by Adel Beshara
17 http://wings.buffalo.edu/epc/authors/rothenberg/50s.html (6 June, 2008).
18 Nazeer El-Azama, “Sa’adeh, al-Ustura wa al-Shi’r.” Fikr, Vols. 43–46, Dec. 1980–April 1981: 119.
19 Muhammad Al-‘Abed Hammud, “Sa’adeh: A Scholar,” al-Bina’, issue 880, 12/7/1997.
20 George Masru’ah, Ibn Zikar, 2nd. ed. Beirut: Dar al-Makshufah, 1954.
21 Sati Husri, al-Uruba baina Du ‘atiha was Mu’aridhiha (Arabism between its Supporters and its Opponents). Beirut: Dar al-Makshufah, 1952.
22 Bassam Tibi, Arab Nationalism: A Critical Enquiry (trans. by M. and P. Sluglett). New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1981: xi.
23 Kamal Jumblatt, Adwa’ ala Haqiqat al-Qadiyya al-Qawmiyya al-Ijtima’iyya as-Suriyya: al-Fikra al-Qawmiyyah (Lights on the Truth Concerning the Syrian Social Nationalist Cause: The National Idea). Beirut: Progressive Press, 1987.
24 Sati al-Husri, op. cit.
25 See Sami Khoury, Radd ala Sati’ al-Husri (A Response to Sati al-Husri). Beirut: n.p., 1956.
26 G. A. Williams, The Merthyr Rising. London: Croom Helm, 1978: 204.
27 Moose to DOS, tel. 27 April 1955, 783.00/4-2755, Decimal File NARG59. On the Malki affair, see Seale, Struggle for Syria: 238–46.
28 George Kirk, “The Syrian Crisis of 1957 – Facts and Fiction,” International Affairs, 36 (1960): 59.
29 Douglas Little, “Cold War and Covert Action: The United States and Syria 1945–1958,” Middle East Journal, 44 (Winter 1990): 66. See also Wilbur Crane Eveland, Ropes of Sand: America’s Failure in the Middle East. New York: W. W. Norton, 1980: 191–192.
30 See Faysal Mikdadi, Gamal Abdel Nasser: A Bibliography (Bibliographies of World Leaders). London: Greenwood Press, 1991: 93–105.
31 See Anthony Gorst, The Suez Crisis. London: Routledge, 1997: 147–164.
32 Tarek Osman, “Nasser’s complex legacy,” on Open Democracy, www. opendemocracy.net, 29 May, 2008.
33 Lori J. Ducharme and Gary Alan Fine, “The Construction of Nonpersonhood and Demonization: Commemorating the Traitorous Reputation of Benedict Arnold.” Social Forces, Vol. 73, No. 4 (Jun., 1995): 1316. The authors note: “Two important sets of evidence are produced by those involved in the degradation process: biography and motive. First, the process of applying and solidifying the pivotal identity of “traitor” is enhanced by the reconstruction of the offender’s biography, such that events once seen as either virtuous, unremarkable, or irrelevant are reinterpreted and reclassified as confirmation of the deviant identity . . . Second, the underlying motives for the actor’s offense are sought, assessed, and ascribed. These include the offender’s accounts of his actions, as well as others’ imputations of motive.” See also J. Lofland, Deviance and Identity. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice – Hall., 1969.
34 For a detailed study of Shu’ubism, see Sami A. Hanna and George H. Gardner, “Al-Shu’ubiyyah Up-Dated: A Study of the 20th Century Revival of an Eighth Century Concept.” The Middle East Journal, Vol. XX (1966): 335–355.
35 See Adel Beshara (ed.), Antun Sa’adeh: The Man, His Thought. Reading: Ithaca Press, 2007: 121–162.
36 A recent reproduction of this theory can be found in Hadhim Saghiyyah, Qawmiyyu al-Mashriq al-Arabi (The Nationalists of the Arab East). London: Riyad al-Rayyes Books, 2000.
37 See section on Sa’adeh in Muhammad Jamil Bayhum, Al-Urubah wa-Al-shu’ubiyat al-Hadithah: Niqash ma’a Antun Sa’adah, Kamal Junbulat, Salamah Musa, Amir Baqtar wa-Ta’liqat ala’ al-Shubuhat fi Muqaddimat Ibn Khaldun (Arabism and Contemporary Shu’ubism). Beirut: Matabi’ Da’r al-Kashshaf, al-Muqaddimah, 1957.
