Bashar al-Assad (left) thanks the Syrian people on the seventh day following the death of his brother Bassel. Beside him is his father, President Hafez al-Assad, on Jan. 28, 1994. (Archival photo: SANA/L’Orient-Le Jour)
Damascus, March 17, 1963. In front of the RTF camera, interviewed by French journalist Jacques Abouchar, Michel Aflak, the Baath party co-founder and Baathist theorist, seemed, as usual, laconic. The region was in turmoil. During the Feb. 8, 1963 coup, the Baath Party had seized power in Iraq in less than a month. 28 days later, it did so in Syria. Aflak responded in a slow, measured voice, punctuated by hesitant silences. “How is it that you are not part of the Syrian ministerial team?” Abouchar asked him.“You know very well that the Baath exists in several Arab countries. I am the secretary-general of the national leadership [in the pan-Arab sense] of this party, and I do not belong to a single country,” Aflak replied, before defending the idea of a political union that would bring together Syria, Iraq and Egypt. Interview Stephan...
Damascus, March 17, 1963. In front of the RTF camera, interviewed by French journalist Jacques Abouchar, Michel Aflak, the Baath party co-founder and Baathist theorist, seemed, as usual, laconic. The region was in turmoil. During the Feb. 8, 1963 coup, the Baath Party had seized power in Iraq in less than a month. 28 days later, it did so in Syria. Aflak responded in a slow, measured voice, punctuated by hesitant silences. “How is it that you are not part of the Syrian ministerial team?” Abouchar asked him.“You know very well that the Baath exists in several Arab countries. I am the secretary-general of the national leadership [in the pan-Arab sense] of this party, and I do not belong to a single country,” Aflak replied, before defending the idea of a political union that would bring together Syria, Iraq and Egypt. Interview...