EARLY HISTORY
(1932 - 1949)
The history of
the SSNP is best viewed as a series of phases each with distinctive
characteristics. There are, however, several constants in this history the major
one being the tendency for the Party not to digress substantially from its
original nationalist direction and its ideological purity. While some phases are
characterized by variation from the original direction, the strength of the
ideological base has always pulled the Party back to its primordial path. The
ideological strength of the SSNP has secured a devoted and committed
constituency, a group ethos that is the guardian of the Party's political
performance. Every time in the history of the SSNP when a confrontation between
the ideological course and political expediency developed, the former
supervened.
1. Clandestine Beginnings (1932-1935)
Reasons for adopting secret format
2. Visibility and Widespread Involvement (1935-1938)
French Mandate
Alexandretta
3. Exile and Repression
Independence
Jewish Settlements
Individualistic ideas arising from within
4. Saadeh's Return
Phase 1: Clandestine Beginnings
(1932-1935).
In 1930, Saadeh returned from Brazil to Syria determined to
initiate a movement of national revival. In South America, he had been involved
in attempts to start political parties that were marred by the urgency of
co-workers to seek immediate political gratifications that precluded any
seriousness of intent or tangible achievements. Saadeh was determined not to
allow political and personal expediencies to undermine the seriousness of the
national revival plan he had in mind. He spent time familiarizing himself with
the political, intellectual and social conditions of Syria and expressed his
views in the local press in Damascus initially and then in Beirut. The political
scene in both cities at the time was overrun with traditionalists, city
notables, clergy, and cronies of the colonialists, and Saadeh found it difficult
to attract serious public attention to the novel and sturdy national doctrine
contained in his writings and lectures. He found the existing political forms of
national militancy inadequate to carry the cause of Syrian revival. He
therefore set his mind on creating a novel political form that would be
appropriate to the national task at hand. He reasoned that the nucleus for the
movement required a core of youthful, energetic, and educated individuals that
would spearhead the growth of a national organized movement. The founding of the
Party was thus in secret among university students in Beirut. Saadeh was not
founding an elitist group. His initial choices reflected his belief that the
future of Syria and the national revival movement required unadulterated minds and
a new leadership. The energy, commitment, and vivid openness to a new way of
looking at national issues characterized the new recruits, and proved important
in shaping the rapid growth and effervescence that the SSNP knew before the
Second World War. This youthfulness also brought vath it inexperience,
volatility and blundering that Saadeh had to work hard to prevent and correct.
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Secret Format:
There were multiple reasons for adopting a secret format for
the Party:
- To test the seriousness of intent of participants. The SSNP
is not a political party in the usual sense as there are no immediate
gratifications for participants as far as social visibility or prestige, and no
planned limited political or electoral gains. The mission of the Party was to
undertake a broad and radical social transformation of the Syrian nation. Such a
gigantic task required a degree of commitment and militancy in Party members
that was hitherto unaccustomed in a nation where modern political institutions
and nationalist endeavors were nonexistent. Furthermore, a long history of
subservience to foreign occupation and intellectual and economic decadence had
left a population with no direction, no true self identity and no belief in
self-worth. To combat the raging social ills and to prepare a militant
organization capable of leading the struggle for the revival of the Syrian
nation, it was essential to take the Party and its membership through a phase of
formative indoctrination that will form the nucleus of the projected Syrian
renaissance. This implied that SSNP members were to undergo a major individual
transformation as far as defining their ideals, their commitments and their
direction in life, an endeavor that was not for the labile and furtive. An
extreme seriousness of intent was a prerequisite for Party membership.
- To protect the nascent organization from the dangers of
premature confrontations with reactionary forces and the French Mandate before
its internal structure had reached a defensive cohesiveness that will ensure its
standing the turmoil of open militancy. At the time of the founding of the
Party, the active political forces in Syria represented remnants of the
traditional feudal system, the religious organizations and clergy, tribal lords,
powerful city notables and a few maverick politicians from the western educated
generation- Most of these operated within boundaries set by the Mandate
authorities and pursued goals of self-preservation and partisan ascendancy. It
was inevitable that these reactionary elements in the Syrian political system
would be threatened by the emergence of a disciplined national movement aiming
at eliminating the basis of their political power, and setting principles for the
conducting of national policies and life that supersede partisan politics and
abolish dissension and divisions within the Syrian Nation. The proclamation by the
Party of the unity of the Syrian Nation eliminated the legal basis for the powers
of politicians whose programs embraced regional separatism. The intent
of the SSNP to abolish feudalism and separate religion and state was a challenge
to politicians whose power was based on nurturing feudal, tribal, and
confessional tendencies.
