Hi Joshua –
Thank you for your short contribution about Michel Aflaq. Reading your text summarised very well how a lot of the modern politics of Syria are linked to former occupation of the Middle East through European Powers like France and Great Britain. What was fascinating me, when I took the classes, was to learn that the Arab Nationalism alongside the Islamic Revival was to a certain extend inspired by Hassan al-Banna, the Egyptian Founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, but that later, Hafez al-Assad cracked down hard on the MB when their ideology wasn’t compatible anymore with keeping him in charge in Syria.
