Days of the Union - The First Year - Part 1: Nasser's Arrival in Damascus and King Saud's Secret Correspondence with Eisenhower

Monday, 24 February 1958

While I was at the Chamber of Deputies, I heard that President Gamal Abdel Nasser had arrived suddenly in Damascus, and that he had gone directly to President al-Quwatli's house and met with him.

This special gesture was a mark of honor from the new President to the former one, who had handed him the presidency on a silver platter.

Only God knows what souls conceal and what hearts hide.

We went to the Guest Palace to sign our names in the protocol register, as required by ceremony, in welcome of the arrival of our new president, who had constitutionally become the president of the two regions, the Northern, Syrian, and the Southern, Egyptian.

The head of state received us in the hall of the palace that Adib al-Shishakli had built, with the greatest warmth. Beside him stood Field Marshal Abdel Hakim Amer, his deputy Abdel Latif Boghdadi, and the Speaker of the National Assembly, Anwar Sadat.

I felt an overwhelming joy, my eyes fixed on the southern border, as I shook the hand of the Field Marshal, commander of the army and the hope of liberation.

I do not know where these enormous crowds came from to greet the President, so much so that we could barely force our way through the heart of the throng. The cheers for his life were thunderous and came straight from the heart.

It was a sweet afternoon, and the warmth I felt from the people was a good omen, one that eased the soul and stirred within it the exhilaration of pride in national belonging, a belonging that various parties work to obscure, skillfully encouraging regionalist sentiment in the face of the growing idea of "nationalism."

Our own nationalism contains a set of effective factors that make it the firmest and most cohesive of all nationalisms.

In Germany, when the philosophers of unification needed to define the nation, Fichte held that it was the German language that united the Germans of the world. He supported this view by arguing that the differences among the fragmented, quarreling German "peoples" were incidental and superficial, produced by chance and political events, whereas the real differences were those between the Germans and the other peoples of Europe who neither understood German nor were understood by the Germans.

When the Italians needed a foundation on which to build their own nationalism, Mazzini said: "The nation is a natural community of human beings, bound to one another by a shared land, origin, customs, and language, so that they may share a common life, feeling, and purpose."

It is clear that Mazzini added other factors besides language, since the Swiss nation sat right at his own country's doorstep, a single, cohesive nation that speaks three languages within the framework of "Swiss nationhood."

The Frenchman Renan took a different path in establishing a distinct identity for the nation, considering it a soul and a spiritual essence. In his view, this essence consists of two things:

The first looks back to the past and consists of shared memories.

The second, bound to the first by an unbreakable tie, looks to the present, and is the sincere desire for a shared and continuing life, in order to survive and to develop that shared ancient heritage. These two pillars are what constitute the nation and give reason for its existence.

From this reverence for the past, Renan held that the finest form of worship is the worship of one's ancestors, for it is they who made us who we are today. The nation, then, like the individual, has a character formed from the long legacy of the sacrifices of fathers and forefathers, together with the present generation's shared will to accomplish great deeds that elevate the present and, in time, are added to the inheritance of the past. Those, in his view, are the essential components of the nation.

It is clear that Renan, who criticized the Islamic religion without justification, did not include language among the elements that form a nation, because, as a Frenchman, his own country included Alsace and Lorraine, two regions that spoke German.

I do not know precisely what foundation the "American nation" rests on today, made up as it is of dozens of languages and dozens of ethnicities, without a shared history or a single set of national memories. If I were asked to explain, on behalf of these immigrants from every corner of the world, what led them to seek out a home to live in, work to support themselves, and money enough to raise their children and support their families, I would say that the foundation of the American nation, at its establishment, was first and foremost the securing of a livelihood. Over the centuries that followed, its people gradually merged together, until a desire arose among them to preserve their shared interests and to possess the means of strength to defend this newly formed society, and to enable it to play a role on the world stage, for the sake of the "nation."

A look at the factors that shape Arab nationalism shows us that it possesses what other nationalisms lack: it has a shared, ancient past, both in its heavenly, spiritual dimension and in its material one, embodied in the establishment of the Caliphate and the great conquests. It occupies a single geographic land, stretching from the Sea of Darkness to the borders of Persia and Turkey (for which reason the state of Israel must be regarded as an intrusive and unjust creation, at odds with the logic of history and the unity of this land). This nation speaks the language of the Quran, the clear Arabic tongue, which is the language of the Arabs in this world and the language of the people of Paradise. The authenticity of this shared tongue is not undermined by the accents or local dialects that mar the speech of some of its regions' people, a phenomenon found in the most advanced countries of the world as well, and one that, with education continuing to advance, is bound to disappear for certain, being no more than a passing irregularity that will fade away once it serves no further purpose.

