Outright Assassination

by Adel Beshara

  On the fiftieth anniversary of Sa’adeh’s execution in 1999, the party staged a large public memorial in the Lebanese capital. The memorial was attended by dignitaries from across Lebanon’s political spectrum including the then Prime Minister Salim al-Hoss and the Speaker of the House Nabih Berri. The speakers venerated Sa’adeh in typical local polemics but stopped short of demanding a retrial or his exoneration. Another significant commemoration was that held in 2004, on the centenary of Sa’adeh’s birthday. The anniversary was celebrated with a variety of cultural and political events held through the year. The highlight of the celebrations was the unveiling of the “Antun Sa’adeh commemorative monument and cultural complex” at Dhur Shweir, Sa’adeh’s hometown. The unveiling was attended by high-key officials from both the Lebanese and Syrian states. The Lebanese President was represented by Issam Fares, deputy-chairman of the Cabinet, and his Syrian counterpart by the Minister-in-charge of Presidential Affairs, Ghassan Lahham. Senior officers of the Lebanese army were also in attendance. So too were cabinet members; members of the national chamber; representatives of various local governments; heads of political parties, state functionaries, municipal authorities, and members of the Lebanese Press Syndicate and Labour Union. At the ceremony, Fares gave a resounding speech which remembered Sa’adeh in an orderly way and elevated him to national genius: “I would first like to convey to you the salutation of His Excellency the President of the Republic, General Emile Lahoud, who bestowed on me the honor of representing him at this celebration, and to express to you the sincerest sentiment of His Excellency on the occasion of the unveiling of this commemorative monument for one of the most extraordinary and most ingenious of men, namely, Antun Sa’adeh.” The accolades kept coming:

  A century after his birth, do we not all feel his absence stronger than his presence? He is present in the party he established, in the ground-breaking writing he composed about life, mankind, the universe and society, in the ideals which continue to preoccupy researchers, thinkers and analysts, in the intellectual revolution he launched against the Mandate and imperialism and against iniquity, despotism, ignorance and backwardness. He is present in his spiritio-material philosophy which combines between the spiritual and material philosophies and calls for modernization and separation between religion and politics. He is also present in the call for one life on the basis of which national interests and the nation’s freedom of will, sovereignty and wealth are determined. Finally, he is present in the Social National renaissance he initiated.

  The Chairman of the Lebanese Press Syndicate, Muhammad Baalbaki, a veteran admirer of Sa’adeh, recreated the widespread adulation of the heroic Sa’adeh in his own skillful way: “We have journeyed to the National Resistance Square in Dhur Shweir to take part in the unveiling of a commemorative monument for the Great Leader Antun Sa’adeh. This is an act of unveiling to a man who unveiled with his penetrating thought the veneer that obstructed visions; the man who liberated minds and hearts with his own mind and heart; the man who gave up his life for the nation . . .” Such sobriquets boosted Sa’adeh’s stature among a much wider audience, but did not gain him official recognition. The national government in Lebanon, wary of political and sectarian sensitivities, refrained from awarding him lasting honors. Despite its strong representation at the unveiling, it did not recognize him as a martyr or as a heroic figure of the state.

  In their book Heroes and Hero Cults in Latin America, Samuel Brunk and Ben Fallaw argue that national states embrace departed heroes because “heroes help large numbers of people identify with a nation and internalize and accept as natural its basic principles and laws, thus producing greater unity in a population.”65 This unity, they add:

  . . . is often cultivated and exploited by officials seeking to extend state power into people’s daily lives, where a state is defined as the civil and military bureaucracies of a territory and the officials those who, in different branches and at various levels, control those bureaucracies. States presumably benefit from the national identity that heroes can help produce because people who feel themselves to be part of a single community may be less fractious and thus more easily governable than people who do not. But more than that, political leaders often invoke heroes in an effort to bolster their legitimacy through association with admired predecessors, or in the hope of making citizens more virtuous and productive by giving them models of behavior to follow.66

