by Adel Beshara
The second study is a longer and more convoluted essay. Entitled “Man is a Social Being”, it was intended for publication as part of a Party-related series, but for some inexplicable reason did not get published. In it, Sayegh moves from a largely “historical” demonstration to a mainly “philosophical” inquiry. The philosophical import of the material presented is developed and pursued in a way that is consistent with an existential perspective. At the same time, the essay adheres in its general argument to the Party’s social theory developed by Sa’adeh in The Rise of Nations, that society alone is the physical realm for human life. Sayegh framed the argument as follows:
Man is social from his existence ... He is social in his development... social in his endurance ... social in his thinking and production ... social in the fullness of his moral entity ... Outside social life, he is not a human being and cannot exist at all. Where there is no social life there is no human being!25
Ultimately, Sayegh back-paddles to an Existential position: “The only acceptable theory of social life is that which regards sociality as embodied in the depths of the human soul and at the root of its humanity.” The emphasis in the essay on the “human” departs from Sa’adeh’s perspective, which imparts a transcendental value to the “social” and subordinates all other forms of existence, including “personal existence”, to its exigencies.
In many ways, the pervasiveness of philosophy in Sayegh’s post-1945 writings was both inevitable and predictable. His penchant for philosophy and the years of studying the subject at the AUB, and his exposure to the post-War tide of moral philosophies could not possibly have passed without exercising some incidental influence on his writings. Were it not for the deteriorating situation in Palestine and the surging demand for independence elsewhere, his philosophical input would probably have been more omnipresent than he had hoped.
PERSPECTIVE
Fayez’s almost verbatim adherence to Sa’adeh is a telling reminder of just how much influence Sa’adeh had over him, and at the same time, an unstinting testimony to Fayez’s loyalty and service to the SSNP. As a superb orator who spoke extemporaneously and with great elegance and ease, Fayez served the SSNP with utmost dedication and sincerity. He took its national message very seriously and invested a great deal of his time and effort promoting and demonstrating its potential usefulness. This earned him respect and admiration from both admirers and detractors, with the exception perhaps of the Communists. Even cynics inside the Party have acknowledged his drive and energy at least once in their lives.
Fayez did not live inside the Party: the Party lived inside him. For almost a decade, nothing else occupied as much of his mind and soul. The Party became the one great passion of his life. However, like all things in life, it had to end. With Fayez, the end came far sooner than he and many others had anticipated. It happened unexpectedly and quickly. By the end of 1947, his association with the SSNP had all but ended. The once respected and influential leader suddenly and meteorically became a Party outcast and a persona non grata. His downfall was swift and clinical. It was as if he had never been a member of the Party.
How someone as valuable and resourceful as Fayez could end up on the outside with remarkably little resistance or difficulty is still a matter of conjecture and debate. We will discuss the issue in the next chapter.
* * *
1 Adib Qaddura, Haqa’iq wa Mawaqif. (Beirut: Dar Fikr, 1989): 99.
2 Rosemary Sayigh (ed.), Yusif Sayigh: Arab Economist Palestinian Patriot, A Fractured Life Story. (Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2015): 132.
3 Abdullah Qubersi, Memoirs, Vol. 2. (Beirut: Dar Fikr, 1982): 192.
4 Sada an-Nahda. (Beirut: 5 June 1946).
5 Fayez Sayegh, The Greater Syria Scheme, The Syrian National Party (Information Bureau), Beirut, 6 December, 1946: 26.
6 SSNP Information Bulletin, No. 4, 15 August, 1947.
7 Fayez A. Sayigh, Al-ṭa’ifiyya: Bath fi asbabiha wa-akhṭariha wa-‘ilajihaā (Sectarianism: A Study into its Causes, Dangers, and Treatment) (Beirut: Manshurat Maktabat al-Wajib, 1947).
8 Max Weiss “The Historiography of Sectarianism in Lebanon.” (History Compass 7/1, 2009): 141–54.
9 (http://www.al-akhbar.com/node/7770). 20 July, 2017.
