With other groups joining them in later years, their organization, based in Damascus, was renamed Arab Ba’ath Socialist Party (ABSP) in 1952. Aflaq, the ideologue, described Arab nationalism as a ‘… tolerant spirituality that will open its heart and will shade with its wings all those who shared with the Arabs their history, who lived for generations in the atmosphere of their language and culture until they became Arab in thought and sentiment.’9 Aflaq’s Arab nationalism was founded on shared language, though, at times, he referred to other factors, such as ethnicity (though as part of remote
...more
