Zaki al-Arsuzi

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Zaki al-Arsuzi
زكي الأرسوزي
The Genius of Arabic in its Tongue

Zaki al-Arsuzi (

Arabic: زكي الأرسوزي, romanized: Zakī al-Arsūzī; June 1899 – 2 July 1968) was a Syrian philosopher, philologist, sociologist, historian, and Arab nationalist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of Ba'athism
and its political movement. He published several books during his lifetime, most notably The Genius of Arabic in its Tongue (1943).

Born into a middle-class family in

Arab Ba'ath; by 1944, however, most of its members had left and joined Michel Aflaq's and Salah al-Din al-Bitar's Arab Ba'ath Movement
, which subscribed to a nearly identical doctrine.

In 1947, the two movements merged, forming a single Arab Ba'ath Party. Despite the merger, Al-Arsuzi neither attended its founding conference nor was given membership.

During the rest of the 1940s and 1950s, al-Arsuzi stayed out of politics and worked as a teacher. He made a comeback during the 1960s power struggle in the Ba'ath Party between Aflaq and al-Bitar on one hand and

Syrian-led faction of the Ba'ath Party
.

Al-Arsuzi's theories about society, language and nationalism, which are collectively part of Ba'athist thought, hold that the

Latin language, al-Arsuzi argued, Arabic was far less arbitrary and far more intuitive. Despite his contributions to Ba'athist thought, al-Arsuzi is barely mentioned in Western or Arab scholarship. This omission may be linked to the fact that Sati' al-Husri
, a contemporary Arab nationalist, had many of the same ideas as al-Arsuzi but was better able to articulate them.

Biography

Childhood and early life: 1899–1930

Zaki Najib Ibrahim al-Arsuzi was born in 1900 or 1901 to a middle-class family

Damascus. This, however, was never independently verified.[4]

In the aftermath of

Emile Brehier, Leon Brunschvig (his philosophy professor), Henri Bergson and Johann Gottlieb Fichte among others. The books which influenced Arsuzi most at the time were Bergson's L'Evolution créatrice and Fichte's Reden an die deutsche Nation; of these, Fichte is the philosopher Arsuzi identified most with. Both Fichte and Bergson wrote of the importance of education and in the core, there was the nation.[4]

The Alexandretta crisis and the founding of the Ba'ath: 1930–1939

Al-Arsuzi returned to Syria in 1930 and later worked as a teacher in Antioch in 1932. "The awakening was brutal," according to historian Patrick Seale. The French authorities in Syria prohibited al-Arsuzi from teaching his students about European philosophy and the French Revolution among other topics. When he was caught teaching his students about the ideals of the French Revolution—liberty, equality, fraternity—he was forced out of the class. In 1934 al-Arsuzi founded a student club, the Club des Beaux Arts, with the ambition of spreading French culture; the club was frowned upon by the French authorities. Later that year al-Arsuzi began his political career in earnest and became a strident Arab nationalist.[5]

In August 1933, al-Arsuzi and fifty other Arab nationalists established the

League of National Action (LNA) in the Lebanese city of Quarna'il. Most of the Arab parties at that time were dominated by the former Ottoman elite or had high levels of Ottoman membership. The LNA was one of the few exceptions; the majority of LNA members were young and had been educated in the West. While LNA initially proved popular with the people, its popularity shrank when its founder Abd al-Razzaq al-Dandashi died in 1935. Al-Arsuzi was the LNA's regional head in Antioch, from the founding of the party in 1933 until 1939.[2]

When Turkey first attempted to annex the province of

Arab nationalist struggle.[6] In 1939 France, which controlled Syria, ceded the province to Turkey in order to establish an alliance with that state.[7] Al-Arsuzi left the LNA shortly thereafter.[8]

Al-Arsuzi moved to Damascus in 1938 and began working on his ideas of Arabism and Arab nationalism. Disillusioned with party politics, he gathered several secondary school pupils to establish a learning group. At the group's meetings, al-Arsuzi would talk about, for instance, the

Italian Unification, or about the ideas of Fichte, Friedrich Nietzsche, Karl Marx, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Oswald Spengler and Henri Bergson.[6] Shortly after leaving the LNA, al-Arsuzi established the Arab National Party, an Arab nationalist party with a "defined creed". The party did not last long; al-Arsuzi left for Baghdad at the end of the year.[9] During his stay in Baghdad, al-Arsuzi tried, idealistically, to enlighten Iraqis with his thoughts on Arab nationalism, but returned to Syria disappointed in 1940.[10] On 29 November 1940[11] al-Arsuzi founded the Arab Ba'ath.[6]

