The Baath regime in Syria is definitely a communist regime
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Ba'athism
Ba'athism
Allegations of being fascist
Cyprian Blamires claims that
"Ba'athism may have been a Middle Eastern variant of fascism, even though
'Aflaq and other Ba'ath leaders criticised particular fascist ideas and
practices."[56] According
to him, the Ba'ath movement shared several characteristics with the European
fascist movement, such as "the attempt to synthesize radical, illiberal
nationalism and non-Marxist socialism, a romantic, mythopoetic, and elitist
'revolutionary' vision, the desire both to create a 'new man' and to restore
past greatness, a centralised authoritarian party divided into 'right-wing' and
'left-wing' factions and so forth; several close associates later admitted that
'Aflaq had been directly inspired by certain fascist and Nazi theorists."[56] An
argument against Aflaq's fascist credentials is that he was an active member of
the Syrian–Lebanese
Communist Party, he participated in the activities of the French Communist
Party during his stay
in France,[57] and
that he was influenced by some of the ideas of Karl Marx.[27] Cyprian
concludes that Ba'athism, along with the Free Officers
Movement in Egypt, can
be categorised asneofascist.[56]
The Arab Ba'ath Party established by Zaki al-Arsuzi was according to Sami al-Jundi,
one of the co-founders of the party, heavily influenced by fascist and Nazi
ideals. The party's emblem was the tiger because it would "excite the
imagination of the youth, in the tradition of Nazism and Fascism, but taking
into consideration that the Arab is in his nature is distant from pagan symbols
[like the swastika]".[58] Arsuzi's
Ba'ath Party believed in the virtues of the "one leader", and Arsuzi
himself believed personally in the racial superiority of the Arabs. The party
members read a lot of Nazi literature, such as The
Foundations of the Nineteenth Century for instance, became one of the first
to plan the translation of Mein Kampf into Arabic and they were actively
looking for a copy of The Myth of the
Twentieth Century –
the only copy in Damascus was, according to Moshe Maʻoz, owned by Aflaq.[58] Despite
his pro-fascist views, Arsuzi did not support the Axis Powers, and refused Italy's advances for
party-to-party relations.[59] Arsuzi
was also influenced by the racial theories of Houston Stewart
Chamberlain and Nazism.[60] Arsuzi
claimed that historically Islam and the Prophet Muhammad had reinforced the nobility and purity
of Arabs, which degenerated in purity because of the adoption of Islam by other
people.[60] He
had been associated with theLeague of
Nationalist Action, a political party strongly influenced by fascism and Nazism with its paramilitary "Ironshirts", that existed in Syria from
1932 to 1939.[61]
Saddam drew inspiration on how to rule Iraq from both Joseph Stalin, a communist, and Adolf Hitler, a Nazi. According to a British
journalist who interviewed Barzan al-Tikriti, the head of the Iraqi
intelligence services, Saddam had asked Barzan to procure these books not for
racist or anti-Semitic purposes,
but instead "as an example of the successful organisation of an entire
society by the state for the achievement of national goals."[62]
Allegations of being racist
In Ba'athist Iraq,
Iran, especially during the Iran–Iraq War, was presented as the age-old
enemy of the Arabs.
The Iraqi Ba'athists, according to Fred Halliday, brought the ideas of Sati al-Husri to their full, official and racist,
culmination. For the Ba'athists their pan-Arab ideology was laced with anti-Iranian
racism, it rested on the pursuit of anti-Iranian themes, over the decade and a
half after coming to power, Baghdad organised the expulsion of Iraqis of
Iranian origin, beginning with 40,000 Fayli Kurds, but totalling up to 200,000
or more, by the early years of the war itself. Such racist policies were
reinforced by ideology: in 1981, a year after the start of the Iran–Iraq War,
Dar al-Hurriya, the government publishing house,[citation
needed] issued Three Whom God Should Not Have Created: Persians, Jews,
and Flies by the author, Khairallah Talfah, the foster-father and
father-in-law of Saddam Hussein. Halliday says that it was the Ba'athists too
who, claiming to be the defenders of 'Arabism' on the eastern frontiers,
brought to the fore the chauvinist myth of Iranian migrants and communities in the
Gulf.[63]
Three Whom God Should Not Have Created: Persians, Jews, and Flies describes Persians (Iranians)
as "animals God created in the shape of humans", Jews as a "mixture of dirt and the
leftovers of diverse people",[64] andflies as poor misunderstood creatures
"whom we do not understand God's purpose in creating".[65] According
to Con Coughlin, "This weak Iraqi attempt at
imitating Mein Kampf nevertheless had a bearing on Saddam's
future policymaking.[65] Mauritanian
Regional Branch of the Iraqi-dominated Ba'ath movement was accused of being
racist by the Mauritanian
Government and certain
political groups.[66]
The Iraqi
Regional Branch could
