Year 1960 - Part 11: The Anti-Union Bloc and the Dissolution of the Baha'i Assemblies

4. A Bloc Against the Union

The President said he had heard of a bloc of old-guard politicians, led by the People's Party and the National Party, forming against the Union, and that these leaders were spinning silken threads toward Akram al-Hourani, to draw him in, or to march alongside him.

I assured him that the People's Party's own circle, Rushdi al-Kikhya in particular, could never be drawn into so ugly an act. They are, and this is my own firm conviction, committed to the Union, as I have heard from al-Kikhya himself, many times over, while the National Party no longer has men within it capable of any real popular influence. Its own representative in the North, Fakhir al-Kayali, is a member of the central government, and was among the most prominent figures working to bring the Union about.

In any case, I could never bring myself to believe that Rushdi al-Kikhya would ever join hands with Akram al-Hourani on so dangerous a path, especially since al-Hourani holds no goodwill toward al-Kikhya at all, and has often attacked his own deep reserve, accusing him of leaning toward the Baghdad Pact.

Besides, why would Rushdi al-Kikhya ever betray his own principles, he who twice refused to become President of the Republic under the tent of the political officers?

I reminded him that the Baghdad trials, broadcast live and exposing certain politicians who had been taking money from Nuri al-Said's own intelligence service, never once named a single member of the People's Party, praise God. And if it is true that Maarouf al-Dawalibi accepted Iraqi money under Shishakli's own rule, he did so only "to fight Shishakli," and without the party's own knowledge, since al-Dawalibi had spent that whole period in exile from Syria, moving from country to country.

Even so, he held a "grudge" against Nazim al-Qudsi, for refusing to blow up the oil pipelines, an operation Abdul Hamid al-Sarraj actually carried out during the Tripartite Aggression against Egypt in 1956. This much is true. I myself was present at the cabinet session to which al-Sarraj was summoned, chaired by Nazim al-Qudsi, in the absence of President al-Quwatli, then traveling to Moscow, al-Qudsi presiding in his own capacity as Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, under the constitution's own provisions. Al-Sarraj said it was Arab workers who had carried out this operation. But we all knew it was he himself who had carried out this formidable patriotic act.

The history of the Suez War will always credit al-Sarraj with this great contribution, easing the pressure on Abdel Nasser.

I tried to find some excuse for Dr. al-Qudsi. The President smiled and said: in any case, should al-Qudsi ever come to Cairo, I will receive him with every welcome.

The President recalled "the Abdul Karim al-Dandashi affair," saying he still held the investigative file, in which certain politicians, Mamoun al-Kuzbari among them, had been accused of taking money during the runoff election held in Damascus, contested between Dr. Mustafa al-Siba'i, the Islamic Front's own candidate, and the lawyer Riyad al-Maliki, in 1954, an election al-Maliki won. The President said: the Baathists and their own circle pressed me hard to refer the matter to the judiciary, but I found no good reason to dig up the dead from their own graves and reopen wounds that had every right, by now, to heal.

5. Bringing People Together

The President was clear and decisive on this subject.

He wants citizens to rally around unified national and economic principles. He considers the Union's own establishment the start of a new era, one that wipes away everything that came before it. On this basis, he has decided to close the book on the past, and will allow no one to reopen it in the name of the political system.

I expressed to him the citizens' own gratitude for this wise policy, but remarked that certain individuals were stoking a fire that had every reason, by now, to be put out, needlessly.

He asked: for example?

I told him: the head of the National Union's branch in Aleppo, Ahmad Abu Saleh, launched a discourteous attack on the former political parties. Since these parties have already dissolved themselves, and a large portion of their own members have joined the National Union, what possible benefit is there in reopening old wounds?

What this "Aleppo leader" did was matched by what the new "Damascus leader" on the scene, the engineer Anis Shabbat, did as well, and both their addresses were broadcast on state radio. Both men were elected under the direction of the Secretary of the Socialist Union, Abdul Hamid al-Sarraj.

I remarked to him: the city of Aleppo has known leaders of the caliber of Ibrahim Hananu, Saadallah al-Jabiri, and Rushdi al-Kikhya. For this reason, I did not find al-Sarraj's own hand in easing the "election" of Ahmad Abu Saleh, still a young lawyer, to lead the National Union in this city, known for its own unionist leanings, to be a wise choice at all.

The President said: we stand at the threshold of a new experiment in our own public life, and it is certain that some mistakes will be made. What matters is that they be mistakes we can still correct. I found this a fitting occasion to speak well of my own brothers in the People's Party, telling him they would remain my own friends, and that al-Kikhya and his own circle were good and virtuous men, unionists who could never stand against the Union. I sensed the President's own appreciation for this remark.

6. Security and Stability

The President affirmed that he kept careful watch over the country's own security, both at home and abroad.

He is preparing the armed forces to be ready at the decisive hour. At home, the rule of law must prevail, and the people must be reassured that equality among citizens will be absolute.

