Antun Saadeh

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Antun Saadeh
Antun Saadeh.jpg
Born (1904-03-01)1 March 1904
Dhour El Choueir, Beirut Vilayet, Ottoman Empire
Died 8 July 1949(1949-07-08) (aged 45)
Beirut, Lebanon
Executed
Era 20th-century philosophy
Region Eastern philosophy
Religion Agnostic,[1] Orthodox Christian (Birth)
School Syrian nationalism
Main interests Political philosophy
Notable ideas Greater Syria

Antun Saadeh (Arabic: أنطون سعادة‎; 1 March 1904 – 8 July 1949) was a Lebanese Syrian nationalist philosopher, writer and politician who founded the Syrian Social Nationalist Party.

Contents

Early life[edit]

Saadeh was born in 1904 in Dhour El Choueir, Beirut Vilayet (modern-day Lebanon). He was the son of a Lebanese Christian Orthodox physician,[6] Khalil Saadeh.[7] He completed his elementary education in his birth town and continued his studies at the Lycee des Freres in Cairo and at a Broummana (in modern-day Lebanon) School. In the later part of 1919, Saadeh emigrated to the United States, then in February 1921 he moved to Brazil with his father, who was a prominent Arabic-language journalist. In 1924, Saadeh founded a secret society whose goal was the unification of the Natural Syria; this society was dissolved the following year. Natural Syria, according to Saadeh, included the Levant and Mesopotamia. His concept of Syria included all religious, ethnic and linguistic groups living in this region.[6] During his time spent in Brazil, Saadeh learned German and Russian.[7]

Activity in Lebanon[edit]

In July 1930 he returned to Lebanon. In 1931, he wrote "A Love Tragedy" which was first published with his "Story of the Holiday of Our Lady of Sidnaya" in Beirut in 1933. Also, in 1931, Saadeh was employed at the daily newspaper Al-Ayyam, then in 1932 he was teaching German at the American University of Beirut.[6] In Beirut in 1933, he continued to publish pamphlets in the Al-Majalia magazine.[7]

On the 16th of November 1932, Saadeh secretly founded the Syrian Social Nationalist Party. Three years later, on the 16th of November 1935, the existence of the party was proclaimed and Saadeh was arrested and sentenced to 6 years imprisonment. During his confinement, he wrote his first book, The Rise of Nations. He was released from prison early, but was once again detained in June 1936. Again he wrote another book, Principles Explained. In November of the same year, he was released from prison, but in March 1937 was again arrested. During the time he spent in prison, he wrote his third book, The Rise of the Syrian Nation, but his manuscript was confiscated and the authorities refused to return it to him.[7]

Activity in emigration[edit]

He was released from prison in late May 1937, then in November 1937, Saadeh founded Al-Nahdhah newspaper. Saadeh led the party until 1938, then for the second time, he left the country in order to establish party branches in the Lebanese emigration countries. Saadeh went to Brazil and founded the New Syria newspaper; soon after, he was arrested by the French colonial authorities and spent two month in prison. In 1939, at the outbreak of World War II, Saadeh moved to Argentina and remained there until 1947. In Argentina, Saadeh continued his activities. He founded Al-Zawba'a The Storm newspaper and wrote The Struggle of the Intellect in Syrian Literature, which was printed in Buenos Aires. In 1943, Saadeh married Juliette Al-Mir and had three daughters with her. The French colonial court sentenced him in absentia to twenty years of imprisonment.[7]

Return to Lebanon[edit]

Saadeh in Lebanon

Saadeh returned to Lebanon on 2 March 1947, following the country's independence from France. After he arrived, he held a revolutionary speech, after which authorities issued an arrest warrant which was on force for seven month, but later withdrawn. In Lebanon, Saadeh founded Al-Jil Al-Jadid newspaper. On 4 July 1949, the party declared a revolution in Lebanon in retaliation to a series of violent provocations staged by the government of Lebanon against party members. The revolt was suppressed and he traveled to Damascus to meet with Husni al-Za'im, the President of Syria at the time, who was, at had previously been agreed to, supposed to support him. However, he was handed by el-Zaim over to the Lebanese authorities. Saadeh and many of his followers were judged by a Lebanese military court, and were executed; Saadeh himself was executed by a firing squad.[8] The capture, trial and execution happened in less than 48 hours.[9] Saadeh's execution occurred at dawn of 8 July 1949.[citation needed] According to Adel Beshara, it was and still is the shortest and most secretive trial given to a political offender.

