Comments by "Phil Dobson" (@phildobson8705) on "Aleppo: How rebels won then lost key Syrian city - BBC News" video.

  1. 4
  2. 2
  3. 1
  4. 1
  5. 1
  6. +Tarik Tekin: Michel Aflaq 1910-1989 Syrian philosopher, sociologist Arab nationalist & principal founder of Ba'ath Party. He published various books during his lifetime, The Battle for One Destiny (1958) and The Struggle Against Distorting the Movement of Arab Revolution (1975). Born into a middle-class family in Damascus, Syria, Aflaq studied at the Sorbonne, where he met his future political companion Salah al-Din al-Bitar. Aflaq returned to Syria in 1932, and began his political career in communist politics becoming a communist activist but broke his ties with the communist movement when the Syrian–Lebanese Communist Party supported France's colonial policies. Later in 1940 Aflaq and al-Bitar established the Arab Ihya Movement (later renaming itself the Arab Ba'ath Movement, taking the name from Zaki al-Arsuzi's group by the same name). The movement proved successful, and in 1947 the Arab Ba'ath Movement merged with al-Arsuzi's Arab Ba'ath organisation to establish the Arab Ba'ath Party. Aflaq was elected to the party's executive committee and was elected "'Amid" (meaning the party's leader). The Arab Ba'ath Party merged with Akram al-Hawrani's Arab Socialist Party to establish the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party in 1952; Aflaq was elected the party's leader in 1954. During the mid-to-late 1950s the party began developing relations with Gamal Abdel Nasser, the President of Egypt, which eventually led to the establishment of the United Arab Republic (UAR).
    1
  7. 1
  8. 1