Chapter 8, Part 6: Clean Government

Section Three
Clean Government

I have chosen to devote this section to the cleanness of the government apparatus, because al-Kikhya gave that cleanness the greatest attention. So I felt it deserved a study of its own.

He was convinced that if the body of civil servants was not clean, meaning that officials were not honest, did not favor anyone and did not twist the neck of the laws in favor of the powerful or the bribers, then justice would be no more than an empty word with no meaning in reality. And if citizens lost confidence in their government apparatus, which was created in the first place to protect them and secure their rights, they would behave according to the laws of the jungle and the sea.. the lion kills the wolf, the wolf devours the fox.. and the stronger fish swallows the small one.. It was to escape this tyranny that the apparatus of the state was created, and laws were enacted for it, to establish justice and equality among people.

In this connection I will point to two cases that show al-Kikhya's keen concern to resist exploitation by men of influence among the deputies and senior officials:

The first: the land of the municipal stadium in Aleppo; the second: the misdeeds of the Ministry of Supply. Because of what these two cases reflect on the meaning of democracy and the cleanness of those in charge, I would like to dwell on them a little.

It is no secret that our Christian brothers took part only timidly in the Syrian national movement, because a large section of them did not like to engage openly in political action against France, which told anyone who cared to listen, or not, that it was the protector of Christianity in Syria and Lebanon. No one can deny that the Ottoman state, until the middle of the nineteenth century, regarded the Christians in its lands as mere subjects (SUJETS) and not true citizens (CITOYENS). But a close examination of the reality of the Sultanate is bound to show those of sharp insight that the Arab Muslims too were subjected to pressure and persecution, even under the Caliphate.. The situation took its bad turn for everyone, however, when the Committee of Union and Progress seized power.

When the French mandate was imposed on Syria, most of the population rejected it and resisted it.. but the Christian side at first took a hesitant stand. Even so, a number of Christians joined the national movements and merged into the ranks of the National Bloc, where they held a prominent place, such as Faris al-Khouri and his brother Fayez al-Khouri in Damascus, Mikhail Ilyan, Leon Zamaria, Naim Antaki and Edmond Rabbath in Aleppo, the Farkouh family in Homs and the Marhaj family in Hama.. These names are only examples.

Faris al-Khouri held the highest offices in the state, among them the presidency of the Chamber of Deputies and the leadership of the Syrian delegation to the United Nations, and his brother Fayez held ministerial office several times, under various regimes. Naim Antaki became Minister of Foreign Affairs and of Finance more than once, and traveled with the Syrian delegation to France to conclude the treaty, as its secretary.

The Christian leadership in Aleppo fell to Mikhail Ilyan, especially after Naim Antaki moved to Damascus and Edmond Rabbath took Lebanese nationality. He had joined the national movement early and, it is said, contributed his own money to the expenses of the National Bloc, which qualified him for a prominent position in it.. But a quarrel broke out between him and Rushdi al-Kikhya, for reasons that had nothing to do with national work but arose from Mikhail's crooked dealings.

The case of the stadium land was one of these reasons.

The municipality had expropriated land in the west of the city of Aleppo to build a sports stadium on it, and this land belonged to Mr. Mikhail Ilyan and others. The municipal committee valued the square meter at six liras. The other owners accepted and collected their share. But Mr. Ilyan lodged an objection to this valuation and used his influence with the municipal council to have the price reviewed. His request was granted, and a new committee was formed which valued the square meter at twenty liras. This new price meant that Mr. Ilyan would receive 210 thousand Syrian liras (in the liras of those days, when the price of an average apartment was around twenty thousand).

This conduct was one of the causes of the quarrel that broke out between a deputy who wanted to exploit the influence of his position and a deputy who had dedicated himself to defending the interests of the state.

When the government of Faris al-Khouri resigned and he formed it anew on 26/8/1945, Mikhail Ilyan joined it as Minister of Foreign Affairs.[1] No one knows of any reasonable explanation for this choice. Mr. Ilyan had neither academic education nor diplomatic experience. And the circumstances did not allow for such courtesies. The country was in a bitter struggle with the French authority, which was demanding a treaty with it, and Syria was determined to reject any treaties, because it wanted complete and absolute independence, bound by no restrictions.

A number of Syrian ambassadors abroad hastened to send telegrams submitting their resignations, such as Dr. Adnan al-Atassi and Dr. Nazim al-Qudsi (who was ambassador in Washington), in protest at the appointment of Mr. Ilyan to this sensitive post, and because they surpassed him in experience and education.

When al-Kikhya debated the statement of al-Khouri's new government at the session of 28 August 1945, he denounced the government's mistake in entrusting the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to Ilyan. He was very harsh in his speech, and among the things he said to the Prime Minister was:

"In all frankness I say to the Prime Minister that what you lack is firmness and the courage to act boldly, and whoever tries to please everyone cannot please anyone..

