Before These Memoirs - Part 4: Veteran Politicians' Statement Backing the Secession and Rushdi al-Kikhya's Refusal to Sign It

Monday the 2nd

I kept to my office at the Ministry of Planning, in compliance with the President's wish.

I met with several directors and discussed a number of matters with them.

I bear witness that they were extremely cooperative and courteous.

But it was I myself who felt a searing discomfort tearing at me. I signed a number of the decisions and decrees required for the ordinary course of work, signing them beneath "the flag of the United Arab Republic," in my capacity as a minister of its government. We heard on the radio news of the arrest of Abdel Hamid al-Sarraj.

This dispelled our suspicions of his involvement in the plot. We thanked God for this arrest, for had al-Sarraj, who had been closer to Abdel Nasser than any of us, joined the ranks of the secession, it would have been a moral tragedy of the first order, especially since men who had lived in the greatest comfort under the union had already fallen for the temptation of secession, some of them men to whom the union had given the very best of what they could ever wish for.

My two sons went off, each to his own school, without my truly knowing whether they had grasped what calamity had befallen our arena, nor whether they would continue their studies in Egypt or we would return to Syria, and when. Certainly they had no sense that a great tragedy, had the separatists' feet taken firm hold, would have struck their own nation to its very core and dignity.

Regrettably, signs began to emerge that the mutineers had firmly grasped the reins of power. They shortened the hours of the curfew, and "prominent political figures" began seeking them out and announcing their support for the secession.

A meeting held at the home of Ahmad al-Sharabati (Minister of Defense during the 1948 war, in which our army suffered a humiliating defeat owing to his own errors) was attended by a number of veteran politicians, who issued the following statement, which I reproduce word for word, so the reader may know the true worth of men who sacrifice honor and dignity in pursuit of material or shameful political ambitions.

"A meeting was held in Damascus, bringing together a number of those working in national affairs. Those present reviewed the general Arab situation, the particular Syrian situation, and the international position following the noble Arab army's glorious action in Syria, and the opinion was unanimous in supporting the armed forces in their blessed revolution, and in extending thanks to them, officers, non-commissioned officers, and soldiers alike.

Opinion was also unanimous that it was this regime, which had set out to distort the idea of Arab nationalism and Arab unity, to stifle democratic political life, and to smother public freedoms, despite all the advice, warning, and caution that had been offered, that had driven the Arab army in Syria to revolt, in answer to the people's resentment and in response to their will to establish a free, democratic, constitutional life in which they might exercise their sovereignty and enjoy their public freedoms of political, syndical, cultural, and social organization.

Those gathered believe that achieving this requires the urgent holding of free and impartial elections, and that legislation during the transitional period be limited to what this bulletin requires for the conduct of affairs.

The Arab people of Syria, from whom the army's national revolution has lifted domination and tyranny, extends its hand to the fellow Arab people of Egypt, still shackled in chains, to free itself from the dictatorial rule that created division between Egypt and Syria, so that the Arab people of both countries, and of every Arab country, may meet on common ground of productive work to reach the sought-after Arab unity. The Arab people of Syria calls upon the Arab nation, in all its countries, to recognize its position and to understand its lofty national aims of establishing sound, constitutional, democratic rule that guarantees the people their sovereignty and the exercise of their freedoms, and achieves genuine political, social, and socialist democracy and comprehensive Arab unity."

This is the exact text of the statement broadcast by Damascus Radio.

The names of its signatories were as follows:

Ahmad Qanbar, Ahmad al-Sharabati, As'ad Harun, Akram al-Hourani, Bashir al-Azma, Hamed al-Khoja, Hasan Murad, Khalid al-Azm, Rashad Jabri, Suhail al-Khouri, Sabri al-Asali, Salah al-Bitar, Fouad Qadri, Muhammad al-Ayesh, Najib al-Armanazi, and Hani al-Sabai.

In the zincograph photograph published in General Zahreddine's memoirs (p. 93), the names of Amin al-Nafouri and Ahmad Abdel Karim appear alongside these signatories.

The army command in Aleppo had summoned Rushdi al-Kikhya, Nazim al-Qudsi, As'ad al-Kourani, and several other local politicians, and asked them to sign a petition of support for the secessionist movement. The late al-Kikhya rose and criticized the secession scathingly, calling for any flaw, if one truly existed, to be remedied from within the United Arab Republic itself, rather than by shattering one of the Arab nation's greatest hopes. He died still holding to the doctrine of unity and unification. Dr. Nazim al-Qudsi also refused to sign in support.

