Michel Aflaq

The Arab Ba'ath Party merged with Akram al-Hawrani's Arab Socialist Party to establish the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party in 1952; Aflaq was elected the party's leader in 1954. During the mid-to-late 1950s the party began developing relations with Gamal Abdel Nasser, the President of Egypt, which eventually led to the establishment of the United Arab Republic (UAR). Nasser forced Aflaq to dissolve the party, which he did, but without consulting with party members. Shortly after the UAR's dissolution, Aflaq was reelected as Secretary General of the National Command of the Ba'ath Party. Following the 8th of March Revolution, Aflaq's position within the party was weakened to such an extent that he was forced to resign as the party's leader in 1965. Aflaq was ousted during the 1966 Syrian coup d'état, which led to a schism within the Ba'ath Party. He escaped to Lebanon, but later went to Iraq. In 1968 Aflaq was elected Secretary General of the Iraqi-led Ba'ath Party; during his tenure he held no de facto power. He held the post until his death on 23 June 1989.

Aflaq died on 23 June 1989 in Paris, after undergoing heart surgery there.

Upon his death in 1989 he was given a state funeral. A large tomb and mausoleum were erected to form a shrine for him. The tomb, widely regarded as a work of great artistic merit, designed by Iraqi architect Chadagee, was located on the western grounds of the Ba'ath Party Pan-Arab Headquarters, at the intersection of Al-Kindi street and the Qādisiyyah Expressway overpass. Although there were rumors and accusations that his tomb was destroyed during the 2003 Iraq War, the burial chamber and building above it were left untouched. Its blue-tiled dome can be seen above the concrete T-walls surrounding the Camp's perimeter.

Saddam Hussein claimed that Aflaq converted to Islam before his death. According to anonymous Western diplomats, Aflaq's own family disagreed with that claim - however, Aflaq's son, Iyad, confirmed that his father thought about conversion in 1980. Upon his disputed conversion, he supposedly adopted "Ahmad" as a first name. According to the German orientalists Martin Robbe and Gerhard Höpp, the conversion happened before 1988. Regardless of the disagreements about his religion, he was given an Islamic funeral. According to the Berkley Center, anonymous members of Aflaq's family claimed that Aflaq's conversion was a lie made up by Saddam Hussein which he used as a tool to distance Ba'athism from Christianity. The tomb constructed on the orders of Hussein was later used as a military barrack by American soldiers after the 2003 American invasion of Iraq for troops stationed within the Green Zone. Aflaq's family reported that the tomb was badly damaged during the invasion.

After four years of self-imposed exile Aflaq returned to Iraq in 1974, a year before the Lebanese Civil War broke out. He refrained from taking part in Iraqi politics. He published several works during this period, the most notable being The Struggle Against Distorting the Movement of Arab Revolution in 1975. Aflaq regained some of his influence when he befriended Saddam Hussein, President of Iraq from 1979 until 2003. During the Iran–Iraq War the Iranian leadership accused Hussein of being under the control of a Christian, and Aflaq himself was labelled "a Christian infidel". Effectively, throughout his tenure as secretary general in Iraq, Aflaq was given all due honour as the founder of the Ba'ath movement, but on policy-making, he was ignored.

Aflaq moved to Baghdad following his reelection to the secretary generalship in February 1968. He stayed there until 1970, when Black September happened, he criticized the Ba'ath leadership of doing too little to help the Palestine Liberation Organisation during the conflict. During the conflict, Aflaq lobbied extensively for Yasser Arafat and the PLO. Aflaq wanted Iraqi intervention; al-Bakr, however, refused to get Iraq involved in such a conflict. Because of this, Aflaq returned to Lebanon in self-imposed exile. The government of Hafez al-Assad, the President of Syria, condemned Aflaq to death in absentia in 1971.

