e other hand, sought to unite all Arabs under one category. The reformation of economics would bring together Arab society, destroying the false nationalism created by the European colonists (`Aflaq, 1982, pp. 150-53).
The idea of Arab nationalism was very important to the Ba'ath founders. `Aflaq imparted a spiritual importance upon the idea of nationalism, calling nationalism "love before everything else" (1962, p. 242). This original Ba'athist doctrine condemned individual Arab statehood as parochial and negative; the Arab state must include all Arabs. While religious minorities within the Arab state would be allowed to remain as citizens, they would have to acknowledge Islam as part of their cultural heritage (Collelo, 1988, p. 196). The basic tenet of the Ba'ath party, then, was a call for a revolution in the Arab to create a unified Arab state under the modified principles of socialism (`Aflaq, 1963, pp. 244-49).
The Ba'ath party acquired strength rather quickly, with its call for Arab nationalism, but it also began to splinter into factions
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