A few of those present sided with him, among them Mr. As'ad al-Kourani, a man never known for any particular political leaning, who had always worked as legal counsel for the al-Mudarris family's spinning and weaving company, before its nationalization.

I would like to comment briefly on some of those who signed the petition supporting the secession. Three of them belonged to the now-dissolved People's Party: Ahmad Qanbar, Rashad Jabri, and Hani al-Sabai. Hani al-Sabai had resigned from that party before the union and joined the ranks of the National Bloc, a gathering that brought together disparate politicians of every stripe, rather like a ship carrying nations of passengers united only by the goal of reaching the safety of shore.

Before the union was established, Mr. Fouad al-Halabi, Secretary-General of the Presidential Palace, told me he had heard, from officers then dominating the government, in his own office, unsettling words about the safety of certain People's Party men, and he mentioned Rushdi al-Kikhya and Qanbar by name. I contacted Mr. al-Hourani, who held influence, even if only apparent, over some of these officers, to ask him whether what al-Halabi had said was true. He mumbled his reply and said to me: "Why don't Ahmad Qanbar and Rashad Jabri resign from parliament, and spare themselves and everyone else the trouble?" Fear for their safety seized me, and I told Rushdi al-Kikhya of both conversations. After deliberation, the two of them, and others besides, decided to resign from parliament and abandon all political activity.

I believed I had thereby secured their safety.

Then the union came, and clipped the claws of the domineering military cliques.

They never did resign. Instead, they were removed from political life along with the dissolution of the Chamber of Deputies.

In this way the union preserved their dignity for them, if I do not go so far as to say it preserved their very lives.

Throughout the union era, both remained its supporters, and I had many "enthusiastic" conversations with them. Ahmad Qanbar was appointed director of the Aleppo Cement Company during the union, and he complained to me constantly of what he suffered at the hands of the capitalists, to the point that he once told me: "Everything you people say about the atrocities of capitalism is far less than the true disgraces I have come to know through my work with them. They know no homeland but money."

This is the very phrase spoken by one of the men of the French Revolution of 1789, when merchants had begun hoarding foodstuffs, and he uttered his famous line: "Merchants have no homeland." And it is related of the Prophet, peace be upon him, that he said: "The merchant is a sinner (fajir)," a report that Lady Aisha herself corrected, saying that he had in fact been speaking of a corrupt merchant, and had said of that man specifically that he was a sinful merchant.

As for Sabri al-Asali, head of the ministry that "worked," outwardly at least, to bring about the union, President Abdel Nasser honored him by assigning him to read the union's declaration from the balcony of al-Tahra Palace, and then chose him as Vice President. Yet he was forced to dispense with him under the weight of broadcasts reporting that he had taken money from Nuri al-Said's Iraq, one such payment reportedly made in the restroom of the Iraqi embassy in Damascus. Because of this, Akram al-Hourani, al-Sarraj, and the officer-ministers pressed for his removal from the vice presidency and his referral to the State Security Court. The President removed him from office, but refused to refer him to trial, telling them:

Whatever he took, he took before the union, and he was not the only one who took such money. I have removed him from office, but I do not think it fitting to refer him to trial. He had been Vice President, and one of "the builders of the union."

Al-Asali retreated to his home, fearful and watchful, until the secession drew him back out of the shadows into the light.

Khalid al-Azm records (vol. 3, p. 202) that it was Sabri al-Asali who presided over the separatists' own meeting.

By the irony of fate, he then returned to work in the ranks of the very separatists led by al-Hourani, though I know there was no love lost between the two of them. Among the last signs of that enmity had been al-Hourani's own demand that al-Asali be tried before the State Security Court, in a stormy session held at Qubba Palace, and nothing spared him this disgrace but Abdel Nasser's own generous and firm stance against it.

Khalid al-Azm was a veteran politician who had worked with the French, with Sheikh Taj, with al-Shishakli, and with al-Hinnawi, and found himself a place in the "National Bloc" established by Afif al-Bizri, the Chief of Staff, and the politically-minded officers, a gathering with neither head nor tail, bringing together Baathist socialists, tribal factions, men of no particular color or scent, and stragglers of the "Islamists" trailing along behind.

