Nasser's Ebbing Fortunes
Laqueur, Walter
IS ARAB UNITY DEAD? Nasser's Ebbing Fortunes By Walter Z. Laqueur Fortune has not treated Gamel Abdel Nasser kindly the past three years. Early in 1958 the Egyptian leader seemed to be...
...Even he was subordinate to Cairo's Chief of Staff, Marshal Abdel Hakim Amer...
...Yet Nasser seems to be taking the Syrian defection with remarkable equanimity...
...and local Army officers forced to serve under Egyptian commanders...
...It appeared that power would soon pass either into the hands of the Ba'ath (Socialist Renaissance) party, a radical Leftwing group with strong military backing, or to the Communists, who had allies among professional politicians as well as in the Army...
...The Agrarian reforms introduced by Cairo also antagonized both the big landowners and the influential middle class...
...Syria had joined—and Yemen associated itself with—Egypt in the United Arab Republic (UAR...
...Conditions barely improved, however, after Syria became part of the UAR...
...The rest of the country soon followed...
...Syrians enjoy a higher standard of living and, on the whole, a higher cultural standard than Egyptians— and they are inordinately proud of both advantages...
...Many nationalized firms will be restored to private ownership...
...Iraq, Lebanon and Jordan all showed signs of falling under his hegemony...
...In contrast, the Ba'ath, Syria's other important radical movement, is at present hopelessly split into a pro-Nasser wing, led by the Jordanian oppositionist politician Abdallah Rimawi, and a probably stronger anti-Nasser group headed by party ideologist Michel Aflaq...
...After years of illegal existence, the Communist party now emerges, as it did in the late '50s, as the strongest political force in the country...
...High-ranking local officials were replaced by Egyptians...
...In the 12 years after 1946, when the country won independence from France, it repeatedly demonstrated its inability to govern...
...Ineffective parliamentary governments were replaced at frequent intervals by equally incompetent military dictators such as Husne Zaim, Sami Hinnawi and Adib Shishekly...
...And the extension of Egyptian "socialism" to Syria—nationalization of banks and private companies, higher income taxes, restrictive trade regulations, etc.—substantially reduced the value of the local Pound...
...In an address delivered a few days after the coup, Nasser revealed that from the start he had strong misgivings about the union...
...Incidentally, while there may be widespread resentment against Egypt in Syria today, a proNasser movement will unquestionably continue to exist in the same way that Peronist sentiment has remained a force in Argentina despite the overthrow of the dictator...
...local parties were abolished...
...This development could be delayed, but probably not averted, by the establishment of a conservative military dictatorship...
...At the same time, it arranged for the rapid deportation of 27,000 Egyptian nationals and arrested an undisclosed number of "infiltrators" and "saboteurs"—including Colonel Serraj, who had returned from Cairo immediately before the coup...
...The present antiCairo coalition may not last for very long and the Egyptian dictator may yet return to Damascus in triumph...
...Three days later the Soviet Union recognized the new regime in Damascus...
...This had a serious effect on Syria's middle class, which is much larger than Egypt's and never was enamored of Nasser...
...There is notoriously little consistency to political allegiances in the Middle East...
...An old Arab proverb says that even the Prophet Mohammed would have found it difficult to govern Damascus...
...Still, the situation was aggravated by the officially sponsored migration of "surplus" Egyptian peasants...
...Colonel Serraj was called to Egypt and with the basic pillar of Cairo's regime, the secret police, temporarily paralyzed, the rebels decided to strike...
...They started from the traditional base of all Syrian military coups: the headquarters of the First Division in Camp Katana, a dozen miles southeast of Damascus...
...Fanaticism, irresponsibility, corruption and nepotism were rampant...
...The move was quickly, and astonishingly, successful...
...Many of the Government's backers are part of what is known locally as the "old gang...
...The political climate of Syria being what it is, the return of the radical forces to a commanding position is almost a foregone conclusion...
