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Michael C. Hudson (ed.)
1999
5. The Rise and Fall of the United Arab Republic
Mustapha Kamil Al–Sayyid
That one ambitious experiment of political integration in the Arab world has failed occasions no surprise for observers of Arab politics or integration experiments. Other attempts at integration among Arab countries have met a similar fate; none managed to match even the three and one–half year lifespan of the United Arab Republic. One has only to remember that the confederation of Arab Republics (Egypt, Syria, and Libya), which apparently caused a rift between late president Anwar al–Sadat and his Nasserite ministers in May 1971, survived a mere two years. That was also the fate of similar attempts between Syria and Iraq (1980), and Libya and Tunisia (1981) to mention only a few examples.
The failure of integration schemes cannot be attributed to some unique feature of Arab culture or the Arab mind since similar endeavors in the Third World––Senegal, Mali, and Guinea; Malaysia and Singapore (1963–1965)––also failed. In addition, there are cases in which countries have split apart or have maintained their territorial integrity only by suppressing important segments of the population. A weakened "sense of community" has recently infected some hitherto well–established multinational states in developed countries as well, causing the complete disintegration of the Soviet Union and provoking much tension between French–speaking Canadians and their federal government. The conclusion of a well–known 1957 study on cases of integration in Western countries remains: "The closer we get to modern condition and to our own time, the more difficult it is to find any instances of successful amalgamation of two or more previously sovereign states. Thus far we found not a single full–fledged modern social service state that has successfully federated or otherwise merged with another" (Deutsch et al. 1957, 23).
Such a lesson is no consolation to many Arabs, and not only those identified with Arab nationalism such as the Ba‘thists and the Nasserites. Members of the elite and the masses alike continue to view Arab unity as the best way to promote sound economic development and to gain true Arab independence vis–à–vis great powers. The merger of Syria and Egypt into a constitutionally unitary state demonstrated briefly that Arab unity was no longer a dream; for three–and–half years, it was a concrete reality. The failure of that experiment has continued therefore to inspire many studies, by both Arab and foreign scholars, reflecting on the cause of its failure. On the thirtieth anniversary of the establishment of the United Arab Republic, 90 Arab scholars met in Sana‘a (the capital of the Yemen Arab Republic), to speculate on the lessons to be learned from that experiment. Their papers and deliberations were published in a volume of more than one thousand pages (CAUS 1989).
The plethora of such studies renders the job of this writer rather challenging. Several accounts have been written of how the United Arab Republic (UAR) came into being and how it floundered, and it is not difficult to piece the story together. This makes it hard to come up with a new perspective not previously suggested or to shed new light on any obscure aspect of this experiment. I will begin, therefore, from the point at which previous studies left off, namely the continued controversies surrounding the major issues raised by the experiment, particularly the formula for Arab unity, the meager performance of the integrative structures, and the causes of disintegration. In discussing such issues, interviews conducted in 1982 and 1983 with key figures in the UAR by the research team of which the author was a member help shed additional light on the events that led to the rise and fall of the UAR. The theoretical framework informing my analysis is inspired by the work of Karl Deutsch, since his approach grants a prominent place to security and political considerations in the genesis and evolution of political communities. Such considerations were—and still are—very important in all attempts to build larger political communities in the Arab world. Functionalist approaches to political integration, which became fashionable in the Arab world after the 1970s, were almost unknown to Arab leaders and the public in the 1950s, when the UAR was established.
The Rise of the UAR
Most accounts of the rise of the UAR would concur on the factors that led to the fusion of Egypt and Syria into one country in February 1958. Whatever date one considers as the point of departure for the march toward political unity, national security considerations, broadly defined, loomed large in the calculations of both Syrian army officers and the Egyptian leadership when they decided in mid–January 1958 to unite their countries in one state. Massive support in Syria for the cause of Arab unity, and expectations of a more powerful position for the Ba‘th party in the unified state, constituted important background conditions which weakened any possible resistance to the proposed unity. Given this situation, other sections of the Syrian political elite who would have favored either a federative formula or even unity with Iraq, rather than with Egypt, could not prevail.