38 See Adel Beshara, The Politics of Frustration – the Failed Coup of 1961. London: Routledge Curzon, 2004.
39 Orrin E. Klapp, Collective Search for Identity. London: Holt, R. & W., 1969; Thomas Carlyle, On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and The Heroic in History. London: The Echo Library, 2007; Fitzroy Richard Somerset Raglan, The Hero: A Study in Tradition, Myth and Drama. Mineola, N.Y.: Dover Publications Inc., 2003.
40 Kamal Salibi, “Lebanon under Fuad Chehab 1958–1964.” Middle East Studies, 2 (1966): 211–226; Bassim al-Jisr, Fouad Chehab: Dhalika al-Majhoul (Fouad Chehab: The Unknown). Beirut: The Corporation for Publications and Distribution, 1988; Tawfiq Kfoury, al-Shihabiyyah wa Siyassit al-Mawqif (The Basic Principles of Chehabism). Beirut: n.p., 1980.
41 Francis Wheen, Karl Marx. London: Fourth Estate Limited, 1999: 2.
42 Commemorations of Sa’adeh’s execution, for example, were frequently used by the party leadership as a platform for fiery political speeches against opponents rather than as an occasion for celebration and contemplation. The time spent on Sa’adeh during these commemorations dwindled as the years passed, reflecting a growing preoccupation with immediate political needs and personal desires.
43 In 1970, the SSNP was re-issued a permit to operate legally in Lebanon, its hierarchy was released from prison, and the party was allowed to publish a periodical called al-Bina’.
44 See, in particular, In’am Raad, Harb al-Tahrir al-Qawmiyya (National Liberation War). Beirut, 1970. Raad noted: “Social nationalism and Marxist-Leninism converge in analyzing the capitalist economic side of imperialism. But social nationalism does not stop at this point in comprehending and rejecting the modern phenomenon of imperialism. For if imperialism is an extension of capitalism, this analysis applies to capitalist imperialism only. But there are various kinds of domination and aggression which take place on other bases and out of other motives.”
45 Some of these photographs were reproduced in Gibran Jreige, Ma’ Antun Sa’adeh (In the Company of Antun Sa’adeh), Beirut: n.p., n.d.
46 In recent years it has become fashionable to light up candles in public squares, where permissible, or small fires on mountain tops as part of the commemorations. Except when political risks are probable, the government hardly interferes in such activities and generally turns a blind eye to municipal participation in them.
47 See Sabah el-Kheir and al-Bina’ for yearly coverage of the celebrations. Every year, both journals publish a commemorative issue on 8 July.
48 See Stephen J. Roth, The Impact of the Six-Day War: a Twenty-Year Assessment. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 1988. Also, Jeremy Bowen, “How 1967 defined the Middle East” (http://news.bbc.co.uk).
49 Raghid Sulh, Lebanon and Arabism: National Identity and State Formation. London: Centre for Lebanese Studies, 2004: 307.
50 Sabah el-Kheir, Beirut, 7 July, 1949. Al-Mashnouq was a noted opponent of Sa’adeh in the late 1940s and entered into a fierce ideological debate with him in 1948–9 in the pages of Beirut al-Masa’. He was its editor-in-charge.
51 http://ssnp.net/content/view/5489/160/
52 See Sami Solh, Ahtakimu ila al-Tarikh (I Leave It to History to Judge Me). Beirut: Dar an-Nahar, 1970.
53 Sami Jam’a, Awraq min Daftar al-Watan, 1946–1961 (Pages from Homeland Records). Damascus: Dar Tlas, 2000: 65–82.
54 The Chief of Lebanese General Security, Amir Farid Chehab, who took delivery of Sa’adeh on 6 July and handed him to the Military Tribunal the following day, stated in 1980: “I am Lebanese before all else. However, if I had known that Lebanon would end up where it is today I would have fought alongside Antun Sa’adeh.” Sabah el-Kheir, Beirut, 12 July, 1980.
55 See Inam Raad, Antun Sa’adeh wa al-In’izaliyun (Antun Sa’adeh and the Isolationists). Beirut: Dar Fikr, 1980.
56 In contemporary times, the first suicide operation was carried out by Sana Mhaidli, a Lebanese female of Shiite origin and member of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, and therefore secular. She died after driving into an Israeli outpost in 1985. This clearly shows that the secular connection to suicide missions predates the religious one.
57 Streets, squares, schools and other landmarks were named after the suicide bombers, particularly in Syria. As far away as Libya, a street was named after Sana Mhaidli, the first female bomber.