The Arab Ba'ath: 1940–1947

Around the same time that al-Arsuzi founded the Arab Ba'ath another group, led by Michel Aflaq and Salah al-Din al-Bitar, established the Arab Ihya Movement. Patrick Seale states that al-Arsuzi issued pamphlets under the name Al-Ba'ath, Al-'Arabi, while the Arab Ilhya Movement published pamphlets under the name al-Ihya, al-'Arabi.[12] While Aflaq and al-Bitar left work to focus on the party organisation, al-Arsuzi worked as a teacher until 1959.[6] There were not many members in the party, and most of them used their time reading, writing and translating works. In June 1941 al-Arsuzi was exiled from Damascus, three members were arrested and the remaining members fled. The following year, in 1942, al-Arsuzi and his associates tried to revitalise the party, but the attempt failed. One of his associates claims that al-Arsuzi had become bitter and even paranoid during his one-year exile, exclaiming that the group "loved the people and hated the individual; [his group] held the whole sacred, but they despised the parts".[13] By 1944 the majority of Arab Ba'ath members had left the organisation for the more active Arab Ihya Movement (renamed to Arab Ba'ath Movement in 1943).[6] Relations between Aflaq and al-Arsuzi were bitter at best; al-Arsuzi accused Aflaq of stealing his party's name.[12]

At the same time, al-Arsuzi's interest in politics was waning, and he spent an increasing amount of his time engaging in

Lattakia and later moving to live with his mother in Tarsus. It was there that his mother would die, poverty-stricken.[15] According to one of his associates, al-Arsuzi himself spent a great deal of time living in "extreme poverty", reduced "to a life of penury and persecution" by the French authorities.[14]

Al-Arsuzi's popularity within his own ranks lessened after Rashid Ali al-Gaylani's coup in Iraq. While Aflaq and al-Bitar founded the Syrian Committee to Help Iraq to support Iraq during the Anglo–Iraqi War, al-Arsuzi opposed any involvement on the grounds that al-Gaylani's policies would fail. While several Arab Ba'ath members agreed with al-Arsuzi's conclusion, the majority were attracted to Aflaq's romanticism.[16] Another reason for the Arab Ba'ath's failure was al-Arsuzi's deep mistrust of others; when a party member had written a manifesto entitled Arab Ba'ath, al-Arsuzi "saw in it an imperialist plot to block his way to the people".[17]

The Arab Ba'ath Movement, led by Aflaq and al-Bitar, was merged into the Arab Ba'ath Party in 1947. During negotiations, Wahib al-Ghanim and Jalal al-Sayyid, not al-Arsuzi, represented the Arab Ba'ath, while Aflaq and al-Bitar represented the Arab Ba'ath Movement. The only policy issue which was discussed in great detail was how socialist the party was going to be. The groups came to an agreement; the Ba'ath movement became radicalised, and moved further to the left. Al-Arsuzi did not attend the founding congress, nor was he given membership in the new party.[18]

Later life and death: 1948–1968

al-Arsuzi as seen in the early 1960s

After his return from Baghdad in 1940, al-Arsuzi had gained a position teaching philosophy, but he was soon dismissed from it. From 1945 until 1952 he worked again as a secondary teacher, first in Hama and then in Aleppo, and from 1952 until his retirement in 1959, he taught in a teacher training college.[19]

In 1963, in the wake of the Sixth National Congress of the Ba'ath Party and the party's gradual alienation from its founders Aflaq and Bitar,

Syrian-led Ba'ath Party) al-Arsuzi became the Syrian-led Ba'ath Party's main ideologue, while Aflaq was the de jure ideologue of the Iraqi-led Ba'ath Party.[23] From 1966 to 1968 al-Arsuzi acted as al-Assad's and Jadid's personal ideological mentor.[24] Al-Arsuzi died in Damascus on 2 July 1968.[21]

Al-Arsuzi's thought

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Arab Nation

Main article:
Arab Nation

Al-Arsuzi's central thought was the unification of the Arab Nation. He believed that the Arab Nation could trace its roots to the pre-Islamic and early Islamic periods of Arab history. The historical link to an Arab Nation was more important to al-Arsuzi than it was to other

Modern Age was to reestablish a link between the Arab people of the past and those of the present through language—the only true remnant of the old Arab identity. In short, language was the key to regain what had been lost (the Arab Nation) and reinvigorate the Arab identity. Al-Arsuzi believed that the Arabs lost their common identity when they allowed non–Arabs to participate in government. The result was that several laws had non-Arab characteristics—these laws, and other changes brought by non-Arabs, weakened Arab identity.[25]

Culture and language

Al-Arsuzi paid considerable attention to cultural matters, and Batatu records that the only condition of membership in his organisation was "to write or translate a book contributing to the resurrection [ba'ath] of Arab heritage."[26] He has been described as a proponent of the "linguistic image of Arab nationalism", and in 1942 published one of his most important works, Abqariyyat al-'arabiyya fi lisaniha (The Genius of Arabic in its Tongue). His approach was distinguished by its emphasis on philology, but he did also pay attention to problems of the modern state and to questions of democracy and the locus of power.[27] Batatu has also described al-Arsuzi as having a racist outlook, which proved in the end intellectually sterile and unsatisfactory to his followers, and as having been deeply influenced in his thought by the tenets of his Alawi religious background.[26]