Aflaq's theories about society, economics, and politics, which are collectively known as Ba'athism, hold that the Arab world needs to be unified into one Arab Nation in order to achieve an advanced state of development. He was critical of both capitalism and communism, and critical of Karl Marx's view of dialectical materialism as the only truth. Ba'athist thought placed much emphasis on liberty and Arab socialism – a socialism with Arab characteristics, which was not part of the international socialist movement as defined by the West. Aflaq believed in the separation of state and religion, and was a strong believer in secularisation, but was against atheism. Although a Christian, he believed Islam to be proof of "Arab genius". In the aftermath of the 1966 Ba'ath Party split, the Syrian-led Ba'ath Party accused Aflaq of stealing al-Arsuzi's ideas, and called him a "thief". The Iraqi-led Ba'ath Party rejects this, and does not believe that al-Arsuzi contributed to Ba'athist thought.

The Regional Congress of the Syrian Regional Branch, in March 1965, devolved power from the center, the National Command, to the Regional Command. From then on, the Regional Secretary of the Regional Command was considered Syria's ex officio head of state. The Regional Secretary had the power to appoint the Prime Minister, the cabinet, the chief of staff and top military commanders. Aflaq was unsettled by the way things were moving, and in May he convened the Eighth National Congress to get a showdown between his followers and those of the Military Committee. However, this never came to fruition. Several civilian members of the National Command, such as the Lebanese Jibran Majdalani and the Saudi Ali Ghannam, advised caution, believing that if he pressed the Military Committee too hard the military would take over the Syrian Regional Branch, and then the Ba'ath Party—as had happened in Iraq following the ousting of the Iraqi Regional Branch. Because of their concerns, Aflaq kept quiet. But to his astonishment, keeping quiet caused him to lose his post as Secretary General – Aflaq was succeeded as Secretary General of the National Command by Munif al-Razzaz, a Jordanian of Syrian origin. However, the power between the two camps was unexpectedly reshuffled when Amin al-Hafiz defected to Aflaq's camp. In contrast to other military officers al-Hafiz had very little influence within or outside the party. Al-Hafiz's defection led to a resurgence of activity within Aflaq's faction, al-Bitar and Umran were brought back from Spain to form a new government.

The break with Nasser weakened the original leaders of the Ba'ath Party, which in turn gave the Military Committee room to expand. After taking power, the Military Committee looked for theoretical guidance, but instead of going to Aflaq to solve problems (which was usual before), they contacted the party's Marxist faction led by Hammud al-Shufi. At the Syrian Ba'athist Regional Congress, the Military Committee "proved" that it was rebelling equally against Aflaq and the traditional leadership, as against their moderate social and economic policies. The Military Committee was bent on removing Aflaq from a position of power, believing that he had become old and frail. At the Sixth National Congress held in October 1963, Aflaq was barely able to hold on to his post as Secretary General – the Marxist factions led by al-Shufi and Ali Salih al-Sa'di, in Syria and Iraq respectively, were the majority group. Another problem facing Aflaq was that several of his colleagues were not elected to party office, for instance al-Bitar was not reelected to a seat in the National Command. Instead of the traditional civilian leadership, a new leadership consisting of military officers was gradually growing; Jadid and Amin al-Hafiz from Syria and Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr and Salih Mahdi Ammash from Iraq were elected to the National Command. While the Military Committee was in fact taking control over the Ba'ath Party from the civilian leadership, they were sensitive to such criticism, and stated, in an ideological pamphlet, that civilian-military symbiosis was of major importance, if socialist reconstruction was to be achieved. To the outside world Aflaq seemed to be in charge. As the Tunisian newspaper L'Action tunisienne [fr] put it; "The philosopher who made two coups [Iraqi and Syrian coups] in a month".

The Ba'ath Party captured 20 seats, down from 22, in the 1961 election. In 1962, after four years, Aflaq convened the Fifth Congress in Homs. Al-Hawrani was not invited; cells that had stayed active and defied Aflaq's orders, and Ba'athists who become Nasserists during the period of the UAR, were not invited to the congress. Aflaq was reelected the National Command's secretary general, and ordered the reestablishment of the Syrian-regional Ba'ath organisation. During the congress, Aflaq and the Military Committee, through Muhammad Umran, made contact for the first time; the committee asked for permission to initiate a coup d'état; Aflaq supported the conspiracy. Following the success of the February 1963 Iraqi coup d'état, led by the Ba'ath Party's Iraqi Regional Branch, the Military Committee hastily convened to hatch a coup against Nazim al-Kudsi's presidency. The 8th of March Revolution, a military coup launched in 1963, proved successful, and a Ba'athist government in Syria was established. The plotters first order was to establish the National Council of the Revolutionary Command (NCRC), consisting entirely of Ba'athists and Nasserists, and controlled by military personnel rather than civilians from the very beginning.