His party continued to be active after his death. President of Lebanon, Camille Chamoun was supported by Saadeh's party during the 1958 Lebanon crisis. In 1961, SSNP attempted a coup d'état against president Fuad Shihab ending in failure. During the 1960s, party's leaders were arrested and eventually, party splintered into separate factions.[8]

Syrian Social Nationalist Party[edit]

According to Johnson, Saadeh was strongly influenced by national socialism and fascism. His party symbol was a reversed swastika and the party's anthem was sung with music of German anthem. Within the party, Saadeh gained a cult of personality and advocated a totalitarian system of government, at the same time glorifying the pre-Christian past of the Syrian people. Saadeh was named the party's leader for life.[8] However, according to Haytham, Saadeh states that European fascism didn't influence him. He claims that Saadeh's Syrian Social Nationalist ideology aimed at opposite ends; in contrast to National Socialism, Social Nationalism bases itself on a dynamic social entity (which is composed of many elements from religion, to language, to culture, to history, to need, and mainly human interaction) defining its national identity and not the imposition of one ideal identity (e.g. blond blue eyes) on the many factions.[10]

Saadeh emphasized the role of philosophy and social science in the development of his social ideology. He viewed social nationalism, his version of nationalism, as a tool to transform traditional society into a dynamic and progressive one. He also opposed colonization that broke up Greater Syria into sub-states. Secularization played an important role in his ideology. Secularization is taken by him beyond the socio-political aspects of the question into its philosophical dimensions.

Saadeh rejected Arab Nationalism (the idea that the speakers of the Arabic language form a single, unified nation), and argued instead for the creation of the state of United Syrian Nation or Natural Syria encompassing the Fertile Crescent, making up a Syrian homeland that "extends from the Taurus range in the northwest and the Zagros mountains in the northeast to the Suez Canal and the Red Sea in the south and includes the Sinai peninsula and the Gulf of Aqaba, and from the Syrian Sea in the west, including the island of Cyprus, to the arch of the Arabian Desert and the Persian Gulf in the east." (Kader, H. A.).

Film in Arabic about Saadeh's return to Lebanon

Saadeh rejected both language and religion as defining characteristics of a nation, and instead argued that nations develop through the common development of a people inhabiting a specific geographical region. He was thus a strong opponent of both Arab nationalism and Pan-Islamism. He argued that Syria was historically, culturally, and geographically distinct from the rest of the Arab world, which he divided into four parts. He traced Syrian history as a distinct entity back to the Phoenicians, Canaanites, Assyrians, Babylonians etc.[11] and argued that Syrianism transcended religious distinctions.[12]

These claims of alleged Nazi and Fascist ideology of his party were refused by Saadeh himself. During a 1935 speech, Saadeh himself said: "I want to use this opportunity to say that the system of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party is neither a Hitlerite nor a Fascist one, but a pure social nationalist one. It is not based on useless imitation, but is instead the result of an authentic invention  – which is a virtue of our people".[13]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

Notes
  1. ^ Antun Saadeh, "The Genesis of Nations". Dar Al Fikr, Beirut
  2. ^ Antun Saadeh, The Genesis of Nations (Beirut: Dar al-Fikr), p.34
  3. ^ Antun Saadeh, The Genesis of Nations (Beirut: Dar al-Fikr), 55
  4. ^ Antun Saadeh, The Genesis of Nations (Beirut: Dar al-Fikr)
  5. ^ Antun Saadeh adopted party semantics that resemble those of many shirt movements in Europe. However, there is no clear evidence that Saadeh was influenced by either Hitler or Mussolini. Saadeh even expelled members of the party who attempted to sing the party anthem to Deutschland Uber Alles, and modeled the anthem on a Russian song.
  6. ^ a b c Peretz 1994, p. 384.
  7. ^ a b c d e "Antun Saadeh". Syrian Social Nationalist Party. Retrieved 22 May 2012. 
  8. ^ a b c Johnson 2001, p. 150.
  9. ^ Armanazi, Ghayth (October–November 2011). "The Arab Poet Laureate: An Appreciation of Adonis". The London Magazine. Retrieved 24 October 2012. 
  10. ^ "Antun Saadeh, the man,his thought, an anthology"
  11. ^ Saadeh
  12. ^ Kader, Dr. Haytham A. "Syrian Social Nationalist Party - Ideology". Retrieved 4 May 2012. 
  13. ^ Götz Nordbruch (4 February 2009). Nazism in Syria and Lebanon: The Ambivalence of the German Option, 1933-1945. Taylor & Francis. pp. 45–. ISBN 978-0-415-45714-9. Retrieved 23 October 2012. 
Bibliography
  • Johnson, Michael (2001). All Honourable Men: The Social Origins of War in Lebanon. I.B.Tauris. ISBN 9781860647154. 
  • Peretz, Don (1994). The Middle East Today. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 9780275945756. 

External links[edit]


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