The common stand taken by Egypt and Syria against attempts by the United Kingdom and the United States to pressure them into joining Western–dominated military alliances, or to punish them for their opposition to such membership, had brought the two countries closer together since early 1955. Egypt’s symbolic gesture of support to Syria—the dispatch of few hundred Egyptian soldiers to that country in a show of solidarity during its confrontation with Turkey—made a very strong impression on both the Syrian public and Syrian army officers. Some sources attribute to members of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces a feeling of apprehension that disputes among Syrian political parties and their allies in the army could push the country into civil war at a time of fierce rivalry between the superpowers in the Middle East (Seale 1965, chs. 19–22). Other sources suggest that Syrian army officers feared that the Syrian Communist Party would be the only winner in this atmosphere of civil war. According to these sources, the officers concluded that unity with Egypt was the best way to preempt a Communist–inspired takeover (Nasr 1976, 69). Both Syrian and Egyptian sources discount allegations of the fear of the Communist conspiracy, as the communists had—in their view—very few supporters in the armed forces at the time. In interviews, Mahmoud Riad, the Egyptian ambassador to Syria, Abdel Muhsin Abul Nur, the well–connected Egyptian military attaché, and Abdel Hamid al–Sarraj, head of the Second Bureau (military intelligence at the time), all expressed such a view. Most Syrian sources, including those interviewed by the research team, suggest that massive support from the Syrian public as well as the charismatic leadership of Nasser were the most important factors which led the Syrian army and government to ask for unity with Egypt (Asasa 1989, 84–85; Heikal 1988, 1: 280).
Security considerations were also important for the Egyptian leaders. In its confrontation with Western powers after 1955, which led to a military conflict and the abortive invasion of the country by British, French, and Israeli forces in the autumn of 1956, Egypt needed allies. Allies in the Arab world would strengthen its hand in dealing with continued American efforts to enlist all countries in the area, under different guises, in its struggle against communism. Some of those Arab regimes were getting Soviet military, economic, and diplomatic support to face the threat posed by Israel to their security, a threat completely ignored by the United States. Egyptian leaders were reluctant to accept merger with Syria, which would focus Western pressures on the new entity if it continued to reject military alliance with the West. Yet they were also concerned that if they declined the Syrian offer, Syria would move to the opposite camp in the Arab cold war led by Iraq, and supported by both the United States and the United Kingdom. Mahmoud Riad, Hafiz Isma‘il, and Muhsin Abul Nur supported this view. Patrick Seale came to the same conclusion, suggesting that President Nasser was interested in controlling Syrian foreign policy without facing the dilemmas of its turbulent domestic politics. As it became clear to Nasser in his talks with Syrian army officers that he could not guarantee continued Syrian support for his foreign policy if Egypt rejected Syrian demand for unity, Nasser opted for the formula that would enable him to exercise complete control over Syrian domestic politics (Seale 1965, ch. 22).
The prominence of security considerations in the minds of Syrian army officers and Egyptian leaders alike would not have provided sufficient impetus for the February 1958 unification were it not for the pressures exerted by actors who favored complete merger over any formula short of political unity. Those actors included foremost the Syrian public, specific groups of army officers in Egypt and Syria, and the Ba‘th Party.
Syrian Public Opinion
No nation lightly abandons its historical name, its independence, and all the symbols of its national sovereignty. Yet the Syrian people enthusiastically supported this option in the second half of the 1950s. Charmed by the charismatic leadership of Gamal Abdel Nasser; his opposition to Western influence in the Arab world; Egypt’s support under his leadership of liberation movements in the Arab World; his nationalization of the Suez Canal Company; his courageous resistance to armed aggression by Great Britain, France, and Israel in the autumn of 1956; and Egypt’s backing of Syria in the face of pressures exerted by regional and foreign powers, the majority of Syrian people ardently wished to see both Syria and Egypt united as a first step toward a larger entity that would include all Arab countries. Unity for them was the only way to consolidate independence for the Arabs and to restore past glories. Syrian politicians and army officers had to reckon with this massive popularity of the cause of unity. Syrians expressed their feelings in huge demonstrations and letter–writing campaigns between 1956 and 1958.
Army Officers. Although public support for unity with Egypt was an overriding consideration in the movement toward unity, the formula for unity initially emerged from meetings between groups of army officers in Egypt and Syria. Not only was the Syrian delegation which carried the demand for immediate fusion of the two countries to President Nasser on January 11, 1958, made up completely of Syrian army officers, but also their official counterparts in Syria and Egypt were all either former or current army officers. All Egyptians involved in talks leading to unity came originally from the armed forces. Syrian army officers used to meet in Damascus with both the late Mahmoud Riad and Mohsen Abul Nur, ambassador and military attaché, respectively, in Egypt’s embassy to Syria. They met also in January with General Hafiz Isma‘il, chef de cabinet of Abdel Hakim Amer, Egypt’s Minister of War. Amer happened then to be the chief of staff of the joint military command of the two countries. More importantly, the top leadership of Egypt at that time was made up exclusively of the remaining members of the Revolutionary Command Council who led the July 1952 Revolution against the monarchy. Abdel Latif al–Baghdadi mentioned in his memoirs that whereas the majority of those former officers favored a more gradual approach to unity with Syria, President Nasser changed his mind and approved complete merger of the two countries, a position taken as well by Amer, his Minister of War (Baghdadi 1977, 2:37–38). Syrian army officers, on the other hand, were represented in these developments by members of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, which was established by Lieutenant General Afif al–Bizri, who succeeded General Tawfiq Nizam al–Din as the commander of armed forces in 1955. Membership on this council comprised (according to different sources) twenty–two to twenty–seven officers representing all political groupings in the Syrian army. No important decision, whether of a political or military nature, could be taken in Syria without the support of this council (interview with Abdel Hamid al–Sarraj in Asasa 1989, 83).
