MICHEL AFLAQ

Communism is Western, and alien to everything Arab, having absolutely no connection to Arab history, intellectual traditions, and way of life in either the past or the present

A day will come when the nationalists will find themselves the only defenders of Islam. They will have to give a special meaning to it if they want the Arab nation to have a good reason for survival.

Nationalism is spiritual and all-embracing, in the sense that it opens its arms to and spreads its wings over all those who have shared with the Arabs their history and have lived in the environment of their language and culture for generations, so that they have become Arab in thought and feeling. There is no fear that nationalism will clash with religion, for, like religion, it flows from the heart and issues from the will of God; they walk arm in arm, supporting each other, especially when religion represents the genius of the nationality and is in harmony with its nature.

Arab nationalism is not a theory but the source of all theories

If I was asked to define socialism, I would not seek its definition in the texts of Marx or Lenin. I would rather say: it is the religion of life, and the triumph of life over death. By opening the door of employment for everyone, and allowing the gifts and virtues of all human beings to blossom, flower and be fruitful, it preserves what rightfully belongs to life, leaving death nothing but dried meat and rotten bones.

The aim of Arab unity is the strongest and deepest motivation for the Socialist Arab Bath Party as a popular revolutionary and progressive movement.

We did not adopt socialism out of books, abstractions, humanism, or pity, but rather out of need for the Arab working class is the mover of history in this period.

Europe is as fearful of Islam today as she has been in the past. She now knows that the strength of Islam (which in the past expressed that of the Arabs) has been reborn and has appeared in a new form: Arab nationalism.

The aim of Arab unity is the strongest and deepest motivation for the Socialist Arab Bath Party as a popular revolutionary and progressive movement.

Arab nationalism is not a theory but the source of all theories

Nationalism is spiritual and all-embracing, in the sense that it opens its arms to and spreads its wings over all those who have shared with the Arabs their history and have lived in the environment of their language and culture for generations, so that they have become Arab in thought and feeling. There is no fear that nationalism will clash with religion, for, like religion, it flows from the heart and issues from the will of God; they walk arm in arm, supporting each other, especially when religion represents the genius of the nationality and is in harmony with its nature.

Communism is Western, and alien to everything Arab, having absolutely no connection to Arab history, intellectual traditions, and way of life in either the past or the present

If I was asked to define socialism, I would not seek its definition in the texts of Marx or Lenin. I would rather say: it is the religion of life, and the triumph of life over death. By opening the door of employment for everyone, and allowing the gifts and virtues of all human beings to blossom, flower and be fruitful, it preserves what rightfully belongs to life, leaving death nothing but dried meat and rotten bones.

A day will come when the nationalists will find themselves the only defenders of Islam. They will have to give a special meaning to it if they want the Arab nation to have a good reason for survival.

We did not adopt socialism out of books, abstractions, humanism, or pity, but rather out of need for the Arab working class is the mover of history in this period.

Europe is as fearful of Islam today as she has been in the past. She now knows that the strength of Islam (which in the past expressed that of the Arabs) has been reborn and has appeared in a new form: Arab nationalism.