by Salim Mujais
Saadeh left Brazil on May 14, and headed to Argentina.2 The short interval after the release suggests that leaving Brazil may have been a condition of his release. His exoneration, however, was critical as it meant that his colleagues in Brazil would not run afoul of the Brazilian authorities and that their organizational activities as well as their publications could continue unmolested. The arrest, however, had long lasting disruptive effects and a dampening effect on the enthusiasm of the community. In Brazil, SSNP members remained fearful of the authorities, a condition that significantly hampered organizational efforts.3 The original plan of Saadeh’s trip to the Syrian diaspora was to visit the Syrian communities in South America, and then continue to Mexico and subsequently to the United States. Various factors, however, intervened to prolong his stay in Argentina until the definitive refusal of the French Consulate to renew his travel papers sealed his fate and confined him to the Argentine Republic for the duration of the Second World War and beyond.
In his hurried departure from Brazil, Saadeh had left both the organization of SSNP’s activities and the editorial staffing of Souria al-Jadida unfinished. His organizational efforts had been thwarted by his protracted incarceration. On arriving in Argentina, he was faced with the dual task of establishing a base of activity in Argentina and simultaneously attending to the needs of the nascent organization in Brazil.
In Argentina, Saadeh was to find a more nuanced political environment and the host country proved more tolerant of his activities. By October 1939, enough groundwork had been laid for Saadeh to appoint a central administrative committee for the SSNP branch in Argentina.4 The absence of capable aides meant that Saadeh had to undertake the entire burden of grass root activities necessary for the establishment of SSNP branches throughout the Argentine Republic traveling over long distances by rail to centers of Syrian settlements.
The start of hostilities with Germany gave France the pretext to tighten its grip on the colonies and to expand its persecution of the SSNP.5 During his stay in Tucumán, Saadeh received news of renewed French prosecution of the SSNP in Syria on the pretext of association with enemy powers. The French Mandate authorities had issued a press release in their campaign against the SSNP, declaring that the SSNP and its members were being prosecuted because of their association with a foreign government, proof of which supposedly lay in the fact that Antoun Saadeh was in Berlin directing propaganda via the Arab section of Berlin Radio and was allegedly helped in his efforts by Daoud Mujais. However, neither Saadeh nor Daoud Mujais were in Berlin at the time, as Saadeh was in Argentina and Daoud Mujais was residing in Mexico. This fabricated news item did have political and legal implications as it was being introduced as evidence into the judiciary proceedings against SSNP members.6 Saadeh hastened back to Buenos Aires to secure refuting documents. He appeared to have obtained a “Certificat de vie” (“Proof of Life” certificate) from the French embassy in Buenos Aires, on November 29, 1939 which he forwarded to Beirut.7
While engaged in the myriad meetings and activities, Saadeh did not lose sight of his onward travel plans to the rest of the Americas. In January 1940, he informed the SSNP branch in Mexico that his trip would definitely take place in May and that the Mexican branch could start making the necessary arrangements for his visit.8 The prolonged stay in Argentina to cement the gains made for the SSNP and its cause, however, meant that his travel documents issued by the authorities in Beirut needed to be renewed by the French diplomatic missions that handled all such transactions for Syrians abroad. The French Ambassador, by now alerted to the interest and attitude of the Mandate authorities in Beirut towards Saadeh and the SSNP, wrote to them seeking guidance on how to handle the request.9 The reply received from Beirut and relayed by the Foreign Office on March 2, 1940 is telling: “Antoun Saadeh, leader of the Parti Populaire Syrien is accused by the Military Court of sedition and plotting against the internal and external security of the states under the French Mandate… The renewal of his passport would facilitate the intrigues undertaken by him abroad. It would be therefore appropriate to refuse the renewal.” The decision was equivalent to a court order of exile.10
Saadeh at a meeting of the SSNP branch in Buenos Aires, Argentina, circa 1940.
With the advent of 1940, Saadeh may have been buoyed by the SSNP’s public successes in Argentina, although a robust organization was yet to emerge and the conditions of the activities in Brazil were a constant source of disappointment. The best manifestation of the success of the SSNP was the banquet held in honor of Saadeh’s birthday on March 1. In May 1940, he undertook another tour of the northern Argentine provinces to promote the cause of the SSNP and invigorate its nascent organization.