Patrick Seale has identified six major groupings within the council. M. H. Heikal has identified the same groupings without citing his source (Seale 1965, 320, 322, ch. 18; Heikal 1988, 258). Thus the major blocs within the Syrian army were the following:
Many sources concur on their accounts of tensions among these groups of army officers. All young army officers trained in the Syrian military college of Hama who had replaced the previous generation of less educated officers of the Ottoman army, but their rivalries made them fear each other more than they feared foreign powers. Patrick Seale writes that their rivalries occasionally became too intense to be resolved by any power in Syria and were taken instead to Egyptian War Minister General Amer, the only acceptable judge (Seale 1965, 416–417).
A Syrian author suggests that the Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF) adopted a written statute calling in its second and third articles for "support of the anticolonialist policies of the Government of Sabri al–Asali, consolidation of relations with revolutionary Egypt, and work for union between Egypt and Syria" (Asasa 1989, 83).
How much support did the SCAF enjoy within the Syrian armed forces? It is difficult to answer this question at present. Patrick Seale suggests that the enthusiasm for unity manifested by members of the council was not shared to the same degree by other officers. He adds that whereas the majority of army officers did sympathize with Egypt, members of the SCAF had an additional reason to favor immediate unity with Egypt; namely, their belief that such a move would enable them to rule Syria in the same way that the Revolutionary Command Council ruled Egypt (Seale 1965, 416). Al–Sarraj, for his part, suggests that most of the members of SCAF who went to Egypt in January 1958 for the unity talks were moved, together with the majority of Syrian army officers at that time, by their ardent wish to give concrete shape to the ideal of Arab unity.
The Ba‘th Party
Of all the civilian political forces in Syria, the Ba‘th Arab Socialist Party worked most energetically for unity with Egypt. Arab unity ranked high among the ideals for which Ba‘thists were struggling. In their writings, Ba‘thist leaders Michel Aflaq and Salah al–Bitar expressed their belief that the unity cause would gain considerable momentum if Egypt could be persuaded to join a larger Arab entity. This belief in Arab unity was demonstrated when the party insisted that its participation in the national unity cabinet, formed under the premiership of Sabri al–Asali on June 14, 1956, would depend on the cabinet’s commitment to initiate unity talks with Egypt. On July 5, 1956, the prime minister announced the constitution of a committee to undertake negotiations with Egypt for that purpose (Hudson 1977, 260–267).
The Ba‘th, although a prominent political force in Syria, was by no means the most influential party. It held only 20 seats out of 142 in the national assembly elected in 1955. Within the SCAF, it had perhaps no more than 5 out of 27 members. It could not, therefore, count on its electoral majority or its supporters in the armed forces to seize power in Syria from the conservative parties. These parties sympathized more with Iraq or Saudi Arabia than with Egypt, although they could not declare this position publicly because of the popularity of the Egyptian leadership.
With the prospect of an impending election, which would reveal the incapacity of the Ba‘th to attract a majority of votes, Ba‘thist ministers submitted a proposal to the cabinet in December 1957 calling for the establishment of a federation between Syria and Egypt. Many observers believed that this move was aimed at accelerating the march toward a type of unity with Egypt that would weaken the Ba‘th’s adversaries in Syria and leave it a dominant force on the country’s political scene. After all, the Ba‘th perceived itself to be Nasser’s closest ally (Seale 1965, 405–407, 413–418). The party reluctantly had to accept the complete merger of the two countries, since the efforts of its foreign minister to persuade the January 1958 SCAC delegation to Cairo to opt for a federal link with Egypt rather than complete fusion had failed. The Ba‘th threw its weight behind complete merger, hoping to turn this option to its own favor. This expectation was to be frustrated (al–Sarraj, interview).