Al-Azm marched in the procession of every direction: he worked with al-Hourani, then complained of him; he served in the camp of the political officers, then cursed them. In short, he was a politician who knew nothing but love of the chair, and who once raised the banner of socialism so loudly that he was nicknamed "the Red Pasha," a false title, for in the days of the secession, in the course of his own dispute with al-Hourani, he openly declared a socialism entirely "his own."[1]

Akram al-Hourani was, without doubt, a man of principle, but stubborn and domineering, with a love of political intrigue and a readiness to rush to support and adopt every military coup running in his very blood.

He had fought for the establishment of the union, and had been Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies when it voted for the federation between Egypt and Syria, as well as when it voted for the full union.

He held a position of prominence in the union's early days, being the First Vice President of the republic, a title that came to him from his presiding over the Council of Ministers in the presence of the other vice president, Sabri al-Asali.

Several ministers from his own party sat in the Council of Ministers, owing him their loyalty, among them Mustafa Hamdoun, Abdel Ghani Qanout, Amjad al-Tarabulsi, and Riad al-Maleki.

But when the President decided to purge government and army alike of politics, al-Hourani and his ministers were transferred to Cairo in the first ministerial reshuffle, and his stance toward the government and the President changed, for he was no longer able to exercise real power in Syria. He therefore tendered his resignation from his posts, and his colleagues resigned with him, except for Amjad al-Tarabulsi, who remained in his post as Minister of Higher Education despite every pressure brought to bear on him, as Khalil al-Kallas told me.

On one of my visits to al-Hourani, after his resignation, he assured me that he would never touch Abdel Nasser's presidency, nor touch the union itself, and that he would never work against either.

Yet he and his companions soon raised the banner of "union without Abdel Nasser."

As for Salah al-Bitar, he was the last man I would have expected to support the secession. He was one of the two founders of the Baath Party, alongside Michel Aflaq.

Salah was known for his sincere socialist doctrine and his sound nationalist principle. His party had originally rested on three pillars: Arab unity, freedom for the citizen, and economic socialism. He had resigned from the union's ministry in solidarity with al-Hourani.

Yet he remained, outwardly and inwardly, a believer in socialism and in unity. As for the matter of freedom, it seems the Baath Party forgot it entirely once it seized power, and gave it astonishing interpretations, among them "freedom for the people, and no freedom for the enemies of the people."

This is a word of truth by which falsehood was intended.

Some of Mr. Salah's own friends told me, when I reproached them for his signing the secession declaration, that he had tried to atone for this crime by attempting to cut the arteries of his own wrist to end his life. The attempt did not succeed.

Tuesday the 3rd

The President invited us to a meeting held at his home at twelve noon.

He welcomed us warmly, and set about explaining the political position from every angle, domestic and international. Nor did he forget to speak of the ill treatment being meted out to Egyptians in Syria.

He noted that Syria had begun seeking out regional alliances sponsored by the colonial powers, and predicted that the Arab nation's battle with its enemies would be a long one, for which we had to prepare ourselves from that very moment.

He affirmed that he would never make peace with Arab reaction and colonialism, and would never abandon his belief in Arab nationalism and the unity of the nation from its Gulf to its Ocean.

He closed by saying he left the choice entirely to us, whether to remain in our posts, in our homes, our cars, and drawing our ministerial salaries, as though nothing had happened, or to depart with full honor and dignity.

We bade him farewell, tears in his eyes and in ours, and in our hearts.

Wednesday the 4th

The "Supreme Arab Revolutionary Command of the Armed Forces" broadcast Communiqué No. 25, in which it said:

"All the officers of the revolutionary movement call God and the sons of the noble people to witness that, having carried out their uprising for the sake of the people, freedom, and Arabism, they are now returning to the work they carried on before the movement, for they sought no material gain nor any personal end, and the movement was undertaken for nothing but the supreme national interest." In other words, they were declaring that they had abandoned all political activity and returned to their barracks. Yet the events that soon followed proved this claim entirely false. We, the "civilian" ministers, gathered at my home that evening to deliberate over the choice the President had given us. This meeting included Nur al-Din Kahhalah, the Vice President, Nihad al-Qasim, Minister of Justice, and Thabet al-Arees, Minister of Culture and National Guidance, and we concluded by deciding to tender our resignations and return to our own country, for none of us wished to live as a refugee outside his original homeland. Reaching such a decision was exceedingly painful, for it was an unequivocal admission that the United Arab Republic had come to an end, and that we were that very day witnessing its burial at the hands of a handful of its own sons, and what undutiful sons they proved to be.

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Endnotes:

[1] See his memoirs, vol. 3, p. 237 and following.