Before These Memoirs - Part 26: President al-Qudsi's Angry Outburst in Aleppo as the Crowd Cheered for Abdel Nasser

Saturday the 28th

Bashir al-Azma, head of the ministry, broke his own calm, unionist manner, delivering a fierce speech against President Abdel Nasser, quite out of character for him. It seems to me he has fallen under the pressure of the secessionist officers.

Word reached my ears that the government had decided to file a complaint with the Arab League against Egypt, on the pretext that it was interfering in its own internal affairs.

Today Cairo radio attacked the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria, accusing them of taking generous subsidies from the Saudis, who buy the conscience of anyone willing to trade in it.

Ratib al-Husami told me he remained in contact with Issam al-Attar, the Muslim Brotherhood's Supreme Guide in Syria, and assured me that al-Attar was no secessionist, but was waiting for a suitable opportunity to declare his own true, good intentions openly.

I cannot say with certainty this will happen anytime soon, given this unexpected attack from Cairo radio. I bear witness that when I came to know Mr. al-Attar, I found him a man of the utmost gentleness, courtesy, and humility. And yet Khaled al-Azm wrote the following about him in his own memoirs:[1]

"Al-Hourani opposed restoring the chamber of deputies. Al-Asali and I had no objection to forming a strong government that would call, in the near future, on the electorate to elect a new chamber of deputies.

Al-Attar, for his part, would suggest, with the utmost gentleness, that there was no harm in there being nothing to prevent the parliamentary council from convening, and so on with all the qualifications and riddles Mr. al-Attar was in the habit of wrapping his own statements in. You could scarcely make out, from the opening of his remarks, that he agreed with something, before you found his own position shifting halfway through, only to return, in the end, to some measure of both agreement and refusal.

I used to compare him to an actor skilled at playing seductive roles.

We once found ourselves together at a private gathering, with Akram al-Hourani present, and I asked him: do you want Abdel Nasser to return? He answered: God forbid.

Neither I, nor anyone else, was ever able to obtain a clear opinion from him on the question of union, nor would he ever allow a single word against union, or against Abdel Nasser, to pass his own lips, whether in his sermons at the Syrian University mosque or in his own press statements."

This adherence to decorum and good character only fueled Mr. Khaled al-Azm's own resentment of him, for he wanted him to be coarse and abusive, forgetting that the man held a religious position restraining him from ever speaking rashly, quite apart from his own gentle temperament and refined upbringing. He knows well the Almighty's own words: "And hold firmly to the rope of God all together, and do not become divided."

This is a wisdom lost on those who raise the banners of division, fragmentation, and secession. God rest the soul of the recluse of Ma'arra, who said:

Death and sleep share a close kinship,

though how different the healing each brings the soul, and the sickness.

For when you sleep, you meet your loved ones once more,

though months, and circumstance, have long since folded them into the earth.

And this is exactly the difference between the sincere counselor and the slanderer, between the devoted and the resentful.

In fairness, among the Brotherhood's own leaders were brilliant unionist figures, who tasted the bitterest suffering at the hands of this era's own henchmen, foremost among them Professor Dr. Abdel Rahman Atabah, who held fast to his own unionist convictions, and was saved only by fleeing his own homeland into the unknown.

The newspaper Al-Manar claimed today, a paper sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood, if not its very own mouthpiece, said to be owned by Bashir Awf, one of their own number, that Abdel Nasser's speech yesterday had "shattered" the Syrian unionists. The paper then let its own imagination run wild, claiming "that AbdulWahab Homad would draft the Nasserists' own statement, in coordination with Rashad Barmada, condemning what Abdel Nasser's latest speech contained."

The clearest answer to these fabrications is that no such statement was ever issued by us on this subject at all. This evening, at its five o'clock broadcast, Cairo radio accused the intelligence men "trained in Cyprus and Amman by the British military attaché and his own assistant in this task, Brigadier General Muwaffaq Assasa," of carrying out the attacks on the unionist front's leaders, "al-Husami, Homad, and Bouzo."

