Year 1961 - Part 4: The Anti-Prostitution Law and Nasser's Attack on the Baathists and the Lebanese Kataeb

Tuesday, 7 March: A Ministerial Session

When President Abdel Nasser arrived, some days ago, aboard his yacht "al-Hurriya," he delivered several addresses.

In Latakia, the moment he stepped off the yacht, he declared he wished to put an end, once and for all, to every rumor spread by ill-wishers about the reasons for his own arrival in the Syrian region. Abdul Hamid al-Sarraj was staying in his own posts, and the ministers were staying in theirs. No changes, no reshuffling at all.

God is my witness, I truly wished for a change in the cabinet, so that I might find a way out of it, for health reasons, given the severe exhaustion I was under, as five doctors I had consulted, one of them Egyptian, all confirmed, all of them urging me to rest.

But where was rest to be found, with ministerial councils running one after another, my own chairmanship of ten administrative boards attached to the ministry an unavoidable obligation, given the need to review the state's and citizens' own affairs, on top of keeping the ministry's own doors, and even my home's, open to petitioners. Harder still were the "battles" with certain ministers who wanted to turn their own ministries into "gardens of Eden, with rivers flowing beneath them," only to find "the ill-famed Minister of the Treasury" standing as an obstacle in the way of their own reforms, withholding the money from them.

He launched a fierce attack on the Baathists, though without naming them outright, referring to them instead as "the partisans," whom "we will crush."

He singled out Akram al-Hourani for a "gracious" touch of his own, saying of him, without naming him: "the country will never be steered by the opinion of a partisan whose own heart is eaten away by resentment, at having lost his grip on power."

Anwar Sadat, Speaker of the National Assembly, repeated this very remark in an address he gave in Damascus, going even further than the President himself, saying: "we will crush underfoot anyone who stands in our way."

The President was at his clearest on the subject of socialism. He attacked the capitalists harshly, accusing them of smuggling their money abroad, leaving themselves nothing left in this country to bind them to it. He added that the country would do without them, relying instead on the devotion of workers and peasants.

And, in truth, what I know is that the capitalists did smuggle their money abroad, on the pretext that capital is by nature "cowardly," and that they now operate on loans obtained from local banks instead.

He launched an attack on the Lebanese Kataeb as well, and on the Syrian Nationalist Party.

Of the Kataeb, he said they were "the tails of colonialism, sons of their own tender mother, France," faulting them for their own attacks on the Syrian-Egyptian union and their interference in the Republic's own internal affairs. Even so, he declared "his own concern for national unity in Arab Lebanon."

This was a description bound to send a great many Lebanese Christians into a fit of hysteria and foot-and-mouth fever.

Countless delegations arrived from Lebanon to greet the Arab president.

Among the foremost Lebanese leaders present were Sabri Hamadeh, Ahmad al-Assaad, René Moawad, and Sahnaoui, deputy for Beirut.

Dr. Hashem al-Khatib of Tripoli sat beside me at the luncheon table, and I asked him about our own fellow student in France, Ahmad Makhlouf (whom we used to call Ahmad Chéri, as his Belgian wife used to call him). He told me he now owned a pharmacy in Tripoli, opening it in the morning and closing it in the evening, selling medicine and collecting payment for it, making no secret of his own frustration with this routine.

"Poor Ahmad Chéri" ("my dear Ahmad").

President Abdel Nasser received Sabri al-Asali, his own former, dismissed deputy. Their photograph together appeared in the newspapers.

Fouad al-Halabi, Secretary-General of the Republican Palace, told me that al-Asali had come to apologize to the President for missing the military review, since his own invitation had not reached him until the following day.

He was "bold" enough to tell me that Mr. al-Asali had grown very close to al-Sarraj, and firmly denied any contact at all with Mr. al-Hourani or Khalid al-Azm.

We were summoned to a ministerial session, chaired by Abdel Nasser, the first session of this particular visit.

What caught everyone's attention was the President's own emphasis on reports leaking out of a split within the Council of Ministers, between the civilian ministers and the military ones, and he stressed the danger of such a split, should it truly exist. If there was any truth to it, he said, it had to remain confined within the meeting hall itself.

Al-Sarraj said that citizens' own affairs were being held up at the ministries.

I said: I keep the doors of my ministry and my own office open to any citizen who wishes to come, every day from eleven until two in the afternoon, or later.

The President asked me: does this actually happen? I told him: yes.

He found this a matter of some astonishment, for their own ministers receive no one except by appointment, while citizens' own affairs are decided by the officials themselves, "as they see fit."

Every Syrian minister follows this very same working method.

As for the hours from eight in the morning until eleven, these are reserved for meeting with department directors, to review the ministry's own affairs and the citizens' own thorniest problems with them.

The President insisted on strengthening the National Union.

