Historiographical overview

This work seeks to traverse a multifaceted historiographical terrain, to include decolonization studies, postcolonial studies, Middle East studies, and global intellectual history. In bringing ʿAflaq and the Baʿth into the fold of decolonization studies, I propose that a serious engagement with ʿAflaq's thought has much to offer one's understanding of the “decolonization of the mind.”Footnote ¹⁰ Decolonization in this regard ought to be understood as far more than just postcolonial state sovereignty. Following the lead of Cyrus Schayegh and Yoav Di-Capua, this article understands decolonization not as merely a “historical era” but rather “as a broader human condition” which beyond the goal of national independence ushered forth “the ambition to temper with ‘the self’ and forge a new collective ontology.”Footnote ¹¹ Indeed, Munīf al-Razzāz (1919–84), a follower of ʿAflaq and fellow Baʿthist, recounts the “first duty” of party members as “the realization of the revolution of our souls,” which is to say “the spiritual revolution” (al-inqilāb al-nafsī).Footnote ¹² Nearly two decades after his death, ʿAflaq's daughter Razān would recall her father's insistence upon “the self-revolution” (al-inqilāb al-dhātī) first and foremost.Footnote ¹³ From this vantage point, the human condition of decolonization does not refer to a political problem, but in fact to a metaphysical one—particularly as regards Arab ontology, the question of religion and the nation, revolution and time, and faith.

Omnia El Shakry has contributed to these efforts in rethinking decolonization, particularly in the need to overcome the reified binary of the religious and the secular in the historiography of Arab thought.Footnote ¹⁴ In his piece on decolonization and the sacred, Di-Capua examines the political theology of Gamal ʿAbd al-Nasser and the movement bearing his name, Nasserism. By looking at the manner in which collective sacrifice for the nation brings about self-transcendence, Di-Capua argues that this “sacred experience” produces a feeling of the colonized subject becoming “[m]etaphysically connected to something bigger” than their “fragmented colonized self.”Footnote ¹⁵ He also importantly calls attention to the fact that much of the revolutionary terminology of Nasserism originated with ʿAflaq's development of a “vocabulary of salvation politics,” traveling from Syria to Egypt.Footnote ¹⁶ Yet, despite their similarities and aspirations of comprehensive unity, and their eventual collaboration during the period of the United Arab Republic (UAR) (1958–61), there are, of course, distinctions between Nasserism and Baʿthism.Footnote ¹⁷ Most importantly, ʿAflaq did not take up a political theology resting upon an axiomatic principle of the friend–enemy distinction in the vein of Carl Schmitt (1888–1985).Footnote ¹⁸ Rather, as a pioneer of “positive neutrality” (al-ḥīyād al-ījābī) that rejected the political domination of the United States and the Soviet Union alike, he called for “the refusal of war and the recognition of the necessity for peace.”Footnote ¹⁹ Furthermore, ʿAflaq ultimately sought “a final end to the logic of conflict [manṭiq al-ṣirāʿ]” wrought by extant political doctrines, to be achieved “realistically and peacefully.”Footnote ²⁰ Against the Schmittian politics of enmity, then, there is the political metaphysics of a new way forward that ʿAflaq endeavored to realize. In turn, the very language and terminology of ʿAflaq's thought are in need of reinvigorated scholarly engagement.

As regards the question of decolonization and the universal, a number of scholars have carried out important work in bringing attention to such a pivotal topic. Gary Wilder understands figures like Léopold Sédar Senghor (1906–2001) and Aimé Césaire (1913–2008) as “planetary thinkers who were concerned with the relation between decolonization, human redemption, and the future of the world.”Footnote ²¹ Indeed, of particular interest in Wilder's account is Senghor's aspiration to realize the “civilization of the universal,” a new order which would bear witness to “cosmopolitan reconciliation, human self-realization, and even cosmological concordance among human, natural, and spiritual worlds.”Footnote ²² In a similar register, Adom Getachew's deep engagement with anticolonial thought, primarily in the anglophone black Atlantic context, “recovers the universal aspirations of anticolonial nationalism.”Footnote ²³ As she explains, it was precisely through the nation that thinkers such as Kwame Nkrumah (1909–72), W. E. B. Du Bois (1868–1963), and others envisioned the “road to a universal postimperial order,” such that national liberation was the prerequisite for international solidarity.Footnote ²⁴ Looking at the annals of South Asian intellectual history, Kevin Sullivan articulates the liberatory vision of Indian philosopher and scholar of comparative religion Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (1888–1975) as the passage from the human person's embodied self-realization to a higher goal of “the liberation of all human beings” consummated as “universal spiritual emancipation.”Footnote ²⁵ ʿAflaq ought to be understood as a heretofore unacknowledged contributor to these universalist efforts. Indeed, in his thought also one understands that there can be no internationalism without nationalism. In speaking to the deep suffering experienced by the peoples of Africa and Asia, ʿAflaq contemplates that “perhaps fate” has led them all to emerge from such oppression with a “ripened fruit” not just for the peoples of their own lands, but for “all of humanity” (al-insāniyya kullihā).Footnote ²⁶ Anticolonial nationalism and the human condition of decolonization, in this regard, cannot but be understood as a universal ambition.