- To avoid the impact of political
persecution on the platform
of the Party. Since the ideology of the SSNP, deeply rooted in nationalism, has
a natural and predictable tendency for antagonism with the concept of a foreign
mandate, secrecy was essential to avoid compromising either the direction of the
Party or the safety of its membership. Under the mandate law, the French
authorities had the right to arrest any group of individuals meeting in a number
of five or more if it suspected that the meeting had 'belligerent intentions'.
During this formative period, the emphasis of the SSNP was on
the active recruitment of youthful and educated elements of the Syrian community
in urban and rural areas alike. The spread of the Party was based on personal
contact and was initially slow, but soon grew at a geometric rate to reach over
one thousand members by the time Saadeh was apprehended by the French
authorities
in 1935.
An ideological high-point of this period is Saadeh's speech to
the first assembly of Party members on the first of June 1935 in which he laid
down the basic strategy of the Party's struggle and militancy. The primordial
importance of this speech was emphasized repeatedly by Saadeh as he utilized the
text of the speech as an illustration of the firm ideological basis of the
policies of the SSNP since its inception and as an early embodiment of the
Party's view on Syrian affairs. The importance of this speech, when it was made
public during the first trial, did not escape the enemies of the Party
for they utilized this document as a central target of their criticism.
The size and activity of the SSNP made it difficult for it to
continue in secret. Its existence and the identity of its leadership were
discovered by the French authorities through an informant and Saadeh and several
of his lieutenants were arrested on the 16th of November 1935. Because the
founding of the Party took place in the fall of 1932, but without a specific
date, the 16th of November was subsequently adapted by the SSNP as its founding
day.
During his trial on the 23rd of January 1936, Saadeh assumed
responsibility for the founding of the Party and the formulation of the doctrine
of Syrian Social Nationalism . He was sentenced to a six month term in prison
during which he wrote his book 'The Genesis of Nations'.
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Phase ll: Visibility and
widespread involvement (1935-1938)
As soon as the initial trial and prison sentences were
dispensed with, Saadeh led the Party on a course of intense public involvement
in national and social affairs unprecedented in the modern history of Syria. The
SSNP and its leader addressed themselves to every aspect of Syrian life: the
Zionist settlements in the south (Palestine), the Turkish expansionism in the
north (the district of Alexandretta), the economic morass , the persecution of
intellectuals (the feminist pioneer May Ziadeh), the incursion of clergy into
the political scene, the reactionary parties in the mock national assemblies
formed by the Mandate authorities, the rights of workers, the formation
of trade unions, deforestation, the artistic directions of poets, painters and
writers, the organization of SSNP branches in all the major cities of Syria, and
the growth of the intellectual heritage of the Party by the writings of the
leader and his young associates.
The views and positions expressed by Saadeh on a few key issues
will serve to illustrate the difference in approach to national affairs between
the SSNP and other political groups in Syria.
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French Mandate:
In the mid-1930's the French Mandate was faced with turbulence
and resistance from several fronts. Political activists that had reached
prominence through feudal standings, economic prominence in the cities, or
clergy support, were clamoring for more political influence and a form of local
autonomy. This was fuelled by parallel developments in the Syrian areas under
British mandate. In the eastern part of the Fertile crescent (Iraq), the British
Mandate had been transformed by the Anglo-Iraqi treaty of 1930 into an
Alliance between the British government and the government of Iraq. To
assuage political activists in Damascus and Beirut, the French government of
Leon Blum's Popular Front entered in 1936 into negotiations with the governments
of Beirut and Damascus that led to the drafting of two treaties modeled on the
Anglo-Iraqi agreement and aimed, in principle, at providing local autonomy while
maintaining important ties between France and the two states in western Syria.
The treaties were eagerly ratified in both Beirut and Damascus parliaments but
received no such expedient acceptance in the French parliament. When the
government of Blum lost power, the colonialist officers and the French right
assured the demise of those treaties.
Saadeh opposed the ideas of those treaties on the premise that
they did not establish unequivocal and unblemished national sovereignty. He
viewed these treaties as ploys by the Mandate to maintain a grip on Syrian
affairs. Furthermore, these treaties were transforming a forcible mandate with
no legal basis and which was not sanctioned by the Syrians into an arrangement
that does not differ substantially from its precedent, but that is endowed with
'legality' having been accepted by the 'indigenous' population. Whereas Syrian
politicians were seeking temporary political gains, Saadeh's strategy was guided
by the primordial importance of national rights and absolute sovereignty.
