The Mirror of my Life [Mir'at Hayati]

"Yes I do, because generally the subject of sectarianism/tribalism/regionalism is a taboo subject in Syria. People in general, and the regime certainly, react very negatively to any talk about it, saying that it’s untrue, that it’s all polemic. They banned my book, but when the Arabic version was published in Cairo they brought big quantities with them from Cairo to Damascus and copied them. I see it as a compliment, because as Fisk says, it’s a highly critical book. The fact that they – and their opponents – took it seriously is a good thing. If you were to officially ask them they would not admit that, of course. My book has, by the way, also been used as obligatory literature in universities all over the world. Yes, in the greatest detail. In fact, it’s almost 5,000 pages, in five volumes, and we’re still waiting for the sixth. But you’ll never find another book which is such an insider’s account of all the things that have happened in Syria under Ba’athist rule. There is one thing that he doesn’t deal with in his book – the massacre of Hama in 1982, probably because it was too painful to write about it – but he deals with almost all the other important happenings and he’s quite honest about all kinds of other developments. You would never find that anywhere else. He also writes very well. It’s not dull, he describes quite a few amusing things and it varies from the very serious to sometimes the trivial, even. But for those who really want to study the inner workings of the regime, this is an unmissable book, together with Muhammed Ibrahim al-’Ali’s My Life and Execution . The “execution” is because he was supposed to be executed on 9 March 1963, and so the coup of the Ba’athist officers was brought forward a day so they could rescue him. He is still at the top of the regime, having been a member of the Ba’ath Party Central Committee for more than 25 years. What I found really interesting is a story in 1984, when the brother of Hafez al-Assad, Rifaat al-Assad, wanted to take over power. He wanted to use his reliable defence platoons, where he had some 3,000 Alawites of the Murshidiyin sect in key positions. But according to both Talas and Muhammed Ibrahim al-’Ali, Hafez al-Assad persuaded them to refuse any orders from Rifaat al-Assad, and from one moment to the next, the brother of the Syrian president was left toothless. The Murshidiyin military left their units, as a result of which Rifaat’s tanks and other armoured vehicles could not move into action. This was an inside story that I didn’t come across in any other books. It shows that sectarianism, or relying on certain groups within, in this case, the armed forces, can give you strength, but at the same time if all those people join you, they may also be induced to leave you."