in to join us, and I asked Mr. Hamdi to repeat what he had told me in their own hearing, so that they might stand as witnesses before God to this shameful "accusation."

It had by then become common knowledge among people that those who took part in the 28 September 1961 secession were not above suspicion, and it was said that the Saudis had spent seven million pounds on the secessionist coup.

A number of officers were arrested, some of them convicted and sentenced, and one of them died in prison, or took his own life, after giving a full confession. Akram al-Hourani did not let Abdel Nasser's speech pass without answering it, with the same "tact" he was known for whenever he set himself against an enemy.

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Endnotes:

[1] America's own delegate to the United Nations had asked Dr. al-Azma about his own country's likely reaction, were America to offer economic aid to Egypt. He welcomed the offer, but the American delegate told him that the Crown Prince of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia had denounced this aid to Egypt, considering it proof of support for Abdel Nasser and his own policy in the region.