# One Common Trench or Two Opposite Sides?/Part 2

In questions of criticism, if a Ba’athist observes you to be hunting for mistakes, overlooking the objective possibilities when evaluating the measures taken by the Revolution, or turning errors into ways of winning over workers or chances for dialogue for winning over peasants and intellectuals, the Ba’athist is likely to take a hostile attitude toward you. In addition, he may well find that the bonds between himself and the Communist Party are weak, if not non-existent.
Our goal should be a sound ideological and political program stemming from analyses, which contradict neither the National Action Charter nor the framework and central tenets of the Revolution. Furthermore, this criticism should be placed in the right context, not taking place in the street with the citizens but confined to the Front committees.
Such is the spirit of the Front, as we understand it. If we diminished opportunities for criticism in the Front committees, enlarged meetings and Front leadership, we would be compromising the development of the Front with its strategic horizon for building and continuing the tasks of national construction and struggle.
How can we understand cooperation and mutual influence if the meeting of the Front committees is being put off?
How can there be any real cooperation in the absence of frankness? Why do some Ba’athist not attend meetings for fear that the methods of presentation used by the National Front groups (or some of them) might embarrass them?
I can assure you that there can be no embarrassment if the logic of the above groups is incorrect or if their method of presentation is not objective.
Whereas the Ba’athist think that Front committee meetings facilitate at their expense the preparation of sectarian plans in the interests of other Front participants, other Front groups believe that the regularity of Front activities can only lead to Ba’athist making gains at the expense of others. When this new logic is replaced by one founded on a willingness to cooperate in the control of new realities, however, no group will view the logic of the opposite areas antagonistic. In other words, no groups will make gains at the expense of others.
The meetings of the Front committees should be regularized, with greater opportunities for interaction among their members and for criticism and self-criticism. If a Communist, for instance, encounters certain facts put forth by Ba’athist or other patriotic groups, which he does not wish to concede in the meeting for fear of being embarrassed by his Party organization, he should take these facts to his Party, saying: “These facts have been submitted to me and I support the viewpoint of the Ba’athist comrades and other groups. So, please, do not embarrass me, comrades; this action has been a wrong one”. The Ba’athist should also do the same. Hence, not one of you would be embarrassed by this in a meeting.
There should be mutual influence in the Front. This would enable the Front to develop and function in the context of the strategic horizon planned for it.
This is the way we should act as leaders, because our responsibility is greater than that of other comrades who are leaders or members of Front committees in Anbar, Diyala and other governorates.
There are certain groups in divisions of the State apparatus, which, because of their nature, continue to make excessive demands in order to hold on to extraordinary powers. This, therefore, is not a normal situation.
Throughout the entire world, under both socialist and capitalist regimes, special groups try to present the political leadership with extraordinary situations. Some of these factions might do this unintentionally, in cases where they might be psychologically compelled to create an abnormal situation in order to gain extraordinary powers in relation to the political
Leadership.
Our role in education, control and cooperation, however, will reduce the chances for bad or naïve elements to create extraordinary situations in dealing with any question at issue.
If the AESP were to stop criticizing and purging the administrative apparatus, you would then be entitled to say: “The ABSP is responsible for the flaws in the apparatus.” But where there is continual criticism in the press, a continual purge of the apparatus and continued resolute measures, it is wrong to place the blame for the error of a district or sub district director on the AESP alone. Such an error would be the responsibility of us all. When facts concerning acts against the Front parties on the part of any administrative official are submitted, and no measures are taken against this official, then you can tell your comrades in the committees: “These are the facts. You should convey them to your supreme leadership if it is outside your responsibilities to deal with them.” As for rumors, if you wish them to die, you cannot allow them to live even for one day. The fight against rumors should be conducted within ourselves because we, the Front parties, are responsible for spreading the rumors. When this phenomenon is eliminated there will be an end to rumors.
Before beginning to fight rumors, you must first stop spreading them yourselves, and you will see that in a short time, rumors will be considerably reduced. At that time you can work out a plan to eliminate the remaining rumors.
How can we put these words into practice?
There should be more interaction through regular meetings and an examination of the political decisions and administrative measures of the State together with their basic justification according to the folk proverb, “incense banishes wickedness.” We say, instead, “clarity banishes wickedness in the same way that a candle banishes darkness.”
When the facts concerning a given question are clearer to a Ba’athist comrade than they are to other comrades of the Front in Sinjar to take one example, and the Ba’athist fails to convey the information to the other comrades, they are bound to become rumormongers. How can they know what facts are not true? Why does the Ba’athist not explain the facts to them at the meetings of the Front committees in order to refute their pretexts of being ignorant of the true facts? Regular weekly meetings would create the opportunity to tell your comrades what is true and what is not. You could tell them: “You should not speak vaguely outside the meetings without first asking for an explanation of the subject.” You, comrades, are supposed to refute rumors even though you imagine that some of them might be true. The right principle is to defend the march of the Revolution against the rumormongers and avoid spreading them. You can then criticize whatever you regard as erroneous in the committee meetings. But if such an effort is not made, criticism and the spreading of rumors will naturally continue outside the meetings.
If we had applied this principle seriously and extensively, the rumors and errors of the administrative apparatus, as well as the errors of the special organs, would have been reduced.
There are some groups, which, like wolves, examine their prey before attacking it. If they observe someone attacking the National Front Parties in the presence of a Ba’athist who does not defend them against the attackers and make it clear that their criticism is incompatible with Front relations—and conversely, if they find someone attacking the Ba’athist before Front Party members—it will only encourage these groups to attack any Front Party before others. We find that such phenomena compel some administrative organs to sometimes act in opposition to parties of the PPNF.
1 Sinjar is a town in Nineveh Governorate