Sunday the 29th

General Aziz Abdel Karim, Minister of Interior, held a press conference in which he listed the terrorist incidents that had taken place in the country, naming those responsible for them, and pointing to their own connection with the Egyptian ambassador in Beirut.

He mentioned us neither favorably nor unfavorably, a blessing in its own right.

One journalist asked him what conclusion the investigation into the attack on Ratib al-Husami and the bombing of AbdulWahab Homad's car had reached, and he said: the investigation is following its own proper legal course.

Among the old jokes from the days of Ottoman rule, a man was found murdered in a certain village, and a police patrol went to investigate the incident. After its own members had eaten lunch at the murdered man's own family's table, poor as they were, having borrowed from their neighbors enough to fill their own "guests'" stomachs, the sergeant in charge telegraphed his own officer with the good news: "Praise God, we have caught the murdered man. As for the murderer, he has escaped."

The officer, no doubt, was overjoyed at this happy news.

We were pleased, in any case, that the Minister of Interior refrained from attacking us.

We were reminded of the old popular proverb: "When God wishes to bring joy to a poor man, He first makes him lose his own donkey, only to let him find it again."

What sweeter joy could there be!

Monday the 30th

We learned today of the arrest of some of our own unionist brothers. Among the detainees, we learned, was General Muhammad al-Jarrah, one of our own Front's members, along with Mr. Imad al-Harakeh (a notable of Maarrat al-Nu'man) and the lawyer Mr. Ahmad Ismail (Abdel Azim).

Mr. Youssef Muzahim (former Minister of Religious Endowments under the union) was also arrested, one of the most fervent advocates for restoring union immediately, exactly as it had been, or in whatever form it might take.

The newspapers reported that Muzahim had grown a beard and gone into hiding when he was caught.[2]

We held a session that very same day to consider whether some action might secure our brothers' release. But the consensus was that we could do nothing at present, given how badly we ourselves were now regarded.

Adding to the delicacy of our own position, the Syrian press hounds us night and day, counting our very breaths, fabricating and lying about us. Any move on our own part would only inflame this hostility further, and this hostility would in turn fall back on the detainees themselves, in the form of harsher treatment and deeper hatred.

Added to this, Cairo radio quoted, from certain newspapers, an article by Mustafa Amin, who, writing of Bashir al-Azma, used the word "dragging," comparing him to Nuri al-Said.

Four articles, in four Cairo newspapers, all attacking the Syrian situation, broadcast by Cairo radio in a single day. We concluded that patience was the wiser and more lasting course.

Tuesday the 31st

Mr. Zuhdi al-Jasser had worked as chief editor of the newspaper Al-Nadhir, Mr. Ahmad Qanbar's own paper, which had ceased publication some years earlier for financial reasons. He nonetheless remained closely tied to the members of the People's Party, of which he was himself a member.

During the union, I had helped keep him on as director of the Aleppo Oil Company, a joint-stock firm. He used to supply the ministry with accurate information exposing manipulation by its board of directors and its general manager. He visited me today at home, and among what he told me was that Dr. al-Dawalibi was working against President al-Qudsi, in coordination with Rushdi al-Kikhya, or at least with his own knowledge.

I asked him: why doesn't President al-Qudsi summon Mr. Rushdi al-Kikhya and consult him on some way to save the situation from its own downward spiral? Mr. al-Jasser answered that he had asked President al-Qudsi this very same question, and he had answered: I tried, but al-Kikhya told me:

"For your own sake, and for mine, please do not contact me about matters of this kind."

Mr. al-Jasser is a "veteran" secessionist. He compared Abdel Nasser to Nuri al-Said, though the first is American-backed and the second British-backed.

What an unjust comparison that is.

I have always considered Mr. al-Jasser a follower of capitalism, in whose service he works, and have accused him of suspicious ties to British policy.

Our brother Abdel Samad told me the atmosphere is charged with surprises, and that it is not unlikely we might one day find ourselves the subject of Communiqué No. 1 ourselves. He had seen, from his own apartment window, military police storming, at four in the morning yesterday, the apartment of Major Manaf al-Hindi, one of the secession's own leaders, to arrest him.