When, under the United Arab Republic (UAR), Aflaq was forced by Nasser to dissolve the party, he disbanded the party by himself, instead of convening a congress on the matter. The UAR proved to be disastrous for the Ba'ath Party – the party was sidelined to a great extent by Nasser's government. The Ba'ath movement, which was on the verge in 1958 of becoming the dominant Arab nationalist movement, found itself in disarray after three years of Nasserist rule. Only a handful of Ba'athists were given public office in the UAR's government, al-Hawrani became vice president and al-Bitar became Minister of Culture and Guidance. Several members, mostly young, blamed Aflaq for this situation; it was he who dissolved the party in 1958 without consulting the National Congress. Hafez al-Assad and Salah Jadid amongst others, eventually established the Military Committee to save the Syrian Ba'ath movement from annihilation. The party's Third National Congress in 1959 supported Aflaq's decision to dissolve the party, but a 1960 National Congress, in which Jadid was a delegate representing the then-unknown Military Committee, reversed the decision and called for the Ba'ath Party's reestablishment. The Congress also decided to improve relations with Nasser by democratising the UAR from within. A faction within the party, led by al-Hawrani, called for Syria's secession. When the UAR broke up in 1961, some members applauded the dissolution, among them was al-Bitar.

In contrast to his longtime friend and colleague Salah al-Din al-Bitar, who was more practical when it came to politics, Aflaq was a "visionary, the dreamer rather unfitted for political life". Aflaq was described by his associates as an "ascetic, shy and intense figure living a simple and unpretentious life." He has been accused of seeking help from other people instead of fulfilling his goal by himself or with others he led; Aflaq collaborated with Gamal Abdel Nasser, Abd al-Karim Qasim and Abdul Rahman Arif in 1958, to Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr and Ali Salih al-Sadi in 1963 and finally in the 1970s to Saddam Hussein. There are several Ba'athists, mostly from the Syrian-led Ba'ath Party, who believe Aflaq stole Ba'athist ideology from its original founder, Zaki al-Arsuzi. These individuals have denounced, and labelled, Aflaq as a "thief".

Aflaq at first extended his support to the new government, believing that he and the Ba'ath Party could collaborate with Shishakli because they shared the same Arab nationalist sentiments. His analysis of Shishakli proved to be wrong, and one of Shishakli's first decisions as ruler was to ban all political parties, including the Ba'ath Party. The Ba'ath Party leadership, and several leading members, escaped to Lebanon in the wake of increased government repression. In Lebanon Aflaq and al-Bitar agreed to a merger of the Arab Ba'ath Party and the Arab Socialist Party (ASP), led by Akram al-Hawrani, to establish the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party in 1952. The newly formed party worked as a base of operation against Shishali's rule – Aflaq and the rest cooperated with non-Ba'athist opposition forces too. Shishakli was toppled in February 1954.

After a falling out with the Military Committee, of which he was a member, Muhammad Umran told Aflaq about the committee's secret plans to oust the civilian leadership, led by Aflaq, and take over the Ba'ath Party. Shortly after, Umran was sent into exile as Ambassador to Spain for supporting the Aflaq faction. Aflaq responded to the threat posed to his leadership by invoking his office as secretary general, and calling for the National Command to dissolve the Regional Command. He was forced to withdraw his request, when the majority of Ba'ath Party members proved to oppose such a move. A contest for power, between Aflaq and the Military Committee, ensued in the open; but it was a struggle Aflaq was losing. It was plain from the very beginning that the initiative lay with the anti-Aflaq forces. To counter the military threat, Aflaq invoked party rules and regulations against them. To counter this, the Military Committee befriended a staunchly anti-Aflaq civilian faction calling themselves the "Regionalists" – this group had not dissolved their party organisations as ordered by Aflaq in the 1950s.