  Sa’adeh was an energetic visionary and a charismatic leader, but the concepts of identity and nationality that he embodied precluded him from becoming a prominent member of Lebanon’s national pantheon. If he had died fighting the system as a Lebanese rather than a Syrian national crusader his induction into the national pantheon might have taken place long ago. He may even have transcended the national setting to become an international icon. But his claim was for a national identity that was purer, deeper, and more legitimate than the existing identities and the fate they connote for Lebanon. As a result, Sa’adeh has remained an enduring enigma for the Lebanese State: it cannot adopt him because his vision is inimical with its existence; it cannot fully and liberally engage his legacy because the social and political situation in the country is impenetrable; and it cannot discard him because his myth and legacy are too deeply rooted in popular memory to ignore. In retrospect, Sa’adeh’s enigma brings into focus the defectiveness of the confessional system in Lebanon: it shows that the system cannot spawn heroes or recognize them for the qualities and contribution they represent even if it is politically sensible to do so.

  As a symbol of rebellion and intransigence Sa’adeh is highly admired in Lebanon, but it seems unlikely that he will ever be accepted as a national hero such as Churchill in Britain or Georgy Zhukov in Russia.67 Indeed the extensiveness of his outlook is more reminiscent of great revolutionaries: those who place generalities ahead of specificities and sacrifice the all for one. His commemoration has thus been a partial one, confined mainly to his admirers, albeit with the sort of fervor that he once adopted himself, along with his like-minded followers.

  Official and Unofficial Histories

  Antun Sa’adeh died defeated and, in some quarters, despised. To this day, in the recycled histories of post-1943 Lebanon, he is ignored or belittled. Within a few brief sentences, his exploits are depicted as destabilizing though pointless. Their purpose is not, in any event, revealed. At no point is Sa’adeh connected to main issues, despite the gravity of his actions, and his role as a national crusader against French colonial rule is not acknowledged. Narratives that record Sa’adeh’s participation in the fight against the Khoury regime and in the rebellion that subsequently exploded in its face, never explain exactly who Sa’adeh was or why he rebelled. Hence, the motivations of Sa’adeh and his followers are largely obscure. Other accounts allude to Sa’adeh’s execution and note that his men fought on after his death, but they fail to explain who killed Sa’adeh or why.

  In the decade after Sa’adeh’s death, the history texts that the newly independent education ministry in Lebanon approved for use in public schools were, by and large, lightly revised and updated versions of histories produced under the French mandate. The textbooks were marked by extravagant praise for the independence era and critical assessments of Sa’adeh under an aversion to disorder and upheaval. In contrast, Solh and Khoury are celebrated as heroes of independence who presided over an era of economic and national progress. There is no recognition in these texts that their own policies may have contributed to the violence that exploded in 1949 and led to Sa’adeh’s execution.

  In the same books, Sa’adeh’s posthumous career takes one step forward and two steps back. His identity is glossed over to ensure that only one cluster of accounts is honored. Transformed into that of a deviant and outcast, Sa’adeh’s reputation is relegated to an area outside society’s moral boundaries. The approved texts of later periods, particularly during the Chehab era, are hardly better. The narrative backdrop created by the versions of the independence e
ra was recycled to provide an even more unsympathetic treatment of Sa’adeh. His physical invisibility and modest narrative stature in these books embody an implicit notion of historical agency, an answer to the question of who or what moves history. Those who make history, these books seem to suggest, are the men who struggle to bring the country to order. In contrast, Sa’adeh leads a premature uprising, which undermines official attempts to build the nation. Such men are interlopers, who get in the way of the real historical actors. At best, the books provide the most striking example of the phenomenon of willful disregard. This refers to “the conscious or unconscious rejection of the history of the other, and the refusal to agree to acquaint oneself with his personality, his role and his value. This neglect of the other may be more cutting than hostility or denigration.”68

  Whatever their long-term effect on Sa’adeh’s image, these early versions reflected the immediate need of the political regimes to retain the loyalty of their partisans. They were composed basically to please sectarian sentiments and to reinforce sectarian identity at the expense of a national identity. In one respect, such histories reflect the way that every country teaches its national history:

  We have also had to bear in mind that history textbooks are no more than an academic product, composed, reviewed and revised according to specific criteria by the current political authority in a particular country in the light of current attitudes towards the country whose history is being formulated. It is also necessary to mention that the history that is taught in schools is totally different from the history which is related in the home. Family memory is different from the official history and the family often seeks to confront the official formulation of history which is taught to its children.69

  In another respect, the pre-evaluative, obstinate prejudice against Sa’adeh, and the degree of partiality in Lebanese histories, is symptomatic of the wider problem of history writing in Lebanon. As in almost every facet of Lebanese life, historical objectivity is constrained by the sectarian spirit which pervades the country. The problem simply will not go away:

  Private schools, which educate about half the country’s one million or so students, teach history based on books of their choosing, but approved by the Ministry of Education; public schools teach about two hours of history a week, based on textbooks virtually unchanged since they were written in the 1960s and 1970s. In one textbook, the students get to know the Ottomans as occupiers; in another, they read about them as administrators. In some, they study the French as colonialists; in others, they study them as examples to emulate. In some Christian schools, history starts with the ancient Phoenicians, who many Christians believe are their original ancestors, and the dawn of Christianity. In many Muslim schools, the Phoenicians are glossed over and emphasis is placed on Arab history and the arrival of Islam. Whether Lebanon was occupied by the Ottomans, was subjugated by the Ottomans or was simply a principality of the Ottoman Empire depends on the sect and region, much like whether the French, who oversaw the country until the 1950s, are depicted as colonialists, administrators or models of emulation.70

  Unofficial Lebanese histories have been problematical in a different way. Although they are not nearly as disrespectful or impartial in their treatment of Sa’adeh, the discourse they followed had depended ultimately on the extent of the franchise, latitude of freedom of speech, and political maturity and outlook of individual authors: Lebanonist authors have generally tended to follow the official line with perhaps a hint of criticism of the regime, although some authors have darkened the villainy of Sa’adeh more than official histories, thereby preserving the role of traitor as his master status; Pan-Arab authors of the 1950s and 1960s were merciless and often depicted Sa’adeh as the kind of person who might commit treason, having the requisite character traits, absence of virtue, and personal motivation. Thus, both unofficial Lebanonist and unofficial pan-Arab historians engaged in demonization, though some more than others.

  After 1970, Sa’adeh fared better in Pan-Arab histories. An interactive process developed during which his reputation was re-formulated, debated, crystallized and commemorated to reflect the new reconciliation between Arab and Syrian nationalism. On the whole, Pan-Arab histories continued to propagate a grudgingly hostile view of Sa’adeh’s nationalist ideals but refrained from attacking his person and, in some cases, displayed an astonishing sympathy for his execution and to the cause for which he stood. Students now encountered a richer, more candid portrayal of the execution and a fuller account of Sa’adeh’s life.

  At the other extreme, sympathetic histories depicted Sa’adeh as a colorful and enduring figure in the nation’s remembered past. Taking his execution as a reference point, they saw him as a man of heroic virtues, a defender of national rights against powerful enemies, the father of secular reforms, and a martyr whose influence lives beyond his worldly deeds. However, since Sa’adeh cannot be a hero unless the regime which killed him is a villain, sympathetic accounts invariably presaged indifferent or hostile portraits of the Khoury regime. Recasting Solh and Khoury as the villains, they emphasized their thoroughly loathsome, despicable, corrupt nature and portrayed their regime as an example of the kind of regimes that need to be excised or guarded against.

  Conclusion

  The construction of the myth and indeed of the legend of Sa’adeh which developed after his execution was, quite naturally, much more complex than the images that have been analyzed here. What is evident from this examination of a few of the more notable themes in this construction is that his followers fully understood, even if only intuitively, the power of representing him in a particular light. In the process, they not only constructed an idealized image of Sa’adeh, but also laid the foundations of a legend around his person. Since then, the attempt to understand Sa’adeh from a wider ideological and philosophical perspective has continued incessantly.

