Chapter 13, Part 3: The Labor Pains of Union: The Joint Session

R. On 18 October a parliamentary delegation of 40 members, headed by the Speaker of the Egyptian National Assembly, Anwar al-Sadat, came to Damascus, and we received them in the Chamber as Syrian deputies. They sat with us and among us in a historic joint session. Akram al-Hourani, the Speaker of the Chamber, gave a speech in which he said the following: "The will of our proud people in Egypt and Syria to express its national truth showed itself when it declared in the body of the Egyptian and Syrian constitutions that the Arab people in Egypt and Syria are part of the Arab nation.

And since the Egyptian and Syrian constitutions have both established that a deputy represents the whole people and that his mandate is bound by no restriction or condition, when I welcome my honored brothers, the deputies of the Egyptian region, and tell them that you are here in your own Chamber and that your mandate also covers representing the Arab people in Syria, I do not say it moved only by brotherly feeling, but I say it in obedience to the will of our proud people in Egypt and Syria. So welcome to the deputies of the Arab nation in the achievement of Arab unity.

The wonder of wonders is that there should remain on the face of the earth a single stubborn man who disputes the truth and claims that Syria has become a playground for international communism or a base for the Soviet Union.

And that revolutionary Egypt, the Egypt of Arabism, with its valiant people, its gallant army and its great President Gamal Abdel Nasser, fought the battle as a battle for the survival of Arab nationalism and its protection from annihilation and destruction..

America came out from behind the curtain, took the initiative over from Britain and France, put before us the colonial plan called the Eisenhower plan, and turned on us every means of material and moral pressure and coercion it possessed..

The first answer of Arab nationalism came from great sister Egypt, which hastened to send its military forces to Syria, so that the blood of the Arab soldier in Egypt would mingle with the blood of the Arab soldier in Syria in defending the northern borders of the Arab homeland.. We must never forget for a moment that the nature of the work for Arab unity is revolutionary: a revolt against shackles, internal restraints and rotten, corrupt systems.. and a revolt against colonialism, its leftovers and its agents.."

The Egyptian Speaker, Anwar al-Sadat, followed him, saying:

"I greet you with a true Arab greeting, and I bring you greetings and thanks from your other country. I bring you greetings and thanks from the President of Egypt, the Assembly of Egypt and the people of Egypt.. You are the brothers who stood by Egypt in its hour of hardship.. This morning I saw the soldiers of Syria and the soldiers of Egypt working side by side, and I assure you that I could not hide my feelings as I watched this noble comradeship..

History tells us that whenever Syria was cut off from Egypt or Egypt from Syria, disasters and calamities befell the Arabs.

We want federation between Egypt and Syria in order to preserve the peace of the whole world.. We are not with either bloc; we are nationalists and we are Arabs..

And when I bring you the greetings of Egypt, I also bring a real sharing in good times and bad.."[1]

Mr. Sabri al-Asali, the Prime Minister, spoke:

"The Arab nation has today resolved to live a free and honorable life, and the hidden powers of its eternal nationalism, which rendered the greatest services to human civilization, have awakened in it..

Perhaps the greatest truth that has become clear even to the most stubborn of enemies is this complete unity of spirit, direction and means, and in the lines of general policy, between the Republics of Egypt and Syria..

This splendid historic meeting, which brings together the representatives of the National Assembly of the two republics as though they were a single chamber, its sessions chaired in turn by two brothers whom blood, history, language, hopes and sorrows have joined as they have joined their peoples, is one of the joys of a smiling reality..

And I affirm, in the name of the Syrian government which I have the honor to head, that the Syrian government.. will not be satisfied with these narrow limits of federation; rather, it sees that what has been achieved so far is only the smaller part of what national duty requires.

And we hope that the righteous martyrs and the good and faithful, whose souls went up to their Creator on the fields of glory and honor in defense of homeland, family and home, will look down on us today from on high, their souls at rest that the land they watered with their blood has been inherited by righteous servants, cooperating in goodness and piety and working for the unity of the Arabs."

Mr. Ali Bouzo spoke for the People's Party in a long and comprehensive speech, in which he said: "Brothers, a thousand years ago we were one nation, with none of these artificial, false borders set up by the colonizer standing between us. He divided us into scattered statelets so that he could more easily enslave us and seize our riches.. and in the heart of our homelands he set up a false homeland for the scum of the earth.. and drove out its people, the holders of the natural right.. naked and hungry, living under tattered tents.

Syria, with all its parties and parliamentary bodies, has come together to draw up a national charter, and has set among its highest aims the establishment of a federal union between Egypt and Syria as the nucleus of a comprehensive Arab federation..

Our call for Arab unity is not born of a present circumstance we have weighed up; it is the result of distant historical factors.. Down the generations our two countries have been bound by common aims and events, and our blood has mingled with yours in more than one decisive battle, in which we preserved the life of Arabism in the greatest colonial invasion, in the sixth century of the Hijra (the Crusades)..

