Ba'ath Party

The Ba'ath Party is a political party started in Syria in 1947. The word Ba’ath is an Arabic word which means ‘resurrection and renaissance’. The name refers to the main intention of the party which is ‘Arab unity and freedom from non-Arab control and domination’.^[1] Baʿthism calls for the Arab world to be a single state.

The Ba’ath Party was set up by Michel Aflaq (1910-1989) a Christian and Salah al-Din al-Bitar (1912-1980) a Sunni Muslim. Their political vision was a mixture of Arab nationalism, Arab socialism, and anti-imperialism. ^[2] By 1945, the Baathists decided to register their party to become an official party, but their application was rejected by the French mandate which administrated Syria.^[3] The theme ‘unity’ became an inspiration for Lebanon, Jordan and other Arab countries in 1948-1951. The connection for Arab nationalism became attractive and popular and Baatism spread out all over the Arab region.^[4] The Arab Baʿth Party merged with the Arab Socialist Movement, led by Akram al-Hawrani, in 1952 to form the Arab Socialist Baʿth Party. This was a relative success. It became the second-largest party in the Syrian parliament in the 1954 election. This and the increasing strength of the Syrian Communist Party led to the establishment of the United Arab Republic, a union of Egypt and Syria, in 1958.

After the attack of 1956 in Egypt by Britain, France and Israel, Iraqis realized how cruel these invaders are and that they no longer can’t stay on the side of the British. This bitter awareness was a seed to the Iraqi revolution by the youngsters. Hafaz al-Assad (1930-2000) was the ruler of the Ba’ath Party in Syria and Saddam Hussein (1937-2006) was the ruler of the Ba’ath Party in Iraq.^[5] The Ba’ath Party was active in Syria and Iraq after military coups in 1963.

The Ba’ath party wanted to create unity among Arabs. The ideology of socialism for the Ba’ath Party was social justice for the poor and underprivileged. The slogan was: ‘Unity, Freedom, Socialism’ and ‘One Arab Nation with an Immortal Mission’. The Ba’ath Party was the first Arab political party with pan-Arabist goals.^[6] Pan-Arabism is a theory that Arab people and nations should be united, or a movement to achieve such unity.^[7] The main goals of Pan-Arabism are that every Arab seeks independence from imperialism and thus creates unity within the Arab community. Since there were common problems related to Western imperialism, the Arabs could come to a compromise to work on this. ^[8]

1. ↑ Wehr, Hans. Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic (4 ed.). p. 80.
2. ↑ Devlin, John F. (December 1991). "The Baath Party: Rise and Metamorphosis". The American Historical Review. 96 (5): 1398. doi:10.2307/2165277. JSTOR 2165277.
3. ↑ "Michel Aflaq founded Syria's Baath Party 75 years ago". TRTWORLD. 8 April 2022.
4. ↑ Devlin, John F. (December 1991). "The Baath Party - Rise and Metamorphosis". Oxford Journals. 96 (5): 1399. doi:10.2307/2165277. JSTOR 2165277 – via The American Historical Review.
5. ↑ Coates Ulrichsen, Kristian (2018). A Dictionary of Politics in the Middle East. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780191835278.
6. ↑ Devlin, John F. (December 1991). "The Baath Party: Rise and Metamorphosis". Oxford Journals. 96 (5): 1399. doi:10.2307/2165277. JSTOR 2165277 – via The American Historical Review.
7. ↑ "Pan-Arabism". Cambrigde Dictionary. 2022 – via Cambridge University Press.
8. ↑ James, Jankowski (May 2018). "Pan-Arabism". Encyclopedia.com.