In terms of the intersection of the historiography of Middle East studies and global intellectual history, Max Weiss's recent intervention stands out. Weiss has taken the initial steps towards positively reconstructing what he calls “ʿAflaqism (al-ʿAflaqiyya).”Footnote ²⁷ In focusing on the ʿAflaqist concepts of nationalism (al-qawmiyya) and revolution (al-inqilāb), Weiss argues that the Arabism (ʿurūba) of ʿAflaq is better understood in relation to the thought of French Catholic personalist philosopher Emmanuel Mounier (1905–50), demonstrating the former's alignment with the latter's “primacy of the spiritual.”Footnote ²⁸ While Weiss effectively understands ʿAflaq as influenced by Mounier's personalism, Norma Salem-Babikian has demonstrated the importance of André Gide (1869–1951) among his philosophical and literary inspirations.Footnote ²⁹ This is further corroborated by a 1961 interview with Patrick Seale, in which ʿAflaq stated, “I had learned my socialism from André Gide and Romain Rolland [1866–1944].”Footnote ³⁰ Others have repeatedly pointed out a variety of additional influences, including Giuseppe Mazzini (1805–72), Henri Bergson (1859–1941), Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900), Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910), and the Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948).Footnote ³¹ Yet, as fruitful as it might be to draw out genealogical connections between thinkers, so too can this approach be limiting in preventing one from reading an intellectual on his own terms. As Hussein A. H. Omar claims, building upon the argument of Andrew Sartori, “asking where an idea or concept comes from is far less important than asking why and when it becomes a plausible or useful means of apprehending the world for the historical actors that adopted it.”Footnote ³² In turn, while I acknowledge the aforementioned intellectual influences on ʿAflaq and see their varying imprints on his thought, the aim of my article is to first and foremost read him on his own terms.

There is, however, an important historiographical and methodological point to bring to the fore when considering ʿAflaq as he relates to Gandhi. In Shruti Kapila's pathbreaking intervention on the question of violence in modern Indian political thought, she captures the interpretive difficulty of illuminating the full expression of thinkers like Gandhi. As Kapila explains, the challenge in reconstructing Gandhi's political thought stems from his “unsystematic, aphoristic and somewhat slippery style of argumentation”—yet she emphasizes that it is “precisely this style, however, that allowed him to circumvent the available political languages of the day, be it that of liberalism, of historicism, or of communism.”Footnote ³³ Above all else, Kapila's argument that Gandhi's stylistic refusal of systematization generated a new language of liberation holds true in the Arab context for ʿAflaq as well. So too the coupling of “self-realization” with politics, this notion that “[i]nner change within the individual ought to be the starting point of outer changes in society.”Footnote ³⁴ ʿAflaq puts forward not so much a “systematic” school of thought as a vision that breaks through stagnant, ready-made doctrines while still possessing fidelity to the Arab past, joining together a sense of newness with authenticity. That is to say, the varying theological, spiritual, and metaphysical aspects of ʿAflaq's thought ought to be understood as a conscious rejection of the extant political languages of his day and age—his rejection of “systematic” thinking was in fact a virtue. This does not mean that ʿAflaq's thinking was incoherent, however, but rather that the terminology he employs exhibits a dynamic structure that was conceptually innovative for his time, defying easy categorization.

Broadening the historiographical scope further, Arab nationalism in particular and Third World nationalisms in general have been the subject of much scholarly inquiry for many years now. While ʿAflaq remains, alongside Nasser, one of the more frequent references in studies of Arab nationalism, there remains work to be done in taking seriously his understanding of nationalism and nationness beyond conventional approaches to anticolonial nationalism. In turn, this work seeks to provide a comprehensive reassessment of Arabism for intellectual historians of the Middle East, the Third World, decolonization, and nationalism alike. Thus, if Syrian independence in 1946 can be seen as “Asia's first decolonization,”Footnote ³⁵ how to understand the anticolonial nationalism of the Baʿth, that while existing as a group and movement prior to independence, was officially founded as a political party a year later in 1947? A clue to this understanding can be found in a 1957 piece by ʿAflaq:

ʿAflaq does not see the anticolonial struggle as limited to the mere ouster of the foreign occupier in his Arabism. As ʿAflaq further explains, the Baʿth called for “a new phase,” one which holds “colonialism as an effect more than a cause.”Footnote ³⁷ National resurrection represented something more for the Arab people and humanity writ large. That ʿAflaq holds colonialism as an effect more than a cause provides hope in terms of the Arabs themselves harboring the agency to realize their highest goals.

Overall, this article endeavors to provide a reading of ʿAflaq that further illuminates the relationship between metaphysics and the universal with regard to anticolonial nationalism and decolonization. Speaking from a broader philosophical perspective, William Desmond, in formulating his concept of the “intimate universal”—in which the transcendent and the immanent coincide—argues that “there can be a sense of metaphysics that is also intimate to politics” in order to underline the cardinal importance of “political metaphysics.”Footnote ³⁸ This article provides a glimpse into the Arab context of this reality through ʿAflaq's thought. In terms of method, the eminent intellectual historian Dominick LaCapra emphasizes the dialogical approach in engaging significant texts, upholding “the importance of understanding as fully as possible what the other is trying to say.”Footnote ³⁹ What might it mean, then, for intellectual historians to understand anticolonial nationalists’ ideas on their own terms, instead of projecting theoretical models or conventional categories onto their ideas? Allowing ʿAflaq to lead me in my reconstruction of his thought, this article seeks to begin the work of answering such a question. First, though, a brief foray into clarifying the use of the terminology of “metaphysics” and “the metaphysical” with respect to the historiography of ʿAflaq and the Baʿth is in order.

What is Baʿthist metaphysics?

