New Danger Signs in the Arab World:
ALEXANDER, MARK
New Danger Signs in the Arab World By Mark Alexander JERUSALEM THE RECENT elections in Iraq and Syria, and the turmoil that is spreading across Egypt as this is written, again point up the Arab...
...And the Brotherhood and junta are now openly at war...
...The Damascus press called this "the most important event in the Middle East in this century," which is something of an exaggeration even though Bakdash is the first Communist ever elected to an Arab parliament...
...Undoubtedly, his comrades will find it much more difficult to get elected...
...Even more important, the Communists have infiltrated the Brotherhood and Wafd student organizations --key groups in Egyptian politics...
...Curiously, this party belongs to the popular front, but actually appears to be competing with the Communists...
...In Syria, where the elections were not controlled by the politicians in power, Khaled Bakdash, head of the Lebanese and Syrian Communist parties, was elected in the capital with the second largest number of votes...
...Bakdash strongly rebuked the Ba'ath on election eve for "sabotaging" the front by insisting on secular demands and thus "antagonizing the progressive elements of the [Syrian] Moslem Brotherhood...
...The first did not give the present regime a clear majority, so Parliament was dissolved and most political parties were forced to disband...
...He has become a leading fellow-traveler--if not a party member...
...One might go on from this to lament the absence of democracy in the Middle East...
...For example, Michel Alfaq's and Aqram Hourani's socialist Ba'ath party, urging social and agrarian reforms and a neutralist foreign policy, won more seats than ever before...
...The Brotherhood also has supporters among the officers, and the junta's "mass appeal" has been shrinking steadily...
...Moreover, most of his opponents, who include practically the entire Iraqi intelligentsia, are joining the Communist - led popular - front movement...
...In Egypt, Premier Gamal Abdel Nasser's military junta is literally fighting for its life against an unholy alliance of the Moslem Brotherhood, the Communists and the Wafd party...
...His type is now common in the Arab world...
...It should be noted, however, that the Syrian Communist party has been very influential for the past 12 years...
...This pleased Prime Minister Nuri Said, since it meant that a majority of the Deputies he appointed would go into Parliament unopposed...
...In a matter of months, it may turn Syria into another Guatemala...
...A recent Cairo trial of 24 Communists revealed, too, that a "United Revolutionary Front" had been established by the Communists to harass the Government...
...Perhaps the most disquieting aspect of the balloting, however, was the success, with Communist assistance, of independents like Khaled el Azem and Ma'arouf Dualibi...
...The Brotherhood became an important Communist ally in the election, which stressed foreign policy...
...The latter is a former prominent Nazi who spent the war years in Berlin working for Goebbels...
...Communist opposition to the recently concluded pact is understandable, but the Brotherhood and Wafd are merely trying to appear more patriotic than the junta...
...Most trained observers agree, therefore, that prolongation of Nuri Said's rule will merely postpone an inevitable explosion...
...The anti-Government front claims it is fighting the Suez "sell-out" to the British...
...he may make a comeback as the head of a veiled popular front...
...Khaled el Azem is a rich, reactionary feudal landowner who considers himself a political genius because he figured out that his interests would be better served by a chauvinist, anti-Western policy than by social reforms...
...Iraq has just held its second general election in three months...
...Another disconcerting result of the Syrian election is the fact that most of the Deputies elected, particularly those who polled the most votes, campaigned on an anti-Western platform...
...New Danger Signs in the Arab World By Mark Alexander JERUSALEM THE RECENT elections in Iraq and Syria, and the turmoil that is spreading across Egypt as this is written, again point up the Arab world's instability...
...The Communist party, which has not been united since it was declared illegal in 1925, now has about 7,000 members--a significant number in a country that officially does not have political parties...
...He comes from a rich Kurdish family in Damascus and is by far the most capable and popular Communist leader in the Arab world...
...He is interested only in perpetuating the privileges of the "thousand sheikhs' who, together with the state, own 93 per cent of the country's cultivated area...
...Nor is the man in the street benefiting from the oil revenue which has made Iraq one of the richest countries in this part of the world...
...It was found to have the support of several Army officers, including Captain Mustafa Kamel Sidky, one of the "Free Officers" who ousted King Farouk...
...General Naguib is biding his time...
...the truth is that only those interested in preserving anarchy in the area will dispute the necessity for authoritarian government in most Arab League countries...
...But such government can be justified only if it spreads enlightenment, and Nuri Said, though pro-Western, is undoubtedly one of the most unenlightened and reactionary statesmen in the Middle East and all Asia...
Vol. 37 • November 1954 • No. 45