The initial successes of Saadeh in Tucumán in November 1939 and in Santiago in May 1940 were solely due to his personal efforts, but the absence of a team to shepherd these successes, nurture discipline and deeper understanding of the cause and the means to serve it, meant that these units remained weak. Saadeh had to reorganize the directorate of the Tucumán branch repeatedly after its inception in November 1939. He reorganized the directorate in May 1941 because of its “administrative paralysis,” 11 in June 1942,12 and again in December 1943.13 The directorate of Santiago was reorganized for the same reason in June 1942,14 this pattern of paralysis could also be observed in other units.
The immediate communication needs of the SSNP in Argentina in the face of recurrent attacks led Saadeh to put into effect an original plan of publishing a newspaper in Argentina, a plan he had delayed to preserve the role of Souria al-Jadida. The first issue of az-Zawba’a (Cyclone) appeared on August 1, 1940. After a weak start, the periodical gained a robust structure and a high quality content even though its physical form suffered from the idiosyncrasies of the printing presses in Argentina.
Saadeh attempted a diplomatic overture with the French in a letter he addressed to the French ambassador dated October 1, 1940, stating the position of the SSNP and its willingness to start a dialogue with the French. The French, in the words of their High Commissioner in Beirut, asked for the unconditional surrender of a foe against whom he had been waging a vicious asymmetrical war since the start of hostilities in Europe. They were unnerved by the resilience of this foe that did not desist from its struggle and capitulate. They had accused the SSNP of being an agent of foreign interests, namely those of Germany, alleging that Saadeh was in Berlin, while French diplomatic pouches conveyed news of his activities in Brazil and Argentina, and the French-controlled local courts had in their files a “certificat de vie” issued to him by the French embassy in Buenos Aires! They also accused the SSNP of receiving foreign money (an often repeated claim never substantiated in prior arrests and prosecutions) while the confiscated financial records of the Party showed meager resources. Furthermore, the French accused the SSNP of being recalcitrant and unresponsive to French offers of dialogue while they themselves violated their promise of safe conduct and arrested those SSNP representatives who presented themselves for negotiation.
The advent of 1941 carried momentous developments in Syria in the wake of the French military defeat, the establishment of the Vichy government and the implications of such on the balance of power in the Near East between British and French forces. Saadeh subjected the claims and counterclaims of Axis and Allied propaganda to thorough analysis and criticism on the pages of az-Zawba’a. The pronouncements of Foreign Affairs ministers and various colonial potentates were luring the Syrians into a familiar trap. Saadeh was particularly critical of Syrian politicians who became mouthpieces for foreign interests. Just as he ridiculed the proxy-ruling elites in Damascus and Beirut for their sycophantic expressions of allegiance and solidarity to the cause of France at the onset of the war, he now criticized the political elites that were clamoring in support of the Axis cause. A particular target was Shakib Arslan who emerged as the major spokesperson for the pro-Axis trend. The activities of Shakib Arslan and the adherents of his Pan-Islamism/Pan-Arabism movement were sowing d
iscord and division within the Syrian community, and his advocated positions of wholesale reliance on foreign powers were contrary to the national interests of Syria.15
Shakib Arslan and his cousin Amin16 were the driving force behind the Arab Congress17 that convened in Argentina in 1941 which was confusing Syria’s international position, and Shakib Arslan’s praise of sycophants like Rachid Khouri18 was giving fodder to their malignant influences in the community. Discrediting Arslan and exposing his servitude to foreign interests19 and his sectarian worldview were necessary in the battle to defeat internal enemies of the Syrian cause. In his writings about Arslan, Saadeh charted the varied and complicated career of the man who was dubbed the “Prince of Eloquence” (Amir al-Bayan) for his prodigious literary productivity.20
Contacts between Saadeh and the SSNP in Syria had been curtailed and ultimately severed by persecution and censorship. What little information that was gleaned from general news items was meager but suggested that the SSNP remained defiant in the face of the unremitting onslaught of French colonial oppression.