This officer is the brother of Mr. Hani al-Hindi, leader of the Arab Nationalist Movement, one of the senior politicians standing against the secession on the Syrian scene.

What deepened our own unease was the sound of powerful artillery fire, shaking the buildings around us. But God spared us, for it turned out to be cannon fire in celebration of some national occasion we knew nothing of, until every manner of speculation had already run its course, it being, in fact, Army Day.

Wednesday, 1 August

If we are unionists, "Nasserists," working toward a new union with Cairo, under Abdel Nasser or anyone else, since no creature lives forever, this does not mean we accept whatever errors Cairo itself might commit.

My meeting today with Mr. Nihad al-Qasim gave us the occasion to take stock of our own positions. We concluded that we were no one's paid agents, not even Abdel Nasser's.

And that the aggressive course Cairo has been pursuing, in its own broadcasts and in its President's own speeches, "requires real, honest self-reflection. For this course, in one of its aspects, actually repels people from union rather than genuinely calling them toward it in practice."

The thought occurred to both of us that some Egyptian official might actually wish for this inflammatory propaganda to end in the assassination of one of the Syrian "Nasserists," so that his own death might serve as fuel thrown onto the fire of propaganda, curses, and accusations.

Our own view was that President Abdel Nasser's latest speech in Alexandria was a grave error on the unionist level, even though we sensed in it, above all else, a veiled threat aimed at King Hussein of Jordan and at Iraqi leader Abdel Karim Qasim.

What deepened our own confusion further still was the President's sudden retreat from the substance of the speech he had delivered on 5 October 1961, in which he had decided "to leave the people to its own fate, wishing it stability, and instructing his own representatives at the United Nations not to object to Syria's admission as a member of the international organization."

We regretted, most deeply, that we possessed no private channel of our own through which to convey our own displeasure to Cairo.

A brother brought us this morning's issue of Ahmad Assa's newspaper Al-Sada al-Aam, in which we read what confirmed to us that the government (meaning the true ruling apparatus, not its outward facade) intended to strike a decisive blow against the unionists, to make an example of them for others. Its front page carried, in bold type, "the broadcast of dangerous secrets" regarding "the Nasserist aggression plot," which supposedly aimed "to trigger a military incident in Syria, as a prelude to civil war."

The peddlers of these lies and fabrications imagined "that this strife would begin with infiltrators crossing the border and Nasserist cells at home carrying out sweeping assassinations of politicians, intellectuals, financiers, businessmen, and landowners."

And so on with these astonishing headlines, all inspired in their own authors by sick delusions.

The same issue carried an article attacking us directly, saying:

"Certain necessary measures were taken over the past two days, when some of the new 'Five' were arrested, those calling themselves the United Arab Front (meaning us five, whose alarming military capabilities have terrified this formidable state!), since the facts have shown their own role in the Nasserist colonial plot."

This "honorable" newspaper, in the words of its own "clean-handed" owner, added: "Given this assessment of the situation, further new steps must inevitably be taken."

One wonders why this frenzied campaign continues at all, given that we have already declared ourselves in favor of a carefully studied union, exactly as they themselves openly demand, while lying about it in secret.

The Damascus newspaper Al-Manar published today a denial of what the Lebanese newspaper Al-Anwar had reported, a denial broadcast by the Syrian Minister of Interior himself, stating that the security forces had arrested "the five honorable unionists." The Interior Minister's statement branded the Lebanese Nasserist paper "accustomed to fabrication and slander."

Everyone bears witness to the new Syrian Interior Minister, General Aziz Abdel Karim's, own integrity and impartiality, a genuine testament to his own character. Yet the whole matter lies beyond his own control, for it is the secret apparatuses that carry out these vile acts and steer the newspapers in their own corrupt direction. The newspaper owners, for their part, stand ready to write whatever pleases those in power, so long as their own papers remain theirs to extort with, seeking their own illicit livelihood through their own "informants."

On Voice of the Arabs' evening broadcast, the Syrian announcer Tawfiq wept for us, the senior unionists, repeating: where are al-Qasim, al-Husami, Bouzo, al-Fatih, Homad, and al-Jarrah? They suffer torment in the secessionists' own dark prisons.