To this end, he decided that all the ministers should become members of its Executive Committee. I was not myself a member of it, nor were most of the civilian ministers.

The truth is that this union's own state of affairs leaves much to be desired.

Its own leadership had been placed in the hands of a group of men no one had ever heard of.

Meanwhile, the most well-known men, who had hoped for a chance to serve their own country through it, were kept out.

What drew more attention than anything else was al-Sarraj's own call for "a broad purge" of the state apparatus. But the President was clear that he wished to dismiss no officials at all, except communists.

The question of bringing officials into the National Union was raised.

I addressed my own remarks to the President: I hold a different view on the matter of civil servants, Your Excellency. I was, and remain, among those who believe they should be kept out of politics altogether. I assured him that the party members I had known in my own previous ministries used to treat their own party membership as a shield behind which to commit legal violations, hoping their partisanship would protect them from being held accountable for it. I told him the story of an official, once one of my own students, whom I had chastised, after he became an official, for switching parties three times. He said: had you all simply left me be, I would have served the state with complete sincerity, but so long as favor keeps going to "the party men," I will join whatever party happens to be in power, even the Devil's own party.

The President was not persuaded by this, and insisted on bringing officials into the National Union's own structures, on the grounds that the National Union is an institution for all citizens, not a partisan institution at all.

When I remarked that my own ministry ran perfectly normally, with not a single party member in it, the Field Marshal commented:

"Your ministry has a special character all its own."

I could not tell what exactly he meant by this. Was it praise, or was it criticism?

The President then traveled back to Cairo, by way of Latakia.

He told us a letter had reached him from King Hussein of Jordan, calling for the necessity of "working to unify Arab ranks," and requesting a meeting with Abdel Nasser to discuss Arab affairs.

King Hussein is one of the pillars of the declared war against the Arab Republic, his own radio spewing deadly poison morning and evening, inciting the Syrians to rise up against "Egyptian domination."

It is entirely possible that something new is on the horizon. Politicians are passing around news that American President John Kennedy wishes to mediate between Israel and the Arabs, to broker an honorable peace between the two camps.

And that he had instructed Hussein to soften his own stance, and take the initiative in preparing the ground within the Arab world first, before moving on to discuss peace with the Hebrew state.

This very shift in position was noted by the Egyptian writer Mohamed Hassanein Heikal, in his own weekly column in al-Ahram, published on 10 March.

Mohamed Hassanein Heikal holds a special standing with the President, and people regard him as the President's own unofficial spokesman, and the state's as well.

He himself denies this, describing himself simply as a professional journalist devoted to his own craft. Our own sense is that he is privy to every secret of state, and has access to the minutes of secret sessions, with the President's own permission. For this reason, his weekly columns in al-Ahram draw enormous attention.

President Kennedy appointed Professor John Badeau, president of the American University in Cairo, as his own ambassador to Egypt, perhaps hoping to stir in Abdel Nasser some renewed hope of improving relations with America.

We know the President admires Badeau's own fairness, and his genuine wish to work toward opening good relations between the Arab Republic and the United States.

Britain, too (once a great power), appointed, this same month, Mr. Harold Beeley as its own ambassador in Cairo.

This post had stood vacant since diplomatic relations between the two countries were restored in December 1959.

Badeau and Beeley both succeeded in building a warm relationship with the President, easing the tense atmosphere that had prevailed with both their own countries ever since the Suez Canal's nationalization and the Tripartite Aggression against Egypt.

Even relations with the Soviet Union began to show signs of improvement, and it was said that Khrushchev had instructed the Soviet press not to publish anything that might harm bilateral relations, including refraining from publishing the Mahdawi court's own vulgar abuse of the President and the Republic's own regime.

Saturday, 8 March: The Formation of a Pensions Committee and the Anti-Prostitution Law

The Vice President of the Republic issued Decision No. 78, dated 7 March 1961, concerning the establishment of a committee to review exceptional pensions and rewards in the Syrian region.

The decision provided that this committee be formed as follows:

The Minister of the Treasury, as chairman

The Minister of Justice, as member

The Minister of Labor and Social Affairs, as member

The Minister of Supply, as member

With the Director General of the Insurance and Pensions Authority serving as rapporteur.

On this same date, Presidential Decision Law No. 10, concerning the combating of prostitution, was issued.

Prostitution is a trade known to ancient societies, and remains an affliction gnawing away at the body of society even now.

It has taken on an exceptional gravity in these very days, owing to the transmission of AIDS (in English), or SIDA (in French), acquired immune deficiency syndrome, whose victim faces death under the ugliest and most terrible of conditions. It is transmitted through sexual contact, and through the transfusion of blood from an infected person to a healthy one.

Syrian jurisprudence has defined it as "engaging in indecency with people indiscriminately, for the purpose of profit" (Court of Cassation, misdemeanor ruling 1496, dated 30 May 1967).

