Thought and practice are two sides of the same coin, and the conflict between them confirms the existence of an imbalance that would hinder the requirements of progress, advancement, and positive development, However, maintaining balance is not related to the will of one side only, but rather to the will of other sides and circumstances that are not controlled by those who want balance and harmony between their thought and practice, but rather are controlled by other parties that have a great influence on the general political atmosphere.
The Syrian Social Nationalist Party is a secular party in doctrine and principle, and it operates in several countries, including Lebanon, Let’s take a brief look at Lebanon with the intention of learning from the Lebanese experience, In Lebanon, there is a political system that the Lebanese agreed upon in Taif after a war that lasted 18 years, In addition to the Taif Agreement, it can be said that this system, represented by sectarian power-sharing and democratic consensus, is imposed by the international community, which protects, sponsors, and even finances it, Under this system, which is unique in the world, the Lebanese lived, and their lives were better by degrees than the lives of their neighbors.
The secularism of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party has two aspects: a fundamental, ideological aspect that fulfills the requirements of a secular approach, including the separation of religion and state and resistance to sectarianism in society; and a call for scientific progress, the rejection of tribalism, and the practice of openness and self-criticism, All these fundamental secular features are entirely consistent with the tenets of Syrian Social Nationalist thought, as is very clear from the party’s internal literature and regulations, which are well-known to anyone interested in the political and intellectual landscape of this region.
As for politics, the general political atmosphere, and the rules of the political game, they are not subject to the will and desire of the Syrian National Party absolutely, or even to a large extent, but are mainly subject to the will of the non-commitment to power-sharing and consensual democracy resulting from a Lebanese harmony between sectarian consciousness and sectarian consciousness, which must achieve stability that allows the country to develop to something better, and achieve living conditions that were not relatively bad compared to the neighbors.
In this atmosphere, the Syrian National Party had to decide whether it could adapt politically and in stages to the desired and imposed Lebanese situation, which is represented by the existence of parties that claim religious authority. As is generally known, claiming religious authority does not mean its actual existence, and even the actual existence differs from one party to another, Hezbollah wants a state of mullahs and a state of the jurist, but it overlooked the state of the jurist for now because it could not be achieved, and because it is prohibited internationally and unacceptable internally.
The other parties are mainly pretentious parties, and their practices are particularly scientific and civil, There is no party in Lebanon that wants to establish a religious state, with the exception of Hezbollah, There is no noticeable influence of other religious authorities on the drafting of laws and the state of the judiciary, Therefore, political interaction, in the sense of political action, between these parties and the Syrian Social Nationalist Party is possible and may be productive, as is the case with the interaction between Christian Democratic parties and socialist parties in Europe, There is nothing religious in these parties except part of the name, It cannot be said that the Christian Democratic Party in Germany is not a secular party, and secularism does not contradict the presence or absence of religious affiliation in a secular person, The most religious sheikh may be among the most secular people, Therefore, establishing political alliances between the party and those parties does not mean abandoning the secular approach as a goal, nor does it mean dissolving into the religiousness of the other parties. Let us move from the Lebanese case to the Syrian case.
Some of the practices of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party are criticized, for example, its membership in what was called the National Front during the Assad era in a country where political options were reduced to two, or let’s say symbolically, either Bashar or Abu Bakr’s group… either Bashar or Azrael, In this situation, limited to Bashar and Abu Bakr, the rational person would choose Bashar as the lesser of two evils, and this is what is observed in the majority of the Syrian people, It is clear at this stage that the majority wants Bashar and rejects Azrael. From this standpoint, the party’s membership in the National Front was established against the fundamentalist Azrael, The goal is not to support Bashar, but rather to defeat Azrael, which is more important than anything else. Defeating Azrael, who represents the Islamist factions, is tantamount to defeating the worst and most oppressive dictatorship, There is not a single point of superiority for Azrael’s factions over Bashar’s brigades!
The hypothetical future, should Azrael ascend the throne of the Caliphate in Damascus, will be no different from Kandahar, Therefore, the alliance, which should not be eternal and fateful, but rather temporary, was formed. The Caliphate no longer threatens anyone… it has vanished and been destroyed, and the world has settled on rejecting it, Knowing that pragmatic politics does not reject anything categorically, in order to carry out dirty work, Salafist-Brotherhood fundamentalism was supported here and there… and even these services are no longer required, no matter what ISIS is, for life on this earth without ISIS is better than life with ISIS.