Among today's events was Dr. al-Qudsi's own trip to Homs, where he delivered a political speech marked by the utmost caution, his own words chosen with excessive care.

This has long been his own nature. Especially now, given how charged the political atmosphere has become, heavy with every possible surprise, for people have been passing around a story, not entirely without basis, of a failed coup attempt.

Friday the 3rd

Dr. Nazim al-Qudsi continued his own tour of the provinces, seeking to secure lasting support for his own era. He left the city of Homs bound for Aleppo, and upon arriving there, his own hometown and birthplace, where he still had admirers and supporters from the days of the fight against the French mandate, he made his way to Saadallah al-Jabiri Square, where the local government had prepared an official public reception for him, a customary tradition presidents observe, and delivered a public speech there.

I heard, over the radio, voices calling for Abdel Nasser's downfall.

This unsettled President al-Qudsi and set his own nerves on edge, and he cried out to the crowd: I will never accept the cursing of an Arab president on Arab soil! He shouted at an intelligence officer, at the top of his voice:

"What is this, Shawqi?" At that, voices rose in praise of Abdel Nasser, followed by loud applause, perhaps unsettling the President further still.

I later learned that the Communists had rallied their own forces to curse the union and President Gamal, and that the working class had answered them with cheers for Abdel Nasser, joined by the unionist intellectuals as well.

Saturday, 4 August

Today's newspapers were dominated by sensational reports of two failed coups, not just one. In Ahmad Assa's newspaper Al-Sada al-Aam appeared two enormous headlines:

The first read: The secrets of the failed coup, on a tape recorded by our own intelligence, containing documents of the aggression.

The second read: We uncovered the coup, and we laughed at Abdel Nasser! Beneath these two headlines came a claim that had by now become something of a tradition, that intelligence circles had learned of the secrets of a plotted coup, and had arrested the conspirators along with their own wireless equipment. Using this very equipment, its code agreed upon with Egypt in advance, Syrian intelligence, posing as the conspirators supposedly communicating with it, had asked Cairo's own apparatus to broadcast a public message inciting an uprising against Syrian rule. Cairo, it claimed, had complied with this request, "and so Abdel Nasser fell into the trap, and we laughed at him."

Yet we ourselves heard nothing of the kind.

This newspaper has long accustomed us to being "a bigger liar than Musaylimah the Liar himself." The newspaper Sawt al-Arab, owned by the illiterate Abdel Qader al-Qawwas, reported that Syrian intelligence had uncovered the coup plot "personally overseen by Abdel Nasser himself." It claimed this plot rested on two axes:

A political one, entrusted to a handful of failed career politicians in Damascus and abroad, meant to give the coup a political face to hide behind, foremost among them "that same Nasserist Five" and some members of Syria's own dissolved workers' unions, along with certain Lebanese leaders, chief among them Rashid Karami, Kamal Jumblatt, and Saeb Salam (leaders of Islamic opinion in Lebanon) and Adnan al-Hakim, head of the An-Najjadah Islamic organization.

And a subversive military one, entrusted for its execution to Abdel Hamid al-Sarraj, Youssef Muzahim, and Abdel Hamid Ghaleb (Egypt's ambassador in Beirut).

The newspaper said the explosions shaking the country were merely the prelude to this subversive operation.

Strangely enough, the street shows little interest in these "fabrications" anymore, having grown weary and sick of them from sheer repetition. The Damascus newspapers had earlier carried a report that the American ambassador had offered his own mediation to Nazim al-Qudsi, to serve as a positive force in bringing Cairo and Damascus closer together, restoring the bond between them, whether in the form of union or federation. This report may well have been a deliberate scheme, meant to convince people that the United States favored, or welcomed, restoring what had been severed between the two countries, so as to brand every unionist effort as serving America's own interests, under its own patronage and direction.

But the ambassador in question issued a statement to the local press, denying this report entirely, in full and in every detail.

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Endnotes:

[1] Vol. 1, pp. 284-285.

[2] His son Ghassan gathered his father's most important papers into a book he published titled: (Youssef Muzahim: Pages from a Self-Made Man's Life), Ikrima Press.