10 Full coverage of the banquet can be found in Sada an-Nahda, 19 November, 1946.
11 This lecture was subsequently revised, expanded and published in the Lebanese daily Beirut in 1941.
12 Al-baath al-Qawmi, 84.
13 Marx dubbed religion the “opiate of the masses,” and opined that “Communism begins where atheism begins.” Speaking on behalf of the Bolsheviks in his famous October 2, 1920 speech, Lenin stated matter-of-factly: “We do not believe in God.”
14 Rosemary Sayigh (ed.), Yusif Sayigh: Arab Economist Palestinian Patriot, A Fractured Life Story: 133.
15 Antun Sa’adeh, Complete Works, vol.1: 8-25.
16 Antun Sa’adeh, The Ten Lectures, p. 87.
17 See “Note on The Palestine Problem” in the appendix section of this book.
18 Sada an-Nahda, 2 November, 1946.
19 Ibid.
20 Fayez Sayegh, “Personal Existence: Its Contents; Its Tragedy; Its Paradox.” (Unpublished Master Thesis, AUB, 1945): 12.
21 Ibid, 36.
22 His speech “Reform in National Life.” In Sada an-Nahda, Beirut, September 2, 1946.
23 “Man is a Social Being”, an unpublished essay (n.d.). See Sayegh’s Collection. J. Willard Marriott Digital Library, The University of Utah.
24 Ibid.
25 Ibid.
3
The Fall of Fayez Sayegh from the SSNP
In December 1947, the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP) woke up to the news that Fayez Sayegh had been expelled from its ranks. Apart from some senior Party officers, very few people inside or outside the SSNP were apprised of the dispute that had developed between Fayez and Sa’adeh, who had returned to Lebanon and was back in charge of the Party. The news surprised everyone, not the least the Party’s political foes who had never thought that Fayez would face expulsion after years of dedicated service to the SSNP. Some, like the Communists, were extremely delighted by the news; others were more ambivalent, and in a sense, more deceptive about it. They were not unhappy to see him go, but they feared the worst from his departure.
The curious aspect of Fayez’s expulsion merits further investigation. An outsider could easily dismiss it as the drama of a power struggle between two brilliant minds or as a pure exercise in dictatorial authority. In fact, most interpretations have fallen on one side or the other of this divide. Additionally, the focus has tended to center on the personality dimension rather than on the reasons and issues at the core of the dispute.
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
From the outset of his political career in 1932, Sa’adeh consciously pursued a series of clearly discernible policy initiatives connected by one fundamental and common objective: to change the life of a nation whose development had long ceased and whose objective potential for movement in new directions had subsided to almost nothing. Accordingly, he conceived the SSNP as a creative transforming agent of this change rather than a party that seeks to attain political power within a government. Also, from the outset, he structured the aim of the SSNP around three supreme and exclusive goals:
The establishment of an independent state in “Greater” Syria.
The modernization of the nation according to a new outlook on life.
The formation of an Arab front.
For almost six years, from 1932 to 1938, Sa’adeh devoted his time and energy to sustain this perspective. He developed an entire ideology around it, mentored Party members, and set up a Cultural Forum (al-nadwa al-thakafiyya) and a newspaper (an-Nahda) to promote it. Persecution then struck, and in 1938, he ended up in forced exile in South America.
During Sa’adeh’s absence, the SSNP’s home-based leadership deviated from their ideological commitments and began to meddle wi
th the Party’s stated objectives. In the 1943 presidential campaign, the Party leadership broke away from its original policy of neutrality in Lebanese electoral politics and sided with Beshara Khoury. The other contender, Émile Eddé, was seen as a symbol of French influence.1 In exchange for the Party’s support, Khoury promised that, if elected, he would release its imprisoned members and allow the Party to resume political activity. He deferred the issue of Sa’adeh’s return to Lebanon, however.
Khoury’s goodwill freed the Lebanese government from an important responsibility, but it proved to be tactical and self-serving. The nascent Lebanese State lacked both the strength and the adaptability of the French colonialists to grapple with the SSNP, and using repression after the Party had pledged to respect the new independent state would have been unwise. Pacifying the SSNP could benefit the government by (1) serving as an incentive for a softer attitude towards the status quo from the Party; (2) assisting in fostering factional fighting inside the Party over its new direction; and (3) enabling future governments to manipulate the Party.
With these objectives clearly in mind, the Lebanese leadership reached a formal compromise with the SSNP’s local leadership in 1945. The government agreed to grant the Party an official permit. In return, the Party pledged:
To work within the political framework of the National Pact, the unwritten agreement between Khoury and Solh, to consolidate Lebanon as an independent state within a power-sharing arrangement between the various sectarian groups.2
To tone down its pan-Syrian rhetoric and turn the Party into a “Lebanese” organization.
By the end of 1946, the government’s strategy bore fruit on two fronts. First, it succeeded in splitting the SSNP into two factions: (a) a pro-faction of “talented men”3 agreeing to the new policy direction and (b) an anti-faction (or “old guard”) of men and women who remained committed to the ideological and administrative foundations of the Party.4 The two factions did not contest their differences openly but “decided, grudgingly, to wait for the return of the Leader [Sa’adeh], which they hoped would restore them to their lost status”.5 In the meantime, the government’s plan to turn the SSNP into a “Lebanese” organization advanced rapidly. By 1946, fundamental changes had rendered the SSNP almost indistinguishable from the other Lebanese parties and nothing like the SSNP of the previous decade. Outwardly,
The word “Syrian” was removed from the Party’s name. It was now called “The National Party.”
The flag of the Party was modified and its colors were changed.
The Party’s head-office in Beirut began to exercise greater autonomy from the Party branches in Palestine and the Syrian Republic.
The Party’s manner of salute was toned down.
Sa’adeh’s title was expunged.
Inwardly, the Party was “directed more toward the domestic problems of independent Lebanon than to the national problem as defined by Sa’adeh”.6 Its leadership began to emphasize local Lebanese issues and accommodate the newly independent state. The Party’s new trajectory peaked in November 1946 with the release of a public statement affirming its opposition to King Abdullah’s Greater Syria Scheme:
The National Party condemns the “Greater Syria Scheme” and rejects it outright.
The National Party calls on all good citizens in the states projected in the proposed union to resist and to fight the scheme.
For a political party that had struggled solely for Syrian unification, the Greater Syria Scheme declaration was a clear ideological reversal and a measure of how far the Party had gone down the road of Lebanonization. Sa’adeh’s initial reaction to this development from his exile in Argentina was surprisingly mild and cautious (the proverbial calm before the storm). He affirmed that nothing should deflect the Party from its national objectives, but he did not discipline the deviationists because they might have conspired with the government to keep him out of Lebanon indefinitely. Moreover, a showdown with the deviationists from afar might have split the Party. Sa’adeh’s strategy did not stop the perpetrators, but it did spare the Party the pain of an internal split.
In March 1947, Sa’adeh was finally re-admitted into Lebanon. It is claimed that, by giving assent to Sa’adeh’s return, President Khoury expected to draw political capital from the SSNP in the general elections scheduled for May 1947.7 However, on the day of his arrival, Sa’adeh restored the Party to its original principles and nullified the tacit agreement between the government and the “Lebanonist wing” in the Party. He then reconsolidated the Party around him and restored its original name, flag, salute, etc. He purged and expelled the deviationists from the administration; reinstated the Cultural Forum; issued a regular cultural bulletin; set up press organs strictly connected to the Party; and utilized dailies that closely (but not officially) identified with the Party’s views and goals. In addition, the Party’s “ideology” became again the organic sphere of its political struggle, and Sa’adeh re-emphasized the benefit of ideological consolidation in building a sustainable society to the Party members. The primary concern for Sa’adeh was to bring the varied Party ranks into a disciplined body that would march towards its goal with great certainty and decisiveness.
FAYEZ VERSUS SA’ADEH
The confrontation between Fayez Sayegh and Antun Sa’adeh developed principally during this reconstruction phase. Previously, on March 2, the Party had commissioned Fayez to deliver the welcome address on Sa’adeh’s long-awaited day of return. Fayez did not disappoint. Standing in front of Sa’adeh, he uttered loudly:
Our honorable leader,
If I am standing here on this very momentous and happy occasion, it is because every Party member is absolutely delighted to have you back and to see you once more, and I am no exception.
If I stand right here to describe to you how much they have missed you, I am trying to do the impossible. The feeling that this massive crowd expressed is impossible to describe in words. I think that you understood that from the moment your plane touched the ground at the airport and we were looking at you wherever you went. At the midst of all this, there is one thing that expresses everybody’s wish: We are ready. No vote of confidence is stronger than that given by the hearts and souls of this large crowd. Very near to where we stand rests a martyr in peace. He was our first martyr and he will vouch for what I say. It is in his deep silence that our martyr cries, “Sa’adeh! We are true to our oath. We are prepared to march behind you till death, so that the nation can walk on our bodies toward life”.
At the end of the speech, Sa’adeh hugged Fayez warmly with an appreciative smile on his face. The crowd erupted in loud cheers in an expression of support for Fayez’s speech.
At the time, Fayez was oblivious to the plans that Sa’adeh had in store for the Party. He was doubtlessly apprised of the brewing dispute between Sa’adeh and the Party’s Lebanonist clique, but not of the measures that Sa’adeh intended to take against them. These only became clear to him in May when Sa’adeh began to purge the Party. As the deviationists were brought before Sa’adeh to account for their ideological transgressions and then expelled after refusing to repent, Fayez looked on with a strange emotion of hope mingled with foreboding and almost with affright. At first, he was edgy about the sudden turn of events, but after listening to Sa’adeh, he gradually came around to his side. He took note of Sa’adeh’s logical explanations and he was touched by his flexibility and egalitarian approach. Still, the loss of close friends and comrades with whom he had worked for almost a decade was deeply agonizing. It pained him severely to lose his former president, Naimet Thabet, who was widely respected and loved in the Party. In the end, Fayez put the Party before friendship and persevered.
Apparently, Fayez had opposed the idea of “Lebanonizing” the Party in 1944, but he was coaxed into accepting it as a matter of necessity. In return for his silence, he was made Dean of Culture in the Party and given almost a free hand to run the Cultural Department. This was a kind of “gentleman’s agreement”. Fayez
jumped at the opportunity and immediately turned the Department’s bulletin into a portal for his own agenda. The bulletin was revised to conform to a new policy subject to his “own” direction and to the “High Ideals” as defined by Fayez rather than to the Party’s aim and teachings. Fayez also designated himself as the “final” person-in-charge of the bulletin. The editorial for the first issue of the bulletin stated:
It remains to be said that this bulletin – which is one of several projects undertaken by the Cultural Department – is subject to the basic policy of the Dean as stated in his basic declaration on the front page, especially in relation to the thinkers outside the Party … The Cultural Department is pleased to welcome every sincere thinker seeking to convey his cultural message. It is prepared to set aside an uncensored platform in its bulletin from which he can express his thought and art freely.8
Upon learning of the changes, Sa’adeh’s blood pressure went up. From his Argentine exile, he sent a strongly worded letter to the Party’s Supreme Council demanding it to put an immediate stop to Fayez’s transgressions. The letter described the “basic policy of the Dean” as “tinted with a strong personal and individual bias that does not take into consideration the development of the Department and the centrality of the basic cultural idea in the social national doctrine and its explanation”.9 For Sa’adeh, the disquieting aspect of this bias was that it rendered the Cultural Department subject to Fayez’s ‘basic policy and declaration’ rather than to the basic aim for which the Department was created – i.e. the Aim of the Party. The potential danger of such an act cannot be underestimated. Not only did it set a bad precedent for other departments to pursue a similar independent course but also seriously undermined the entire hierarchy of the Party.10 Sa’adeh’s demands were met tentatively. Fayez toned down his ego, but retained full control of the bulletin.