Since the middle of the twentieth century, when scholarship on ʿAflaq began to appear, varying commentators—critical, sympathetic, and those somewhere in between—have invoked “metaphysics” of some variety in order to explicate his thought. While the broad historiographical implications of this article have been outlined in the introduction alongside my characterization of the relationship between ʿAflaq's idealist vitalism and his metaphysics, in this section I provide a more in-depth look at the ways in which ʿAflaqism qua metaphysics has been dealt with in decades past. In doing so, this article provides a more coherent rendering of the disparate uses of “metaphysics” in the context of Baʿthism in the pursuit of more explicitly defining what exactly constitutes ʿAflaq's metaphysical thinking. One of the earliest examples comes from Sylvia Haim's assessment that ʿAflaq provides a justification for revolution and an “insistence on violence” and “on the virtues of struggle … at a metaphysical level.”Footnote ⁴⁰ While this assessment misunderstands the internal struggle of the self for a different form of revolutionary violence,Footnote ⁴¹ it remains an early example of how the metaphysical, broadly construed, came to be associated with ʿAflaq. Much more clarifying would be the interpretation of Patrick Seale, who notes, “A strong dose of metaphysics was injected into the three objectives of unity, freedom, and socialism,” such that Arab unity does not refer to a political goal but instead to “a regenerative process leading to the reform of Arab character and society.”Footnote ⁴² ʿAflaq's metaphysics in this case concerns the process of regeneration of self and nation, both the soul of the Arab human person and the spirit of the Arab nation itself. In a rather underappreciated engagement with the Baʿth, Michael W. Suleiman proposes that, in ʿAflaq's view, “there is a ‘will for goodness’ in the universe which seeks manifestation in man and thus guides humanity toward progress and betterment.”Footnote ⁴³ In this formulation, ʿAflaq's voluntarism appears to the reader, such that the Arab will drives the revolution of resurrection. Suleiman further emphasizes that this “real will of man, of the universe, and of history” ʿAflaq observes in every nation and people down to the individual human person, differences existing in “characteristics acquired through his cultural–educational–social environment.”Footnote ⁴⁴ Thus ʿAflaq's metaphysical voluntarism remains coupled with his emphasis on not just Arab togetherness but that for all of humanity. Tarif Khalidi's classic article on ʿAflaq's thought places metaphysics at the center of his analysis, holding that ʿAflaq's “metaphysics cannot be divorced from his politics and, indeed, it would be more accurate to describe them as ‘political metaphysics.’”Footnote ⁴⁵ That metaphysical concerns remain indissoluble from the political objectives of the Baʿth is an essential component of ʿAflaq's vision. Indeed, Spencer Lavan argues that ʿAflaq “defines ‘Arabism’ on a metaphysical rather than an ethical level,” in characterizing him “as a kind of neo-Thomist” who views the necessity of “the salvation of the Arab … by a ‘religious’ process.”Footnote ⁴⁶ The metaphysics of ʿAflaq also allows for broader meditations on the sacred, the theological, and the religious. In rounding out this historiographical glimpse from the 1960s alone, Malcolm H. Kerr, in pondering the possibility of how ʿAflaq's “Christian origin played an unacknowledged part” in his idea of resurrection, emphasizes that the Baʿthist trinity of unity, freedom, and socialism “were not only interdependent goals but aspects of a single undefinable metaphysical reality.”Footnote ⁴⁷ Once again a scholar emphasizes a notion of indissolubility with regard to varying categories, concepts, and goals in ʿAflaq's thought.

For Majid Khadduri, ʿAflaq's Arab nationalism is “romantic in character rather than realistic,” such that one “may even be tempted to call it mystical, in the sense of ‘Aflaq's idea of nationalism being essentially love of one's own countrymen comparable to al-Hallaj's love of God.”Footnote ⁴⁸ In this rendering the mystical nationalism of ʿAflaq also finds resonances in the Sufi tradition. Salem-Babikian critiques Khalidi's emphasis on the Hegelian influence on his metaphysics, instead arguing for ʿAflaq's fidelity to Islamic philosophy and Gide.Footnote ⁴⁹ Perhaps most illuminating in Salem-Babikian's analysis is the manner in which “[t]he dialectic proper to ʿAflaq progresses from affirmation to contrasting affirmation, which mutually deny and mutually recall each other.”Footnote ⁵⁰ In other words, there remains more than meets the eye to the supposed lack of systematization in ʿAflaqist thought. Fouad Ajami upholds the contention of Bassam Tibi in dismissing ʿAflaq's thought as “vague metaphysics,” stating, furthermore, “The most eminent theorist of a party that came to power in two countries never wrote a serious book.”Footnote ⁵¹ In this context one observes “metaphysics” used pejoratively in the course of dismissing the form in which ʿAflaq's thought appeared.Footnote ⁵² In his rigorous analysis of foundational Baʿthist philosopher Zakī al-Arsūzī (1899–1968), Saleh Omar rightfully takes seriously Arsūzī's metaphysics and his mystical-intuitionist approach to the Arabic language as the foundation of nationalism, while at the same time dismissing ʿAflaq's contribution as “vague generalities.”Footnote ⁵³ The careful consideration Omar gives to Arsūzī as a serious metaphysician contributes to filling a significant scholarly gap—however, understanding ʿAflaq as just as serious a metaphysician has yet to be realized. In looking at ʿAflaq and Arsūzī together, Orit Bashkin argues that Baʿthist thought “was exceedingly hybrid,” as it “incorporated readings of western metaphysics in order to understand Arab philology” alongside its fusion of “socialist secularism” with the historical role of the Prophet Muḥammad (570–632) “as a role model for both Christian and Muslim Arabs.”Footnote ⁵⁴ Similarly, while calling attention to the differences between ʿAflaq's and Arsūzī's thought, Götz Nordbruch emphasizes that “both shared a metaphysical concept of the nation.”Footnote ⁵⁵ Positing ʿAflaqism as a monist philosophy, Carlotta Stegagno calls attention to “the metaphysical and non-material aspects of his ideas” as distinguished from his more “practical” expositions.Footnote ⁵⁶ Characterizing Baʿthism as a “movement of intellectuals,” Georges Corm argues, “Its doctrine was marked by a strong romantic penchant for metaphysics” in speaking to the party's emphasis on there being an essence to Arabism.Footnote ⁵⁷ In Weiss's illuminating exegesis on ʿAflaq's concept of inqilāb as “a program for total human transformation,” he notes that “his spiritual nationalism demands a novel political metaphysics.”Footnote ⁵⁸ Finally, in speaking to the “ambivalence” of the influence of vitalist philosophies on ʿAflaq and his contemporaries—particularly of German Romantic origin—in twentieth-century Syria, Anneka Lenssen insists that “their meaning in Syria was mediated by a host of other metaphysical philosophies,” consequently demonstrating the vexing task of getting to the heart of Baʿthist thought.Footnote ⁵⁹ Thus, into the twenty-first century, more than sixty years since the dawn of scholarship concerning ʿAflaq, a variety of commentators have picked up on there being a “metaphysical” component to ʿAflaq's thought. Yet there remains ample room to offer a renewed interpretation of ʿAflaq precisely through reading him on his own metaphysical terms first and foremost.