Today too we see colonialism scrambling for the wealth of our countries, greedily eyeing our treasures for itself, and trying to come back to us to repeat the tragedies from whose blows we suffered every kind of oppression and injustice..

But an Arab hero, a believer, in whom God placed the qualities of wise and aware leadership, President Gamal Abdel Nasser, raises his thundering voice, and the voice of Syria thunders with his, that there is no vacuum in this region, and that nothing but Arab nationalism will fill this vacuum.

President Abdel Nasser has been able to push the Arab cause many years forward.. So it is no wonder that the colonialists lose their minds at the awakening of the mighty giant..

Brothers: we laid down in our constitution, and you laid down in yours, two identical texts saying that we are part of the Arab nation, and we swore by Almighty God to be loyal to the Constitution, to defend it and to work for Arab unity.. So let us call on our government to hasten its steps to complete the means of union as quickly as possible, and let us make this blessed session a historic session in which we express the will of our two peoples for complete union..

We pray to God, with free hearts pained by the reality of their greater homeland, to grant us soon a tomorrow in which we may have the joy of seeing the free Arab citizen travel from Casablanca to Sanaa, from the farthest countryside of Algeria to the farthest desert of Syria, and from the banks of the Nile to the heights of Galilee and the harbors of Haifa and Beirut..

And we ask our brothers to carry to the sister people in the land of Egypt the feelings of their brothers in Syria, and the love, esteem, loyalty and brotherhood their sincere hearts hold for the people of Egypt and its great leader, President Gamal Abdel Nasser.."

It was truly a historic session. Some of us could not hold back our tears.. The cheering shook the air.. and the applause stung our palms.

That day was a blessed day in the life of the Arabs.. for on it the first stone was laid of an Arab federal state, without coups and without blood.

Immediately afterwards the report of the Syrian Foreign Affairs Committee, of which I was a member, and of the Egyptian Foreign Affairs Committee was read out, and a joint text was agreed, which the Speaker put before the deputies.

Here are extracts from the statement of reasons and the text of the report:

"In response to the wish of the Arab people throughout the Arab world, and in fulfillment of the principles of the Egyptian and Syrian constitutions that their people are part of the Arab nation.

Whereas the unity of the Arab countries is the nation's precious hope, and working to achieve this lofty and sacred aim is a national duty for every Arab and a trust on the shoulders of the deputies of the Arab people.

Whereas colonialism is a formidable obstacle to the achievement of unity, and works hard to keep the Arab nation divided and scattered, through the conspiracies it weaves against it and the incidents it contrives, to keep it from federation and liberation.

Whereas the two sisters Egypt and Syria fought colonialism, wrested their independence, consolidated their sovereignty and followed in their foreign policy a neutral course between the contending powers, drawn from their national interests and common aims..

Whereas what has been accomplished between the two countries so far may be regarded as the foundation stone for setting up an Arab federation between them, in the military field, where the two armies have been unified and the Egyptian and Syrian forces now work under a unified command..

Whereas talks between the two countries are under way to set up an integrated, unified and planned economic system..

Whereas the internal conditions and the external events shaking the Arab world require it to hasten its steps to set up this federation, to preserve its existence and consolidate its independence.. For all these reasons, the members of the delegation of the Egyptian National Assembly and the members of the Foreign Affairs Committee, meeting together on 17 November 1957, propose a vote on the following resolution:

"The deputies of the two chambers, meeting together, in declaring the wish of the Arab people in Egypt and Syria to set up a federal union between the two countries, bless the practical steps the Syrian and Egyptian governments have taken toward achieving this federation, and call on the governments of Egypt and Syria to enter at once into joint talks in order to complete the means of carrying out this federation."

Some deputies had put forward motions to amend this report. But they withdrew them, so that the unanimous approval would remain a single, unified historic act.

When the report was put to the vote it was approved unanimously amid applause and cheering. A telegram from Mr. Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi, Speaker of the Egyptian National Assembly, was read out at the session of the Syrian Chamber of Deputies of 30 November 1957, informing the Chamber that: "the Egyptian National Assembly, at its session held on the evening of Monday 26 Rabi' al-Thani 1377, corresponding to 18 November 1957, unanimously approved the resolution passed the same night by the Syrian Chamber of Deputies.. to set up a federal union between the two countries, and call on the governments of Egypt and Syria to enter at once into joint talks in order to complete the means of carrying out this federation."

Endnotes:

[1] Anwar al-Sadat became President of Egypt after the death of President Gamal Abdel Nasser, on 15 October 1970, after a referendum in which he won 90% of the votes cast. He was shot dead by a fundamentalist, Lieutenant Khalid al-Islambuli, while seated on the reviewing stand of a military parade in Cairo on 6 October 1981, and the killer and his accomplices confessed that they killed him because he had visited Israel and opened Egypt's doors to it.
The killer and some of his accomplices were executed for their part in preparing and carrying out the killing.
See the book by Mr. Mohamed Hassanein Heikal: Kharif al-Ghadab (Autumn of Fury), printed by Dar Tlass, Damascus.