He will never allow power centers to form. He cited something Ahmad Abdel Karim had once said to him, that he alone was ruling Syria, to which he had replied that he alone would bear the responsibility of governing.

He would never show any leniency on this point.

When I remarked to him that the Syrians had been raised on a parliamentary system, one prone to the rapid fall of governments, especially once the people came to despise them, he said: I hope citizens will, with time, grow accustomed to their own new system, one we will not retreat from in the foreseeable future.

I left his home, the mild Cairo breeze, mingled with the Nile's own breath, brushing my face. May God have mercy on him, he walked with me all the way to my own door, though no rule of "protocol" required this of him.

But this is the chivalry of a son of Upper Egypt, and the generosity and grace of a true host.

Saturday, 9 July: The National Union's General Congress

The President opened the National Union's general congress, delivering a comprehensive address on the goal he sought in establishing this union.

From the tone and force of the address, everyone understood that he pinned the greatest of hopes on this union, bringing together, as it did, every stratum of society.

To leave no doubt at all as to his own determination to support it, he said he would give his own blood and every ounce of his own effort to overcome any difficulty standing in its way.

I gave a financial briefing before the finance committee, in the Faculty of Arts lecture hall, with Dr. El-Kaissouni and Hassan Salah al-Din, Minister of the Treasury for the Southern Region, present at the session.

I answered the members' own questions, and it became clear that their own knowledge of Syrian affairs was quite modest.

I heard from one of my Egyptian colleagues that Egyptians are, as a rule, deeply attached to their own village's soil, born on it and buried in it, and dislike being away from home, so much so that if one of them moves from one bank of the Nile to the other, and wishes to swear an oath, he says, "by my own life in exile."

Sunday the 17th

A law was issued today that will have an important effect on our own working and political life, under No. 243, dated 17 July.

Under this law, the President of the Republic gained the right, by republican decision, to transfer, within six months, officers of the armed forces and other state officials to posts in the diplomatic and consular corps, "without regard to the rules otherwise governing appointment to such posts."

Those transferred retain the same salary they were drawing at the time of transfer.

It is clear from the issuing of this law that the President wishes to remove certain officers, whose continued presence within the ranks of the armed forces is unwelcome, sending them off instead to distant embassies.

Has Baraqish, then, brought this upon herself?

To ease the burden on the "National Assembly," and out of a wish for swift resolution of matters concerning public departments, previously requiring laws of their own, the President issued Decision Law No. 242, dated 17 July 1960, which read:

"The provisions of laws relating to the organization of public departments shall take on the force of decisions issued by the President of the Republic, and may be repealed or amended by his own decisions."

I recall a professor of constitutional law at the University of Paris once telling us, in one of his lectures, criticizing the slowness of legislative chambers in resolving bills placed before them, that the Chamber of Deputies once passed a law in 1921 that the Senate did not get around to approving for sixteen years.

It is well known that laws in countries with two legislative chambers (a chamber of deputies and a senate) require the approval of both chambers before they may be sent up to the President of the Republic for approval or objection, under the constitution's own provisions.

For this reason, this law deserves support. It cannot fairly be said to "strip away" some of the legislative chambers' own rights, for these chambers already have more occasions for lengthy debate than their own time can accommodate.

I have long experience of this matter myself, having been elected three times to the Chamber of Deputies, for my own city of Aleppo.

On this same day, the military ranks of the police force in both regions were unified, under Republican Decision No. 236 (Official Gazette, dated 18 July).

So "za'im," as it used to be called with us, became "brigadier general."

"Ra'is awwal" became "major."

"Ra'is" became "captain."

And "first lieutenant" became simply "lieutenant."

And so the same rank came to bear the same title across both regions.

Tuesday the 19th

1. The President authorized me, by Law No. 262, dated this day, to approve and sign financial transfers between items under a single budget heading, on the proposal of the ministry or department concerned.

The text, on its face, places these transfers between items under a single heading within the Minister of the Treasury's own authority. This is, without doubt, a real convenience, since it no longer requires the previous, burdensome formalities. But it may not fully serve the state's own interest, should the minister in question go along with his own colleagues, when they favor spending on one item, relishing this spending, and encroach on other items, ones already approved by the Ministry of the Treasury with the help of specialists from the other ministries.

The Minister of the Treasury will face moral pressure from his own colleagues, and perhaps friction with them as well, should he refuse to approve their own requests.

I felt this myself, in what I had to endure under the President's own decision forbidding any law or decision involving financial expenditure from being issued unless the Minister of the Treasury had first approved it.

I recall refusing one minister's request to approve building a snack stand on Lake Mzeirib, and he brought me the key to his own ministry, threatening to go home.

I could not grant him his wish, since I had set aside the enormous sum he was requesting for repairing one of the main roads between two of our own production cities.

2. The Dissolution of the Baha'i Assemblies

A decision was issued today under Law No. 263, providing for the dissolution of "all Baha'i assemblies in both regions of the Republic and the halting of their own activity." Their funds, assets, and centers pass to whatever bodies the Minister of Interior designates.

