Speech delivered in the gardens of the Shaab Hall (May 1, 1959).

Brothers! The Army and the people have merged into a single entity. They have become a source of strength which is worrying the foreigners. The foreigner, along with imperialism, therefore began to resort to other means to split up our ranks so as to overcome us. But these attempts on the part of the imperialists to split up our ranks have gone long ago. Imperialism now tries to split up our ranks by calling for narrow parties and restricted groupings. The purpose of this is to play one against the other, while the foreigners and the imperialists will sit as spectators. But we shall thrust a stone in the mouth of imperialism. We shall overcome imperialism and we shall close this gap in its face. The parochial groupings and party affiliation at this time are of no benefit to the country... the purpose of this is to create disunity and weaken our strength and play one against the other. We are in a period of transition. We have resolved to protect the gains of our Revolution at any rate.

— Abd al-Karim Qasim

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "Brothers! The Army and the people have merged into a single entity. They have become a source of strength which is worrying the foreigners. The foreigner, along with imperialism, therefore began to resort to other means to split up our ranks so as to overcome us. But these attempts on the part of the imperialists to split up our ranks have gone long ago. Imperialism now tries to split up our ranks by calling for narrow parties and restricted groupings. The purpose of this is to play one against the other, while the foreigners and the imperialists will sit as spectators. But we shall thrust a stone in the mouth of imperialism. We shall overcome imperialism and we shall close this gap in its face. The parochial groupings and party affiliation at this time are of no benefit to the country... the purpose of this is to create disunity and weaken our strength and play one against the other. We are in a period of transition. We have resolved to protect the gains of our Revolution at any rate." in the context of "Speech delivered in the gardens of the Shaab Hall (May 1, 1959)." to mean that wisdom is timeless.

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Source: Wikiquote: "Abd al-Karim Qasim" (Quotes, Principles of the 14th July Revolution (1959)) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
Abd al-Karim Qasim

About Abd al-Karim Qasim

Abd al-Karim Qasim (21 November 1914 – 9 February 1963) was the Prime Minister of Iraq from 1958 to 1963.