...In addition to Kuzbari, it includes such conservative Arab nationalists as Leon Zamaria (Finance and Supply) and Adnan al-Kuwatly (Interior...
...In July 1958 General Abdul Karim Kassim overthrew the reactionary monarchy in Iraq, but carefully avoided any alliance with Nasser...
...This is hardly surprising...
...By 1961, only one of the Syrian leaders who had engineered the merger three years before remained in power, Colonel Abdel Hamid Seraj, head of the secret police...
...Workers have been told that they will be permitted to organize trade-unions, develop profit-sharing schemes and participate in management...
...There were other disaffected groups in Syria, too: most of the old politicians, who found themselves without jobs...
...The Egyptian dictator's most serious setback came last month, however, when a group of Syrian Army officers shattered the United Arab Republic by leading a virtually bloodless coup against Cairo and installing a new civilian government in Damascus...
...Early in 1958 the Egyptian leader seemed to be riding the wave of the future: He was still glowing from his victory over Britain and France at Suez...
...Judging from past experience, the present rulers are likely to discredit themselves within a year or two, and by that time the anarchical conditions of the 1950s may well prevail again...
...A new Syrian government, headed by the conservative Dr...
...History could repeat itself...
...When Syrian emissaries first came to see him, he said, "I told them, 'Unity is a difficult thing...
...Despite its liberal promises, though, the new Damascus government seems to be a throwback to the regimes that ruled Syria with disastrous consequences from 194658...
...The initiative for the merger in January 1958 came from Syria...
...The marriage of convenience was never a happy one: Nasser has claimed that three-quarters of his difficulties and worries during the past three years concerned the UAR's Northern Region...
...Then, rather suddenly, the wave began to recede...
...Not long after the coup, the party's headquarters in Beirut issued a statement hailing the revolt as "a historic victory against imperialism and Phargonic rule," and urged the creation of a "national democratic front...
...The President of the Syrian Republic therefore led a Parliamentary delegation to Cairo and implored Nasser to accept a federal union...
...True, President Nasser cannot be held responsible for three successive years of drought (the 1960 wheat crop was about onethird of 1957, the barley crop onesixth...
...The end came when the UAR's top leadership began to quarrel among itself...
...But the Syrian elite is, for the most part, quarrelsome, humorless and inefficient...
...The Syrian economy, which had enjoyed an unprecedented boom during the 1950s, quickly deteriorated...
...In 1957 the Ba'ath and its military fellow travelers cooperated with the Communists and, as a result, ultimately had to flee with indecent haste into Nasser's embrace...
...and "from the Atlantic to the Persian Gulf," his partisans were working assiduously for the establishment of a Moslem-Arab empire led by the Saladin of Cairo...
...If not, the recent Syrian coup could prove to be the beginning of the end of Nasserism...
...the Communists, who were outlawed and persecuted by the secret police...
...At the time, the country was close to political anarchy...
...And King Hussein, backed by economic and military assistance from Britain and the United States, managed to suppress the pro-Nasser movement in Jordan...
...Egypt—five times as large and five times as populous as Syria, and more advanced industrially— naturally dominated the union...
...Walter Laqueur, author of Communism and Nationalism in the Middle East, is editor of Soviet Survey...
...A single Cabinet further centralized power in Cairo...
...In effect, Kuzbari has promised all things to all people: economic prosperity, a higher standard of living, strengthening of the Army and improved conditions in the civil service...
...Within 24 hours Aleppo, the country's second largest city, joined forces with the Capital...
...Mamoun al-Kuzbari, announced that it would restore full democratic freedom and abolish all emergency laws within a few months...
...When unity is established it will find its enemies.' But they answered that Syria was in danger, that it was threatened by the loss of its national character...
...Unity [they said] is the only solution for the survival of Syria.' " This is generally accurate...
...The new regime's prospects for survival in the inevitable political competition with more radical rivals are not bright...
...Soon after, Lebanon changed governments but it too stood aloof from Cairo...
Vol. 44 • October 1961 • No. 35