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Alexanretta:
Another crisis that faced Syria during this period was the
question of the district of Alexandretta. Emboldened by French weakness, the
Turkish Republic was claiming rights to the Syrian district of Alexandretta and
the city of Antioch. The fallacies of 'Arab solidarity' were apparent during
this period. Indeed, Egypt looked favorably on the success of the Turks. The
government of Damascus, eager to have the treaty with France go unscathed, and
to avoid any conflicts with the Mandate and to insure political gain and
ascendancy, faltered on the protection of national right in the northern borders
and failed to mount any effective resistance to the advancing Turks. Saadeh
publicly denounced the government's of Damascus defeatist attitude, the
complicity of the Mandate, and the approbations by the Egyptian government.
Having no military force and no access to arms, he proposed to enroll the entire
membership of the SSNP in a national army that would defend the northern
borders. He appealed to the League of Nations, to the French government and to
the various Syrian governments to prevent the Turkish overtaking of
Syrian land - His warnings and calls for action were unheeded and the District
of Alexandretta was annexed by Turkey in 1939. To this day, the Party holds
commemorations of the 'Day of the Northern Borders' and refuses to forsake that
piece of Syrian homeland. Again, the question of Alexandretta illustrates the
difference between the strategy of political expediency and personal gain
followed by the various governments in Syria, and the strict safeguarding of
national rights that characterizes the strategy of the SSNP.
The Party brought a vibrancy to the national scene and an
intellectual impact that were unexpected for its numerical size. The main
reasons for this phenomenon are the charismatic leadership of Saadeh and the
infectious richness of his intellect, his ability to elicit impassioned
commitment and response from his followers, and his detailed attention to the
multiplicity of issues at hand. The fruits of the meticulous and laboriously
slow founding phase were coming to bear. This phase of the history of the SSNP
was also punctuated by the Mandate authorities repeatedly attempting to repress
the growth of the Party by resorting alternatively to repetitive imprisonment of
Saadeh, to encouragement of reactionary confessional parties to compete with the
SSNP for the public appeal of political work among the young generation, to
suppression of the freedom of the press and attempts at political assassination.
The impact of the SSNP is best illustrated by the flurry of
attempts to limit its spread and curb its activities. The clergy and traditional
politicians marshaled their press and pamphleteers to undermine the appeal of
the Party in particular target groups. The Christian clergy attacked
the Party as being anti-religious and anti-Lebanon. The French hastened to
encourage the founding of political parties with distinct confessional appeal to
compete with the SSNP. Members of the old regime felt understandably threatened
by the new movement and the pressure on the Party mounted. The battle was
ideological and political. On the former front the Party felt secure. Its
teachings had been expounded in Saadeh's writings in pamphlets and the Party's
daily newspaper 'Al-Nahda' (Renaissance), and bolstered by the publication of
Saadeh's pivotal book 'The Genesis of Nations' in which he laid the
scientific foundations of Syrian Social Nationalism. On the political front, the
Party's resources were meager. Funds were limited and the growing political base
was still not large enough to challenge the old order and the Mandate. If the
national liberation was to definitively confront the Mandate, ft needed
international support. On this basis, Saadeh embarked on a trip to Europe and
the Americas to garner support from international sources and the support of
Syrian emigrants.
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Phase Ill: Exile and repression
(1938-1947)
After visiting Party branches in Italy and Germany, Saadeh was
planning visits to centers of Syrian emigrants in the Americas. He originally
intended to visit the United States where large Syrian communities lived and
where his brother Arthur still resided. Delays of obtaining visas, however,
fortuitously decided the order of the countries to visit. He headed first to
South America. Earlier in the century, the Syrians in South America had shown a
commitment to the Syrian cause particularly when nationalist thinkers like
Saadeh's father Dr Khalil Saadeh were in their midst. Saadeh's hopes
were to be both disappointed and fulfilled.
