Akram al-Hawrani
Encyclopedia
Akram al-Hawrani (1912 – 1996), was a Syrian
Syrian people
The Syrian people are the inhabitants and citizens of Syria. Syrians are tied together by geography, linguistic heritage, religion, and similar Eastern Mediterranean ethnicities...

 politician
Politician
A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...

 who played a prominent role in the formation of a widespread populist, nationalist
Arab nationalism
Arab nationalism is a nationalist ideology celebrating the glories of Arab civilization, the language and literature of the Arabs, calling for rejuvenation and political union in the Arab world...

 movement in Syria and in the rise of the Ba'th Party. He was highly influential in Syrian politics from the beginning of the 1940s until his departure into exile in 1963, and held various positions including a government ministry and the joint vice-presidency of the United Arab Republic
United Arab Republic
The United Arab Republic , often abbreviated as the U.A.R., was a sovereign union between Egypt and Syria. The union began in 1958 and existed until 1961, when Syria seceded from the union. Egypt continued to be known officially as the "United Arab Republic" until 1971. The President was Gamal...

.

Background

Born in Hama
Hama
Hama is a city on the banks of the Orontes River in west-central Syria north of Damascus. It is the provincial capital of the Hama Governorate. Hama is the fourth-largest city in Syria—behind Aleppo, Damascus, and Homs—with a population of 696,863...

, Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....

 into a formerly wealthy land-owning family, al-Hawrani himself grew up in modest circumstances as the family wealth had been dissipated. He was educated in Hama and Damascus
Damascus
Damascus , commonly known in Syria as Al Sham , and as the City of Jasmine , is the capital and the second largest city of Syria after Aleppo, both are part of the country's 14 governorates. In addition to being one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, Damascus is a major...

 before joining the medical faculty at the Jesuit University in 1932. He was forced to leave the institution soon thereafter, having been implicated in the attempted assassination
Assassination
To carry out an assassination is "to murder by a sudden and/or secret attack, often for political reasons." Alternatively, assassination may be defined as "the act of deliberately killing someone, especially a public figure, usually for hire or for political reasons."An assassination may be...

 of former Syrian president, Subhi Barakat.

In 1936, he enrolled in the Damascus Law School, and became a member of the Syrian Social National Party. In 1938 he left the party and returned to Hama to practice law. There he took over the Hizb al-Shabab (Youth Party) founded by a cousin.

The province of Hama in the earlier part of the twentieth century was characterised by feudalism
Feudalism
Feudalism was a set of legal and military customs in medieval Europe that flourished between the 9th and 15th centuries, which, broadly defined, was a system for ordering society around relationships derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labour.Although derived from the...

, with landlords owning most of the land . The landlords exercised complete control over the peasantry, backed up by what amounted to private armies
Mercenary
A mercenary, is a person who takes part in an armed conflict based on the promise of material compensation rather than having a direct interest in, or a legal obligation to, the conflict itself. A non-conscript professional member of a regular army is not considered to be a mercenary although he...

. Al-Hawrani set about attacking this system and called for agrarian reforms, giving him considerable popular support in Hama and its province, and in 1943 he was elected as a deputy to the Syrian Parliament. He retained his seat in the elections of 1947, 1949, 1954, and 1962.

While it was in defence of social justice
Social justice
Social justice generally refers to the idea of creating a society or institution that is based on the principles of equality and solidarity, that understands and values human rights, and that recognizes the dignity of every human being. The term and modern concept of "social justice" was coined by...

 in his home region that al-Hawrani made his name, he also had a strong Arab nationalist outlook, and headed to Baghdad
Baghdad
Baghdad is the capital of Iraq, as well as the coterminous Baghdad Governorate. The population of Baghdad in 2011 is approximately 7,216,040...

 to support the Rashid Ali movement in Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....

 in 1941; in 1948 he commanded armed groups who engaged in attacks against Zionist settlements in Palestine
Palestine
Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....

.

Closer to power

In 1950 al-Hawrani renamed his party the Arab Socialist Party; at that point, Batatu states, "it counted no fewer than 10,000 members and was able to attract as many as 40,000 people from the countryside when in the same year it convoked at Aleppo
Aleppo
Aleppo is the largest city in Syria and the capital of Aleppo Governorate, the most populous Syrian governorate. With an official population of 2,301,570 , expanding to over 2.5 million in the metropolitan area, it is also one of the largest cities in the Levant...

 the first peasant congress in Syrian history."

Between 1949 and 1954 Syrian politics was punctuated by four military coups. Based on his strong influence in the army, Al-Hawrani was considered to have played a part in these coups, however there is no concrete evidence to support that. He was initially particularly close to the leader of the third and fourth coups, Adib al-Shishakli, who effectively ruled Syria from 1951 until 1954. Al-Shishakli's decision to sign a decree distributing state lands to the peasantry in January 1952 appears to have been under al-Hawrani's influence. However, as the dictator grew more autocratic his influence waned, and when al-Shishakli decided to ban the Arab Socialist Party in April 1952, he went into exile in Lebanon
Lebanon
Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...

