From 1949 to 1970, modern Syria has known a series of military coups that are still the subject of great controversy among contemporary historians, and the recent book "Adeeb Shishakli.. The Hidden Truth", which deals with the biography of former Syrian President Adib Shishakli, and spanned 575 pages of large pieces.

Its authors relied on thousands of documents (nearly two thousand documents) from the American, French and British Foreign Departments, in addition to the live testimonies provided by contemporaries of the period of Adib Shishakli's rule, and the documents and testimonies contained a lot of information published for the first time.

And the importance of what the book presented about the period of rule of Adib Shishakli of Syria (seized power in batches since 1951 and even 1954), says Saad Fansa for Al Jazeera Net that the Arab reader in the book "in front of the truest picture of the historical incidents that struck Syria after independence, and political conflicts between parties through the defeat of Palestine."

The book opens the door – according to Fanassa – to a different vision from what was transmitted to people from the information recorded by pens that came out of the mantle of the official regime, "which has absented previous stages of the history of Syria, to make the destructive role of the Baath Party – which lasted for nearly sixty years until today – and who came to power in his name, is the hero and savior who has no heroism except his heroism and no history writes except his history. It is a very narcissistic and backward mentality, which has led the country and the people to a state of political madness and absurdity that Syrians live in today."

According to the writer and historian Saad Fansa, the book seeks to take note of the era of post-independence Syria, especially the biography of former Syrian President Adib Shishakli since he was a colonel in the army until he came to power 4 years after he carried out a military coup in December 1949, and to highlight his most prominent achievements in the military, economic, political and social fields, in addition to revealing many facts that were "absent" from the Arab reader for decades about this prominent figure in history The Syrian and the Arab and the period of its rule.

Syria in its Golden Age

Since assuming the post of President of the Syrian Arab Republic in 1953, Adib Shishakli has attached great importance to the economy by directing the government to support free investment in the country and enacting laws that contribute to its regulation and control, and returning the issue of the general budget to the parliamentary debate after years of its absence.

The authors mention that Shishakli was influenced by the advice of the German expert Schacht, which prompted him to establish many agricultural and industrial projects that he personally supervised, armed with his academic knowledge as one of the graduates of the agricultural school in the city of Salamiya in the Syrian province of Hama, so he was able to develop agricultural activity and production in the country, set prices and secure seeds for farmers after years during which the agricultural sector witnessed stagnation affected by government corruption and negligence.

The banking sector also witnessed a prominent development during the era of Shishakli, so the former president was credited with establishing the Central Bank of Syria, which maintained monetary stability in the state, promoted economic growth and contributed to reducing unemployment rates, while the concerned state departments and institutions - under the directives of Shishakli - went to study laws and decrees related to the imposition of progressive taxes on real estate and income tax, and the issuance of a law to improve the conditions of employees working in state sectors and institutions before studying and ratifying the country's general budget.

Steps and decisions put the country in an advanced position among developing countries, and made Mahathir Mohamad – the former Malaysian Prime Minister and architect of the Malaysian Renaissance – acknowledge that he was influenced by Shishakli's experience and his comprehensive and ambitious vision after his visit to Syria in 1952, "so the creditor of the Malaysian Renaissance swore to make his country a copy of Syria," as stated in the book.

Syrian historian Saad Fansa says about that era for Al Jazeera Net, "The country has lived – the early fifties and during the rule of Adib Shishakli, who relied on an elite of legal, economic and scientific competencies, its golden age in both industrialization, agriculture and the strength of the army, which made it witness growth and prosperity was not repeated during the subsequent reigns of rule."

Syrian historian and author Saad Fansa (social media)

He adds: "The country lived that era by the recognition of Shishakli's enemies and those who turned against him themselves, and the reports of the United Nations Development Organization, some of whose figures and documents were published in the book."

The Renaissance and Authoritarianism Controversy

The authors believe in their book that the most prominent thing associated with the image of former Syrian President Adib Shishakli in the minds of some Syrians is the comprehensive and early vision he put forward for the advancement of Syrian society, as Shishakli considered that "restoring the prestige of the state must go through achieving a number of serious economic and social gains, and be reflected in improving the living conditions of citizens."

Shishakli's vision can be summarized in a quote from Dr. Amal Mikhail Bashoura, wife of Baath Party founder Michel Aflaq, who said in her memoirs about the former president, "Shishakli embarked on an ambitious project to achieve economic, social and administrative reforms, and struggled to highlight the identity of the independent Syrian entity, and emphasized Syria's Arab and Islamic identity and its distinctive role in the Arab world. For the first time in the history of modern Syria, Shishakli implemented a partial policy of Arabizing public life and the educational system, and worked hard to eliminate foreign influence in this field.

Saad Fnasa believes that the importance of Dr. Amal's testimony stems from her being the wife of Michel Aflaq, who was one of the fiercest opponents of Adeeb Shishakli's rule, and Fansa says, "I was stunned when Bassam Al-Barazi showed me what Dr. Amal wrote, as she said – despite her husband's political position – that Shishakli is the first great reformer in the history of independent Syria, as he is the first to take effective steps to complete the building of internal unity by reducing the political and social specificities of religious and racial minorities, and by breaking the severity nomadic system".