approve or disapprove of marriages of party members. In a party document, it
was ordered that party branches "to check thoroughly the Arabic origin of
not the prospective wife but also her family, and no approval should be given
to members who plan to marry [someone] from a non-Arab origin."[67] During
the war with Iran, the party began to confront members who were of non-Arab,
especially Iranian origins. One memo from the party Secretariat sent directly
to Saddam read "the party suffers from the existence of members who are
not originally Arabs as this might constitute a danger to the party in the
future."[68] The
Secretariat recommended not giving party membership to people of Iranian
origins. In a written reply to the document, Saddam wrote "1) [I] Agree
with the opinion of the Party Secretariat; 2) To be discussed in the [Regional]
Command meeting."[68] Many
of those who were refused, or whose membership had been revoked, were loyal
Ba'athists. For instance, one Ba'athist of Iranian origin had been a member of
the party since 1958, been a part of the Ramadan
Revolution and had
been imprisoned by the authorities in the aftermath of the November 1963
Iraqi coup d'état for
the Ba'athist cause. Later, the authorities began to specifically look for
people of Iraqi origins, and any contact with Iran or Iranian functioned as a
good enough reason to not be given party membership.[68]
Michel Aflaq
From Wikipedia, the free
encyclopedia
| Born | 1910 Damascus, Ottoman Syria |
|---|---|
| Died | 23 June 1989 (age 78-79) Paris, France |
| Political party | Arab Ba'ath Movement (1940–1947) Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party(1947–1966) Iraq-based Ba'ath Party (1968–1989) |
| Religion | Greek Orthodox Christianity |
Michel Aflaq (Arabic: ميشيل عفلق, 1910 –
23 June 1989) was a Syrian philosopher, sociologist and Arab nationalist.
His ideas played a significant role in the development of Ba'athism and its political movement; he is
considered by several Ba'athists to be the principal founder of Ba'athist
thought. He published various books during his lifetime, the most notable being The Battle for One Destiny (1958) and The Struggle Against Distorting the
Movement of Arab Revolution (1975).
Born into a middle-class family in Damascus, Syria, Aflaq
studied at the Sorbonne, where he met his future
political companion Salah al-Din al-Bitar. He returned to
Syria in 1932, and began his political career incommunist politics. Aflaq
became a communist activist, but broke his ties with the communist movement
when the Syrian–Lebanese Communist Party supported France's colonial policies.
Later in 1940 Aflaq and al-Bitar established the Arab Ihya Movement (later renaming itself the Arab Ba'ath Movement, taking
the name from Zaki al-Arsuzi's
group by the same name).
The movement proved successful, and in 1947 the Arab Ba'ath Movement merged
with al-Arsuzi's Arab Ba'ath organisation to establish the Arab Ba'ath
Party. Aflaq was elected to the party's executive committee and was
elected "'Amid" (meaning the party's leader).
The Arab Ba'ath Party merged with Akram al-Hawrani's Arab Socialist Party to establish the Arab Socialist Ba'ath
Party in 1952; Aflaq was elected the party's leader in 1954. During the
mid-to-late 1950s the party began developing relations with Gamal Abdel Nasser, the President of Egypt, which eventually led
to the establishment of the United Arab Republic (UAR). Nasser forced Aflaq to dissolve
the party, which he did, but without consulting with party members. Shortly
after the UAR's dissolution, Aflaq was reelected as Secretary General of the
National Command of the Ba'ath Party. Following the 8th of March Revolution, Aflaq's position
within the party was weakened to such an extent that he was forced to resign as
the party's leader in 1965. Aflaq was ousted during the 1966 Syrian coup d'état, which led to a
schism within the Ba'ath Party. He escaped toLebanon, but later went to
Iraq. In 1968 Aflaq was elected Secretary General of the Iraqi-led Ba'ath Party; during his tenure
he held no de facto power. He held the post until his
death on 23 June 1989.
Aflaq's theories about society, economics and politics, which are
collectively known as Ba'athism, hold that the Arab world needs to be unified into one Arab Nation in order to achieve an advanced state
of development. He was critical of both capitalism and communism, and critical
of Karl Marx's
view of dialectical materialism as the only truth. Ba'athist thought
placed much emphasis on liberty and Arab socialism – a socialism with Arab
characteristics, which was not part of the international socialist movement as
defined by the West. Aflaq believed in the separation of state and religion,
and was a strong believer in secularisation, but was againstatheism. Although a
Christian, he believed Islam to be proof of "Arab genius". In the
aftermath of the 1966 Ba'ath Party split, the Syrian-led Ba'ath Party accused Aflaq of stealing al-Arsuzi's
ideas, and called him a "thief". The Iraqi-led Ba'ath Party rejects this, and does not believe
that al-Arsuzi contributed to Ba'athist thought.
