User:Sft78

've been reading this talk page and I was amazed by the way some people are ready to make such a violent debate about issues they seem not to know the basis of what they're talking about. I may understand that some of the contributors to this discussion do not know a world of arabic, but that is a shame when discussing the work of someone (antoun saadeh) who wrote mainly in arabic (his complete works is a 17 volume series of around 200 page each, and cover a nearly 30 years of writing) and a party whose intellectuals (at least 4 generations) have a massive production of memoires, and doctrinal discussions (to name a few concerning memoirs Abdallah koberssi, Jebran Jreij,Julia el mir-saadeh, Ibrahim yamout, Mahmoud Nehme... for doctrinal discussions Said Taki el dinne, Wassim zeineddine, Nassif Nassar, Enaam Raed, Aboud Aboud...). I think some due clarifications are to be made: 1- concerning racism and Nazi claims: a) back in 1934, when he was in french mandate jails and when the Reich was at his peak and eugenism was still in vogue in Europe and America, Saadeh wrote one of the most central books in his doctrine "The Rise of Nations", in the second chapter of the book he makes - based on a well referenced scientific anthropological findings and other writings regarding the development of national identity in Europe - a solid case against races' superiority claim (he clearly defines social interaction between different people of different origin and culture as basis to any real development in human history) and underline that linking nationalism to racism (in taking examples not only of Germany but also of France and Europe in early 18th century) is a very reactionary and dangerous position, that should be combatted in the Arab Levant a land of strong diversity. b) On the other hand it is well known - and referenced, even Pipes and Hitchens would agree so - that SSNP followers are form very different religious (of very diverse sects) and ethnic (arabs, but also kurds, armenians, greeks, turks, persians, franks...) origins. And they might be with some communist parties in the region the very few who could proclaim such a diversity, Hardly a case for racism c) concerning the alleged saadeh's anti-arabs positions. It is striking thow some get to such a conclusion, when one of the 4 core objectives of the party clearly stated in its Goal, is the cration of a pan-arab front. saadeh defended what he called "true arabism", in his view a realistic, operative version of arabism capable of mobilizing development and resistance to colonial and then Zionist threts. He attacked conventional arabism (claiming a one Nation from Mauritania to the comores ilands, and mainly based on the sole lingual link, and the arab islamic culture negating all minority cultures). That does not mean that Saadeh's position is an anti-arab cultural position but that of considering the arab golden era of the middle ages as part of a longer history going from antiquity to present days, building a certain "geographic culture" in a certain geographic territory that is in his view the Fertile Crescent. He sees his Greater Syria and his party as one of the forces in the rise of the Arab World. c) most importantly his social nationalism doctrine is contradictory to any racism or even any chauvinism - that he denounces plainly in his writings. His conception of nationalism has at its core two central founding dynamics "social interaction" and "territorial interaction". The "Moutahhad" is his elementary social and territorial unit, it is considered to be the territorial scale in which basic needs (mainly security, food, shelter and community) could be achieved via social interaction. there is different level of Moutahads incorporating linked nets of smaller Moutahds, and responding to different level of human needs ( As a exemple a village or a town quarter is an elementery Moutahad, a territorial region or a metropolis is a different level of Moutahad incorporating a network of villages or of quarters...). The "Watan" or "Patrie" is the Nation level territorial Moutahad. For Saadeh beeing part of a Moutahad is a simple choice to live in it, and committing ones future to its, regardless of racial, cultural or religious origin. Of course left by itself and ruled by reactionary exclusive cultures set on primary social bodies (clans, tribes, large families, religious groups...), such a space holding great potentials for development will turn out to be a battlefield of tribes and flags, and a backyard for colonial exploitation. That's where he think his Nahda, a Cultural and Political Renaissance is needed to bring in a more liberal modernist spirit - in opposition to the racist Toranic movement of Ataturk or the Fascist approach of Mussolini, he thought to do it not by deneing the multicultural status of the Levant and consider rich with heritage, and by proving in his writings, that none of these cultures are fundamentally racist and non reconcilable with modernity, but rather held by communities living a trauma of a long date geography of fear - and on the other hand provide a larger non-exclusionary community of citizens, that could transcend by hope the fears and traumas of the past. Again hardly a fascist, nazi or racist project. 2- Regarding the Map: the Map represents the Syrian "Watan" the homeland of his Nation. It is defined by the party fifth amendment it says that the homeland of the Syrian people is the Fertile Crescent and it is borders are to the west by the mediteranean sea to the south by the deserts of sinaa and the arc of the arab desert ( identifying a distinction between the Syrian desert with soil and lot of oasis and the southern deset mainly a sandy no man's land) to the east the montains of Zaghros and the Bakhtiari and to the north the Tauraus chains, with cyprus as an offshore continuity to cilicia and alexandrette. Two important notes are to be made: a) this map represents the spatial manifestation of saadeh's social nationalism doctrine. first saadeh believes that Nations are a very long historical built and not a hasty product of a conjuncture (though states are), in applying his Moutahad conceptual framework, he gets to a point that on the long history of the region cultural identities were not a clear cut to any interaction, so the Nation was build on a long standing history of a network of Moutahads' social interaction on different level the Fertile Crescent level being the highest one. This interaction could only be stopped by the relative absence or instability (nomads) of the people to interact with, this is caused by far reaching deserts, seas and large inhabitable mountains - those he identified - and that on a long history of time. Political borders are by no way barriers to social interaction: anyone living on the actual Lebanese-Syrian border or the Syrian-Iraqi border knows that! b) these borders are only nominative - the fact is no known map is find in the parity's archive going back to saadeh's years- the border in saadeh's concept is not a clear line ( a "front" in the french geographic tradition) but rather a limit zone were the interaction was getting to very low levels. The Syrian "Watan" is not an essentialist conception - as say the french patrie limited by fronts, or the german homeland of the reich - but rather a socio-territorial construction, which can evolve and even be debated (saadeh himself changed it himself several times, much known when it passed from being only covering Bilad-el Cham to include Iraq and Cyprus, but the change is claimed to be the fruit of scientific geographic findings, forcing him to reconsider his construction) 3- Regarding the Flag: Far from being a Nazi Swastika, the "Zawba3a" has a defferent history. As stated in his memoir's first volume, Jebran Jreij one of the party's oldest leaders, he says that Saadeh asked SSNP militants at the architecture department of the American University of Beirut, to draw a flag for the party in 1933, they came with two proposals. Both claiming the Zawba3a as central in their design. And far from the rethoric of the cross and the crescent - that was later emphasized by some militants - it symbolized a red revolutionary movement that is rizing to bring lght in the darkness of the nation's situation. The interesting part being that one of the designs brought a zawba3a with 4 angles (as we know it), the other was with 3 angles. It was only after a debate, when the 4 were said to symbolize the high values of the party ( first of all liberty), that this design was preffered... If for a reason or the other Saadeh would have settled for a 3 angle Zawba3a would critics about Nazism and Swastika be maintained... I doubt it. I only made this intervention to shed some light on these important points, and to ask the people administrating the site not to make a hasty judgement before reading carefully about the subject they're talking about... even if it is in arabic