Aflaq, Michel (1910-1989), was an Arab political thinker who cofounded the socialist Baath Party (also spelled Ba`ath). It became the dominant political movement in Syria and Iraq.
Aflaq was born on Jan. 19, 1910, in Damascus, Syria. As a young man, he resented French rule over his country. After studying at the University of Paris from 1929 to 1934, Aflaq became a socialist. He argued for Arab liberation from traditional, aristocratic power and European domination. Aflaq and Salah al-Bitar, a Syrian politician, established Baath as a movement in the early 1940’s and as a formal party in 1947. Aflaq helped bring about the merger of Syria and Egypt as the United Arab Republic, which lasted from 1958 to 1961. But after 1963, Aflaq failed to unify the Baathist regimes in Syria and Iraq. In 1966, he was forced out of the Baath Party by rival members. He died in exile in Paris on June 23, 1989, and was buried in Baghdad.