The earlier prostitution law, issued on 24 June 1932, had already defined a prostitute as "a woman who offers herself to any man who comes to her, in exchange for money."

Under the new law, the following are punished:

Anyone who incites a male or female to commit indecency or prostitution, or assists or facilitates it, and likewise anyone who employs, lures, or entices such a person with the intent of committing indecency or prostitution, with imprisonment of not less than one year and not more than three years, along with a fine.

If the person against whom the crime was committed has not yet reached the age of twenty-one, imprisonment of not less than one year and not more than five years, along with a fine.

The same penalty set out in (2) applies to:

Anyone who employs, lures, or entices a male or female person, with the intent of committing indecency or prostitution, by deception, threat, or abuse of authority.

And anyone who, by any of these means, detains a male or female person against his or her own will, in a place of indecency or prostitution.

Anyone who incites a male under the age of twenty-one, or a female (regardless of her age), to leave the territory of the Republic, or takes such a person along with him, with the intent of engaging in indecency or prostitution.

Should the perpetrator be an ascendant of the victim, or responsible for the victim's upbringing, or hold authority over the victim, and the victim be under the age of sixteen, the penalty is imprisonment of three to seven years.

Anyone who brings a person into the Republic, or facilitates their entry, with the intent of indecency or prostitution, is punished with imprisonment of one to five years, along with a fine.

Punishable by imprisonment of not less than six months and up to three years:

Anyone who assists a female in practicing prostitution, even by way of financial support.

Anyone who exploits, by any means, a person's prostitution or indecency.

Attempts at these crimes are punished with the same penalty as the underlying crime itself.

Punishable by imprisonment of not less than three months and not more than three years (along with a fine set by law):

Anyone who rents out or provides a house or place used for indecency or prostitution.

Anyone who owns a furnished house or furnished rooms, and facilitates prostitution or indecency within them (more than once).

Should a person engaged in prostitution, male or female, be apprehended, they are sent for a medical examination, and detained until cured of any venereal disease.

Anyone who habitually (more than once) engages in indecency or prostitution.

Article 12 empowered the public prosecution, the moment the offense is established, to issue an order closing the establishment.

This same article required the court to rule on the case within three weeks.

The legislature granted the Minister of Social Affairs the right to place licensed prostitutes in a special institution, for whatever period he deems appropriate, to rehabilitate them for a life of dignity and train them in honest work.

For the record, I note that, following the issuing of this law, the state set aside a suitable sum to facilitate the marriage of these women, granting them suitable dowries, to encourage anyone willing to marry one of them.

Educating young people about the dangers of contact with them remains the best means of protection against the spread of these devastating sexually transmitted diseases, one of which, AIDS, medical science has still failed to overcome, even now.

Friday, 10 March

Even on Fridays, a legal and religious holiday, I cannot claim it as my own, to devote to my own rest and that of my family.

There is always someone who comes, by appointment or without one.

Most of these unexpected visitors come from the provinces, anxious to get their own paperwork "signed off," so as not to have to sleep at a hotel and eat at restaurants, in these barren days of scarce cash.

On this day, I took the family out to the countryside.

We went out to "Arna," at the foot of Mount Hermon.

We were told: behind these light snows lie the Israeli forces, their guns aimed at Damascus.

Damascus, in any case, lies within range of Hebrew artillery, and remains exposed to air attack as well.

What politicians feared most was that Israeli aircraft might rain a barrage of bombs down on our own capital. Should this happen, God alone knows what "the public" might do in response.

At this time of year, the trees are normally bare.

Yet many of them were in bloom, their own blossoms a joyful riot of color, red, white, and yellow.

Glory be to God, how lovely His own creation is, made in His own image.

The weather, too, was warm, and this very warmth was what allowed the blossom buds to open, for under any other, less unusual conditions, they would never have shown their own sweet smiles at all.

The peasants were out working their own lands, the very lands they live off, grow up on, and are buried in.

It is their own right that the state look after them, and protect them from the tyranny of the powerful and the moneylenders.

On this very basis, I pressed the Minister of Agriculture to ease their own loan terms, lower the interest owed on them, already modest to begin with, and supply them with chemical fertilizer.

It was a beautiful day, spent in the embrace of Mount Hermon, and I returned home at its end with a calm heart and settled nerves.

How badly I need to follow the doctors' own advice, if only I were able to.

They demand of me a long rest.

The best rest for me would be resignation, and a return to teaching at the university and practicing law. But this would only be exploited by the Union's own enemies.

And they are many, regrettably, growing ever more numerous through the effect of false propaganda.

But I find myself wondering: and what, exactly, is the alternative?

The resentful say: anything, any system at all, so long as we are rid of "the Egyptians." These are the Baathists, or, more accurately, some of them, and the communists, and the greedy exploiters among the industrialists and capitalists, who know nothing but profit and the search for ways to secure it.