scotsman | In Arabic, baath means renaissance or resurrection. The Baath Arab
Socialist Party, to give the organisation its formal title, is the
original secular Arab nationalist movement, founded in Damascus in the
1940s to combat Western colonial rule. But since then, the Baath Party
has undergone many chameleon-like twists in belief and purpose. Even the
young men in Iraq who today claim its discredited banner might be
surprised at the party’s real origins.
Those beginnings lie thousands of miles to the
west, in the leafy streets and pavement cafes of the left bank of the
Seine in Paris.
Here, in the 1930s, the two founders of the Baath
Party were educated at the Sorbonne University. They were middle-class
Arabs from the then French colony of Syria.
Michael Aflaq was a Greek Orthodox Christian and would become
the main ideologue of Baathism, preaching freedom from Western
colonialism, Arab unity and socialism. And Salah al-Din Bitar, born of a
Muslim family in Damascus, would be the practical politician, later
becoming prime minister of an independent Syria.
Back home in
French Syria, they became teachers by day and political intriguers by
night. Early Baathist ideas were strongly fringed with fascism, as you
might expect from a group of men whose ideas were formed in France in
the turbulent Thirties.
The movement was based on classless
racial unity, hence the strong anti-Marxism, and on national socialism
in the scientific sense of the word, such as nationalised industry and
an autarkic economy serving the needs of the nation. Hence, the
antipathy towards Western capitalism.
But the rise of German
fascism also played a role. Many in the Arab world saw Hitler as an
ally. In 1941, the Arab world was electrified by a pro-Axis coup in
Baghdad. At that time, Iraq was nominally independent but Britain
maintained a strong military presence. An Arab nationalist by the name
of Rashid Ali al-Kailani organised an army coup against the pro-British
Iraqi monarchy and requested help from Nazi Germany. In Damascus, then a
Vichy French colony, the Baath Party founders immediately organised
public demonstrations in support of Rashid Ali.
After the Second World War, the Baathists emerged
as the leadership of Arab nationalism for two reasons. First, they were
the only force with a coherent ideology. Second, the existing Arab
political elites were blamed for the establishment of the state of
Israel in 1948. Nor was Islam a competitor. For the Western-educated
founders of Baathism, Islam smacked of backwardness. For the nascent
Islamic fundamentalists, the Baathists were substituting Arabism for the
much wider historic conquests of Muslim civilisation. But it was that
pan-Arab nationalism that appealed to discontented Arab youth in the
Fifties and Sixties.
Baathism had something else to offer these
youths: its tight, disciplined internal organisation which - at any
rate, before the party became corrupt - stood in sharp contrast to the
ramshackle nature of many Arab civil institutions.
Like the Nazi
and Communist parties, the Baath is organised through small cells in a
rigid hierarchy. Members are expected to devote their life to the party.
In Iraq, would-be members pass through four stages even before becoming
a full member: supporter, sympathiser, nominee and trainee. Currently,
there are about two million Iraqis in these categories. The system
requires passing successfully a series of tests, so full members of
Saddam’s Baathist organisation are the most hardened and fanatical of
his supporters.
With war looming, Saddam has extended this
principle with the establishment of Fedayeen Saddam, many of whom have
been in action against allied troops. The Fedayeen consists of teenage
level members or novices eager to move up in the Baath hierarchy ladder.
In this respect, they are very reminiscent of the Hitler Youth.
It is estimated that there are about 40,000 full
members of the Baath Party in Iraq. Each is assigned to an autonomous
cell. A cell consists of three to five members, only one of whom would
have a link to the next level of operation. This limits the ability to
penetrate the organisation from without. This structure was born of the
original clandestine and illegal life of the Baathists before they came
to power.
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