Having outlined the historiographical treatment of the metaphysical contours of ʿAflaq's thought, one observes that much work still needs to be done in more explicitly defining such a metaphysics. Indeed, in order to grasp ʿAflaq's thought in the fullest sense, one must be able to understand the metaphysical foundations of his intellectual project, as well as the reasoning for his proceeding metaphysically, as it were. A recent historiographical intervention by Omar provides a robust engagement with the question of metaphysics as it relates to anticolonial thought. While his analysis concerns Egypt at the turn of the twentieth century, a period earlier than ʿAflaq's intellectual output, his work demonstrates the manner in which metaphysical speculation and thinking often remained inextricable from the concerns of those struggling for freedom in the midst of colonial modernity. In studying the Egyptian anticolonial nationalists Luṭfī al-Sayyid (1872–1963), Muṣṭafā Kāmil (1874–1908), and ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz Jāwīsh (1876–1929), Omar illuminates their “deep concern with metaphysics.”Footnote ⁶⁰ He critiques Partha Chatterjee's formulation of anticolonial nationalists’ thought being relegated to the “domain of the spiritual” alone, countering that “such ‘spiritual’ meditations were inseparable from their concerns with the ‘material.’”Footnote ⁶¹ For ʿAflaq, the spirit is always present. In stressing the “importance of material conditions” (al-awḍāʿ al-maddiyya), ʿAflaq clarifies that “the material conditions are not material, but rather they are spirit [al-rūḥ].”Footnote ⁶² Omar emphasizes in his piece that “anticolonial activists’ extensive investigations into human nature were necessary for beginning the process of imagining alternative political futures” and that “even realism about politics needed metaphysical consideration, because it was predicated on coming to terms with man's true nature and his inevitable tendencies.”Footnote ⁶³ In the intellectual contributions of ʿAflaq, one observes a similar paradigm, albeit in a later context with different stakes: one where Syria and other Arab entities were slowly but surely achieving independence, but in which the remnants of colonialism remained in varying ways: mentally, materially, spiritually, and otherwise.

ʿAflaq's metaphysics does ultimately affirm that there exists an essence of the Arab nation which must be resurrected—such is the eternal message (al-risāla al-khālida). As ʿAflaq emphasizes, although the Arab nation remains afflicted by fragmentation and has been torn asunder by colonialism as well as other internal forces, it remains its true self “in its essence” (fī jawharihā).Footnote ⁶⁴ By tapping into this metaphysical essence that is the core of true national resurrection, the future is able to flourish and not remain shackled to the past. ʿAflaq calls out to his fellow Arabs to realize that they are the masters of their destiny who together embody “the living nation” (al-umma al-ḥayya) which “serves its past” while looking ahead to the future.Footnote ⁶⁵ That ʿAflaq focuses on the eternal alongside the new, for example in the new Arab generation embodying the eternal message, demonstrates the creative possibilities his metaphysics opens up. In other words, ʿAflaq's metaphysics provides the link to the Arab past while his universalist ambitions yield the opening to the future. It is precisely through this metaphysical–universal continuum that ʿAflaqism disrupts colonial temporality. Consequently, ʿAflaq's political thought can only be effectively gleaned when understood holistically—as mentioned earlier, his metaphysics allowing him to shift the political into the spiritual—and thus as a comprehensive reckoning with the Arab state of being in order to provide a new path forward. Having established the context and stakes of ʿAflaq's metaphysics, this work now moves on to explicating four decidedly metaphysical concepts in the Baʿth Party founder's thought: resurrection, faith, spirit, and unity.

Resurrection (baʿth)

In his vision for the future of a liberated, united Arab nation, ʿAflaq holds that all begins with the belief in resurrection. He formulates the Baʿth Movement as “the affirmative step [al-khaṭwa al-ījābiyya] that must arrive after the negative step [al-khaṭwa al-salbiyya].”Footnote ⁶⁶ While the anticolonial struggle is the negation of occupation and misery, it is the baʿth which brings about positive construction. Thus, it is of the utmost necessity that the Baʿth and its followers develop “a general philosophy of life” as this “progressive liberation movement … is a movement with a very deep connection to the eternal humanist concepts [bi-l-mafāhīm al-insāniyya al-khālida].”Footnote ⁶⁷ For ʿAflaq, the specificity of the Arab struggle finds itself located within the universality of humanist aspirations. The change he calls for sees the Arabs as a people recognizing their needs within their own context, while at the same time realizing that the local context cannot be separated from the universal context of humanity. Indeed, to further illustrate the change of consciousness needed to realize such a movement of thought and action, ʿAflaq—as an Orthodox Christian—calls special attention to Islam in Arab history. He emphasizes the manner in which the Arab peoples differ from the other nations of the world: “their national awakening was joined together with a religious message [risāla dīniyya].”Footnote ⁶⁸ This is a special gift—the spiritual and the secular inform one another, inextricably bound together. Far from claiming any position of Arabo-Islamic exclusivity, ʿAflaq explains that “every great nation” remains “deeply connected with the eternal meanings of the universe” and that for the Arab nation, the history of Islam clarifies “the striving of the Arab nation towards eternity [al-khulūd] and universality [al-shumūl].”Footnote ⁶⁹ Thus resurrection brings about a different understanding of time and temporality altogether.

ʿAflaq insists that the future can be attained through the integral experience of the history that all Arabs carry within them as a people. Distinguishing between “quantitative time” (zaman ḥasābī) and “spiritual time” (zamān nafsī), ʿAflaq declares, “The future is not the time which will come, but rather the spiritual and intellectual level” which all Arabs must reach “at the present time.”Footnote ⁷⁰ The collective efforts of politically and intellectually conscious individuals realizes this spiritual sense of time. He proclaims that the “unified, free, socialist life”—that is to say, the Baʿthist life—“is the life in which societal differences, regional obstacles, and sectarian arrogance disappear” and in which there no longer exists “any trace of servitude, private interest, ignorance, and the imitation of outmoded beliefs.”Footnote ⁷¹ National resurrection brings about a new way of life and thus a new person. This realization of Arab renewal then substantially influences the world writ large.

Arab resurrection derives from life in its most authentic sense. Characterizing the Arab Baʿth as “the will of life” (irādat al-ḥayāh), ʿAflaq calls on his fellow party members to fully grasp the reality of “the eternal truth of our nation.”Footnote ⁷² Indeed, he further emphasizes that “the philosophy of the Arab resurrection” can be summarized as “the trust of the Arab nation in itself.”Footnote ⁷³ The Arab nation must believe in itself, its cause, and its role as part of a larger tapestry of universal humanist endeavors that all nations seek to realize. Furthermore, this belief must be qualitative over and above quantitative. As ʿAflaq intones, “our power therefore is not only the power of greater numbers among a group of Arabs at this time, but rather it is the force of Arab history [quwwat al-tārīkh al-ʿarabī] also, because we are walking in the direction of the authentic Arab spirit [al-rūḥ al-ʿarabiyya al-aṣīla]” and that the Arab people carry on this task in accordance with “the heroic ancestors” of the nation.Footnote ⁷⁴ Thus resurrection strengthens the vital connection to the past and in turn allows for Arabs to collectively bring about an emancipated future. In ʿAflaq's view, the new generation simply brings forth the message of eternity always existing within each Arab, with the present struggle yielding the future as the realization and renewal of the eternal Arab message.

In the ʿAflaqist metaphysical universe, national resurrection remains inextricable from the Arab nation's universalist duties. Insofar as “true nationalism is true humanism,” ʿAflaq proclaims that “the resurrection of our nation is the resurrection for humanity in its entirety [li-l-insāniyya bi-kamilihā].”Footnote ⁷⁵ Seeking a higher ambition than a mere political reordering, the Arab Baʿth wishes to link its aspirations to humanity writ large. ʿAflaq's idea of resurrection, of national liberation, then, does not mean a turning inward or away, but rather an opening up as one nation to other nations—the universality of human interconnectedness. Indeed, “the idea of the resurrection” must not be understood as a mere response to colonialism, but rather as “an answer to a question the Arab nation asks itself when it wants to take a historical position on the principles [al-mabādiʾ] and ideals [al-muthul] in which it believes, and when it encounters the responsibility of the message which awaits it.”Footnote ⁷⁶ What one observes here, then, is an immense responsibility of the Arab nation to the fabric of humanity—a responsibility that, left unfulfilled or abandoned, would unravel that very same fabric. How, then, to realize such a revolution of resurrection? For ʿAflaq, the answer to such a question begins with faith, as in Baʿthism “consciousness [al-waʿī] in its best form encounters faith [al-īmān] in its deepest form.”Footnote ⁷⁷ It is to elucidating such a deep faith that this article now turns.

Faith (īmān)

The ʿAflaqist aspiration of Arab national resurrection emerges from the faith of the Arab people in its nation and in each other. Early on in his intellectual output, ʿAflaq emphasized that faith is “the eternal foundation” for the work of the Baʿth and in fact the basis of life itself.Footnote ⁷⁸ Thus the Baʿthist revolution is one based on faith first and foremost. ʿAflaq formulates the revolution as a “struggling psychological movement” (al-ḥaraka al-nafsiyya al-mukāfaḥa) that is “perseverance saturated with faith which creates in the Arabs new souls, new morals, and new thinking.”Footnote ⁷⁹ Revolution in this regard is rendered salvific, allowing the Arab human person to discover unforeseen potential and bring about a radically renewed experience of being. Such a revolution is not limited to the domain of politics alone. As ʿAflaq proclaims, “we are the new Arab generation [al-jīl al-ʿarabī al-jadīd] bearing a message, not politics, a faith and a creed, not theories and statements.”Footnote ⁸⁰ The idealism of ʿAflaq stands against materialist reductionism that views the nation—whether the Arab nation or other nations—as a passing historical phase. Indeed, “the Arab message is faith above all else,” having in the past been revealed by the religion of Islam, but in whichever age such a message appears it derives from “humanist principles.”Footnote ⁸¹ This humanism ensures that the Arab nation is outward-looking and in touch with universality. As ʿAflaq emphasizes, Baʿthists must understand that “truth is above Arabism” (al-ḥaqq fawq al-ʿurūba) and that the ethical Arab nationalist strives to realize “the union of Arabism with truth” (ittiḥād al-ʿurūba bi-l-ḥaqq).Footnote ⁸² In this sense, the Arab national resurrection, derived from faith, must in turn possess a fidelity to a higher truth. For ʿAflaq, it is this fusion of Arabism with truth that overcomes any false instantiations of nationalism which would abandon its higher universal endeavors.

Faith in Arabism must be joined together with faith in humanity writ large, in ʿAflaq's view. To be in touch with faith is thus to be in touch with the vital spiritual force that is authentic existence and thus life itself. ʿAflaq formulates nationalism as “the prime mover” (al-muḥarrik al-asāsī) for his fellow Arabs, whereas in the past it had been Islam.Footnote ⁸³ In any case, though, such an impetus is based on faith. Much as the social reform of the past had emerged from “deep faith in religion,” so must the sweeping change of the Baʿth derive from “national faith.”Footnote ⁸⁴ Given ʿAflaq's treatment of Islam in his vision of Arabism, national faith is based upon the foundation of religious faith—or rather, they derive from the same eternal source. As he explains, “the genesis of the Arab Baʿth [nushūʾ al-baʿth al-ʿarabī] is a shining proof of faith, and the confirmation of the spiritual values [tawkīd li-l-qiyām al-rūḥiyya] from which religion originates.”Footnote ⁸⁵ Indeed, ʿAflaq holds that “the Arab Baʿth has called for a new understanding of the national life and of life in general, in its upholding of faith in spiritual humanist values [al-īmān bi-l-qiyam al-rūḥiyya al-insāniyya].”Footnote ⁸⁶ As one observes, he views humanity as spiritually linked together, with each people and nation participating in concretizing universal values in their own particular context. Lest there be any further confusion on such a spirituality, ʿAflaq does not mince words in affirming his and his followers’ faith and belief in God, which remains indispensable for the high aims of the Baʿth and its universalist commitments.Footnote ⁸⁷ In this regard, ʿAflaq wishes to instill a sense of humility in his fellow Baʿthists as they strive to make true their ambitions and political objectives. Much as politics is but a means for followers of the Baʿth to put their idealism to the test, so too does entering into this arena of struggle serve primarily as “a test of faith.”Footnote ⁸⁸ In all, the more one understands faith in ʿAflaqism, the more one encounters spirit (al-rūḥ). Indeed, it is the intuitive or “spontaneous spirit” (al-rūḥ al-ʿafwiyya) that is the “password” for those walking the path of the Baʿth.Footnote ⁸⁹ Accordingly, this article now moves on to elucidating ʿAflaq's concept of spirit, one of the most crucial aspects of his metaphysical thinking.

Spirit (rūḥ)

In surveying ʿAflaq's works, one encounters the cardinal importance that he places on an effective understanding of the spirit and spirituality. This is because the Baʿthist project is one of revolution of self, soul, and spirit. ʿAflaq does not deny the importance of material conditions, but he maintains that “our spiritual call is a realistic call” and in turn he warns of the threat of “matter [al-mādda] taking the place of spirit [al-rūḥ] and of atheism [al-ilḥād] occupying the place of faith.”Footnote ⁹⁰ In essence, his faith in spirit was prior to his material goals: “we believe that spirit is the origin of everything … The deep spiritual impetus not only controls matter … but in fact [this spiritual impetus] creates it as well.”Footnote ⁹¹ Much of the ʿAflaqist project hinges on understanding the interplay between spirit and matter in this regard. ʿAflaq calls for a “revolution (inqilāb) in the deeper sense” that is far more than a mere political revolution, one in which the Arab nation undergoes “a deep, severe movement in the spirit.”Footnote ⁹² Such a rendering of revolutionary change as affecting the depths of the Arab soul and national spirit allows for the deeper metaphysical problem of fragmentation to be overcome. To wit, ʿAflaq maintains that the Arab nation must be rescued from “the perils of the materialist mentality” (akhṭār al-ʿaqliyya al-māddiyya) precisely through a struggle of the soul which brings his countrymen back in touch with the aforementioned spiritual values.Footnote ⁹³ As he emphasizes further, “how can we move from one state to its opposite if we are satisfied with changing outward forms and appearances without a change in the spirit?”Footnote ⁹⁴ Without such a deeper reckoning, any attempts at change in the material domain would prove fruitless.

In metaphysically opening up the Arabs of his age to the past, ʿAflaq's thought demonstrates how a reinvigorated spirit propels the nation into a more universal future. Thus he clarifies that the inqilāb for which he calls is “this effort to reawaken a sound and transparent compliance between the nation and the requirements of life” and that therefore politics in their present state remain incapable of effecting fundamental change.Footnote ⁹⁵ Traditional politics and its adherents—that is, reform-minded nationalists or those who felt that the existing system and state structures following independence represented freedom—are asking the wrong questions according to ʿAflaq. He explains his integral prescription, weaving together all of the problems facing the Arab homeland, noting that while socioeconomic factors are a major concern, the real task at hand is something deeper:

ʿAflaq maintains that this struggle “must be understood it its broadest meaning,” as simultaneously against external forces such as Zionism and colonialism, as well as the internal corruption plaguing the Arab homeland.Footnote ⁹⁷ The key aspect in this light is ʿAflaq's emphasis on affirmation of a positive and active approach to nationalism. Rather than defining oneself against one's enemy by what one is not, he calls for asserting Arabness in the face of those who stand against this anticolonial struggle. Corruption engendered by capitalism, colonialism, and the politics of old have undermined the Arab nation and resultantly its national spirit.

ʿAflaq does not merely see colonialism alone as a problem to be overcome, but also the issues of the collaboration and corruption of local elites, and, even beyond that, internal class structures which facilitate exploitation. His political metaphysics confronts the very manner in which his countrymen understand and experience being Arab and how that must be redefined, reinvigorated, and spiritually constituted in the path of resurrecting the nation. This, in turn, explains why ʿAflaq characterizes the Arab Baʿth as “a positive spiritual movement” (ḥaraka rūḥiyya ījābiyya).Footnote ⁹⁸ Such an outlook cannot but be one that seeks to be a part of the larger world. As ʿAflaq states, “our goal is simply the return of the Arab nation to participation in human civilization [al-ḥaḍāra al-insāniyya] anew.”Footnote ⁹⁹ Yet, in order to realize such a goal, the Arab nation must overcome fragmentation and be unified once again. Indeed, the prerequisite for such flourishing and participation in universal human endeavors is unity (al-waḥda), the final concept of ʿAflaq's political metaphysics to which this article now turns.

Unity (waḥda)

ʿAflaq's concept of unity remains far more than a political aspiration to unite the fractured Arab states into one single polity. While this was an important aspect, the ʿAflaqist concept of unity, much like rest of his theoretical tapestry, ought to be understood as a metaphysical arrival. Kerr, commenting on the formation of the UAR, avers that the aspiration towards Arab unity was “a mystery that neither Arab nor western historians have satisfactorily explained.”Footnote ¹⁰⁰ The ʿAflaqist concept of unity can be understood as a process of overcoming a particular form of alienation: the fragmentation of the Arab self.Footnote ¹⁰¹ Such events have led to “an estrangement between the consciousness of the Arab nation and life itself.”Footnote ¹⁰² A state of oppression in being is a state of oppression materially, as, without unity of faith and belief in the Arab nation, its material spatial arrangement will remain fragmented. Through a reading of important sections of ʿAflaq's intellectual corpus dealing with unity, his formulation reveals an aspiration that saw the unity of the Arab nation as one step towards a greater unity for humanity.

ʿAflaq sought both to deepen Arab nationalism and simultaneously to move beyond existing conceptions of what constitutes the nation. Notions of historical contingency that understand the nation as mere social reality were contested by ʿAflaq. In a clear rejection of historical materialism, ʿAflaq emphasizes that unity does not emerge from “historical development … gratuitously,” but in fact necessitates “daily creation and nourishment, clarification, cultivation, and organization.”Footnote ¹⁰³ Unity, as with other ʿAflaqist notions, is realized through a committed and impassioned process of becoming linked to a deep fidelity to the Arab past. This was not a mere political question for ʿAflaq, as he explicitly emphasizes that there is a difference in kind between “true unity”—which is “the unity of the spirit” (waḥdat al-rūḥ)—and “political unity” (al-waḥda al-siyāsiyya).Footnote ¹⁰⁴ Arab unity, then, is a far higher-stakes endeavor than just a sociopolitical reordering—it was an ethical commitment tied to the process and struggle of resurrecting the national spirit and redefining what it meant to be Arab. For someone like ʿAflaq, this reconciliation of fragmentation must happen both in terms of the Arab states themselves, and on the level of the individual, psychologically and spiritually. As mentioned previously, the problem of fragmentation (al-tajziʾa) is a recurring theme in ʿAflaqism, and it is through unity that the psychology of fragmentation (nafsiyyat al-tajziʾa) can be overcome.Footnote ¹⁰⁵

ʿAflaq thought in terms of the broader Arab experience not limited to any single regional locale. A major reason for this can be understood by the spatial arrangement of the Syrian and other Arab states left behind by European colonialism. Part of completing an anticolonial nationalist revolution would entail overcoming such vestiges of the colonialist past. ʿAflaq puts forward a clear rejection of regionalist (quṭrī) thinking in favor of a nationalist (qawmī) perspective.Footnote ¹⁰⁶ He asserts that unity “is a revolution that arrives in order to eliminate distortion, change reality, discover the depths, and release the restrained forces [al-quwā al-ḥabīsa] and the unimpaired view.”Footnote ¹⁰⁷ Unity as a revolutionary force that allows the hidden depths of the Arab nation to arise is in keeping with the other features of ʿAflaq's thought. For ʿAflaq, the lack of unity derives from the spiritual effects of fragmentation. He remains uninterested in an independent state that manifests solely as a partial entity, and believes that the Arab experience speaks to the already existing nationalist sentiments that lie hidden, waiting to be awakened. For ʿAflaq, fragmented regionalist states have led to a fragmented regional subjectivity—embracing a more capacious national form simultaneously with a national consciousness would instantiate a national subjectivity.

At this point, ʿAflaq's integration of unity with socialism (al-ishtirākiyya) and freedom (al-ḥurriyya) can now be more substantively elucidated. He argues that “the Arab issue needs to be taken as an integral whole, and treated on this basis.”Footnote ¹⁰⁸ ʿAflaq insists that narrowly focusing on unity separately from its connection with nationalism and socialism, or considering it as a mere stage in a political process, undermines the Arab cause—this is emblematic of a “fragmentarian perspective” (wujhat naẓar tajzīʾiyya).Footnote ¹⁰⁹ As mentioned earlier, he understands colonialism to be an effect (natīja) rather than the cause (sabab) of the existing spiritual and intellectual stagnation.Footnote ¹¹⁰ The path of the Baʿth must be greater than a mere response—it must be an affirmation based on a positive process of spiritual invigoration, not on defining itself by what it is not. ʿAflaq emphasizes this notion of affirmation as key to his project. He frames anticolonialism as merely “the negative objective” (al-ghāliyya al-salbiyya), emphasizing that “the positive objective” (al-ghāliyya al-ījābiyya) of the Arab nation in achieving progress, peace, and its humanist message must be the driving force of struggle.Footnote ¹¹¹ He further argues that “the hatred of the foreigner and … the desire to be free of foreign rule” remain insufficient for struggling peoples to step onto the stage of world history.Footnote ¹¹² Taking the long view, ʿAflaq emphatically rejects the assertion, whether explicit or implicit, that Western powers would have had more agency in the preceding era of colonialism. In doing so, he allows a way out of the current predicament for his countrymen, and asserts that through a metaphysical awakening, the people who make up the rising Arab nation are the motor of history.

Importantly, the struggle to which ʿAflaq speaks does not just exist in a vacuum for Arabs alone. The unity of the Arab homeland allows for a more unified world. Thus there are global implications in such a process, which is why any analysis of ʿAflaq that reduces him to an anti-internationalist presents a facile view of his thought. He explains precisely why proper thought—or rather, a foundational metaphysics—is so crucial in an anticolonial nationalist struggle joined to a larger humanist aspiration, noting how “people who know what it is to be deprived of liberty and justice will consider other peoples’ right to these things as sacred as their own” and that “the motivating element in the Arab world is suffering; this is the guarantee that we will not ourselves become aggressive or narrow in our nationalism.”Footnote ¹¹³ ʿAflaq's aspiration is decidedly not a militaristic triumph. Rather, he formulates the Baʿth project as bringing about a chance for true equality among nations. When asked about how the example of the Zionist colonization of Palestine points to the manner in which nationalism can indeed become aggressive, he counters that supporters of Zionism “want to inflict on others the suffering they have themselves undergone. We do not.”Footnote ¹¹⁴ Time after time, ʿAflaq professes an ethical commitment that explicitly rejects vengeance or violent retribution. ʿAflaq refers to the formation of the UAR, for example, not only as having “revived our confidence in ourselves,” but also as a major step in the process of the Arab people's “reconciliation with the world” (muṣālaḥatunā maʿa al-ʿālam).Footnote ¹¹⁵ This reconciliation seems to be how he understands the process of decolonization as being truly realized. He even displays concern not only for fellow Arabs and other oppressed peoples of the Third World, but for those of Europe as well. Noting the manner in which the Arab and broader anticolonial struggles remain interconnected “with the progress of European peoples as well,” he cautions that “the continuation of colonialism in our countries” will isolate Europe from “the current of revolution” (tayyār al-thawra), and as a result of this Europe will remain stagnant and no longer contribute “its civilizational participation.”Footnote ¹¹⁶ Thus ʿAflaqist Baʿthism, while asserting the relevance and unique aspects of the Arab nation, readily welcomes the participation of other nations and their cultural production on the world stage. Indeed, he affirms that “every nation enriches other nations” when they draw from their own particular experiences.Footnote ¹¹⁷ World revolution can only emerge from nations being equal partners, and there exists no contradiction between universalism and nationalism, as “[n]ationalism is a part of universalism. It is its incarnation within the boundaries of any one people.”Footnote ¹¹⁸ Against chauvinism, ʿAflaq's humanist anticolonial nationalism aspires for the Baʿth to set an example as the best of humanity.

This is in part why ʿAflaq calls for the integration of unity with socialism. Noting the impossibility of unity without socialism, he insists that unity must emerge “in its proper place” at “the popular level” (al-ṣaʿīd al-shaʿbī) in which only the Arab people collectively can realize it.Footnote ¹¹⁹ The existential stagnation wrought by colonialism and internal structures aligned with capitalism have facilitated the dissolution of Arab unity. Here ʿAflaq provides one of his more expansive diagnoses of and attendant prescriptions for the societal issues and unavailing ways of thinking standing in the way of the Arab nationalist cause. He formulates that the Baʿthist integration of socialism and unity gives form to unity and that in a sense “socialism is the body, and unity is the soul.”Footnote ¹²⁰ The spiritual and integral unity of the Arab homeland (tawḥīd al-waṭn al-ʿarabī) is the greater goal of the Baʿth, but this is not the final goal—that aspiration remains the Arab nation undertaking “its mission in life.”Footnote ¹²¹ According to ʿAflaq, the Arab people must reach collectively into the hidden depths of their beings in which lies a force capable of changing not only history, but reality as well. This collective effort is what will allow the realization of unity; however, that unity remains inextricable from a socialist cause. Thus ʿAflaq's concept of unity “nourishes” freedom and socialism and concomitantly receives “nourishment” from them, in true integral fashion.Footnote ¹²² The nationalist and class struggles are joined together as a single movement seeking to overturn any and all forms of exploitation that exist in the Arab homeland.

ʿAflaq invokes an ethic of struggle carried out with positive affirmation towards bringing about a newly invigorated existential experience. Through this, he seeks to achieve an entirely new politics, necessarily overcoming the politics-as-usual which he castigated. For ʿAflaq, unity is not “an artificial process of collection” nor the joining together of the “correct pieces” resulting from fragmentation.Footnote ¹²³ Unity arrives as a creative, dynamic process in the midst of the Arab nation undergoing the throes of resurrection due to the energetic force and potentiality of nationalism. For ʿAflaq, nationalism is the means through which the Arabs can realize their message—which is a spiritual message (risāla rūḥiyya).Footnote ¹²⁴ This marks one of the most crucial contributions of ʿAflaq's thought to understanding decolonization and the reason behind his emphasis on the cardinal aim of waḥda. Such a concept is radically different from, and far more dynamic than, the developmentalist paradigms often associated with postcolonial nation building, as unity is an active and creative force that must be what drives any individual part “as a vital necessity” before there can exist any relationship of solidarity or cooperation.Footnote ¹²⁵ Likewise, “unity does not cause the part to lose its personality, but rather affirms [its personality] and deepens it, and provides it its truth, its authenticity, and creativity when [unity] places the part in its living place as a component of a whole.”Footnote ¹²⁶ The realization of the Arab self is thus linked to the becoming of Arab unity. Individual Arabs themselves would be fundamentally transformed simultaneously as their lands—splintered and ripped apart by capitalism, colonization, and spiritual stagnation—become whole as one Arab nation. For ʿAflaq, not only is the realization of unity more than the “numerical sum” of its individual parts—unity is a deepening that allows each individual part to reach its full potential, creating something “different in kind.”Footnote ¹²⁷ Furthermore, an Arab country's individual struggle for freedom cannot itself produce unity; rather, each country must struggle for unity in order to become truly free.Footnote ¹²⁸ Hence the necessity that Arabs must practice the “struggle of unity” (niḍāl al-waḥda) in order to manifest the “unity of struggle” (waḥdat al-niḍāl).Footnote ¹²⁹ Therefore unity of the Arab homeland is in fact both the undoing of fragmentation and the ultimate constitution of the Arab self.

In the final analysis, one cannot emphasize enough that the active, creative realization of unity is far more than a political aspiration in ʿAflaqism. In the simplest sense, politics must serve the interests of the wonders and mysteries of life itself, not the other way around.Footnote ¹³⁰ Together, unity, freedom, and socialism open up for ʿAflaq his more expansive aims in formulating Baʿthism, emphasizing that the overcoming of colonialism and internal corruption remains only the “means for the genius [ʿabqariyya] of this nation to burst forth towards creation [al-ibdāʿ], towards the earnest participation in the carrying of the burdens of humanity [ḥaml al-aʿbāʾ al-insāniyya].”Footnote ¹³¹ Overcoming the readily apparent obstacles to the Arab nationalist project is merely the surface of the deeper goal of becoming a beacon of humanist aspiration for the world to witness. As ʿAflaq unceasingly insists, “Arab nationalism does not mean closing off from human civilization, but it is, on the contrary, in continuous interaction with it.”Footnote ¹³² Grasping the universal aspirations of ʿAflaq's thought thus necessitates a thorough understanding of the metaphysical contours of his theoretical tapestry. The material aspect of decolonization marks just one part of the larger quest for the universal of the Arab people and nation. This “bursting forth” of which ʿAflaq speaks derives from his metaphysical understanding of time and temporality—by embracing the sacrifices required of the Baʿth movement, the power of Arab history itself is unleashed. The past joins hands with the present moment and the future emerges from the depths of the Arab nation and its reinvigorated national spirit. For ʿAflaq, such a metaphysical awakening serves the interests of the entire world, as the Arab nation sets an example for others to follow and turns towards humanity, in all of its manifestations, eager to bear witness and take up a universal humanist responsibility.