58 It seems the general Western view is that the suicide attackers are marginalised individu
als, left with no place in their own societies, perhaps feeling the need to atone for some “deviant” behaviour. Yet, the evidence hardly supports this view, especially in relation to Lebanese bombers. See Natalie Bennett’s review of Female Suicide Bombers by Rosemarie Skaine on Blogcritics Magazine (http://blogcritics.org/archives/2006/06/18/092605.php). Debra D. Zedalis, however, gives a more qualified view: “The reasons for women’s participation in deadly attacks vary greatly and it is hard to generalize, for this phenomenon is too recent and the attacks have been too few. Either not enough research has been conducted yet or the sample size is too small to make effective generalizations.” Although the data are limited, female suicide bombers, just like male suicide bombers, have one characteristic which typifies all – they are young. The average age varies from 21.5 (Turkey) to 23 (Lebanon), a small differential. Other characteristics do not hold. Some are widows and others have never been married; some are unemployed and others are professionals; some are poor and others are middle class. Most analysts can easily compare the Black Widows in Russia with the Palestinian suicide bombers, since both appear to be serving “struggles of national identity” with religious overtones. Additionally, as is true of the male counterparts, several female suicide bombers have experienced the loss of a close friend or family member.” In Debra D. Zedalis, Female Suicide Bombers. Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 2004: 14.
59 Norbert J. Gossman, The Martyrs: Joan of Arc to Yitzhak Rabin. Lanham: University Press of America, Inc., 1997: 1–7.
60 Lois G. Schwoerer, “William, Lord Russell: The Making of a Martyr, 1683–1983.” The Journal of British Studies, Vol. 24, No. 1 (Jan., 1985): 41–71.
61 Ibid.
62 Orrin E. Klapp, “The Folk Hero.” The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 62, No. 243 (Jan–Mar., 1949): 22.
63 See Donald C. Hodges, Intellectual Foundations of the Nicaragua Revolution. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1986.
64 Samuel Brunk, “The Mortal Remains of Emiliano Zapata.” In Lyman Johnson (ed.), Death, Dismemberment, and Memory. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2004.
65 Samuel Brunk and Ben Fallaw, Heroes and Hero Cults in Latin America. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2006: 3.
66 Ibid.
67 William J. Spahr, Zhukov: The Rise and Fall of a Great Captain. Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1993.
68 Fauziya Al-Ashmawi, “The Image of the Other in History Textbooks in some Mediterranean Countries (Spain, France, Greece, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Tunisia)”. http://www.isesco.org.ma/english/publications/Islamtoday/13/P6.php (4 June, 2008).
69 Ibid.
70 Hassan M. Fattah, “Lebanon’s history textbooks are politicized.” http://yalibnan. com/site/archives/2007/01/lebanons_histor.php (Thursday, 11 January, 2007).
71 Quoted in John W. Spaeth. Jr., “Roman Hero Worship.” The Classical Journal, Vol. 20, No. 6 (Mar., 1925): 354.
CONCLUSION
No trial in the legal history of Lebanon, and indeed the Arab world, has ever been held as rapidly and secretly as the Antun Sa’adeh trial. In all, it lasted from five in the morning of 7 July to eight in the evening on the same day. The entire procedure, including the pre-trial stage and execution, happened within the following tight schedule:
1. Investigation 5.00 a.m. – 12.00 noon
Trial start 12.00 noon
Cross-examination 12.00 noon – 1.30 p.m.
Prosecutor’s speech 1.30 p.m. – 3.30 p.m.
Adjournment 5 minutes
Defense speech 3.35 p.m. – 3.40 p.m.
Sa’adeh’s address 3.40 p.m. – 5.10 p.m.
Deliberation 5.15 p.m. – 7.30 p.m.
Sentencing 7.30 p.m. – 8.30 p.m.
Execution 2.50 a.m.
The case is without precedent not only because the authorities violated every elementary law in organizing the trial but because it was, to put it mildly, a compound of stupidity and hypocrisy. It was a trial that much more closely resembled a juridical play with the verdict largely resolved in the individual minds of the participating actors. Every aspect of the trial gives a clear sense of a predetermined rush to execute rather than of a commitment to achieve justice. The regime engaged in an unseemly and evidently politically motivated effort to expedite the execution by denying time for a meaningful appeal and by closing off every avenue to review the punishment.