You have removed, Mr. Prime Minister, three ministers who worked with you and brought in others. Are those you brought in better than their predecessors? You set aside Naim Antaki, who is one of the most brilliant of our young men and among the most self-sacrificing and patriotic of them. You removed Said al-Ghazzi, who is an outstanding figure and whose struggle we remember with pride. And you set aside Jamil Mardam, with whom I may sometimes disagree, but who stands in the front rank of those who have served in the national field..

When you negotiated with the deputies, Mr. Prime Minister, we laid down three conditions that the candidate ministers must meet: that the minister be a man of integrity, that he be highly educated, and that he be trustworthy and upright. Do those you have chosen meet these conditions? You chose for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Mikhail Ilyan), one of the deputies of this Chamber. Were you well advised in your choice? This is a ministry that needs knowledge, practice and political tact, and we do not accept this choice for you, nor do we accept it for ourselves or for our country."[2]

This campaign led to the resignation of the government on 30 September of the same year, that is, after one month and five days, and a new government was formed under Saadallah al-Jabiri, from which Mikhail Ilyan was left out.

The enmity between the two men remained bitter, until Mikhail Ilyan was later prosecuted on a charge of treason and sentenced to death in absentia while he was a fugitive abroad. This "enmity" passed to us by contagion, without any personal tension between us and him to warrant it.

The second case is that of the Ministry of Supply..

The Ministry of Supply was set up during the Second World War to secure foodstuffs for the country. Setting it up was necessary and useful. But scarcely had it found its feet and begun its work, and citizens begun to reap its benefits, than some of its officials started to tamper with the people's food, whose management had been entrusted to them. The Allies, especially the English who occupied the country, allocated ample quantities of foodstuffs, fuel and other provisions to Syria and handed them over to the Syrian administration (this was called the quota). The Syrian officials received these goods and moved them to warehouses placed under their supervision, then set about distributing them to the governorates and deciding how they would be distributed to the citizens.

Greed corrupted the consciences of many of them, and they began to exploit the influence of their posts to obtain for themselves large sums they had no right to.. And so the apparatus of this ministry was corrupted, and grave harm was done to the citizens' supplies.

Rushdi al-Kikhya intervened forcefully to put an end to the corruption of this ministry. Dr. al-Qudsi records "that the Minister of Supply was Mr. Mazhar Raslan, a man who understood nothing", as he says of him (he may mean that he did not understand the affairs and problems of this ministry, which was teeming with corrupt and corrupting officials). "The man who really controlled the ministry was Farid Zein al-Din. To expose the tampering, whose stench had begun to sting the nostrils, Rushdi and I demanded an investigation."[3]

Rushdi al-Kikhya attacked, first of all, the wide powers that the Minister of Supply enjoyed but did not actually exercise, and called for them to be reduced.[4]

When Arif al-Nakadi, a firm and honest official, resigned from the supply administration because of the wretched state the ministry had reached, Rushdi submitted a written question asking about the reasons that had driven this able official to resign, in order to expose the shameful scandals.[5]

Al-Kikhya also lifted the veil on the suspicious deals the merchants were making with the officials, so that they formed a dangerous network that brought them obscene and unlawful wealth.[6] The late deputy never tired of pursuing these corrupt men, and submitted to the government at one stroke, through the presidency of the Chamber of Deputies, six questions dated 13/12/1944, which were read out publicly at the session of 15/1/1945. One of them said:

"It is rumored that the supply department in Aleppo sold, without a tender, a large quantity of old rubber tires at half a lira a kilo, although it sells on the market for three times that price? Who is the person to whom this unjust deal was sold?"

For the record, I will say that Deputy al-Kikhya's efforts to pursue the corrupt men of the supply administration bore fruit, and a committee of inquiry was formed to expose the tampering and fraud. It did its duty and drew up a report condemning a number of officials and the merchants in collusion with them, which I see no reason to dwell on now.[7]

But what we would witness or hear of under later regimes the country lived through will make us recite al-Fatiha and Surat al-Tawba over the souls of the supply officials of the forties, because they were no more than small pioneers of horrors no writer's pen can describe. But those are not among the subjects of this book.

Endnotes:

[1] Its ministers included Khalid al-Azm (Finance and Defense), Sabri al-Asali (Justice), Ahmad al-Sharabati (Education and National Economy) and Lutfi al-Haffar (Interior). This cabinet is considered weaker than the outgoing cabinet of Faris al-Khouri. But I would like to mention with praise Dr. Hikmat al-Hakim, its Minister of Supply (deputy for Idlib), who had little experience in affairs of state but was known for his uprightness and integrity. I was his fellow deputy in the 1947 term, and he was a model of noble character.

[2] Minutes of the session of 28 August 1945, the fourth session of the sixth extraordinary term, pp. 60 and 61.

[3] From his memoirs, on the second tape.

[4] Session of 13/5/1944, p. 148.

[5] Session of 31 December 1944, p. 531.

[6] For more, see the minutes of the following sessions, for example the session of 16/1/1945, p. 28, the session of 15/2/1945, p. 3, and the session of 21 May 1946, p. 126.

[7] The report runs to 25 pages and is published in the minutes of session 19, dated 21/12/1944.