The Arab Ba'ath Party's first congress was held in Damascus in 1947. Aflaq took the pre-eminent position of Amid, sometimes translated as 'doyen' or as 'leader'; and was elected to a four-member executive committee. Under the constitution adopted at the congress, this made him effective leader of the party, with sweeping powers within the organisation; al-Bitar was elected Secretary General of the National Command. Zaki al-Arsuzi, the leader of the Arab Ba'ath, was not given any position, or membership in the party. Aflaq as Amid was responsible for ideological affairs and became the party's mentor, while al-Bitar controlled the party's day-to-day management. The merger would prove problematic, several members of the al-Arsuzi-led Ba'ath Party were more left-leaning, and would become, later in Aflaq's tenure as leader, highly critical of his leadership.

On 24 October 1942, both Aflaq and al-Bitar resigned from their teaching positions, now determined to devote themselves fully to the political struggle. In 1941 the Syrian Committee to Help Iraq was established to support the Iraqi Government led by Rashid Ali al-Gaylani against the British invasion during the Anglo–Iraqi War. Al-Arsuzi, the leader of the other Arab Ba'ath movement, was skeptical of the new committee, and opposed helping the Iraqis on the ground that they would lose anyway. In 1941 the movement began publishing documents under the name the "Arab Ihya Movement". Later, in 1945, Aflaq and al-Bitar asked the French Mandate authorities to grant the movement a party license. The Arab Ba'ath movement did not become an official party until 1947, when it merged with al-Arsuzi's Arab Ba'ath Movement to found the Arab Ba'ath Party. The Arab Ba'ath Movement, led by Aflaq and al-Bitar, drew supporters from al-Arsuzi's Ba'ath Movement; during the 1940s, al-Arsuzi started to seclude himself from the public eye, he developed a deep distrust of others and became, according to some of his associates, paranoid. When the two Ba'ath movements merged and established the Arab Ba'ath Party in 1947, the only subject discussed was how much socialism to include; Wahib al-Ghanim and Jalal al-Sayyid from the al-Arsuzi led Ba'ath movement wanted Aflaq and al-Bitar to adopt more radical socialist policies.

Upon their return to Syria, Aflaq and al-Bitar became teachers at Tajhiz all'-Ula, "the most prestigious secondary school in Syria". Aflaq taught history, while al-Bitar taught math and physics. By 1940, Aflaq and al-Bitar had managed to set up a student circle, which usually met on Fridays. That year, the Arab Ihya Movement, a political party, was established by Aflaq and al-Bitar. They used most of their spare time in 1941 to agitate for the party. It was in 1942 that Aflaq showed his skills as "a compelling speaker" who was able to utilize the "theatrical pause" to great effect. The party changed its name to Arab Ba'ath Movement to signify the radical changes which were sweeping the Middle East; Rashid Ali al-Gaylani, the Prime Minister of Iraq, had challenged Britain's domination over Iraq. The replacement of the word "Revival" with "Ba'ath" (Arabic: بعث, literally means resurrection/rebirth) signified that Arab revival had been replaced ideologically by the need for an Arab rebirth. The change of name led to Zaki al-Arsuzi, leader of the Arab Ba'ath Party, to accuse Aflaq and al-Bitar of stealing his party's name from him. Though both men were promoting a party platform based on an Arab nationalist stance, Aflaq and al-Arsuzi became bitter rivals.

