Syrian Anniversary
From MICHAEL ADAMS
THIS weekend the Syrians and Egyptians cele- brate the third anniversary of the merger of their two countries in the United Arab Republic. Many Syrians will be wondering what they have to celebrate, for earlier this month the blow fell for which many of them have been waiting with apprehension; a presidential decree from Cairo ordered the institution of exchange control in Syria, bringing the Syrian economy into line with Egypt's and making possible a currency union between the two regions, with a single cen- tral bank for the whole republic—steps which are likely to follow within the next two or three months.
Free trade has always been the lifeblood of Syria, in its days of independence between 1946 and 1958, during the French mandate, and for long before. Cities like Damascus and Aleppo grew up on the trade routes between the Mediter- ranean and Mesopotamia. By putting an end to it. President Nasser has not merely clipped the wings of the merchants and money-changers of these 'ports of the desert'; he has told the Syrians that they have to break with their past of liberalism and free enterprise, and follow the road he has already mapped out (though not as Yet very clearly) for the Egyptians, of State-con- trolled economic planning, with a narrow toot- waY—it grows narrower all the time—set aside for the individual.capitalist entrepreneur. To ask the Syrians to celebrate this landmark in the history of the union is like inviting a rugby team out to celebrate, and then taking them to a temperance hotel. But the new measure only con- firms the whole trend of President Nasser's policy for the republic. Without it, as the Syrian Minister of Economy told me last month, 'this union makes no sense.' It was absurd that a citizen of the republic travelling from Damascus to Cairo, as one might go from Edinburgh to London, should have had to declare his currency 011,arrival, and to have his bags searched for the luxury goods which were freely available in Syria but whose import into Egypt was forbidden by the Egyptian exchange control regulations. This kind of inequality bred envy and encouraged stouggling, and as long as there was no economic union between the two regions the political union Was insecure.
To many Syrians this was an agreeable state of affairs. They were happy to enjoy Nasser's protection both against Israel and against the local firebrands who had punctuated Syria's dozen years of independent existence with half a dozen coups. d'etat—but they considered the Egyptians somewhat boorish, politically naïve, and certainly not qualified to run anybody else's affairs for them. Like the Socialists of the Syrian lia'ath party, who engineered the union in the confident expectation that they would end up running Egypt rather than the other way round,
they underestimated Nasser. Nasser did not want to 'take over' Syria when he did, and he only agreed to do so when the Ba'ath leaders (who occupied a commanding position in Syria at the time) accepted his terms without even seeing them—terms which included the dissolution of the Syrian political parties; today, after three years of union, they remain dissolved and look less like returning to life than ever. Consequently there is no focus for apposition to Nasser's policies, and in any case the Ba'ath party, whose members are the most critical of these policies, are in a bad position to take any action against them, for they are the foremost advocates of Arab unity and so can hardly lead the forces which would like to undo the only practical example of Arab unity so far in existence.
Apart from the Ba'ath party the opposition comes mainly from the merchant class, whose situation commands a certain amount of sympathy. The merchants of Aleppo and Damas- cus can fairly claim that Syria's remarkable post- war progress has been due in large part to their enterprise; yet it is on them that the blow now falls. But this is not an argument which cuts much ice with Nasser, whose answer will be that any- thing they can do, he can do better, through properly organised and centrally controlled planning. And he may be right—though it remains to be proved and the Syrian commercial instinct defies all the rules of the game—for although the Syrian economy as a whole pros- pered, thanks to the enterprise of the merchants, the effects of this prosperity were felt most unevenly through the country', and much that might have been done to spread its benefits was left undone. The creation of various light industries in Syria since the union with Egypt has begun to rectify this fault, and present plans for irrigation will do more.
In short, Nasser's plan for Syria now begins to emerge, after three years of grouping, during which an evident desire to placate the Syrians and to calm their apprehensions seemed to inhibit Nasser's natural instinct to force the pace. 'Syria is like a woman,' they used to say, 'she needs to be led and not driven.' For a long time Nasser seemed to agree, and he tried various methods of governing them, finally sending his most trusted lieutenant, Marshal Abdel Hakim Amer, to listen to their grievances and try to coax them into full co-operation. But nothing he tried was successful in stilling the rising murmur of dis- content, and last September Nasser appointed the former Syrian secret police chief, Colonel Abdel Hamid Serraj, as 'chairman of the Executive Council in the Syrian Region,' which made this young and unpopular officer the most powerful man in Syria.
From then on, woman or no woman, it was plain that Syria was to be driven, and the imposition of exchange control regulations was merely the logical extension of a process which had already started with restrictions on imports last year. Official statements in Cairo and Damascus have denied that a currency union is to be carried out immediately; it will only take place, these statements say, when the authorities are satisfied that it will not harm the interests of either party. But it is not likely to be long delayed, and already during the last six months before the decree imposing exchange control the Syrian currency had depreciated so much on the open market that it was almost on a par with that of Egypt. Once the currency union has taken place, with a single central bank set up, presumably in Cairo, to which the backing for the old Syrian currency will be removed, Syria will really have been integrated into the UAR, and any dreams that Syrians might entertain of a reversion to Syrian independence will be—just dreams.
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