Dr Khalil Saadeh had died in 1934 and the flames of Syrian
nationalism and militancy had weakened. The propaganda of the Mandate and
separatist and confessional causes had reached the emigrants and awakened old
hostilities and contradictions. The Mandate authorities had contrived with
separatists to defame the cause of the SSNP and to raise suspicions in South
American states against the activity of Saadeh. He was imprisoned in Brazil on
false charges but was later vindicated and released. He founded a newspaper,
Souria al-Jadida (The New Syria), and a branch of the SSNP before proceeding to
Argentina. After his arrival to the Silver Republic, he faced the problem of
limited ability to travel as his passport was not renewed by the French
consulate, which still handled the affairs of the Syrians abroad, on the pretext
that the war had started and that he was an agent provocateur. Because of
the technical issue of his passport, Saadeh could not leave the confines of the
Argentinean republic, and he could not return to Syria as the Mandate
authorities had sentenced him in absentia for 20 years of jail and 20 years of
exile. He had to cancel his plans to visit the Party branches and regions of
Syrian emigrant concentrations in the United States and Mexico. The nascent
branches of the SSNP in South America were still weak and required intense
guidance and nurturing. In addition to the newspaper started in Brazil, Saadeh
published one in Argentina, al-Zawba'ah (The Cyclone), to help spread the views
of the Party. Constrained to remain in Argentina with no means for financial
subsistence, Saadeh was forced to go into small trade to support himself, his
family and the activities of the Party.
This avenue left him open to treachery by individuals that
attempted, and sometimes succeeded, to defraud him of the fruits of his labor.
In this murky environment, Saadeh had to supervise the publications of two Party
newspapers, attend to the founding and detailed operations of the SSNP branches
in Argentina, Brazil, Chili, Mexico, the USA and western Africa. In addition, he
produced some of the highest intellectual works of modern Syrian history notably
his books 'Intellectual Struggle in Syrian Literature' and the 'Folly
of Immortality', the latter an in-depth analysis of religious thought and
politics.
The resistance to Saadeh in South America was vicious, and he
was subjected personally to repeated vindictive behavior by disgruntled
reactionary politicians and pseudo-intellectuals. Despite this, the branches of
the Party under his leadership grew into stable strongholds persisting in their
militancy to the present day.
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Independence:
During this period grave events were taking place in Syria, in
the SSNP, and among Syrian emigrants. The question of the independence of the
Lebanon and the Syrian Republic was in the forefront of international intrigue
in the affairs of the region. The fortunes of war were favoring the British and
embarrassing the French. The British always eager to assume monopoly in imperial
influence, found the conditions opportune to effect a swift exit of French
influence in the Near East by encouraging and supporting movements for
independence from France. This task was made easier by the defeat of the French
Vichy forces and the occupation of the French Mandate regions of Syria by
British and Free French troops. The influence of Free French troops was greatly
compromised by the simultaneous presence of large numbers of British
troops. It is this process of dispute and competition in imperialist prominence
that favored the growth of 'independence movements' in Beirut and Damascus and
gradually led to the culmination of a crisis that the British swiftly helped
solve at the expense of the French. Saadeh followed very closely the details of
international intrigue and carefully detailed in his writings of the period, the
motives and significance of the developing events. The 'independence' of the
Syrian states was not the result of a war of liberation or a struggle against
imperialism, but the consequence of political machinations between various
external powers competing for positions of influence. Such an incomplete
independence was always bound to the influence of external forces, and thus
carried with it a heavy cost of trade-offs that were not necessarily dictated by
the interests of Syria, and indeed may be nefarious to such interests. While
Saadeh acknowledged that this independence is a useful first step, he emphasized
that consolidation of independence and movement toward Syrian unification
remained tasks to be addressed urgently by the Syrian states. Furthermore,
Saadeh must have sensed that independence of the arranged political entities
will foster the separatist causes that favored dismantling of Syria into small
states within which political prominence of select groups would be possible, and
satisfaction of political ambitions guaranteed. Thus, while politicians in Syria
worked for 'independence' under the mantle of the British and for limited and
separatist ends, Saadeh's position was firmly directed at the attainment of
true, complete, and unequivocal independence with a prominently and definitively
unitarian direction.
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Jewish Settlements:
In southern Syria (Palestine), Jewish settlements were growing
due to the massive exodus from Europe under the influence of Nazi
persecution. Saadeh viewed with trepidation the advances in the Zionist cause,
and warned against the continuing efforts of Zionists to colonialize southern
Syria (Palestine) while Syrians displayed platitude and inactivity. He did not
fail to recognize the facilitating role of the British towards Zionist
incursions, and declared that the favorite attitude towards Britain generated by
its intervention in Beirut and Damascus in favor of 'independence' from the
French, should not be construed as forgiveness or oversight for the detrimental
effects of British involvement in southern Syria (Palestine).