Saadeh continued his grassroots efforts to reach as wide an audience for the SSNP platform among the Syrians in Argentina as his energies and health allowed. In April 1941, we find him traveling to Pergamino. Saadeh delivered a lecture on “Critical Factors in the Syrian Quest for a New Era.”21 In May 1941, he traveled to Tucumán in north-west Argentina to attend to deteriorating conditions in the SSNP branch.22
His efforts to expand the footprint of the SSNP in the Americas consumed all of his time. Saadeh particularly targeted the Syrian community in Chile as it was financially and politically dynamic. The Chilean community was well positioned to support the SSNP both financially and politically.23 A social guide of the community published in 1941 by the Palestinian Club reflects a population in the main cities of Chile with many prosperous notables.24 The success however was modest and fleeting.
One of the most interesting and pivotal series of articles to appear during Saadeh’s years of exile is titled as-Sira’ al-Fikri fi al-Adab as-Suri (Conceptual Controversies in Syrian Literature) which first appeared on the pages of az-Zawba’a in 1942 and was published soon after in book form. The importance of this series and its lasting effect on intellectual and literary currents in modern Arabic literature cannot be overemphasized. The style of the book is of an elegant philosophical purity and the concepts it presents are of great originality and import.25
The growth of the branches of the SSNP in Argentina was one of those effervescent events that follow the application of a force majeure to a previously dormant community, namely Saadeh’s presence. As the description of his trips within the Argentinean Republic demonstrate, his presence, talks and example reverberated within the Syrian communities and enthusiastic elements joined the party. There was, however, a shortage of capable individuals who could be relied upon to harness the enthusiasm and lead the party branches. This deficit of leaders at the grass root level within the Syrian communities was to lead to nefarious consequences: members brought into the SSNP branches their squabbles, conflicts, and preconceived notions as to what the SSNP was or ought to do, without local leaders to indoctrinate them in the new system. This chaos meant that the resources of the members and the community could not be marshaled for the cause. Further, the conflicts were to dissipate the momentum created by Saadeh’s work and sap his energies and patience.
It is against this framework that we need to understand Saadeh’s repeated postponement of his trip to North America until that time when it became impossible to undertake. He perceived that the Argentinean SSNP was still a weak sapling that would not survive his departure. Saadeh had undertaken a Herculean task: the organization of the Syrian diaspora globally to support a national endeavor at home. The conditions of the SSNP and the imperatives of the ongoing global struggle (World War II) forced him to undertake it alone. The intervention of the war made the undertaking even more daunting. Any success in the diaspora would be impossible to translate to the homeland under the conditions of universal warfare. The conflict had severed any potential venues for such a translation. Even the simple exchange of information, let alone the provision of financial support, was rendered impossible by the extension of the war to the Near East and North Africa. Such conditions were bound to generate feelings of futility in a diaspora that was not vibrant with national sentiment to begin with. This explains Saadeh’s repeated and persistent efforts of highlighting on the pages of Souria al-Jadida and az-Zawba’a the achievements of the SSNP in Syria, even digging for glimpses of its activities in the confused and meager reports of wire agencies more pre-occupied with the movements of colossal armies than the occasional demonstration or pamphlet by a clandestine persecuted political group. Saadeh maintained a valiant effort through 1940 and 1942 and his success is reflected in the regularity of the publications of Souria al-Jadida and az-Zawba’a and the meetings of the party and the founding of cultural institutions.
By 1943, however, the toll of the global conflict was sapping any residual enthusiasm in the community and defections and abandonment became frequent. This was further compounded by recurrent rumors about the disquiet of Argentinean authorities vis-à-vis foreign political activities, rumors that were largely untrue, but nevertheless effective in scaring the faint-hearted. Questions about the relevance of any political work in the diaspora under the conditions of the local conflict and the prevalent conditions of the Syrian diaspora communities became more frequent even among leading members of the SSNP. The inspiration of a grand national undertaking was threatened by the mundane and weighed by a sense of incapacity and futility. Saadeh must have felt like a lone warrior in the arena hobbled rather than succored by his aides. The language of his letters became terse and harsh. The actions and statements of his lieutenants exasperated him. His reputed tolerance and patience frayed. Not only did he see that he could not render aid and support to his organization at home, let alone change the course of political events, but even his personal dignity is assailed from within without the SSNP. The SSNP opponents however had readily grasped the central role Saadeh played in the SSNP. They likely reasoned that he was the critical pillar upon which rested the existence and success of the organization and therefore they focused their attacks on him personally.
Constrained to remain in Argentina with no means of financial subsistence, Saadeh was forced to go into small trade. His goals were to provide for his family, to safeguard the dignity of his office as leader of the SSNP, and to support the activities of the SSNP, notably the publication of az-Zawba’a and the diffusion of SSNP ideology among Syrian immigrants. This avenue left him open to treachery by individuals that attempted, and sometimes succeeded, to defraud him of the fruits of his labor. Saadeh was facing financial ruin, the dignity of his office was the target of the basest calumny, and his precious energies diverted from serving the national cause. Ironically, these calamitous developments were not the consequence of interventions by any of the numerous foes and enemies of the SSNP, but rather by SSNP members, some of whom had professed devotion for many years, and were trusted and valued by both Saadeh and his wife. Despite his preoccupation with commercial ventures, Saadeh continued his devoted work for the cause of the SSNP. In this murky environment, Saadeh had to supervise the publications of two Party newspapers, attend to the operations of the SSNP branches in Argentina, Brazil, Chili, Mexico, the USA and western Africa. Throughout 1944, he managed to provide material for and supervise az-Zawba’a. True, he did not pursue in these issues any in depth philosophical subjects as he had done in the preceding years, and the majority of his articles were topical. Nevertheless, his writing continued to reflect his incisive intellect and he continued to expound on the tenets of SSNP ideology and worldview.
RENEWED REPRESSION IN THE HOMELAND
Saadeh’s departure from Syria coincided with developing international conditions that led the Mandate to revise its policy of containment towards the SSNP via local governments, to a more
brutal policy of broad and sweeping interventions. The policy of containment had its successes in disrupting the planned spread, organization, and growth of the SSNP. The international political horizon, however, foretold of a major conflagration, and the Mandates, French and British alike, needed a more secure control of the Eastern Mediterranean. National liberation movements could not be tolerated to operate at any level. The SSNP would experience this change in colonial policy directly, particularly at the level of its leadership. Many of its most experienced leaders and organizers would be apprehended and incarcerated for prolonged periods of time. Hundreds would be incarcerated in concentration camps. Devoted but inexperienced replacements would emerge. Nevertheless, the disruptive actions of the Mandate would exhaust the human resources of the SSNP, force a lack of centralized organized authority, result in disharmonious regional initiatives, and a widespread lull in militancy.
Immediately after Saadeh’s departure from Beirut in June of 1938, the Mandate authority’s forces raided the offices of the SSNP 26 and suspended the publication of an-Nahda.27 A campaign of targeted arrests continued throughout the summer of 1938.28 Despite this atmosphere of intimidation and repression, the SSNP continued to operate and held a general meeting of the heads of its administrative units in September of 1938.29 The actions of the Mandate forced the Party into its clandestine mode of operations to protect its constituency, but it continued its defiant stance by issuing public statements, staging ad hoc public demonstrations, and publicly commemorating its traditional occasions such as the first of March 1939.30
The French had greatly increased their military presence in the eastern Mediterranean in anticipation of the repercussions of the impending conflict in Europe. American Embassy dispatches, which monitored French military strength, clearly demonstrate the dramatic increases in the French military presence by 1940, even when compared with their troops in place during the 1925 uprisings. In 1925, the French had 20,000 troops in Syria supplemented by 6,500 Syrian soldiers under the control of French officers.31 The French troops themselves were largely colonial consisting of Moroccan, Algerian and Senegalese soldiers with French officers. By early 1940, the number of troops exceeded 100,000 and was still largely composed of colonials.32 This change in military strength made it effectively unlikely that the SSNP would have been able alone to dislodge the French. The numbers of French troops decreased after the armistice with Germany, following the defeat and the establishment of the Vichy government in France, but the residual strength of 64,000 French troops still in Syria by December of 1940 was a formidable barrier.