The events that led to the fusion of Egypt and Syria in the UAR have been described in many works (Seale 1965; Wilber 1969; Farsakh 1980; Yusuf 1989). There are two ways of telling the story, depending upon the point of departure one designates as the beginning of the march toward unity. According to one version, the decision to fuse the two countries was taken during the visit of members of the SCAF to Cairo from January 11 to 14, 1958, and was implemented on February 22, 1958, following a referendum on that question carried out in the two countries. In that referendum, between 99.98 percent and 99.99 percent of the people endorsed unity. The other version of the story would claim that the real starting point was the Revolution of July 1952 in Egypt, which stirred a strong wave of sympathy in Syria.
The progressive march toward unity acquired concrete shape on March 2, 1955, when the two countries signed a joint statement calling for cooperation in foreign, economic, and military policy, giving rise to the constitution of a joint military command. A few months later, on October 22, 1955, a mutual defense agreement was signed. The national unity government of Sabri al–Asali carried the process further by approving a draft for federation between the two countries on the basis of which Salah al–Bitar, the Ba‘thist foreign minister, was entrusted to negotiate with the Egyptian government. Demonstrations of solidarity between the two peoples multiplied in 1956 and 1957 after the petroleum pipeline—Tapline—passing through Syrian territory was sabotaged during the Suez crisis in November 1956, an action probably ordered by Abdel Hamid al–Sarraj, then head of Syrian military intelligence, but attributed at the time to Syrian workers. Later, Egypt dispatched a few hundred soldiers to Syria on October 13, 1957, during the confrontation between that country and Turkey. The national assemblies of the two countries expressed in November 1957 the wish of the two peoples to be joined in a federation.
The decisive steps leading to the materialization of unity were taken in early 1958. First came the January 11–14 visit of the SCAF to Cairo, and then a visit by senior members of the Syrian government including the premier and the president who signed the treaty establishing the UAR on February 1, 1958. The departure of the SCAF to Cairo was prompted by the impression SCAF members got in meetings with General Hafiz Isma‘il who had been sent by Nasser to discuss ways of consolidating cooperation between the two countries. What Isma‘il proposed did not satisfy the Syrian military, as it was limited to enlarging cooperation between two countries (Isma‘il, interview). They decided to leave for Cairo immediately to try to convince Nasser of the need for complete fusion, and left it to al–Sarraj to inform the government of their departure and to maintain national security in Syria during their absence.
It is interesting to note that the integrative formula proposed by Syrian civilian politicians was that of federation. This was in essence what the Syrian national assembly as well as the cabinet called for. Nasser and most of his colleagues also initially favored a federative formula, to materialize gradually over a period of five years. Both Nasser and Amer changed their minds during the meeting with the Syrian military delegation in Cairo in January 1958. Knowing that Abdel Nasser was not interested in immediate fusion of the two countries, certain Syrian parties and personalities opted precisely for that formula. However, when Nasser changed his mind, some of those personalities—including al–Bizri and even the Ba‘thist Bitar—tried to persuade their colleagues to revert to a federation formula. Nasser, however, formulated three conditions for accepting the complete and immediate fusion of the two countries as demanded by the majority of the SCAF and the Syrian cabinet: dissolution of all political parties in Syria; acceptance of a single mass organization—the National Union—as the framework of political activity in the county (as was the case in Egypt); and banning all political activity by the Syrian armed forces, with those army officers willing to engage in politics to assume civilian posts.
After some discussion, the Syrian military and politicians—with few exceptions—had accepted acquiesced to Nasser’s conditions, paving the way for the declaration of the UAR following the popular referendum on February 22, 1958 (Baghdadi 1977, 31–47; Nasr 1976, 44).
No matter which version of this story one accepts, whether it took three years, six years, or six weeks, the march toward unity was indeed very short compared to any successful experiment of political integration past or present. It has taken Europe thirty–five years to move from a common market to consideration of full economic unity. Transition to a political union is unlikely to take place before the end of the century. The march toward unity between Egypt and Syria was indeed very brief, as was political unity itself.
The two countries came in February 1958 to establish what Karl Deutsch termed an "amalgamated security community"; in other words, "two previously independent units formally merged to constitute a single larger unit, with some type of common government after amalgamation" (Deutsch et al., 1957, 6).