The misfortunes of war did not alter the attitude of the French
imperialists vis-à-vis movements of national liberation. T,-,Ml SSNP was
constantly the subject of persecution by the French authorities whether the
Vichy French or the Free French. Following the outbreak of the war, the French
authorities proclaimed martial law and banned the SSNP on October 7, 1939 and
unleashed a campaign of persecution against its membership. Hundreds of SSNP
members were arrested and held in detention camps for over a year without trial.
The persecution continued unabated until June of 1941. The Party membership
persisted in its militancy and struggle unabashed. However, after the
proclamation of the independence of the Lebanese state, the leadership of the
SSNP wavered in its adherence to Syrian nationalism and started to accommodate a
'Lebanese' cause. This defection from the purity of national allegiance was not
adequately resisted by the constituency of the Party, and a regional direction
was established under the leadership of Naameh Thabet, the president of the
Higher Council. Thabet had become involved in the details and vicissitudes of
Lebanese politics, and had supported the British backed political front
in Lebanon against the pro-French government of Emille Eddeh. Indeed, the
position of the Party was instrumental in the defeat of the pro-French group and
the formation of a new government under the presidency of Bichara el-Khoury who
acknowledged publicly, and on several occasions the important role of the Party
in his ascendancy. Thus, the complicity of the leadership of the Party with the
Lebanese separatists was only lightly covered. The involvement in domestic
Lebanese politics rather than in the Syrian national cause became also manifest
in the outward appearances of party activities. In April of 1944, the SSNP
leadership applied for and obtained a license to operate under the name 'The
National Party', a change signaling a radical deviation in policy, and the flag
of the SSNP was changed.
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Individualistic Ideas:
Another development of equally far reaching consequences was
the emergence within the leading corp of the SSNP of vigorous intellectuals that
had developed in the absence of Saadeh and who had a less than solid
understanding of the Party philosophy and basic ideological tenets. Having
acceded to sensitive leadership positions through individual brilliance and
literary ability, they started to expound within the framework of the Party an
individualist doctrine derived particularly from the works of Kierkegaard and the
Russian philosopher Nicholas Berdayev. These development did not come to Saadeh's
attention until after the end of the war when contact with the Party in Syria
was reestablished. Although he attempted to correct the ideological digression
from his exile, the question was not settled until his return to Syria and
represents the first instance of intellectual 'house-cleaning' in the history of
the SSNP.
Among the Syrian emigrants, the ominous and dreadful revival of
religious sectarianism was at hand. The flames of religious division were being
fanned by pseudo-intellectuals and literary men who aimed to profit from
divisiveness to gain acclaim and support in their respective religious
communities. Saadeh led a fierce battle against the protagonists and in his
writings of the period lay the foundations of a sociologic-historical
understanding of the reasons for religious diversity in Syria, and the
principles of religious coexistence within society. Furthermore, he coupled his
refutation of the arguments of religious agitators with a sobering analysis of
their true intellectual standings. Many of these agitators had gained prominence
among the Syrian emigrants on the basis of some literary skin in poetry or
journalism. Saadeh considered that a final defeat of sectarian propaganda
required exposure of the true value of the propagandists and the flimsy basis
for their prominence. This battle demanded a great deal of his time, and
distracted him from other urgent political and intellectual pursuits. Yet he
grasped this occasion to expound through example the principles of literary and
philosophical revival in Syria. It is to this struggle against the
pseudo-literary men of the Syrian emigrants that we owe his two books
'Intellectual Struggle in Syrian Literature' and the 'Folly of Immortality'.
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Phase iv: politicization vs
Confrontation olutionary direction (1947-1949)
Upon his return to Syria on the 2 of March 1947, Saadeh was
faced with consecutive incidences of internal crisis within the SSNP. The
regional accommodations of Naameh Thabet had embroiled the Party in the morass
of Lebanese politics and its shifting and unprincipled alliances and alienated
Party branches outside the confines of the 'Lebanese Republic'. The consequences
of this political regionalization were soon to become evident. Thabet, likely
under the influence of Lebanese politicians leery of Saadeh's positions on
national matters and his uncompromising attitude as concerns the interests of
the Syrian nation, attempted to delay his return to Syria. Communications with
Saadeh were unexplainably delayed and interrupted without due cause, and efforts
to secure a passport for him to return to Beirut were meager and without zeal.
Coupled with reluctance of the Lebanese authorities and bureaucratic excuses,
more than a year elapsed between re-establishment of contact and the actual
return of Saadeh to Syria. The purpose for the delay was obvious. The Lebanese
parliamentary elections were imminent (May 25, 1947), and the return of Saadeh
and his assumption of leadership of the SSNP would alter and disrupt the
composition of the political alliances. On reaching Cairo, Saadeh found
emissaries from the Party's High Council waiting for him and advising political
compromise with the Lebanese government.
Saadeh was unperturbed by these attempts. He considered the
political arrangement of the creation of a separatist state in Lebanon as a
temporary measure necessitated by the ills of religious conflict in Syria, ills
soon to be eliminated by the spread and victory of the principles of Syrian
Social Nationalism.
On arriving to Beirut, Saadeh was met by the largest number of
welcoming crowds ever assembled in the modern history of Syria. Party members
from the remotest areas of Syria came to greet him in Beirut. The sight of these
loyal members must have had a major impact on the decision of the
Lebanese authorities to move swiftly to eliminate Saadeh's visibility and
freedom of operation within the confines of the Lebanese Republic. The pretext
that the authorities used to issue an arrest warrant was that Saadeh in his
homecoming speech declared that the existence of the State of Lebanon as null.
This was obviously a misinterpretation of the speech. In his speech, Saadeh
defined for his welcoming followers, the real conditions of Syria, including
Lebanon, the real nature of the political arrangements dividing the nation into
several independent states, and he reaffirmed the determination of the SSNP to
continue its struggle along the same principles on which it was founded. Saadeh
was not blinded about the incomplete and ephemeral nature of the 'independence'
gained by the various Syrian states nor did he want the Syrians to be unaware of
their fate.
Saadeh fought during this period several
battles. The
confrontation with the Lebanese government necessitated clandestine activity on
the part of Saadeh to assure his personal safety. It did, however, have other
consequences that Saadeh did not fail to note. By making his alleged
unacceptance of the existence of an independent Lebanese state the reason for
the arrest warrant, the Lebanese government was aiming to put a wedge between
the SSNP and the Lebanese population. Saadeh countered this tactic by addressing
several public statement to the Lebanese people clarifying the dedication of the
Party to the independence of Lebanon, but never failing to maintain that Lebanon
remains a part of the Syrian nation. Furthermore, at the risk of his personal
safety, he granted from his hideaway several interviews to journalists (who
could easily have been Government informants) to utilize the interest of the
public in the dramatic aspects of the affair as an opportunity to
expound his political views.
An additional consequence of the government's action was to
have internal repercussions within the SSNP. The tacit alliance between the
separatist government and the 'lebanecized' leadership of the Party has been
mentioned above. By concentrating the blame of the ongoing crisis on Saadeh's
'intemperance', the Government was giving SSNP politicians fodder for a power
struggle within the Party. Thabet and his associates criticized Saadeh for
leading them and the Party into this 'unnecessary' enmity with the 'Lebanese
government and people'. They attempted to dissuade Saadeh from the course of
action he had undertaken and to convince him to surrender to the authorities.
They sabotaged the central administration of the Party by absenteeism, delays,
contrariness, contention and cantankerousness. They spread vicious rumors about
Saadeh within the ranks and attempted to undermine his authority and leadership.
Simultaneously, they aggrandized their militancy and questioned maliciously
Saadeh's wartime struggle.
This point in the history of the SSNP saw the emergence of a
phenomenon that will subsequently be crucial to the Party's ideological
integrity and survival. Saadeh loyalists that hastened to the side of their
leader to shield him and struggle at his side. This phenomenon of loyalty to
Saadeh alive and dead has been the saving element in the entire history of the
SSNP from the events of 1947 to many turbulent times yet to come. Saadeh gave
this loyalty reason to exist by his steadfast adherence to the principles he
defined and espoused, his proud and selfless charismatic leadership, and his
complete involvement body and soul in the militancy to save Syria. Though
initially small in number, this core of loyalists under Saadeh's leadership won
the internal battle.
Vivifying the Party required that Saadeh be visible while in
clandestine existence. He had to be accessible to the SSNP and beyond the reach
of the Government. He had to be heard by the people and unseen by the police.
Over many months Saadeh waged a counter attack against the Government, its
policies of repression and oppression, its falsification of elections, its
economic and political favoritism and the unbridled growth of government
sponsored capitalist power (54). Faced with the solidity of Saadeh's stand and
disheartened by the defeat of its allies in the battle for power in the SSNP, the
Government withdrew the arrest warrant and closed the official case against
Saadeh on October 9, 1947. This initial protracted battle drew blood and defined
the lines. The withdrawal of the arrest warrant was a temporary calm preceding a
conflagration.
Rebuilding the SSNP was Saadeh's order of the day. The
ideological fabric of the Party had been weakened by neglect of the study of
its principles and philosophy, and foreign concepts were growing in its midst.
The literature of the SSNP had been ignored and prominent intellectuals in
leadership position were popularizing concepts in party publications divergent
from the philosophy of Social Nationalism. Saadeh considered ideological
deviance a great danger to the survival and success of the SSNP. He initiated a
flurry of intellectual activity within the SSNP. This was highlighted by a
series of lectures he gave in the first half of 1948 dedicated to the detailed
study of the basic and reform principles of the SSNP, and the
philosophy of Social Nationalism contained herein. These lectures published
posthumously as 'The Ten Lectures' are one of the most influential
ideological factors in the survival and growth of the SSNP. Generations of SSNP
members learned the ideology of their Party from this book.
Saadeh gave great attention to the intellectual formation of
Party thinkers. He conducted a series of closed seminars and workshops with
select groups of SSNP writers, poets, and intellectuals dealing with various
philosophical concepts and views varying from esthetics to ethics. He started a
special publication that he called 'al-Nizam al-Jadid' (The New Order) dedicated
to publishing studies dealing with the philosophical tenets of Social
Nationalism, the history and heritage of Syria, and the poetry and literature
of the Syrian renaissance.
In parallel with these manifestations of refined intellect,
Saadeh continued to expound sharpened views on national and political issues in
the press. Writing under an assumed name (Hani-Ba'l), he refuted the polemic
outpouring of religious nationalism whether it was undefined sectarian Islamic
Pan-Arabism or separatist Christian Lebanism.
Reviving the organizational structure of the SSNP was a more
difficult task mostly because of the lack of resources and trained manpower. The
years of separatist direction of the central administration of the Party located
in Lebanon had led to a weakening of the structure of the SSNP in many Syrian
cities and a good deal of its members had either joined other groups, retired
from political work or sat idle awaiting direction. Saadeh undertook a
tour of the branches of the SSNP in the various parts of Syria. His electrifying
presence always drew old supporters to the fold and new ones followed.
Nothing pained Saadeh during this period as the developments in
southern Syria and the gradual success of the Zionist cause. The SSNP attempted
with all its means to prevent the loss of Palestine. These efforts were often
resisted more by local government than by Jewish settlers. The meetings of the
SSNP in Lebanon aimed at starting a popular awakening about the issue of
Palestine were prohibited by the Lebanese government. The traditional political
and religious leadership in southern Syria refused to allow the SSNP access to
arms, and repeatedly refused offers by the SSNP to enroll its members in the
military forces being prepared for the liberation of Palestine. Despite this,
the branches of the SSNP in most cities of southern Syria fought assiduously
against the Zionist forces. Saadeh's correspondence during this period reflects
his concern with the SSNP members that have fallen prisoners in the struggle and
his instructions to his lieutenants to attempt to gain their liberation at all
cost. Following the loss of Palestine, Saadeh spared no effort in alerting the
Syrians to the dangers of Zionist sentiments. He already diagnosed that the
establishment of the Jewish state was only the beginning. The issue at hand was
not restricted to southern regions, but was a struggle for all of Syria. His
pain for the loss of southern regions and his staunch nationalism made him
unforgiving of emerging alliances between religious and political Lebanese
separatist groups and the Jewish state. He publicly chastised the Maronite
Archbishop Mubarak and the Phalanges Party for their contacts and nascent secret
alliance with Israel. The ongoing revival of the SSNP, the growing
popular discontent with the Lebanese government practice of electoral fraud and
usurpation of resources, made the rulers of Lebanon more determined to eliminate
the SSNP and Saadeh from the Lebanese political scene. This they proceeded to do
by harassment and tyranny. SSNP members were dismissed from government offices
and pressured out of civil service posts. Party meetings and large gatherings
were proscribed on flimsy excuses of 'maintaining order and tranquility'. Party
publications were intermittently banned or confiscated (the SSNP newspaper
Al-Jil Al-Jadid (The New Generation) was banned for one year starting April
1948), and armed police were frequently sent to forcibly disperse SSNP
gatherings to hear speeches by Saadeh- This series of events culminated by the
Government instigating the Phalanges party to attack the printing press of the
SSNP daily paper on the evening of June 9, 1949, in an attempt to assassinate
Saadeh, or at the very least create a pretext for his arrest . The transparency
of the plan was betrayed by the Government moving swiftly to issue warrants of
arrest for the victims of the incident (SSNP members and Saadeh) and no attempt
at disciplining or even reprimanding the aggressor Phalanges. In effect, the
Government had declared open war on the SSNP. Its members were arrested and
jailed, its publications and offices confiscated and its leader pursued. The
arrests of Party members were so massive that within a few days more than 2500
were either in prison or in detention camps. Saadeh went clandestinely to
Damascus to organize and lead the fight against the Lebanese government. When
the government's campaign against the SSNP did not abate, but rather continued
gathering momentum, Saadeh declared a popular revolutionary uprising calling for
the overthrow of the Lebanese government and the institution of a Social
Nationalist order in Lebanon.
This first Social Nationalist revolution was declared on the
4th of July 1949. Members of the SSNP started organizing popular revolt and
occupying government outposts in the villages and plains of Lebanon. Saadeh was
leading the uprising from Damascus and he entered into negotiations with the
newly established military regime of Husni Zaeem to guarantee that the
government of Damascus would not intervene against the SSNP or prevent its
members from acquiring arms and infiltrating into Lebanon. Initially, Zaeem
proclaimed his sympathy to the cause of the SSNP and promised assistance, while
providing intelligence to the Lebanese government on movement of SSNP combatants
along the borders, who, infiltrating clandestinely into Lebanon, frequently
found Lebanese army expecting them. On the sixth of July, Zaeem invited Saadeh
to the presidential palace to meet with him, had him arrested and delivered to
the Lebanese police. Saadeh had been warned about Zaeem's treachery. His visit
to the presidential palace was determined by two factors: primarily, he wanted
to face up to his responsibilities as a leader of a movement of national
liberation and renaissance. In the face of danger, he was not going to seek
personal safety while his follower were espousing death for the resurrection of
the nation. Not appearing for his appointment would have meant inviting the
scourge of a military dictator on the SSNP membership. Secondly, he hoped that
he could still elicit some national fervor in Husni Zaeem. The latter's
treachery and callous pursuit of personal glory were irremediable and Saadeh was
surrendered to the Lebanese police by his host the President of the Syrian
Republic.
Saadeh was taken to Beirut in the early hours of the 7th,
summarily tried by a court that sat in camera and excluded at 3 am on the
8th of July. The lawyer appointed to his defense requested a recess to study the
case. His motion was not granted and he withdrew. Thereupon Saadeh undertook his
own defense, details of the court proceedings from observers and Saadeh's
defense are, however, not available. The trial was obviously a sham for the
sentence was decided before the trial was even convened. Saadeh was not allowed
to see his wife or daughters nor was he allowed to write a will. At the
execution site he refused to be blindfolded and thanked his executioners before
they fired. The police hurried the clandestine burial fearing popular reaction
to the execution, increased security measures and continued to pursue SSNP
members with renewed ferocity. On the 22nd of July, six SSNP members were
executed as well. Ironically, these six were chosen each from a different
religious sects for the Government was weary of being labeled as indulging in
sectarian genocide!
The aggressive urgency with which the Lebanese and Syrian
governments handled the case have to be examined in the light of Saadeh's
accusations that both governments had forfeited their legitimacy by their
actions during the war that followed the proclamation of the State of Israel.
Recently uncovered evidence of the connections between Husni Zaeem and Zionist
leaders is enlightening. At the end of 1948 he had offered his services to
Israeli Arab specialists for $1 million in return for which, he claimed, he
would topple the government of the Syrian Republic and change its policies. The
Syrian Republic began to negotiate an armistice with Israel two days after the
March 1949 coup d'etat. Zaeem offered to meet with Ben-Gurion to negotiate a
full fledged peace and proposed to resettle the Palestinian refugees in the
Jazira district in the north of the Syrian Republic. The idea was
enthusiastically received by the United States administration, which at the time
was convinced that resettlement, with American financial and technical aid,
would solve the refugee problem and strengthen the ties of the Near Eastern
states to the West. The US recognized Zaeem's regime on April 26, 1949.
The martyrdom of Saadeh was a momentous event in the history of
the SSNP. It created a new spirit in the Party and established militancy, self
denial and self sacrifice as virtues to be embraced. Scores of SSNP members
derived courage and spiritual sustenance from the example of their leader who
remains the most towering symbol of Syria's will to life.
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