Image Source:
Bassel al-Atasi Archive
From left to right: unknown, Majed al-Atasi, Jamal al-Atasi. The two Atasi cousins were pursing their education in France. Jamal al-Atasi went on to found the Baath Party in 1947 and served as minister during the early Baath years, only to fall out with Hafez al-Assad after co-founding the National Progressive Front (NPF). He then became one of the loudest critics of Assad from 1970 until his death in 2000. As for Majed al-Atasi, he later became a well-known poet and a political analyst. In 1950s he launched with his friends, the politician Ahmad Haj Younes and the famous poet Mohyi Aldeen Darweesh a political newspaper called Al-Qafilah. It was shut down by Adib al-Shishakli in the early 1950s.