I have lived among Arabs from various countries, and it astonished me that they prefer nothing over unification. They, and we along with them, place the blame on the political leaderships that cling to division for material interests, nothing more and nothing less.

It was therefore among the simplest of truths that we should rejoice and celebrate the establishment of a union between two ancient regions, achieved through mutual satisfaction and consent, without a single drop of blood spilled, unlike what Bismarck or Garibaldi had done, so that the door might remain open for any other Arab country wishing to enter through it.

And this is what we did, satisfied and content.

Tuesday, 25th

The program for President Abdel Nasser's reception was broadcast.

I went with the former ministers to greet him at the Guest Palace at our appointed time, and he was with us the very picture of kindness and tact.

The "hospitality" consisted of a cup of bitter Arabic coffee, served to us by the attendants as we gathered around him, exchanging with him our warmest wishes.

Friday, 28th

The President is still in Damascus, receiving one delegation after another and bidding farewell to the last.

Decorations and processions fill the streets, turning the passage of people and cars into a kind of struggle. Truly, these are sights beyond the reach of any description.

The fervor of the popular processions that poured into the Guest Palace square, one after another, astonished the foreign writers who had the chance to witness them with their own eyes. Among them was the well-known French historian Benoist-Mechin, who wrote the following in his book Arab Spring, published in 1959, at a time when the ink of his own observations was still fresh:[1]

"Here I am now, in the heart of the surging crowds, and I notice that the car carrying me from Beirut to Damascus can barely move forward, on an asphalt road choked with cars, trucks, and motorcycles, with people clinging to their backs, so laden with human bodies that they seem about to collapse. A hundred thousand Lebanese are pushing to reach Syria, as though they were at Christmas festivities. To them are added enormous numbers of people arriving from Jordan or Iraq to greet President Abdel Nasser.

"After overcoming countless difficulties, I reached Damascus, and I saw traffic jams that defy description. Yet joy filled every face. I felt as though all four hundred thousand residents of Damascus had poured into the streets, leaving behind their homes, their offices, and their sources of livelihood.

"This city, with its domes colored in every hue of the rainbow, was like a pearl asleep in its shell of mother-of-pearl. The snowy white crowning the crowns of the poplar trees mingled with the colors of the damask rose, for at this time of year the almond, pomegranate, pear, and cherry trees all bloom together, and thirty-five varieties of peach burst into blossom all at once. The sap was rising in the trunks of thousands of young poplar trees, which, in their silvery rows, resembled the lances of the Crusaders, creating a scene that would have driven the Dutch painter Van Gogh into fits of ecstatic madness.

"As for the people, they were beating drums on the banks of the Barada, dancing and performing the dabke. Never in my life, except perhaps two or three times, have I witnessed a people express, across every layer of society, what I saw among the people of Damascus, swaying in their joy with this captivating spontaneity, pouring out their vitality.

"Arab crowds differ from European crowds in the sheer excess of their vital energy and their refusal to be bound by any restraint once their reins are loosed, especially as they grow intoxicated with their own chants and songs, repeated without tiring or wearying, until dizziness takes hold of your head and you almost faint.

"I witnessed these festivities over the course of eight days, from morning until night, without the frenzy that had swept through the people and pierced their hearts ever subsiding. I was left in astonishment watching the crowds, old and young alike, forming circles for the dabke and dancing their wild folk dances. It was a surging sea of humanity, swaying beneath arches of colored flags and electric lamps.

"And when word reached the people that Abdel Nasser's plane had landed at Mezzeh airport, I truly witnessed what no living soul could ever imagine being able to describe."

Monsieur Benoist-Mechin also spoke of his meeting with President Shukri al-Quwatli, and among what he said was this:[2]

"President al-Quwatli said to me: 'I have become a tired man, and I cannot compete with Abdel Nasser.' I asked him about these exhausting festivities. He replied: 'They may truly be exhausting for the body, but they are a source of comfort for the soul.' I asked him: 'What has Syria gained from this union? It has lost its name, its identity, its army, and its national flag, and has moved from the rank of a sovereign state to that of a mere province.' He then took my hand and led me toward the window, repeating, 'God is great, God is great,' and said to me: 'Look at this people, surging like waves. There lies the answer to your question.'

"'Do you see this as misery? We know of no such thing as "Syrian patriotism," for we know only "Arab patriotism," not an Egyptian or Iraqi one. I founded, back in 1907' (these are al-Quwatli's own words) 'an organization called "Young Arab," whose slogan, which it raised, was "From the Ocean to the Gulf," out of our sense that we are one nation. Today we wish to achieve this goal, and what you see before you is only the beginning of the journey.'"

