Fayez Sayegh- the Party Years (1938-1947)

by Adel Beshara

  In short, the complexity of Sayegh’s clash with Sa’adeh cannot be reduced to a simple disagreement of views. Clearly, there were psychological factors involved, as there usually are in most personality clashes, as well as topical issues that should be taken into account in the consideration of their discord. Approaching the dispute from this broader perspective enables us to capture the essence of Sayegh’s defiance, the watershed moments that shaped his behavior, and the intransigence with which he addressed himself to the challenge. Both his and Sa’adeh’s position become more understandable when placed in the context of the two men’s value systems and the contemporary developments that took place behind Sa’adeh’s back and intrinsically inside Sayegh’s world.

  IV

  One of the most puzzling aspects in the Sayegh-Sa’adeh clash is that, after publishing what appears to be a final statement on the encounter (Whither To?), Sayegh never returned to it. For over three decades, during which an impressive array of books and articles flowed from his pen, he refrained from mentioning Sa’adeh in any capacity or context. On the single and rare occasion on which he alluded to Sa’adeh, in a private letter to his brother, he desisted from even uttering his name.

  This omission, made almost two years after his ejection from the SSNP and in the aftermath of Sa’adeh’s execution on July 8, 1949, is indicative of the hurt and anger that Sayegh experienced and was clearly still carrying from the encounter. Conversely, however, it can be perceived as a symptomatic representation of a resentful mind and an egocentricity verging on narcissism. An unmistakable egocentric undertone even runs through Sayegh’s “forgiveness” as if he wanted us to believe that not only was he forgiving, but also, he was free of any blame. However, in any dispute or disagreement, usually more than one person is at fault and no one is completely blameless. Anyway, blame is irrelevant or at least peripheral when the crux of the disagreement is largely intellectual or ideological.

  From a contemporary perspective, Sayegh’s blocking out Sa’adeh completely can be interpreted as meaning one of two things: either Sayegh harbored a strong sense of guilt and regret for having taken a wrong turn and being too proud, could not bring himself to admit this, or he did it to avoid negative backlash from the Party and those who still supported Sa’adeh. After his departure from the SSNP, some reports implicated him in certain unethical acts ranging from colluding with others to delaying Sa’adeh’s return to Lebanon in 1947 to failing to hand over the total amount of contributions collected during his Party-sponsored visit to Ghana. He was also accused of siphoning off internal Party papers and documents for personal use and never returning them. Sayegh’s self-imposed silence precluded a response to these allegations. In short, Sayegh’s willingness to ‘forgive’ was an admirable act, but he failed to carry it through publicly.

  V

  Because ideological disagreements can be difficult to resolve, neither all the credit nor all the blame falls on one side. With regard to this investigation, this fact prompts two questions: “Did Sa’adeh contribute to the dispute with Sayegh? And if so, how?”.

  Outside observers, particularly those who place a premium price on individual freedom, will almost certainly answer affirmatively to the first question. They might even hold Sa’adeh entirely responsible under the principle of “freedom of thought”. This is both unfair and manipulative, because it ignores crucial theoretical and practical imperatives associated with political work. Given that Sayegh was committed to a specific national program that involved self-discipline and ideological observances, invoking the principle of “freedom of thought” under such circumstances is not only untenable but a perversion of the truth.

  Nevertheless, this does not exonerate Sa’adeh of blame or responsibility. His procrastination in proclaiming the philosophy of the SSNP until the end of 1946 (almost 15 years after its founding) should not be overlooked. A philosophy should embody a coherent position on fundamental problems such as reality, ethics, truth, values, existence, and knowledge before it can be said to exist. Thus, although the Party’s ideology contained certain philosophical notions and recognized the natural superiority of society over the individual, it did not form a complete philosophy. The aspects of its position on fundamental problems were either non-existent in the Party’s ideology before 1947 or existed randomly in some of Sa’adeh’s speeches and writings in exile. By then, Sayegh had already become too infatuated with existential philosophy to discard it and embrace a different worldview whose features were unclear.

  Realistically, how was Sayegh to know that the Party’s ideology embodied a philosophy when no formal statement had been issued to that effect until 1947? How was he to discern the existence of such a philosophy, let alone configure its vital elements, from intermittent hints Sa’adeh made during regular Party functions abroad or published in Latin American diasporic Syrian newspapers that rarely reached Lebanon? In fairness to Sayegh, prior to the disagreement, he had limited access - or even no access at all - to Sa’adeh’s philosophical observations to realize that Sa’adeh was steering the SSNP towards a philosophy of its own.

  Sa’adeh may have also contributed to the dispute by taking an emphatic and unbending stand against existential philosophy. It is true that existentialism is individual-centered, but in some vital respects, it is also group-centered. As a way of life, existentialism sees freedom as a guiding principle to realize our potential while acknowledging the challenges we may face. It also provides us with awareness on how genuinely we can “exist as we please” while keeping in mind our responsibility as members of society. Hence, existentialism is not anti-society as such, but rather against the limits that society may attempt to impose on personal freedom through the state. Nonetheless, it is a slippery slope argument, because existentialism, by necessity, is solipsistic.

  By taking a very negative and one-sided view of existentialism, Sa’adeh exacerbated his disagreement with Sayegh. Existentialists would almost certainly criticize him for failing to distinguish between “individuality” and “personality” and for taking aim at existential philosophy without differentiating between its diverse schools and approaches. The dispute may not have proceeded as far as it did if Sa’adeh had engaged Sayegh in a philosophical debate on existentialism rather than invoke his powers against Sayegh. While Sa’adeh and Sayegh did hold long discussions during 1947, they centered mainly on amendments to the Party’s ideology rather than existentialism.

  One could also criticize Sa’adeh for not paying enough attention to Sayegh’s state of emotional and psychological agitation. With almost cavalier unconcern, Sa’adeh brushed aside factors of psychological nature such as the impact of World War II, the exposure to and lure of existentialism, the evolution of Sayegh into a philosopher, the sense of personal pride and self-esteem that Sayegh had developed during Sa’adeh’s absence, and the loss of independence that Sayegh suffered from Sa’adeh’s return in 1947. No doubt Sa’adeh was driven by the need to protect the Party’s ideology from external philosophical intrusion, but the strict application of laws without adequate attention to psychological factors can be detrimental. At times, they can even produce results opposite to the original intentions.

  If Sa’adeh had proclaimed the SSNP’s philosophy earlier or produced even a short document explaining its main elements before proclaiming it, the dispute with Sayegh may not even have surfaced. Such disclosure would at least have provided Sayegh with some material to study the Party’s philosophy and to form his own opinion rather than compelling him to accept it without question or objection. The philosophical mind does not function according to rigid party rules and dictates: it must be able to imagine and challenge as freely as possible:

  An individual with a philosophical mind reveals characteristics which we can classify them from three aspects of comprehensiveness, penetration, and flexibility. This individual always makes an attempt to treat their thoughts with exhaustiveness, considers the issues in relation to a vast field which is relevant to the long-te
rm goals, question the truisms and add to his/her chance for a movement beyond the ignorant bigotries, personal prejudices, and the cliché imaginations. Such an individual enjoys a flexibility which is accompanied by innovation, heterodoxy, and creativity and scrutinizes the issues from various aspects and points of view.1

  Sa’adeh could have avoided controversy by preparing the ground for the proclamation of the Party’s philosophy. He could have done even better engaging Sayegh in its formulation or by tapping into his philosophical views and opinions. This would have had the double effect of appeasing Sayegh’s philosophical ego and resulting in a more peaceful transition.