  While the manner of Sa’adeh’s moral and physical resistance to authorities and the manner of his death certainly have that heroic quality which is almost synonymous with past heroes, in other ways he has remained a relatively obscure hero. Sa’adeh exerted on the mind an influence that we cannot properly appraise. He has swept aside all in his path and his hero-martyr myth, created in large part by his followers, has guaranteed him a lasting space in the popular memory of his people. Whether this space grows or shrinks will ultimately depend on political realities. The degree to which Sa’adeh as hero-martyr finds an echo in Lebanese society will also depend on whether his followers and admirers can finally learn to think with Sa’adeh rather than about him.

  Skepticism and even opposition to the Sa’adeh myth will probably persist for many years to come. But to exercise an aversion for the myth purely because of the dangers inherent in myth-making is all too often merely an excuse for sparing ourselves the effort to appreciate human excellence and mortal spirits. The best antidote to this cynicism is to recognize that martyrs and heroes and the exemplary heroism and achievements of great individuals are an essential part of a developed society. As the Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman and dramatist Lucius Annaeus Seneca once said: “Cherish some man of high character, and keep him ever before your eyes, living as if he were watching you, and ordering all your actions as if he beheld them.”71

  Notes

  1 Patrick Seale, The Struggle for Syria: A Study of Post-War Diplomacy 1945–1958. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1965: 69.

  2 Istijwab Jumblatt al tarikhi lil hukuma hawla istishhad Sa’adeh ome 1949 (Jumblatt’s historical interpolation to the [Lebanese] Government In Regard to Sa’adeh’s Martyrdom in 1949). Beirut: SSNP Information Bureau, 1987.

  3 As-Sayyad, Beirut, 9 July, 1949.

  4 Al-Hayat, Beirut: 14 July, 1949.

  5 On Hisham Sharabi’s association with Sa’adeh see Jan Daye, Sa’adeh wa Hisham Sharabi (Sa’adeh and Hisham Sharabi). Stockholm: Dar Nelson, 2004.

  6 Al-Jil al-Jadid, 27 September, 1950.

  7 See al-Mashriq. Melbourne: Vol. 5, No. 25, 200
8: 57–65.

  8 Said Taky ad-Din, “The Priest who confessed him”.

  9 Reproduced in Ghassan Al-Khalidi, Sa’adeh wa al-Thawrah al-Ula (Sa’adeh and the First Revolution). Beirut: Dar wa Maktabat al-Turath al-Adabi, 1997: 375–376.

  10 Mohammad Maatouk, “A Critical Study of Antun Sa’ada and his Impact on Politics: The History of Ideas and Literature in the Middle East.” PhD, University of London, 1992: 328.

  11 Ibid., 329.

  12 Myth can be defined as “a usually traditional story of ostensibly historical events that serves to unfold part of the world view of a people or explain a practice, belief, or natural phenomenon.” This definition does not exclude the possibility that elements of a myth might be historically accurate. See Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 10th ed. Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1993: 770.

  13 See M. G. Barout, “Tajroubat al-Hadetha fi Majallat Shi’r” (The Modernist Experiment in Shi’r), Fikr, Vol. 64 (Spring 1985): 44.

  14 Such as: Khalil Hawi (1925–1982), Ali Ahmad Sa’id [known as Adonis]

  (b. 1929), Badr Shakir al-Sayyab (1926–1964), Unsi al-Hajj (b. 1937), Nazeer El-Azama (b. 1930), Fu’ad Rifqa (b. 1930), Isam Mahfuz (b. 1939), Taufiq Sayigh (1923–1971), Jabra Ibrahim Jabra (b. 1919) and Yusuf al-Khal (1917–1987). See Nazeer El-Azama, “The Tammuzi Movement and the influence of T.S. Eliot on Badr Shakir Al-Sayya,” in Critical Perspectives on Modern Arabic Literature. Edited by Issa J. Boullata, 1st edition. Washington: Three Continents Press, inc., 1980: 215.

  15 S. Moreh. Modern Arabic Poetry 1800–1970. Leiden, The Netherlands: E.J. Brill, 1976: 279.

  16 Salma Khadra Jayyusi. “Contemporary Arabic Poetry: Vision and Attitudes.” In R. C. Ostle (ed), Studies in Modern Arabic Literature. London: Aris & Phillips Ltd, 1975: 48.