The Arab Socialist Baath Party

• published: 07 Apr 2012
• views: 28083

I put some sort of translation for the anthem (it is a poem and not that easy to be translated). Press the cc button on the player to view the translation. See the photo: http://truthsyria.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/how-to-view-translation.png Make sure that the annotation button is activated (red for instance) http://truthsyria.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/show-annotations.png On 07.April.1947 the Baath party was established. It started with the ideas of the great Syrian philosopher "Zaki al-Arsuzi" (from Arsuz, a city in the occupied - by Turkey of course - Iskenderun). Later the party comprised the ideas of another philosopher "Michel Aflaq". in 1952 the party united with the socialists led by "Akram Al-Hurani", and took its final name "The Arab Socialist Baath Party". The Baath members were oppressed by the successive Syrian governments. In 1958 the party was dissolved along with all other Syrian parties as a condition made by the Egyptian president "Jamal Abdul Nasser" to establish the union between Syria and Egypt. The union lasted for three years in 1961 when a group of corrupted military officers backed by merchants and bankers ended the union. It was a reign of terror and many key members in the Baath party were sentenced to death by the separation government. On 08.March.1963 a group of military officers from the Baath party organized a coup against the separation government and succeed. This event is know in Syria as 08.March Revolution. It was really a revolution, a true revolution and not like the crappy terrorist Wahhabi revolution we are witnessing nowadays. The new Baath government made significant changes in the Syrian society. May be you can say that 08.March revolution set the base of everything good in Syria. After the revolution "Amin al-Hafiz", a rightist from the city of Hama, became the new president. However his strong ties with the Islamists posed a great danger to the ideas of the Baath, and the revolution was at a crossroad. It was a first tough test for the unity of the party. Amin al-Hafiz had to be removed, which was achieved by general Salah Jadid, a leftist from Lattakia countryside. Noureddine al-Atassi, a leftist from Homs, became the president. Salah Jadid led a true social movement in the country. He also led a campaign against corruption in the government and the state apparatuses. Salah Jadid himself was known to be honest and clean (he used to live in a rented house in Damascus, and had no house in his village), this was actually the case of the Baath leaders in that period. The relationships between Syria and the Gulf states entered its worst stage in history (even worse than now), also the relationships with the US and the NATO-bloc, however more ties were established with the soviet union and its allies. After the defeat in 1967 war, conflicts started to rise again within the party, this time between Salah Jadid (he left the army to lead the political wing of the party) and the defense minister general Hafiz Al-Assad. in 1970 Salah Jadid sent Syrian tanks to Jordan in order to defend the Palestinians against the King who was massacring them. The Syrian troops advanced rapidly towards the Jordanian capital. However the tanks were attacked by the Israeli air force. The increasing conflicts between the political and military leadership doomed the campaign to fail, and the tanks had to be withdrawn. The Palestinians had to leave Jordan after a Gulf-Egyptian initiative. The Baath party was on fire, and it looked like that there was no way out. General Hafiz Al-Assad stepped and ended the conflict, and he became later the president of Syria. President Hafiz Al-Assad continued the social movements with more "pragmatic ideology". Being too long in power without maintenance caused serious problems within the body of the party. Being busy with internal struggles against the Muslim brotherhood, and external struggles against Israel (1973, 1978,1982) and against the US (1982 in Lebanon) also increased the problems. The Baath party is not that devil that some people try to introduce nowadays. The Baath party itself is a victim of corruption, and it is time for the party to redeem its fine reputation.