. There, in November that year, he agreed to merge the Arab Socialist Party with the Arab Ba'th Party led by Michel Aflaq
Michel Aflaq
Michel Aflaq was a Syrian philosopher, who is credited with being the ideological founder of ba'athism, a hybrid of Arab nationalism and Arab socialism.-Early life:...

 and Salah al-Din al-Bitar
Salah al-Din al-Bitar
Salah ad-Din al-Bitar , was a Syrian politician who, with Michel Aflaq, founded the Arab Ba'th Party in the early 1940s. During their student days in Paris in the early 1930s, the two worked together to formulate a doctrine that combined aspects of nationalism and socialism...

. The latter thus gained a substantial base of active supporters for the first time. The unified party adopted the name Arab Ba'th Socialist Party. It was disbanded, along with all Syrian political parties by president Nasser in 1958. The relation between Al-Hawrani and Aflaq ended acrimoniously in 1962.

The Arab Ba'th Socialist Party

Al-Hawrani was a member of the Baath Party
Baath Party
The Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party was a political party mixing Arab nationalist and Arab socialist interests, opposed to Western imperialism, and calling for the renaissance or resurrection and unification of the Arab world into a single state. Ba'ath is also spelled Ba'th or Baath and means...

 national command, meaning its pan-Arab
Arab world
The Arab world refers to Arabic-speaking states, territories and populations in North Africa, Western Asia and elsewhere.The standard definition of the Arab world comprises the 22 states and territories of the Arab League stretching from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Arabian Sea in the...

 leadership, from its establishment in 1954 until 1959. Along with the other Ba'thists and members of most of Syria's political forces, he played a prominent role in the agitation and political mobilization that forced al-Shishakli to give up power in early 1954. He was speaker
Speaker (politics)
The term speaker is a title often given to the presiding officer of a deliberative assembly, especially a legislative body. The speaker's official role is to moderate debate, make rulings on procedure, announce the results of votes, and the like. The speaker decides who may speak and has the...

 of the Syrian parliament from 1957 to February 1958, and in that position forced the cancellation of the planned November 1957 municipal elections after failing to receive a guarantee that the Ba'th would be awarded 51% of the available seats. This has been described as the point where the Ba'th party "turned their backs... on party politics altogether."

The United Arab Republic

After the treaty of union between Syria and Egypt in 1958, al-Hawrani became Vice-President of the United Arab Republic
United Arab Republic
The United Arab Republic , often abbreviated as the U.A.R., was a sovereign union between Egypt and Syria. The union began in 1958 and existed until 1961, when Syria seceded from the union. Egypt continued to be known officially as the "United Arab Republic" until 1971. The President was Gamal...

 (UAR) under Gamal Abdel Nasser
Gamal Abdel Nasser
Gamal Abdel Nasser Hussein was the second President of Egypt from 1956 until his death. A colonel in the Egyptian army, Nasser led the Egyptian Revolution of 1952 along with Muhammad Naguib, the first president, which overthrew the monarchy of Egypt and Sudan, and heralded a new period of...

, a post he held until 1959. After Nasser launched a bitter verbal attack on the Ba'th in December that year, followed by a campaign of repression against its members, he resigned his position and went into exile in Lebanon
Lebanon
Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...

. He subsequently differed with Aflaq and al-Bitar over the party's position regarding the UAR, due to his support for secession from the UAR.

When a 1961 military coup in Syria led to the dissolution of the UAR, al-Hawrani publicly supported it and signed a statement in favor of the secession (as did Bitar, but he later withdrew his signature). The Ba`th Party split into several competing factions, but as the national command decided in favour of reunification, al-Hawrani left it. He was officially expelled in June 1962, whereafter he and his loyalists re-established the Arab Socialist Party. However, popular support for unity hampered its growth and it was strong only in his original stronghold of Hama. In September 1962 he joined the "secessionist" (infisali) cabinet formed by Khalid al-Azm
Khalid al-Azm
Khalid al-Azm was a Syrian national leader and six-time Prime Minister, as well as Acting President...

, drawing strong criticism from the Ba`th and Nasserist movements.

Exile and death

After the Ba'thist- and Nasserist-led pro-reunification coup of March 1963, al-Hawrani went into exile in Lebanon
Lebanon
Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...

. As a radical military-backed Ba`th faction purged other political groups in Syria, he was decided to remain in opposition outside the country, and would never return. The Arab Socialist Party split into competing factions, some of which aligned with the Ba`th, some of which opposed it, but Hawrani's own influence dwindled. He spent the rest of his life between Lebanon, Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....

, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 and Jordan
Jordan
Jordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan , Al-Mamlaka al-Urduniyya al-Hashemiyya) is a kingdom on the East Bank of the River Jordan. The country borders Saudi Arabia to the east and south-east, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north and the West Bank and Israel to the west, sharing...

, where he died in 1996, an important name in Syrian history but by then with little to no influence over modern politics. His memoirs were published posthumously in Cairo in 2000.

Sources

  • Batatu, Hanna, The Old Social Classes and New Revolutionary Movements in Iraq, Saqi Books, London, 2000
  • Seale, Patrick, Asad: the struggle for the Middle East, California University Press, Berkely, 1990. ISBN 0-520-06976-5
  • Mufti, Malik, Sovereign Creations: Pan-Arabism and Political Order in Syria and Iraq, Cornell University Press: Ithaca, 1996. ISBN 0-8014-3168-9
  • "Akram al-Hawrani", from the Syrian Encyclopedia
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