The President delivered a series of speeches to the delegations, the harshest of which was the one he gave to the crowds the day before, in which he launched an unusually fierce attack on Jordan's Prime Minister, Samir al-Rifai, Iraq's Prime Minister, Fadhel al-Jamali, and Burhan al-Din Bash Ayan, one of Iraq's prominent politicians, because they had been telling people that the union of Egypt and Syria was a challenge to the Arab peoples and had been forced upon Syria. He said of them, with his customary bluntness, that they were traitors and agents of colonialism.

I will not deny that such expressions were not part of our own political vocabulary. Whenever we wished to use them, we left that task to the daily newspapers, particularly those known for the crudeness of their proprietors, even when the targets thoroughly deserved them.

Sunday, 2 March

Muwaffaq al-Mahayni, the lawyer and a member of the People's Party (which had been dissolved along with the other parties), told me the following story:

"I was on a visit to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and I visited my brother-in-law Prince Musa'id (I believe he was a brother of King Abdulaziz and an uncle of the current King Saud), and I learned the following from him:

"American President Eisenhower sent an urgent letter to King Saud, expressing to him America's displeasure at the union of Egypt and Syria, and urging him to resist this union, even if that required the use of force. If Saud decided to intervene militarily against the union, America would use his intervention as a pretext and a cover for its own military intervention in the Middle East, in order to restore the balance that had been upset in the region.

"King Saud, however, refused Eisenhower's incitement, and told this instigator that he had no intention of interfering in the internal affairs of neighboring countries.

"Eisenhower added in his letter that he was well aware that the establishment of Israel had been a cause of the disruption of security in the Middle East, and that therefore, if Saud decided to intervene militarily, America would then compel Israel to accept the partition approved by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948.

"Likewise, President Shukri al-Quwatli sent a secret letter, expressing 'regret and sorrow,' in his own words, to King Saud, apologizing to him for not having hastened to inform him of the steps by which the union had proceeded, since the circumstances of the unionist process required speed, so that the initiative could be wrested from the hands of the Communists and the Baathists."

Mr. al-Mahayni added: "King Saud seriously intends to change his position toward the newborn United Arab Republic."

This wish to change positions had a story behind it, which he summarized as follows:

"Gamal Abdel Nasser had assigned his friend Salah Salem (one of the members of the Egyptian Revolutionary Command Council) to carry out covert sabotage operations in the Arab countries opposed to the union, especially Iraq and Lebanon. Salah Salem arranged with a well-known Palestinian to smuggle weapons and explosives into those countries through Saudi territory, with the personal knowledge of the Saudi Interior Minister, the poet-prince Abdullah al-Faisal, and under the supervision of the Egyptian military attache. While the operation was underway, the Suez war broke out, and the operation was frozen, with the weapons and explosives hidden away in the King's own palace, without his knowledge.

"Four months later, the Palestinian spoke of the details of this story before one of the princes, and word of it reached the King, who grew deeply displeased with his brother Faisal (the Crown Prince, and father of the Interior Minister), accusing him of conspiring against him. It was said that he sent him away to America, fearing that he might plot a coup against him. He expelled the Egyptian military attache from Riyadh, and when the Palestinian was interrogated by Prince Musa'id, he changed his account, confessing under questioning that it was the American embassy that had induced him to say what he had said, in order to sow discord between the King and his brother Faisal.

"The King felt deep embarrassment toward his brother, and sent word to console him, and likewise toward Abdel Nasser, because of the expulsion of the Egyptian military attache from the Kingdom, a matter that President Abdel Nasser considered an insult to himself. He sent word to Saud that whoever hastily commits an error ought to work to repair what he has spoiled."

So that this account might carry some weight in assessing the situation, I took Mr. al-Mahayni to the office of Akram al-Hourani, who was Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies at the time, and he related the story to him just as he had told it to me.

Al-Hourani's astonishment was profound, and so was mine.

King Saud's apology to Abdel Nasser for his haste in accusing him of arms smuggling stands as a categorical exoneration of the Arab president from the charge of "terrorism" and conspiracy.

Monday, 3 March

Today the decrees were announced forming the Iraqi cabinet under the perennial Nuri al-Said, which included Fadhel al-Jamali and some of the ministers opposed to the Syrian-Egyptian union, because, in keeping with their longstanding policy, they favored a Fertile Crescent union instead, which Syria had rejected, regarding it as an arrangement they were working to establish merely to resist communism and the Soviet Union. It is strange that they turn a blind eye to the real danger, which is Zionism embodied in Israel, while brandishing at us the danger of communism, which is an illusory danger as far as we are concerned, and a remote possibility for the foreseeable future.

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Endnotes:

[1] Benoist-Mechin, Printemps Arabe, Paris, 1959, p. 300.

[2] Same reference, p. 312 and following.