Role of Leaders in Stabilizing Societies
Role of Leaders in Stabilizing Societies
H.E President Hafez Al Assad is Leading Paragon
The conception of belonging to Arabism dates back to the pre-Islamic era, to a time when Arabs believed that they were a one unified people percolated in a common land, language, history, geography culture and common interests.
That umbilical cord was evidently manifested in their poetry and their pride in their lineage and Arabism which were known as the pre-Islamic poetry. Such feelings took roots with the advent of Islam and the revelation of the holy Quran in Arabic.
As the individual yearns for belonging, so is the need for a leader who ushers the way to safety and security and who has entrenched leadership qualities.
Leadership is the capacity and shrewdness in defining targets, prioritizing them and utilizing the proper means to drive them home in consonance with the exigencies of the society. Leaders with amazing auras realize the different dimensions and can diagnose the concomitant problems and take the necessary decisions.
The successful leader involves other leaderships second in line to make team work decisions as no leader can succeed unless he enjoys solid and sizable segments of the masses. Furthermore, successful leaders should rehabilitate stand-by leading cadres which would assist in organization and administration.
True leaders have the disposition and volition to hear what they should hear more than what they want to hear and counsel those they deem convenient.
Counseling is a genuine quality of great leaders who believe in the precepts they defend and uphold having unswerving commitment to the cause of the nation and ready to sacrifice in addition to materializing the best advantages and enduring minimal losses.
The Leader should have a preponderant mettle and muscle versus crises. He also believes that leadership is trust, persuasion and dialogue that mirror a state of immersion between the leader and the people.
One of the quintessential leaders who enjoyed such traits was the founding statesman President Hafez Al Assad who laid the pillars of stability and the national unity in Syria that transmogrified the country into a regional power.
Since the corrective movement in 1970, he worked hard on the idea of the Arab integrity believing in the Arab potentials to face up to the perils and hurdles that challenge of the nation. He also enhanced the political pluralism and his clout earned him the confidence of the masses in the role of the Arab Baath Socialist Party. The corrective movement catapulted Syria to the developed nations in the region through its achievements which were represented by the constitutional, political and economic establishments.
He imbibed and assimilated history very well and became a realistic future antenna capable of reading the international catalysts quite well.
October war was one of the most significant events that revealed his sagacity, and his conditioning of the circumstances to serve the target of liberating the land especially the repercussions of June naksa of 1967 was a bitter pill to swallow. It was remarkable that under three years following the corrective movement, President Hafez Al Assad managed to revamp Syria with military and economic accouterment to wage the October war.
Dwelling on the sagacity and acumen of H.E the president, we recall the commendation quotes outpouring from a number of world leaders and religious chaplains.
Pope Shenouda said: “ he was one of the greatest steadfast fighters with muscle. An excellent example to be emulated and his course proved the possibility to encounter challenges”.
Bill Clinton: “it was the first time in my life that I had a peculiar feeling of handshake with a president. Looking at his face, I sensed history and power. Momentarily, I thanked God that he was not the president of a large size country otherwise he would have indisputably ruled the world”.
Jimmy Carter: “during my visit to Syria, I used to spend hours on end talking to President Hafez Al Assad and listening to his analyses of the ongoing events in the Middle East. He looked to me a new version of Saladin Ayyubi. His commitment was to sanitize the region from foreign presence while preserving Damascus as a one unified modern Arab epicenter”.
Henry Kissinger, the former US foreign secretary said:
“President Hafez Al Assad was an astute and stubborn negotiator enjoying great experience. His word was his bond. I profess that he always hammered me in the past”.
These succinct testimonials were released to describe H.E the founding President Hafez Al Assad by his detractors more than his stalwarts. His clout earned him the bully pulpit in the region and fairly he was considered an archetypal leader and grandee of a great nation.
Prepared by Alaa eldin Hamdan
E.T by Mamoun Abdin