Al-Arsuzi argued that unlike the

Arab Nation is embodied in the Arab language; it is the language that forms the source of the nationalist spirit. According to al-Arsuzi's theory, European nationalism is based on the principle of causality, while Arab nationalism is based on the principle of spontaneity.[28] Al-Arsuzi's definition of language is in contrast to that of Socrates and other thinkers.[29]

Nationalism

Al-Arsuzi attributed the rise of

colonists). The colonists acted as a barrier to such "rational" change.[31]

Modern life existed because of two things—science and industry. Science eliminated superstition, and replaced it with facts; and Industry enabled civilization to create a more strong, organised society where liberty, equality and democracy could become permanent. The experiences of the English and French Revolutions proved this; the revolutions gave the individual certain rights, so that the individual "could conduct his own affairs according to his will". The demand for liberty would eventually evolve into the demand for independence, literally nationalism. Nationalism had, according to al-Arsuzi, manifested itself in all walks of life, from the rule of law to the arts; everything in a nation was the manifestation of that particular nation's identity. Al-Arsuzi's thesis marked a dividing line between the Medieval Ages and the Modern Age.[32]

Legacy

Al-Arsuzi's work and thought are almost unknown and barely mentioned in Western scholarship on

better source needed
]

Several Ba'athists, mostly from the Syrian-led Ba'ath Party, have denounced Aflaq as a "thief"; these critics claim that Aflaq had stolen the Ba'athist ideology from al-Arsuzi and proclaimed it as his own.

Hafiz al-Assad, the Ba'athist leader of Syria, as the principal founder of Ba'athist thought, following the 1966 Ba'ath Party split. The Iraqi branch, however, still proclaims Aflaq as the founder of Ba'athism.[37] Al-Assad has referred to al-Arsuzi as the "greatest Syrian of his day" and claimed him to be the "first to conceive of the Ba'ath as a political movement."[5] The Syrian Ba'athists have erected a statue in al-Arsuzi's honour; it was erected following the 1966 coup.[38] Even so, the majority of Ba'athists still agree that Aflaq, not al-Arsuzi, was the principal founder of the Ba'ath movement.[39] Despite this, Keith David Watenpaugh believes Ba'athism was conceived by the "trio" consisting of al-Arsuzi, Aflaq and Salah al-Din al-Bitar, and not one principal founder.[40]

Selected works

  • The Genius of Arabic in Its Tongue (published 1943)
  • Al-Umma al-Arabiyya (English: The Arab World, published 1958)
  • Mashakiluna al-Qawmiyya (English: Our Nationalist Problems, published 1958)

References

Citations

  1. ISBN 978-0-8157-3555-7
    .
  2. ^
    ISBN 978-1-885942-40-1
    .
  3. ^ Watenpaugh 1996, p. 364.
  4. ^ a b c Watenpaugh 1996, p. 365.
  5. ^
    ISBN 978-0-520-06976-3
    .
  6. ^
    ISBN 978-0-631-21729-9
    .
  7. ISBN 978-1-885942-40-1
    .
  8. ISBN 978-90-04-16548-9
    .
  9. ISBN 978-1-4128-3063-8
    .
  10. ISBN 978-1-4128-3063-8
    .
  11. ISBN 978-0-7065-1266-3
    .
  12. ^
    ISBN 978-0-520-06976-3
    .
  13. ISBN 978-1-4128-3063-8
    .
  14. ^
    ISBN 978-0-520-06976-3
    .
  15. ^
    ISBN 978-1-4128-3063-8
    .
  16. ISBN 978-1-4128-3063-8
    .
  17. ISBN 978-1-4128-3063-8
    .
  18. ISBN 978-0-520-06976-3
    .
  19. ^ Charif, 2000, p. 245.
  20. ISBN 978-0-8108-4934-1
    .
  21. ^
    ISBN 978-0-520-06976-3
    .
  22. ISBN 978-0-8264-9801-4
    .
  23. ISBN 978-0-19-535418-8
    .
  24. ISBN 978-1-885942-40-1
    .
  25. ISBN 978-0-7486-1707-4
    .
  26. ^ a b Batatu, 2000, p. 724.
  27. ^ Batatu, 2000, p. 723.
  28. ISBN 978-0-631-21729-9
    .
  29. ISBN 978-0-631-21729-9
    .
  30. ISBN 978-0-631-21729-9
    .
  31. ISBN 978-0-631-21729-9
    .
  32. ISBN 978-0-631-21729-9
    .
  33. ISBN 978-0-7486-1707-4
    .
  34. ISBN 978-1-86064-622-5
    .
  35. ISBN 978-1-86064-622-5
    .
  36. ^ CRDWLP, 2004, p. 287.
  37. ISBN 978-0-7486-1707-4
    .
  38. ISBN 978-0-8157-3555-7
    .
  39. ISBN 978-1-85043-828-1
    .
  40. ISBN 978-0-691-12169-7
    .

Bibliography

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