  VI

  One last observation is in order. Since his passing in 1980, Sayegh has been chiefly remembered as an “Arab nationalist” who had the interests of the “Arab nation” at heart. The PLO and the Arab Group at the United Nations, for example, described him as “a great man who spent his life defending the issues of his Arab nation and the right of its Palestinian people to liberate its country from the brutal Zionist occupation.” Similarly, Sakr Abu Fakhr, in a recent tribute to Sayegh, maintained that Sayegh’s parting with the Party in December 1947 marked the beginning of his transition from the idea of “Syrian nationalism” to the idea of “Arab nationalism”. Yet, in reality, Sayegh did not completely part intellectually from the SSNP or develop into an Arab nationalist.

  A cursory glance at Sayegh’s intellectual and political record from 1948 until 1980 reveals a stable pattern, consistent with and complementary to, the core themes he had developed during his Party years. For example, in relation to the Palestine question, the conclusions he reached during his SSNP years were either retained or perfected after 1947. He continued to berate the Zionist project with the same ruthlessness and tenacity as before, and he continued to draw mostly on the same point of view and the same perspective he had procured under Sa’adeh. If there are exceptions, it is because the specter of anti-Semitism was always in the back of his mind. Even so, the idea of a separate Jewish state in Palestine remained off-limit for Sayegh, just as it had been during his time in the ranks of the SSNP. To the very end, he maintained: “Israel is, because Palestine has been made not to be”.

  Secondly, the anti-Communist and anti-Soviet views that Sayegh developed during his Party interlude continued to resonate with him. The Soviet-Arab entente of the mid-1950s and the subsequent emergence of Nasserist and Arab socialism, which momentarily captured his imagination, failed to change his anti-Communist conviction in any marked way. He remained as decidedly suspicious of Communism and the Soviet Union as he was had been during his time in the SSNP. His 1958 laconic study “Communism in Israel” is a clear case in point. Though written to placate growing American public concern about recent Soviet rapprochement with the Arab World, it contained a damning assessment of Communism and Soviet support for Israel.

  Thirdly, for many years after he left the SSNP, Sayegh maintained a basically nationalist discourse in dealing with the major issues of his time. Whether he was advocating for Palestinian rights or promoting Arab unity, he continued to articulate his views according to nationalist percepts: “national self-determination”, “national identity”, “national belongingness” and “national rights”. The omnipresence of these percepts in his writings indicates clearly that he remained a nationalist at heart. During the 1950s, he invoked the theory of “dynamic nationalism” as a healthy reform-craving process and temporarily transposed and applied it to Arab nationalism. He dispensed with the idea when the “Arab resurgence” under Nasser lost its spark and early vibrancy and devolved into an unmitigated disaster. This does not necessarily mean that Sayegh embraced the ideology of Arab nationalism or became an “Arab nationalist” as he is sometimes portrayed. On closer scrutiny of his writings, particularly on the subject of Arab unity, we find that:

  Sayegh merely described rather than endorsed Arab nationalism.

  He leaned toward Arab unity in the political sense (along the lines of an Arab league or front) rather than Arab unity in the national meaning of the term “Arab nation”.

  He took up the subject of Arab unity as a matter of convenience rather than conviction almost certainly to appease the Arab League and the Arab regimes (noticeably Yemen and Kuwait) for which he worked as a diplomat at the United Nations.

  He resorted to pan-Arab terms (“Arabs”, “Arab unity”, “Arab mind” etc.) mainly out of necessity to fit in, so to speak, with the dominant discourse at the time (both in politics and academia).

  His flirtation with “Arab nationalism” if it can be proved, was ephemeral at best and precipitated largely, if not wholly, by the atmosphere of optimism inspired by Nasser’s rise and soaring popularity inside and outside Egypt.

  Sayegh did not join a pan-Arab movement or take special interest in the Arab nationalist parties of his time even at the height of pan-Arabism in Syria and Egypt.

  It cannot, however, be denied that Sayegh, for all his nationalist posturing, maintained a safe distance from the Syrian nationalism of his early years. He never returned or desired to return to it. Yet, at no point in his post-SSNP life did Sayegh attack or criticize the Syrian national idea or promote Arab nationalism as a better alternative. In contrast, it was usually the concept of Arab unity as perceived in the Arab nationalist discourse that he targeted. His study Arab Unity: Hope and Fulfillment is a case in point. He noted: “… three inherent weaknesses of the idea of Arab unity [are apparent]: its vagueness as to form, and its general indifference to instruments and methods; its oblivion to disunifying political forces; and its scorn for utilitarian inducements.” Attributing these weaknesses jointly to a psychological-existential attitude and an imbalance in the Arab outlook on socio-political affairs, Sayegh ridiculed the Arab nationalists for failing to take “due cognizance of the real, objective, and stubborn elements of diversity in the Arab World”. He added: “If Arab nationalists could not reconcile themselves to the admission that there was real diversity in the Arab situation, it was because the doctrine of an Arab nation-in-being was unduly rigid and static, and because the political philosophy within the context of which that doctrine was formulated was not capable of simple, undifferentiated application to the Arab situation.” The correlation between this theory and the SNP’s concept of Arab unity is too obvious to be stated.

  VII

  Sayegh’s Party years constituted one of the cornerstones of his life. It was the soil in which his roots were deeply and firmly embedded and the experimental phase that gave him his first political connections and knowledge. During that time, Sayegh excelled in almost all the assignments and progressive roles he held. He served the Party with diligence, conscience, and profound dedication and left an indelible mark on many lives. Along the way, he made many friends and also many enemies, and he learned and taught a great deal, too. Sayegh loved the Party and delighted in the fellowship of his comrades. They loved him just as much and delighted no less in his presence and oratory power. Those who knew Sayegh privately professed their admiration for his abilities and probably considered him heir apparent to Sa’adeh. They were not overly chimerical either. Sayegh had both the intelligence and the charisma to lead, and he may well have succeeded Sa’adeh had he exercised self-discipline and not allowed his intransigence and hubris to interfere with his Party commitments.

  Ultimately, Sayegh gave away his achievements in the SSNP. Everything he had worked hard for fell apart, and he ended up on the outside. For the uninformed observer, his expulsion from the SSNP may seem the price he had to pay for his stubborn defense of the values he cherished: individual rights, freedom of thought, and personal freedom. However, this is both inaccurate and misleading. The hard reality is that Sayegh wanted out at the first opportunity because, after Sa’adeh’s return in 1947, he found himself unable to perform with the same freedom, ease, and unaccountability. Sa’adeh’s presence had robbed him not only of the limelight, but also of the prestige and aura he had once enjoyed both inside and outsid
e the Party. The impact of such a transformation on Sayegh’s ego and pride can only be imagined.

  The question arises, why didn’t Sayegh just resign? There is no clear-cut answer to this question. One possible reason is that ‘resignation’ is not something that a stubborn and defiant personality as that of Sayegh’s would consider. Apart from the blow to his fighting spirit, resignation had the potential to project him as the loser in the confrontation and Sa’adeh as the winner, exactly the outcome that Sayegh did not want. Another possible reason is that Sayegh decided to persevere rather than resign to appease his followers and admirers in the Party who urged him on and pledged to support him in any potential showdown with Sa’adeh.

  Ten years is a long time in anyone’s life, but it can seem like a lifetime when much work and dedication has gone into it. Sayegh’s experience is a clear case in point.

  * * *

  1 Jafarian Yasar Hamid, Faghihi Alireza, Seifi Mohammad, “Prediction Of The Organizational Effectiveness Of The Primary Level Schools By The Factor Of Philosophical Mindedness Of The Educational Directors.” (IJBPAS, December, 2015, 4(12), Special Issue): 888-912.

  Appendix

  1

  THE SYRIAN NATIONAL PARTY QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

  Question: What was the motivation for the founding of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party?

  Answer: The Syrian Social Nationalist Party was established by Mr. Antun Sa’adeh in 1932 as a clandestine party. It was discovered only after it had spread throughout the country and attracted thousands of members. The best way to respond to the question of what motivated Sa’adeh to establish the Party is to refer to his improvised defense on the first day of his trial on January 24, 1936: