Arab Politics -The Baath Party Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Arab Politics -The Baath Party - Research Paper Example Baath party is one of the Arab political parties originated in Syria. It has attained international fame because of its association with former Iraq president Saddam Husain. Though Baath party has extended its roots to many Arab countries like Syria, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan etc as a symbol of Arab unity, it didn’t survive long because of its composition of different political regimes and origin The Arab Socialist Baath Party was founded in Syria in the 1940s by a small group of French-educated Syrian intellectuals - Michel Aflaq, a Greek Orthodox, and Salah al-Din al-Bitar, a Sunni Muslim. The word Baath means renaissance in Arabic. (Kafala) The educated Muslim intellectuals have visualized the whole Arab countries as a single entity and their aim was to bring all the Arab people under one flag of the Baath party. Their aim was not motivated by any selfish aspects. They have felt the need of a single Arab party in order to counter the external threats from countries like Israel and America. Baath party was a secular Arab party. â€Å"Socialism (not Marxism) was quickly adopted as the party’s economic dogma: â€Å"Unity [Arab], Freedom [from colonialism], and Socialism† are still the watchwords.† (The Syrian Encyclopaedia) Though Baath party has accepted socialism as the economic principle, it differed from communism in many ways. Communism mostly works for the working class of the whole world whereas Baath party stressed the importance of economic equality among all the peoples of Arab countries. They have given focus on Arab culture alone and hence they concentrated on the Middle East region alone. Communism, on the other hand, doesn’t have any boundaries; it works for the whole working class in the world. â€Å"The Iraqi Baath party was founded in 1951 and had 500 members three years later. Saddam Hussein joined it as a 20-year-old in 1956.