As in all good dramas, it is difficult to weigh precisely all the pluses and minuses of the Sa’adeh affair. It could be argued, however, that so many minuses occurred that any semblance of judicial impartiality ended before the start of the trial. It was a classic example of “power reigns without rule or law.”1
I
In sentencing Sa’adeh to death, the Khoury regime was influenced by three principal allegations. The first was Sa’adeh’s “enmity” toward Lebanon. As a general rule, judgemental allegations of this nature would not hold up ten minutes in a normal courtroom. It is true that Sa’adeh did not regard Lebanon as a nation in its own right but that didn’t necessarily make him an enemy of the country by any stretch of the imagination. He always maintained that the final national status of Lebanon would depend entirely on the Lebanese provided they were allowed to choose freely where they prefered to be. He did not believe in force or in arbitrary political mergers. In any event, the Khoury regime lacked both the right and the moral integrity to pass sweeping judgments on individual loyalty. Its efforts to assign social and personal identity in neotraditional terms and its tendency to equate its particular status interests with the general interests of the state through blatant corruption, embezzlement, rigging, nepotism, and sectarianism are scarcely exemplar. In any other country where accountability is a real constituent of the state, it would fail the first principles of democracy and loyalty.
The second allegation relates to treason. Here as well the case against Sa’adeh was completely mishandled through trumped-up charges based on falsified documents. If it had been judged in calmer times before a learned court, the great bulk of the evidence would have been excluded either on the ground of incompetence or irrelevance, and the verdict would certainly have been different. The fact that the regime manufactured the evidence against the defendant not only annihilates the charge of treason, but also is a terrible piece of evidence against the accusers themselves. Sa’adeh’s whole life, everything he had said, written or done, is overwhelming proof of the falsity of this charge. Virtually all the evidence now shows that the real saboteurs during the 1948 Palestine War were those who hauled the charge of treason against Sa’adeh and that the Khoury regime was privy to their treasonous activities but did nothing.2 Such inaction points to a degree of complicity with the alleged saboteurs on the part of the regime.
There was one allegation against Sa’adeh that the government considered serious enough to justify his execution if proven: the insurrection. However, the political nature of the offense precluded the death penalty and that, it seemed, compelled the government to turn to underhand methods. Instead of allowing the law to run its regular course it rudely interrupted the process to affirm the conditions that would render a death conviction almost inescapable: Distortion + Speed + Secrecy + Court-martial + Capital criminology. All five conditions were crucial to the success of the strategy: Distortion to compensate for the paucity of the evidence; Speed to avoid a public trial; Secrecy to circumvent a political trial; Court-martial to obtain the death penalty; Capital criminology to secure a court-martial. The plan put the final judgement beyond question. It did not seek the death sentence for Sa’adeh: it pre-determined it. The rules of procedure and principle of evidence, which we have already sufficiently commented on, were amended to the defendant’s disadvantage; and there were inexplicable mysteries and suspicions, and less assistance than usual was rendered to the defense counsel. Moreover, much of the evidence came from individuals who were themselves on trial for their lives. The testimony of these witnesses may, of course, have been truthful, but their own self-interest in avoidi
ng punishment and their positions in the insurrection must lead to questions about their veracity, questions that the court itself never asked.
The trial was objectionable in other respects. The speed of the proceedings, the nature of the evidence, and the identity of the judges all combined to preclude judicious decision-making and to guarantee an unjust outcome. It is inconceivable that the judges could have come to their task with open minds. But the biggest problem of military courts is what today is known as “command influence.” Instead of an independent judge and a jury of citizens, the court has a panel of officers. These officers are part of the military command structure, reporting to the same commanders who decided to prosecute, and hand-picked by them (picked, perhaps, for readiness to convict). The defense lawyer is also an officer, part of the same command structure. If the commanders want a conviction, these officers know their careers are on the line, so they usually comply with the demand. No wonder it is common for military trials to yield absurd results.
Under Lebanese law, military judges have two main duties to perform: to decide whether the facts set out in the indictment have been proved; and also, if they decide that these facts have been proved, whether there are aggravating or extenuating circumstances in the case, to mitigate the crime. Yet, on the available evidence, the judges that sat on the Sa’adeh case were neither sufficiently versed in law nor acquainted with all the facts to carry out their duties in a satisfactory way. Worse still, they were staunch adherents to the regime and personal friends of the President and Premier Solh.
To say, as many have, that the trial was unfair because it was conducted too quickly only skims the surface of the imperfections. A detailed look at the trial proceedings produces a more precise understanding of the nature of the unfairness, especially in relation to secrecy. As far back as 1827, the English Utilitarian and leader of the Philosophical Radicals, Jeremy Bentham3 outlined the perils of secrecy as follows: