The Syrian Social Nationalist Party Read online

  The Syrian Social Nationalist Party

  Its Ideology and History

  Salim Mujais

  The Syrian Social Nationalist Party

  Its Ideology and History

  Salim Mujais

  Copyright © 2019 Black House Publishing Ltd

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval without permission in writing from the publisher.

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  DEDICATION

  To Syria, the Phoenix Land

  Table of Contents

  The Syrian Social Nationalist Party

  Acknowledgment

  Preface

  The Ideology of the SSNP

  The National Landscape

  The Nation Concept

  National Identity and Sovereignty

  Syria Defined

  Social Justice And Human Rights

  Political Discipline and Party Organization

  Case study: Palestine

  The Aim of the SSNP

  The Early History of the SSNP

  Clandestine Beginnings (1932-1936)

  First General Meeting

  Infiltration by French Informants

  A Historical Trial

  Visibility and Widespread Involvement (1936-1938)

  The Franco-Syrian Treaties

  The Second Arrest

  Memorandum to the League of Nations

  Strengthening the Ideological Base

  Direct Dialogue with the Mandate

  The Question of Alexandretta

  Northern Outreach

  Lebanese Confrontations

  The Question of Palestine

  The Case of May Ziadeh

  Confronting a Religious Bastion

  The First of March 1938

  Seeking International Support

  Exile and Repression (1938-1947)

  Political Accommodations

  Re-Establishing Contact

  The “National Party”

  Return Preparations and Challenges

  Cairo Interlude

  Saadeh Returns From Exile

  Parliamentary Elections

  The Battle For Leadership

  Palestine in Peril

  Rebuilding the SSNP

  The Zaim Coup

  The Uprising

  Treachery, Trial and Martyrdom

  Epilogue

  Appendix

  The Principles and Aim of the SSNP

  The Reform Principles

  The Aim of the SSNP

  Bibliography

  About the Author

  Acknowledgment

  My daughter has been my guardian against infelicities of content, style, and grammar. She has my love and gratitude.

  I also owe a debt of gratitude to Mr. Karl Winn, who offered thoughtful comments and criticism that helped enhance the clarity and coverage of this work.

  Antoun Saadeh - Founder of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party

  Preface

  In the fall of 1932, five young men met in a modest room in Beirut and took an oath of membership to a new political organization. They were mostly students of the American University in Beirut and their leader, Antoun Saadeh, taught German privately at the University and Arabic to members of the British and American diplomatic corps in Beirut. Three years later, at dawn on November 16, 1935, the security forces of the French Mandatory authority raided that same room and arrested Saadeh and a number of his lieutenants on the charge of forming an illegal clandestine political party. In the interim, the new political organization had grown from the initial five to over a thousand members spread along the Syrian coast from Jaffa to Latakia, into the Lebanon range, and in the hinterland from Jerusalem to Amman, Damascus, Homs and Hama. As the date of the original meeting had not been recorded, the date of the arrest was accepted as a symbolic substitute and November 16, 1932 became the official date of the founding of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP).1

  The SSNP is sometimes referred to in the Western press by the French mistranslation of its name: “Parti Populaire Syrien”, or the Syrian Popular Party, abbreviated as PPS. In the Middle East, the Party is commonly referred to simply as the Nationalist Party (al-Hizb al-Qawmi) attesting to the characteristic link between the term nationalism and the perception of the Party by the people of the Fertile Crescent. For the first decade of its existence, the party was known as the Syrian National Party (in Arabic al-Hizb as-Suri al-Qawmi). In the early years of WWII, its founder added the term “Social” (al-Ijtima’i) to the name of the party to characterize its national ideology more clearly, and henceforth the party became known as the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP, al-Hizb as-Suri al-Qawmi al-Ijtima’i).

  Over the following decades, the SSNP was subjected to ferocious attempts by colonial powers and local governments aimed at eradicating it from political life in the Middle East. Nevertheless, after every onslaught, the SSNP seems to rise from the ashes, and earned the name of the Syrian Phoenix from its determined enemies.2 Commenting on the resilience of the SSNP in the face of persecution during the French Mandate period, Albert Hourani maintained that the SSNP was able to hold its own because of several significant factors: “First, it made a more determined effort than any other organization to think out the whole national problem in all its aspects, and to formulate a programme in the light of clear and valid political principles. Again, it was rigidly organized on the membership principle, with a hierarchy, a logical division of functions and a strict discipline. Finally, its leader was a man of courage, decision and powerful intellect.” 3

  The Syrian Social Nationalist Party is indeed the first organized party in the Middle East to have a definite national doctrine and a well-structured ideology. The Pan-Arab theorist Sati’ al-Husri, no friend of the SSNP, wrote in the early 1950’s: “Until now, there has appeared no party in the Arab world that can compete with the SSNP for the quality of its propaganda, which addresses both reason and emotion, or for the strength of its organization, which is effective both overtly and covertly. By virtue of its organization, this party succeeded in creating a very powerful intellectual current in Syria and Lebanon.” 4

  The SSNP has played a prominent role in shaping the make-up of the political and intellectual environment of the Middle East through its intimate involvement in political events and its influence on political and cultural discourses in the area. Knowledge of the Party in the Western Hemisphere, however, has remained for a long time limited and distorted, predominantly because of the lack of publications that expound the ideology of the Party and its history. Except for an academic study by an ex-party member,5 and the occasional pamphlet published by the SSNP, knowledge of the Party in the West was limited to the incomplete and often misguided opinions of political commentators 6 or general historians.7 Recently, however, authors affiliated with the Party have undertaken to remedy the knowledge gap and several worthy publications have appeared in English tackling a variety of topics related to the ideology of the SSNP and various aspects of its history.8 There remains a need, however, for an integrated overview that presents a systematic examination of the ideology of the SSNP and its early history, which is the aim of the present work.

  Antoun Saadeh, the founder and leader of the SSNP, was born in the village of Shweir (Mount Lebanon) on March 1, 1904.9 His father, Dr. Khalil Saadeh, was a physician and a leading
national militant. Because of the oppressive conditions under Ottoman rule in Syria before World War I, Dr. Saadeh emigrated first to Egypt and then to South America where he became a political and civic leader in the Syrian community championing the cause of the motherland.10 Antoun Saadeh spent the war years in Mount Lebanon suffering from famine, oppression, and the desolation of his country.

  In 1920, Antoun Saadeh travelled to the United States escorting his younger siblings to join his maternal uncle and worked briefly as a railroad inspector before moving to Brazil to join his father. In Brazil, Saadeh assisted his father in publishing a daily paper (al-Jarida) and then a monthly journal (al-Majalla) where he expressed his early and passionate involvement in the issues of nationalism, the destiny of Syria, and its future. During his stay in Brazil, Saadeh was intensely involved in the cultural and political affairs of the Syrian community. He studied independently and learned Portuguese, German, and Russian in addition to French, which he had learned in Cairo before the First World War, and English which he had acquired in Syria before he emigrated. He was widely read in history and the social and political sciences, and taught Arabic language and literature in one of the Syrian communities’ private colleges.

  In 1930, Saadeh returned to Syria determined to bring into existence a political movement that aimed at transforming Syria into a modern viable polity. He acquainted himself with the political and social conditions of the country and expressed his views on national revival and sovereignty in the press and in public lectures. In the fall of 1932, Saadeh founded the SSNP as a secret organization and the Party grew in secret until November 16, 1935, when the French authorities alerted to the presence of the political organization apprehended Saadeh and his lieutenants and imprisoned them. While in prison awaiting trial, Saadeh wrote on December 10, 1935, a statement at the request of his lawyer in which he expounded his reasons for founding the SSNP:

  “I was an adolescent when World War I broke out, but I had become cognizant of, and sensitive to, the conditions of my people. As I witnessed the woeful condition in which my people were and as I suffered the misery rampant among them, the first question that came to my mind was: What was it that brought all this woe on my people.

  “After the end of the war, I began looking for the answer to this question and for the solution to the chronic political problems that kept pushing my people into one adversity after another. Obviously, I was not seeking an answer to that question to satisfy a scientific or intellectual curiosity, but rather to discover the most effective means to eliminate the causes of this woe. After an organized preliminary study, I concluded that the absence of national sovereignty was the primary cause of what had befell and what was ailing my nation. This led me to pursue the study of nationalism and societal rights and their genesis. In the process of my study and research I became keenly aware of the importance of the idea of a nation, its meaning and the complexity of the factors from which it emanates.” 11

  The interest of Saadeh in the national cause was the culmination of a period of contemplation and study of the causes of Syrian decadence, and a commitment to revive his ailing nation. The central issue was not political independence per se, but the independence that followed national integration of the Syrian people whose unity was fragmented. As national unity could not be achieved without instilling in the consciousness of the people that they exist as a distinct national group, Saadeh focused his attention primarily on the issue of national identity and defined it in the basic principles of the SSNP. This focus on the primordial issue of national identity distinguished his ideological formulations from all other thinkers in the Fertile Crescent and influenced profoundly the course of the Party. By making national identity and its definition primordial, Saadeh was aiming for clarity of national goals.

  In Saadeh’s writings, the concept of nationalism is distinct from the beliefs and views prevalent in the West in the 19th and most of the 20th centuries. He articulated his views in a seminal work titled Nushu’ al-Umam (The Emergence of Nations). In the final chapter, he examines the meaning of nationhood and nationalism:

  “The nation is above all a social community... (it) is a human group leading a life of united interests, united destiny, united spiritual-physical elements in a particular country with which it interacts in the course of development to acquire characteristics and features that distinguish it from other groups.

  Nationalism... is the nation’s awakening and alertness to the unity of its life, to its personality, characteristics, and the unity of its destiny... It is sometimes confused with patriotism which is the love of the fatherland, because patriotism is part of nationalism and because the fatherland is the strongest factor in the genesis of a nation and the most important constituting element.” 12

  Saadeh was aware of the ‘politicization’ of the concept of nationalism and the pitfalls of political theories of nationhood. “Every nation feels the need for sovereignty and for protecting its interests against encroachment and aggression by other nations. In this contention, which is often violent, the nation’s politicians and thinkers resort to theories that suit the circumstances of their nation and raise its morale. Some go out in search of historical pretext or some religious or racial propensity.” 13

  Saadeh’s objective was to define the national identity of the Syrians and to set in motion a movement that would revive the Syrian nation and make it possible for Syria to become a modern and viable entity. This movement would aim to change the pattern of the social, political, and economic life in Syria. The SSNP is, therefore, “an idea and a movement concerned with the total life of the nation.” The SSNP was conceived as an agent of change and represents the first concrete effort in Syria towards the total modernization of society. The change that the Party envisages is a comprehensive one that seeks to rebuild society in accordance with a distinct social philosophy. The tenets of this philosophy are embodied in the principles of the SSNP.

  In the present work, the basic and reform principles of the SSNP are presented based on the writings of Saadeh and his teachings. The text of the fourth edition of the “Exposition of Principles” is used as the primary document and is offered in its entirety in the appendix. There are four editions of the “Exposition of Principles”. The first edition was written hastily by Saadeh when he was in jail in 1936 to provide the Party constituency with a document for ideological reference. He later returned to the work and expanded it in 1939 while in Brazil, and again in 1946 in Argentina. The final edition was published in Beirut in 1947 and has remained the standard core text of the ideology of the Party. The discussion of the ideology is followed by an overview of the early history of the Party from its founding in 1932 to the martyrdom of Saadeh in 1949, which will serve to illustrate the actualization of the ideology of the SSNP in the details of national and political struggle.

  The Saadeh family featuring Dr. Khalil Saadeh and his wife Nayfeh along with their six sons in 1912. Their daughter Grace would be born after the date of this picture. Antoun Saadeh, the fourth son, is standing in the middle row next to his mother.

  * * *

  1 Syria as used in SSNP literature refers to the entire Fertile Crescent including Lebanon, the present Syrian Republic, Palestine, Jordan, Iraq, Kuwait and the district of Alexandretta.

  2 Eyal Zisser: The Syrian Phoenix: The Revival of the Syrian Social National Party in Syria, Die Welt des Islams, New Series, Volume. 47, Issue 2 (2007), pp. 188-206.

  3 Albert Hourani, Syria and Lebanon: A Political Essay, Oxford University Press, London, 1946, p.197.

  4 Sati al-Husari: al-Uruba bayn Du’atiha wa Mu’aridiha (Arabism between its proponents and opponents), Complete Works, part 1, Center of Arab Unity Studies, Beirut, 1990.

  5 Labib Zuwiyya Yamak: The Syrian Social Nationalist Party: An Ideological Analysis. Harvard Middle Eastern Monograph Series, Harvard University Press. Cambridge MA, 1969. The author of this monograph was a member of the SSNP in the late forties. Surprisingly, his writings reflect
little insight into the details of the ideology and history of the SSNP expected from someone who had been a member. In addition to its documentary shortcomings, the work suffers from a rigid methodology aiming at projecting preformed western judgement completely oblivious to the social and historical conditions of the Near East.

  6 A representative sample along those lines is the naive and grossly inaccurate article by Daniel Pipes titled “Radical politics and the Syrian Social Nationalist Party”, which appeared in International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 20: 303-324, 1988.

  7 The otherwise reliable historian Kamal Salibi perpetuates in his book A House of Many Mansions: The History of Lebanon Reconsidered (University of California Press, 1988) a common misrepresentation of the SSNP as a political outlet for the Orthodox Christians of the Fertile Crescent. Other examples include: Mackey, Sandra, Lebanon: death of a nation, Anchor Books, NY, 1991; Mansfield, Peter, The Arabs, Harmondsworth, New York, 1978; Karpat, Kemal, Political and social thought in the contemporary Middle East, Praeger, NY, 1982; Spyer, Jonathan, The rise of nationalism: the Arab World, Turkey, and Iran, Mason Crest Publishers, Philadelphia, 2008; Bogle, Emory, The modern Middle East: from imperialism to freedom, 1800-1958, Prentice Hall, NJ, 1996

  8 Safia Antoun Saadeh, Antun Saadeh and democracy in geographic Syria, London, Folios, 2000; Adel Beshara, Antun Saadeh the man, his thought: an anthology, Reading, UK, Ithaca Press, 2007; Adel Beshara, Syrian nationalism: an inquiry into the political philosophy of Antun Sa’adeh, Melbourne phoenix Publishing, 2011; Adel Beshara, Outright assassination: the trial and execution of Antun Sa’adeh, 1949, Reading, U.K., Ithaca Press, 2012; Adel Beshara, The Intellectual Legacy of Antun Sa’adeh: Philosophy, Culture And Society, Beirut, Lebanon, Kutub, 2017; Edmond Melhem, Antun Saadeh, National Philosopher: an Introduction to his Philosophical Thought, Beirut, Dar Fikr, 2011.