On the other hand, some historians and contemporaries of the Shishakli era believe that the latter was inclined to create a political system based on the military dictatorship in running the affairs of the country, based in their opinion on a number of internal policies that he followed: dissolving parties and arresting opponents.

Battle of Palestine

Saad Fansa refers in his speech to Al Jazeera Net to the role of Shishakli in the battle of Palestine in 1948, where he was commissioned – when he was still a colonel in the army – by the national government in Syria led by the second Yarmouk regiment before the regular armies entered the battle, and the goal of the regiment was to liberate the Upper Galilee from Zionist gangs.

Al-Fansa says: "Shishakli led the battles with extreme valor, and witnessed his heroism Akram Al-Hourani and the writer Abdul Salam Al-Ajili – one of the Syrian parliamentary figures volunteering in the first battles of Palestine – which prompted Abdul Salam Al-Ajili to employ some of his real stories derived from the facts of the first Arab-Israeli war, and admitted on one occasion that some of his stories were living facts from his memory, in which he witnessed the heroism of Adib Al-Shishakli without naming him."

He was later able to confirm the fact that Adib Shishakli led the second Yarmouk regiment with other testimonies from Israeli documents, as well as from the military figures who accompanied Shishakli, but Shishakli was later surprised to cut off supplies from him, so he went to Damascus and met President Shukri al-Quwatli, "who had no trick", so he met the military body of the Salvation Army hoping to supply him with ammunition, but the body justified the arguments, and he had already sent them one delegation after another to supply him with weapons and ammunition, so they did not respond to his repeated requests He felt humiliated and betrayed and returned from Palestine frustrated and desperate from the politicians of Damascus and the Arabs, as described by my father Bashir Fansa when he met him, and knew him closely after his return from the Palestine war, and at that time the idea of a military coup was in his mind," according to the author Fansa.

Sweida Events

To this day, the bloody events that took place in the province of Suwayda in January 1954 during the Shishakli era are still controversial among Syrians, especially the question of the extent of the former president's involvement in those events, which reportedly resulted in the deaths of nearly 300 civilians.

The spark of events began in late 1953 in Aleppo governorate, which witnessed demonstrations against government policy, and soon moved to Suwayda in early 1954, where the ceiling of the demonstrators' demands rose to demand that Shishakli step down. The army besieged the city, a curfew law was issued, and rumors spread about the intentions of the security services to arrest a number of notables and sheikhs of the city, after which the town of Al-Qarya was bombed in the center of the governorate.

Saad Fansa doubts the accuracy of this account and the figures it contains, noting that the escalation took place "against the backdrop of the arrest of Mansour bin Sultan al-Atrash," who in many accounts is reported to have been working to coordinate a coup against Shishakli's rule.

"To date, there are no official documents on the number of deaths or what happened in the city at the time," he said.

He continues: "But on the other hand, there are official documents confirming that Brigadier General Rasmi al-Qudsi is primarily responsible for the events in the city of Suwayda, where he carried out many acts of abuse to Jabal al-Arab and its people, and after the outbreak of unrest, Shishakli did not find it necessary to put them down."

Many historians believe that the events of Suwayda contributed to supporting the point of view of the coup d'état against Shishakli, and strengthening their chances of attracting the military and civilian components to support and support their plan.

Coup and assassination

The first spark of the military coup that overthrew Adib Shishakli began in Aleppo after Baathist officer Mustafa Hamdoun, commander of the Northern Region Services Company, occupied the headquarters of the state radio and announced the coup on February 25, 1954.

Although the commanders of the eastern and coastal region joined Hamdoun's coup, the barracks and camps in and around Damascus were still under Shishakli's command with hundreds of tanks and armored vehicles and thousands of soldiers and non-commissioned officers, according to the testimony of many Syrian officers who confirmed that Shishakli was able to crush the rebels if he wanted to, according to the book.

The authors cite the confession of officer Mustafa Hamdoun, in which he said that even after the Central Command in Homs and Hama joined the coup, the balance of military power remained in favor of Adib Shishakli, who indicated in his resignation statement that he was resigning to spare the blood of the people and the army and to prevent a civil war in the country.

As the putschists prepared to strike at any possible movement of military vehicles and armored vehicles from the pro-Shishkali Qatana camps, the latter had left the country on February 27 by land to Lebanon without the knowledge of his officers, including military police chief Abdelhak Shehadeh, Lieutenant Colonel Hussein Hadda, and others who occupied Mezzeh airport in order to prevent him from leaving the country and relinquishing power.

"Some officers of Adib Shishakli were surprised that he submitted his resignation and left the country after recommending that his wife and children be protected and not be harmed, and Shehadeh and the two officers, the brothers Hassan and Hussein Hadda, declared disobedience to the Baathist coup," he said.

After Shishakli's exit from Syria, the frequency of unrest and demonstrations escalated in Damascus and Aleppo, and everyone feared a state of security chaos that might drag the country into civil war, and against the background of these unrest, Fansa tells about the recall of President Hashem al-Atassi from Homs to complete his presidency, after he had resigned after the beginning of Shishakli's seizure of power since 1951.

Adib Shishakli was assassinated in the province of Goiás, Brazil, on September 27, 1964, with a gunshot wound at close range, and reports indicate that the perpetrator of the assassination was a young man from the province of Suwayda named Nawaf Ghazala.