Like father, like son?

Will Bashar show the toughness to complete the transfer of his father's authority and protect Syria's interests in a world different from what the elder Assad was a accustomed to? KESAVA MENON on the daunting challenge ahead of the young ruler.

HONESTY AND modesty are often mentioned as the main features of Bashar al-Assad's character. Also spoken of are his open- mindedness on political and economic issues and his interest in new technologies. Unmentioned in the atmosphere of respect and mourning attendant on his father's death is the question which really needs to be answered before any prognosis can be made of Syria's destiny under this charge. Will Bashar show the toughness to complete the transfer of his father's authority and protect and promote the country's interests in a world that is different from what his father was accustomed to.

There seems no reason to doubt that Bashar will take control of the levers of power that his father wielded during his 30 years in office. He has already been made the commander in-chief of the armed forces and within the next two weeks will become the secretary-general of the ruling Baath party and President of the country. All powerful state institutions have sworn their allegiance and the masses have rallied round him with a surge of enthusiasm. Those who have followed him in his six years of politics believe that he has been sufficiently prepared to become his father's successor. But the question about his personal strengths will continue to linger until he proves himself in tackling the tough challenges he and his country face.

As a Syrian analyst put it, during a long session in the CNN live telecast of Hafez al-Assad's funeral, the world in which Bashar will have to operate is vastly different from that in which his father manoeuvred. As a Baath party adherent, Hafez al-Assad evinced interest in Arab nationalism and socialism. Even though Arab nationalism has increasingly looked like a chimera, the elder Assad's commitment to the concept was lauded even at the time of his death. The elder Assad also did not seem able to shed his socialist leanings even though he had begun to allow his regime to adjust to the imperatives of global capital in the last half-decade or so. Bashar does not have the luxury of dealing with these regional and global developments with his judgment only half-formed on the issues in hand.

Over the last half century Arab nationalism was largely defined in terms of the conflict with Israel. This dream also initially floundered on account of differences which arose over the approaches to be adopted. First Egypt, then Palestinians and then Jordan made their peace separately with Israel. States on the outer periphery of the Arab world, Oman and Qatar, in one direction and Morocco and Tunisia, in the other, sought to develop trading ties with Israel.

This was not just a matter of silencing the guns but a far more substantial issue of declaring that these states would henceforth countenance the existence of a Jewish state carved out of what was once almost exclusively Arab land.

Hafez al-Assad bit the bullet when he agreed to participate in the Madrid conference. As he was to explain in about the last public statements to be issued on his behalf, he had made the strategic decision for peace. But from his animosity towards Jordan's King Hussein and the Palestine Authority President, Mr. Yasser Arafat, leaders whom he held responsible for the breach of Arab solidarity, it was clear that the decision to accept Israel was a bitter pill to swallow. In the initial phase of his rule, Bashar will have to deal with senior leaders who feel the same bitterness but this attitude will not serve him in the long-term.

Bemoaning the lack of unity among the Arabs in their approach to Israel will be of no avail. That unity is now splintered by a host of other fissures. Just a cursory examination of how the Arabs have failed to hold a summit despite a spate of attempts over the last decade will show the poor state of this project. So long as some Arab states oppose the participation of Saddam Hussein-led Iraq (and Syria's animosity to this President is only a few shades less than that of Kuwait), this project cannot be revived. But there are also fissures between the monarchial or autocratic regimes which rule every single Arab country and the masses who aspire for greater freedom; between those who impose Islamic regimes and agendas and others who seek to maintain the pluralistic, if not exactly secular, societies that most Arabs still live in.

The collapse of Arab solidarity is more the symptom of a disease where the disease itself has been the birth and development of the several separate nationalisms. For instance, Bahrain and Qatar, whose peoples would have been indistinguishable from each other a hundred years ago when pan-Arabism was born, are today bitterly contesting a territorial dispute before the International Court of Justice. What is most remarkable is the manner the governments and media on both sides attach strident nationalistic content to the disagreement over a few islands.

If Bashar ever devotes his energies to his father's pet project, he would have to begin from entirely different premises and work in a different context. In fact, the very nature of pan-Arab unity and its importance in the scheme of the individual countries are going to be very different. Arab unity in the new context stands for promotion of each country's own interests by cooperating with others.

Economic affairs will dominate the attempts to promote greater cooperation amongst the countries of West Asia and North Africa. In this context, the facts of a common Arabic language and culture might prove important ingredients but economic considerations will be more important. When the future of the region is looked at from this point of view, it will be difficult to ignore strong economic forces like Turkey and Iran, which fringe the region, or overlook Israel, technology superpower of the region.

Bashar will not compromise on his father's policy of not making peace with Israel until Syria regains every inch of its territory. But beyond that, Bashar will have to decide how he deals with a country which his father fought all his life.

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