In the late 1940s, Aflaq and al-Bitar gave free lessons on Ba'athist thought, and in 1948 they established the newspaper al-Ba'ath (English: rebirth/resurrection). Aflaq tested the Ba'ath Party's strength during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War after early Syrian defeats – he led several demonstrations against the government led by President Shukri al-Quwatli. He personally led demonstrations, and claimed that al-Quwatli, a landowner, was a corrupt and capitalistic politician, who was to blame for the Syrians army's defeat. Aflaq called for al-Quwatli's resignation, and wrote several al-Ba'ath articles criticising his presidency and his prime minister, Jamil Mardam Bey. Aflaq was later arrested on the orders of al-Quwatli's prime minister Bey. Al-Quwali's government was brought down in a coup d'état led by military officer Husni al-Za'im. Al-Za'im banned all parties, claiming that Syria was not ready to establish a liberal democracy yet. Aflaq, who had been set free, was rearrested during al-Zai'm's presidency and sent to the notorious Mezzeh Prison. Al-Za'im's rule did not last for long, and in August 1949, he was toppled, and Hashim al-Atassi, who was democratically elected, took his place. Al-Atassi established a national unity government, and Aflaq was appointed to the post of Minister of Education, the only government post he would ever hold; he held it from August to December 1949. Al-Attasi's presidency did not last for very long either, and in 1951 Adib Shishakli took power in a military coup.

Aflaq's downfall caused a split within the Ba'ath Party; the party was de facto dissolved and two Ba'ath Parties were established, one Iraqi-led Ba'ath Party and one Syrian-led Ba'ath Party. The Syrian-led party was led by Jadid and his supporters and hailed Zaki al-Arsuzi, the founder of the Arab Ba'ath in 1940, as the father of Ba'athist thought, while the Iraqi-led party led by Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr and Saddam Hussein, still proclaimed Aflaq to be the founder of Ba'athist thought. In February 1966 at the Ninth National Congress, held after the coup which ousted the pro-Aflaq faction, the Iraqi delegation split with the Syrian Ba'athists. The Iraqis held the true Ninth National Congress in February 1968 in Beirut, and elected Aflaq as Secretary General of the National Command. Aflaq's election to the secretary generalship also proved to be his final break with al-Bitar; before the congress convened al-Bitar announced that he had left the Ba'ath Party and given up on the Ba'athist movement as a whole.

Born into a middle-class family in Damascus, Syria, Aflaq studied at the Sorbonne, where he met his future political companion Salah al-Din al-Bitar. He returned to Syria in 1932, and began his political career in communist politics. Aflaq became a communist activist, but broke his ties with the communist movement when the Syrian–Lebanese Communist Party supported colonial policies through the Popular Front under the French Mandate of Syria. Later in 1940 Aflaq and al-Bitar established the Arab Ihya Movement (later renaming itself the Arab Ba'ath Movement, taking the name from Zaki al-Arsuzi's group by the same name). The movement proved successful, and in 1947 the Arab Ba'ath Movement merged with al-Arsuzi's Arab Ba'ath organisation to establish the Arab Ba'ath Party. Aflaq was elected to the party's executive committee and was elected "'Amid" (meaning the party's leader).

Michel Aflaq (Arabic: ميشيل عفلق, romanized: Mīšīl ʿAflaq‎, Arabic pronunciation: [miːʃeːl ʕaflaq], 9 January 1910 – 23 June 1989) was a Syrian philosopher, sociologist and Arab nationalist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of Ba'athism and its political movement; he is considered by several Ba'athists to be the principal founder of Ba'athist thought. He published various books during his lifetime, the most notable being The Battle for One Destiny (1958) and The Struggle Against Distorting the Movement of Arab Revolution (1975).

Born on 9 January 1910 in Damascus to a middle class Orthodox Christian family, his father, Joseph, working as a grain merchant. Aflaq was first educated in the westernized schools of the French Mandate of Syria. In 1929, he left Syria to study philosophy abroad at the Sorbonne in Paris. During his stay Aflaq was influenced by the works of Henri Bergson, and met his longtime collaborator Salah al-Din al-Bitar, a fellow Syrian nationalist. Aflaq founded an Arab Student Union at the Sorbonne, and discovered the writings of Karl Marx. He returned to Syria in 1932, and became active in communist politics, but left the movement when the government of Léon Blum, supported by the French Communist Party (FCP), continued France's old politics towards its colonies. Aflaq, and others, had believed that the FCP followed pro-independence policies towards the French colonies. It had not helped that the Syrian–Lebanese Communist Party (SLCP) supported the FCP's decision. From then on Aflaq saw the communist movement as a tool of the Soviet Union. He was impressed by the organisation and ideology of Antun Saadeh's Syrian Social Nationalist Party.