ALYAZYA

Politics & Civil Society in the Middle East

By Alyazya Akhazraji (2019)

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The rise of the Ba’ath movement marked the first half of the 20th century in the Middle East, especially in Syria and Iraq. The Ba’ath is an Arab socialist movement founded in the late 1930s and early 1940s by Michel’ Aflaq, an Orthodox Christian, and Salah al-Din Bitar, a Sunni Mulsim (Devlin, 1991; Larkin & Kerr 2015). This period featured “intense nationalist activity in Palestine, Greater Syria, and Iraq […] against the continued direct control of the area by Britain and France (Galvani, 1974). Thus, a lot of middle-class and pluralist political parties rose (Larkin & Kerr 2015). The pan-Arab socialist narrative was instrumental to the rise of the Ba’ath because the movement itself “was the first to advocate Arab Socialism and to formulate its characteristic” (Lenczowski, 1966). In 1956 it developed into a political party and became a driving force in Syrian politics. Eventually, it came into governance via a coup in 1963 (Lenczowski, 1966; Larkin & Kerr 2015). Pan-Arabism and the movement’s secular ideas and lack of religious identity made it favorable to the population. There are more factors at play on an international, regional and internal level that allowed the Ba’ath to rise. However, this paper focuses on the influence of pan-Arabism on the development of the Ba’ath movement as a political party in Syria from its formation to the 1963 coup. In order to do so, it discusses the effects of the United Arab Republic as a pan-Arab state as well as its failure. It explores anti-western and anti-Israeli Syrian sentiments and their alliance with Palestinian refugees. Furthermore, it explains France’s reaction to the rise of pan-Arabism and its influence on Syria’s internal politics.

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