There are many unresolved issues in this country, which, politically, even after reaching the age of a full century, lives a life of recklessness, folly, and mediocrity, some aspects of which can be reluctantly understood, such as the entanglement of religion with nationalism and the interference of the external with the internal, and the problem of the imbalance in national consciousness and the nationalism of consciousness, Therefore, the Syrian National Party and others must work to facilitate maturity, because maturity is necessary and also possible, and because the party has a mature ideological and doctrinal fabric as if it were made for the future of Syria, It is the secular and scientific party that rejects sectarianism, The party is national or regional Syrian in a time of growing nationalism and regionalism. The party is clean of the widespread corruption in the country, and the party is internally democratic, electing and respecting its internal system, and it has no connection whatsoever to tribalism. Therefore, it is ready to play a positive role in developing Syria for the better.
Practically speaking, it can be said that the Syrian Nationalist Party is the only party in Syria, The Ba’ath Party has turned into a family militia, and the Muslim Brotherhood is not a political party but a sectarian herd, The Communist Party is one of the most important remaining parties, but politically it is a wreck. Despite this, it is capable of recovering and playing a positive role in developing the country, Have we forgotten another party of equal importance to the Syrian Nationalist Party in Syria?!
The Syrian National Party was required to do a great deal, most importantly to eliminate the Assad regime, which has fallen and will fall later, and the Syrian National Party must employ its capabilities in organizing the Syrian situation after eliminating the Assad regime, through a new method that we clearly notice in the statements of officials in this party, The party does not support authoritarian fundamentalism now, and the situation now is different from the situation in the previous year. The party must be bolder, because authoritarian fundamentalism is not able to deal with the Syrian National Party by persecution and annihilation as the Baath Party did and as Nasserism did previously, for history does not always repeat itself.
The hypocrisy of duplicity is widespread in this country. For example, one condemns the fundamentalist Azrael on the one hand, while promoting his “revolution” on the other, as if it were possible for Azrael, the fundamentalist, to actually revolt! And are we to expect freedom, democracy, and equality if Azrael ascends to the caliphate? O people of enlightenment, enlighten us, may God reward you! For it is not theoretically impossible, after enlightenment, for us all to become soldiers in the ranks of Abu Bakr Azrael for the sake of God’s rule and His Sharia in this land!
There are a large number of unresolved issues in this country, Despite the fact that the country, as a state or people, is almost a century old, it remains in a state of adolescence, and recklessness continues to prevail, This situation is understandable, albeit reluctantly, especially when one grasps certain specific Syrian national characteristics. Among the most important of these is the intertwining of national and religious identities, the entanglement of external and internal affairs, and the complexities surrounding Sykes-Picot, with some viewing it as divisive and others as unifying, Recent developments have demonstrated that Sykes-Picot merely gathered together, on a mere 185,000 square kilometers, the most that could be gathered. Recent events in the north, west, and south of the country suggest that what cannot be gathered has been gathered, The situation is transitional, shrouded in primitivism, violence, and the resurgence of fundamentalism. The establishment of a Greater Syria has always been in everyone’s interest, and this state will come to pass, despite the recent setbacks suffered by Syria, Palestine, Iraq, and others. A historical inevitability will prevail, No matter how complicated things get and despite the setbacks that Syria is experiencing these days, no matter what the plans of the past were, for example regarding Israel, the view of Israel must be realistic and pragmatic, and this is what a party official expressed.
The Syrian Social Nationalist Party will have an important place in the future Syria, i.e., Greater Syria,The party, with its secularism, non-sectarianism, integrity, organization, and historical and intellectual foundation, represents politically and intellectually the bright and expected form of the future, Secularism has managed to transform into the methodologies of all advanced countries in the world, and fundamentalist barbarism has not been able to transform into the methodology of any advanced country, That is, the transformation of Syria into secularism represents a historical inevitability, The future development from a small Syria to a greater one is not a kind of theoretical luxury, but a reality that will be imposed by the interest of all, There has been no progress through the entanglement of the political with the religious and through the weakness of national national consciousness, which was born again about a hundred years ago and is still lost, searching for itself, after a dark period that lasted fourteen centuries.
Thought and practice are two sides of the same coin, and the conflict between them confirms the existence of an imbalance that would hinder the requirements of progress, advancement, and positive development, However, maintaining balance is not related to the will of one side only, but rather to the will of other sides and circumstances that are not controlled by those who want balance and harmony between their thought and practice, but rather are controlled by other parties that have a great influence on the general political atmosphere.