The law penalizes anyone violating its own provisions with imprisonment of not less than six months and a fine not exceeding one thousand lira, or either penalty alone.

But what, exactly, is this "Baha'i doctrine"?

Turning to the book of the contemporary jurist Sheikh Muhammad Abu Zahra, professor of Islamic law at the Cairo Faculty of Law,[1] we find that this doctrine, in his own view, "falls outside the Islamic principles Muslims have unanimously agreed upon." It was founded in 1820 by Mirza Ali Muhammad al-Shirazi, born in Iran. He began as a Twelver Shia, but went beyond the bounds of that school, combining it with other deviant views of his own.

He claimed to be the sole "spokesman for the knowledge of the Hidden Imam, and the Gate to him." He then claimed to be "the Mahdi who would appear a thousand years after the occultation of the Imam who vanished in the year 260 AH," and that God had come to dwell within him, and that it was through him that God would manifest Himself to His own creation.

To the return of Jesus at the end of time, he added the return of Moses as well, claiming he was himself the way to both their returns.

The author attributes to him the denial of the Day of Judgment, and the denial of the existence of Paradise and Hellfire, which he described as mere symbols of an ever-renewing spiritual life. He likewise claimed that all the divine messages converged in his own person, making him the meeting point of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

Among his beliefs was the doctrine of divine indwelling, that is, that God dwelt within him.

He claimed that the Muhammadan message was not the final one, since God, in his own view, had announced that He would come to dwell in others after him as well, and he called for equality between women and men in inheritance.

He said there was no difference between one race and another, one religion and another, one color and another. Because of his views, at odds with the principles of Islam, both Sunnis and Shia alike opposed him, and he was executed in 1850, at thirty years of age.

He left behind two of his own followers, "Subh-i-Azal" and "Baha'u'llah," and, owing to the far greater number of followers the second gathered, the doctrine came to be attributed to him, and named Baha'ism.

Those looking to its origin instead call it "Babism."

Baha'u'llah made the very same claim Mirza had made for himself, saying that God dwelt within him, and that he was the complete manifestation, "greater than the Bab, for he is the Self-Subsisting One who endures and remains forever."

He then composed his own book, "the Kitab-i-Aqdas," claiming God had revealed it to him. But he was more explicit than his own predecessor, who had merely claimed to be renewing Islam, for he declared outright that he had brought a wholly new religion, a universal religion bringing together all faiths, calling for the erasure of regionalism and nationalism alike.

The author attributes to Baha'u'llah the abolition of everything Islam brought in the way of rulings on what is lawful and unlawful.

Baha'u'llah died in 1892, succeeded by his own son, "Abdu'l-Baha."

The Baha'i faith has many followers in the United States and Europe.

In our own day, Muslim countries oppose them, considering them unbelievers, and it was for this reason that Abdel Nasser decided to dissolve their assemblies.

3. National Assembly Compensation

Decision Law No. 249, issued today, set the compensation for members of the National Assembly, once chosen and confirmed as "deputies of the nation."

As for the name itself, we in Syria use the term "Chamber of Deputies," and during the Union it became the "National Assembly," to preserve the name used in Egypt. Syria's own 1973 constitution later chose to call it the "People's Assembly."

The law set the member's own monthly compensation at 675 Syrian lira for sons of the Northern Region (equivalent to 75 Egyptian pounds), plus 45 Syrian lira a day as a travel allowance, whenever a session was held outside the member's own home region.

But should the Assembly hold its sessions in the member's own home region, he receives no travel allowance at all.

Article 27 provided that a member's own travel from his place of residence to the Assembly's seat, and his return home again, be paid at the state's own expense.

I used to hear from the Syrian deputies in Cairo that the sum was a generous one. Some of them took a furnished room in a boarding house, others stayed at a hotel, and others still rented an apartment together with fellow members, living there together.

The people happiest and most delighted at traveling to Cairo were the sons of the Syrian countryside, who found themselves in a city where people moved about like columns of ants, and where they enjoyed freedoms far broader than those they knew in their own town or village.

They were called to take up their own parliamentary duties at the Assembly's first session, held at nine in the morning on 21 July 1960.

The issuing of Decision No. 1375, dated 20 July of this month, was a happy omen for them, for they would be invited, as representatives of the nation, to the celebrations of 23 July, the very day Abdel Nasser and his own comrades moved to overthrow the monarchy and the age of the pashas.

They would find themselves the focus of photographers and the media. But I do not believe they will actually take up the true burdens of parliamentary life, offering constructive support and opposition alike, the way genuinely democratic parliamentary bodies do.

In any case, this is an experiment well worth trying, to be judged afterward, for or against, on its own merits.

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Endnotes:

[1] Titled: Islamic Schools of Thought, Cairo (undated), p. 357 and following. See also a book that appeared recently, in 1994, by its author Walid Saraj al-Din, likewise on the Baha'i faith.