Some of the helpful background conditions that facilitated this integration were: elements of shared culture and history; the charismatic leadership of Gamal Abdel Nasser; and a perception of foreign threat which induced Syrian leaders to make the necessary concessions for the amalgamated community to take shape. However, both the theory and the practices of political integration suggest that such background conditions are only helpful; but not by any means sufficient for a process of integration to proceed. Out of the ten essential conditions in that process suggested by Deutsch et al., only five could be said to have been met in the particular case of the UAR, namely reluctance to wage "fratricidal" war on each other, linguistic unity if not necessarily ethnic assimilation, expectations of stronger economic ties or gain on the part of both the industrial and commercial bourgeoisie of the two countries (Abdel Malek 1962, 143), a marked increase in the political and administrative capabilities of at least one of the two partners (Egypt, as a result of its successes in foreign policy and political stability since 1954) (Sayigh 1982, 1: 381–384), and an increase in communications and transactions stimulated by expanding and diversified relations between the two countries since 1955 (Al–Mashat 1987, 25–28). Other conditions for integration were not only absent, as will be demonstrated later, but more importantly those conditions which facilitated integration in the first place were to disappear only a few months after the brief takeoff of the integration process in the winter and spring of 1958.
Areas of Integration
The "amalgamated political community" lasted only from February 22, 1958 to September 1961—hardly enough time for integration to proceed in all areas of life in the two regions of the United Arab Republic. However, what was accomplished was quite meager, even for such a short period of time. More could have been done, and done better. This was the conclusion of some the people, close to the president, who saw difficulties accumulating in many areas with no decisive action to remove them (Baghdadi 1977, 120–121). The approach used in dealing with problems was often inconsistent.
The most visible signs of integration were a new organization of some of the central powers of the government, a single president, a central government, a single national assembly, a uniform political system based on the single mass organization, and uniform economic policies with the extension of economic planning, agrarian reform, and nationalization of big private firms to the Syrian region. The authoritarian character of Abdel Nasser’s regime experienced by the intelligentsia in Egypt now cast its shadow also on Syria. Some newspapers lost their license; civil and political rights were violated, though the perpetrators in this case were Syrians (Asasa 1989, 134, 149, 260).
An attempt was made also to integrate further the two armies by having officers from one region serve in the other, but this did not go very far. The attempt caused much tension among Syrian army officers, who found this process to be biased in favor of the Egyptian officers (Abul Nur, interview). Similar attempts were made to harmonize the work of administrative and social services, particularly education, and to bring the laws in force in one region more in line with those operative in the other. Such endeavors meet with little success due not only to the short duration of unity, but also to some resistance by Syrian officials.
The areas in which no integration took place were primarily those of monetary and fiscal policies, as each region continued to have its own currency, central bank, and fiscal system, as well as civil as administration and security services. Each region continued to have its own administration, including a separate regional government, until just weeks before secession when the two regional councils were abolished and one central government established on August 16, 1961.
Thus the most visible signs of integration were to be found mostly at the level of the central government. Those signs included the promulgation of a provisional constitution embodying many of the provisions of the constitution of the Republic of Egypt, which endowed the UAR with a presidential regime. The reorganization of government structure which followed fusion did conform to a single pattern, moving from one central government for the two regions on March 6, 1958, to a central government plus a regional executive council for each region on October 7, 1958, and reverting to a single government on August 16, 1961. The task of coordinating government activities in the Syrian region with those of the central government in Cairo was entrusted in Damascus first in April 1958 to Mahmoud Riad, who was appointed as president’s adviser, then in December 1958 to a committee including three vice presidents of the republic with very limited powers, and finally in October 1959 to Field Marshal Amer who was delegated presidential powers over Syria. A national assembly for the two regions was appointed in June 1960 with 600 members, one–third of them from Syria, but exercised its functions for less than a year. Judicial authorities in the two countries remained separate.
Finally, political parties were formally abolished in Syria, and a single mass organization, the National Union, was established there to parallel the political structure in Egypt. Members of the abolished political parties continued, however, to meet and to act collectively in politics (Riad, interview).
Although integration did not proceed in many areas, the areas in which it was effected demonstrate its unbalanced nature, for one region predominated to the detriment of the other. Vice presidents chosen from Egypt outnumbered their Syrian counterparts. They were assigned specific tasks while the functions of their Syrian counterparts were ill–defined. Egyptians outnumbered Syrians in the central government and monopolized all key ministries. The same was true in the national assembly. More seriously, that was also the case in the armed forces, with Egyptian officers serving in Syria exercising effective power while their Syrian counterparts in Egypt had no substantive powers at all (Asasa 1989, 141–142, 154–156, 159–168). Besides, the reorganization of the governmental and political structures of the new state followed exclusively Egyptian lines. If one would add to all this that the president of the UAR came from and its capital was located in the bigger unit (Egypt), the inescapable conclusion is that the integration process implied imbalances, with one region losing more than the other in symbols of respect and prestige.
Syria’s loss in this process was not, however, limited to respect and prestige. The economic performance of the UAR was quite disappointing in two sectors of vital importance to the Syrian people, agriculture and commerce, both of which stagnated during the unity years. Production of grains and agricultural production in general fell from index numbers of 132 and 114 respectively in 1957 to 71 and 81 respectively in 1961, due to a three–year drought. In addition, benefits from agrarian reform were delayed, because confiscated land was not distributed immediately to its beneficiaries and remained uncultivated for years, a policy that aggravated the food crisis in the Syrian region (Sayigh 1982, 381–384; Asasa 1989, 177–192). Strained relations with Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Iraq disrupted Syrian trade with them, causing the Syrian commercial bourgeoisie to lose its most important markets.
Thus if a successful process of integration is usually expressed in a new way of life and the building of new loyalties, it would not be an exaggeration to conclude that life under the UAR seemed to many Syrians to be worse than life before unity, and of a quality that would weaken their loyalty to institutions of the larger political community and even their sense of community. It is intriguing that despite such disappointment, many Syrians continued to believe in the cause of unity and the capacity of the UAR to overcome its difficulties. This was demonstrated by the lack of popularity of the military regime which followed secession, and the pretense by successive regimes that they were working to re–create unity with Egypt (Heikal 1988). It should be noted in this respect that the military officers who put an end to the UAR also claimed to be working for Arab unity.
The Fall of the UAR
While a few favorable background conditions did exist in the case of the UAR, such conditions did not give rise to a dynamic process of integration. In fact, the exact opposite happened. The proclamation of the UAR was followed by a dynamic process of disintegration. Other necessary conditions were not to materialize, while the few helpful background conditions that existed at the start were gradually eroded. Instead of achieving a threshold for integration at a certain moment later on in that experience, several alarming signs developed which pointed toward a reversal of the 1955–1958 trend toward closer ties between the two peoples. The collapse of the entire edifice of unity seemed by the summer of 1961 to be only a question of time.
Expectations of stronger economic ties or gains on the part of the Syrian commercial and industrial bourgeoisie were soon to be frustrated as a result of custom regulations that flooded Syrian markets with foreign products imported via Egypt (Asasa 1989, 189–190). The nationalization measures of July 1961 affected few Syrian private companies, the owner of one of which was related to the first prime minister appointed after secession from Egypt (Buzu, interview). The marked increase in the political and administrative capacities of the Egyptian government before integration had little spillover effect in Syria after the establishment of the UAR. The dispatch of Egyptian soldiers, experts, and teachers to the "northern region" (i.e. Syria), which usually had been welcome before unity, was viewed with suspicion after the merger (Sayyid Mar‘ei, interview). It is true that a five–year plan was adopted for that region, and a few industrial, infrastructure and agricultural projects were implemented (Mar‘ei, interview; Sedki, interview; Sayigh 1982). Relations between Egyptian leaders and their erstwhile allies in Syria dominated debates within the central government, diverting attention and energy from the principal task of shaping a new and a better way of life for citizens of the two regions, particularly the Syrian one. Under such conditions of near–paralysis, aggravated by the central organs of government, aggravated by the whimsical implementation of agrarian reform as well by the effects of the three–year drought (Mar‘ei, interview; Buzu, interview), the majority of Syrian citizens felt few concrete benefits from the integration project.
Soon, the factors of disintegration began their work as well. The incompatibility of values between Egyptian and Syrian leaders quickly became manifest. Conservative politicians in Syria, who had dominated both the Syrian national assembly and the cabinet before unity, were initially disregarded in favor of the Ba‘thist politicians and army officers who constituted a small minority within the Syrian political elite. The Ba‘thists later became disenchanted when the National Union, the mass organization that was to replace the formerly dissolved political parties, was constituted through elections which they lost massively, and were further alienated when they were not given a free hand in the running of the Syrian region. Ba‘thist ministers thus resigned collectively from the government in December 1959, less than two years after the establishment of the UAR (Asasa 1989, 219–26).
Links of communication between the two peoples, hampered geographically by the lack of contiguity between their territories, were socially strained as well because of the perceived inequality of treatment between the two regions, manifested at various levels. Syrian personalities appointed to the central government found themselves in unimportant ministries, with no power, and for some time even without places of work. They also had the feeling that former members of the Revolutionary Command Council in Egypt agreed on everything in advance and that meetings of the central government simply ratified decisions reached earlier (Abdel Karim 1962, 281). With ministers from each region shunning consultation with their colleagues from the other region in both the central government and the regional executive councils, such organs ceased to be integrative mechanisms. At lower levels, the disparity of power between Egyptians assigned to the Syrian region and Syrians transferred to Egypt poisoned relations between the Syrian officials and their counterparts.
Disaffection among Syrian military officers was particularly serious, for the whole enterprise had taken shape through their initiative in January 1958. It was also to end through their action in September 1961. It is true that the Syrian military was not a homogeneous body in terms of political affiliations. However, Egyptian aides to Field Marshal Amer who were assigned to the command of the Syrian army ended up, unwittingly, alienating most Syrian officers in their attempts to get rid of both those officers whom they perceived to be politically ambitious and their friends. The first to be alienated was General Afif al–Bizri, commander of the Syrian army, whose proposal to transfer and promote some officers shortly after the proclamation of UAR was rejected by both Amer and Nasser on the advice of Abul Nur, who had been assigned to the Syrian high command. The Egyptians viewed al–Bizri’s proposal as excessively favorable to communist officers. Al–Bizri resigned his army post in March 1958, and later left the cabinet–level minister of planning post to which he had been appointed after he quit the army. Abul Nur, together with other Egyptians in the Syrian high command, did their best to remove from the army every Syrian officer reported to be close to any political party (Abul Nur, interview). The only basis for groupings within the Syrian army after this purge of Ba‘thist, Liberationist, Neutralist, and "communist" officers was that of birthplace. Abul Nur and his colleagues did not suspect that such "primordial loyalties" would bring officers together. Yet most of the officers who led the coup d’etat of September 28, 1961, were Damascene in origin (Asasa 1989, 296–97).
The last Syrian personality to be alienated from the Egyptian leadership was the very man chiefly responsible for internal security in Syria, both before and during its fusion with Egypt, namely Abdel Hamid al–Sarraj. Trusted by Nasser, he was given a free hand in Syria and allowed to concentrate much power in his own hands. At the zenith of his power, he personally held the ministries of interior, social affairs, and labor in addition to his post as Secretary General of the National Union and his control over the special security apparatus he established after he quit military intelligence. Many of al–Sarraj’s practices irritated the Syrian people. His approach was not much different from that of Nasser’s minister of interior in Egypt. However, Sarraj’s activities in Syria clashed with those of Field Marshal Amer, who was appointed by Nasser on October 21, 1959, to be his deputy in the Syrian region, essentially exercising presidential powers there. A Syrian source mentioned that Amer had another security service working for him and competing with that of al–Sarraj. In order to trim Sarraj’s powers, he was appointed on August 16, 1961, a vice president of the republic in charge of internal security, but was to perform his job from Cairo. However, a few days in his new post in Cairo convinced Sarraj that he had no power there, prompting him to decide to return to Damascus. Nasser asked Amer to come with Sarraj to Cairo in order to persuade him to accept the new post. Al–Sarraj adamantly rejected the offer, resigned his post on September 24, 1961, and went back to Syria. The coup d’etat which led to the secession of Syria took place four days later (Baghdadi 1977, 1: 107–12; Asasa 1989, 240–41).
By this time, it could be safely said that most of the Syrian politicians and military officers who had worked for unity had been alienated from President Nasser’s leadership. Members of other social groups in Syria who had hoped that fusion of the two countries would mean a better standard of living had seen their position worsen or little improved. No wonder these actors watched indifferently, or even heaved a sigh of relief, as the final act of this play of Arab unity came to an end.
Lessons of the Experience
Maintaining an "amalgamated political community" is indeed a challenging enterprise. The dramatic breakup of the USSR and of Yugoslavia as well as tensions in relations between French–speaking Quebecois and Canadian federal authorities attest to the validity of this observation. However it should be also recognized that the minimal conditions for the survival of this type of political community were not met in the case of the UAR.
The formula for the merger itself was quite ambitious. Syrian politicians talked mostly of a federal framework for the unity of the two countries but had to acquiesce to the determination of the leading group of Syrian army officers to effect an immediate and total fusion of the two countries. President Nasser himself was quite apprehensive about any kind of unity, preferring to proceed gradually. He was supported in this view by most of his colleagues. Not only did Nasser dramatically and somewhat unconvincingly change his mind as a result of conversations with members of the Syrian Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, but he also soon treated anyone who expressed preference for the federal framework as a traitor. This was the case with Egyptian and Syrian communists, many of whom were jailed partly for expressing a federalist view (Mursi, interview; Hussein, interview; Yusuf, interview). A federal framework would have enabled the Syrians to be masters of their own country; benefiting from whatever help or advice they could get from the Egyptians, while taking specific Syrian conditions into consideration. The presence of Egyptians in the army, as well as in government departments in Syria with direct links to Egyptian policymakers in Cairo and in Damascus, did not make the Syrians feel they were masters of their own affairs in the UAR.
A more open political system, permitting opposition views to be expressed, all complaints to be aired, and the appointment of elites to government posts on the basis of some degree of popular consent would have offered a second safety valve to this amalgamated community. It is true that Nasser knew of the difficulties agrarian reform was facing in the Syrian region and of the resentment caused by al–Sarraj’s methods of imposing law and order there. However, it is only in an open political system that the gravity of such problems could be felt and remedial action taken in time, rather than too late as was the case with the removal of al–Sarraj from his security job in Syria. An open political system would have enabled various political forces to remain active, seeking to mobilize popular support while contesting the policies of incumbent parties. A stronger sense of community and commitment to the UAR’s continued existence could have thus been stimulated. From this point of view, the outlawing of political parties in the UAR was not a wise decision, for it left no other option but underground opposition to those Syrian political leaders who were alienated from Nasser’s policies but wanted to mobilize public opinion to change them. The single mass organization could not have served as a framework for oppositional political activity, as it was strictly controlled by al–Sarraj’s security services. The weak appointed national assembly functioned for just one year.
Deutsch (1957, 55) speaks of "a balance of respect—or of symbols standing for respect" as a likely important condition for successful amalgamation of sovereign states. Such a balance was definitely missing in the UAR. The Syrians wanted definitely to have part of the prestige the creation of this larger territorial entity created in the Arab world. The Syrian politicians and senior army officers wanted to exchange their allegiance to Nasser’s leadership for a free hand in their own country and Nasser’s endorsement of a prominent position for the Ba‘th Party in particular in Syria. They wanted also to be seen as taking part in directing affairs of the new integrated community. Obviously, this was not the case. Both prestige as well as effective power went mostly to the Egyptians. Egyptians outnumbered Syrians in all organs of the central government, and among vice presidents, ministers, and members of the legislature. The Egyptians also monopolized positions of prestige and respect. All key posts were in the hands of Egyptians: supreme command of the armed forces, and the ministries of foreign affairs, interior, economy, and treasury. Even the vice president for the affairs of the Syrian region was Egyptian. Baghdadi recounted that Nasser contemplated appointing him as head of the Executive Council, i.e., the Council of Ministers, for the Syrian region, an offer Baghdadi wisely declined. Moreover, Egyptian aides and advisers sometimes vetoed the decisions of their Syrian superiors in the army as well as in the Executive Council, as was the case of Abul Nur and Mahmoud Riad respectively (Abul Nur, interview; Asasa 1989, 134–44). Syrians who were dispatched to Egypt either as ministers or senior officials had no parallel powers. One need only add that the capital of the UAR and its president were identical to those of the Republic of Egypt before unity to complete the picture of unbalanced distribution of power and prestige between the two regions.
However, even these three conditions—a federal framework, a more open political system, and a more balanced division of power and prestige—might not have been sufficient to maintain this "amalgamated Political Community." They do not guarantee consolidation of links and cultivation of ties between the two formerly separate entities. Such links are usually weak and limited among countries of the "periphery," compared to their multiple and intensive ties with the economically dominant countries of the "center." It is instructive in this regard that data published by those Arab scholars who suggest that the unity enterprise between Egypt and Syria evolved gradually also indicate that interaction between the two entities was more intense before fusion and declined after unity failed (Al–Mashat 1987, 27–28). However, a more complete picture of such transactions would reveal still stronger links with countries of the "center" (Galtung 1976). If Arab unity is ever to be rebuilt, it cannot be founded exclusively on shared culture and common aspirations, but must rather be grounded in concrete interests interwoven into thick and multiple webs of interactions among Arab peoples in all areas of human activity.
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Syrian and Egyptian Politicians Interviewed by the Research Team on Arab Unity 1982–1983
Interviewed by the author:
Abdel Muhsin Abul Nur
Abdel Hamid al–Sarraj
Adel Hussein
Hafiz Isma‘il
Sayyid Mar‘ei
Fu’ad Mursi
Aziz Sedki
Abu Seif Yusuf
Interviewed by other members of the team:
Ali Buzu
Khaled Mohieddin
Mahmoud Riad
Ali Sabri
Omar Talmesani
Members of the Research team on Arab Unity:
Dr. Ahmad Yusuf Ahmad
Dr. Mustapha Kamil al–Sayyid
Dr. Ali Mukhtas
Dr. Hasan Naf‘a
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