by Adel Beshara
The first passage, from a study on human currents and their impact on the Party’s concept of national revival, contains specific and basic existentialist themes applied within a nationalist context:
[The] process of refining or upbringing [is] a process of building a human being completely developed in talents, fully open to and connected with values, and fully expressive in his different activities of all human aspects. It seeks this perfection (fulfillment) as a human objective and produces a person who sees a painful manifestation of his deficient humanity and limited nature in the urgency to focus on various aspects of his entity. This attitude aspires to build individuals who appreciate all these aspects in their human entity and yearn to express them fully in their life. It regards the building of people of this kind, who appreciate values and attune their lives to them, as the aim of refinement. It aims to develop their sense of responsibility and enable them to accommodate values and make crucial decisions inspired by their human dignity.9
The second passage comes from a 1944 lecture to the Party’s student branch in Beirut. In it, Fayez introduces, perhaps for the first time, the concept of the “human person”. He emphasizes its significance, uniqueness, and inviolability as well as the person’s essentially relational or communitarian dimension:
A society as that of ours, in the condition it is in, before it is in need of political freedom, or economic prosperity, or military power, or mechanical civilization, is in dire need – a need that propels him to cry from the depth of his being and places him between life and death – to “persons” … The “person,” in the plenitude of his being, is behind every apparatus and system … The “person,” in the plenitude of his being, is the sole guarantee that economic prosperity would remain a subordinate to the values of life, not its master, and a means for man to use and not an idol for him to worship. The “person,” in the plenitude of his being, is the solitary justification for the mechanical civilization … The “person,” in the plenitude of his being, is the sole potential for the evolution of a sound cycle of social life, free of maltreatment and antagonisms in society.10
While showing no desire to abandon the nationalist mantle, Fayez continued to inject the Party with existentialist concepts blended cleverly to maintain a balance with its ideology. The third passage exemplifies this:
The problem of national crisis is not a theoretical problem detached from our ordinary personal life so that we can neglect the need to address it or postpone our response to it until further notice: both neglect and postponement, in themselves, are specific responses to the problem. The problem of our national crisis, then, is a category of “existential” problems that strikes at the core of our inner self…11
The fourth passage is even more ambiguous. Only the most observant existentialists can decipher its esoteric existentialist texture:
Our national revival is established on the principle of respect for man as he is. It develops man in a way that coheres with his real nature. It thus declares that man in this country will “be”! … Our nation, standing as it is at a crossroads today, finds in our national revival a decisive decision that we will be a human society, that we will have human spiritual courage, and that from the heart of this nation, real humans will emerge instead of deformed creatures who have decided to eliminate their own humanity.12
The frequency of Fayez’s application of existentialist concepts tended to rise progressively. The more enamored he became of existentialism, the more enthusiastic he became about existentialist idioms and phrases. This is understandable given that Fayez was preparing his Master’s thesis on existentialism.13
However, the problem is deeper and much more involved than merely transmitting existentialist ideas. New evidence discovered in Fayez’s archives at the University of Utah implicates him of deliberately and stealthily seeking to remold the SSNP on existentialist lines in collaboration with other like-minded party cadres. This evidence is found in a private letter from Fayez to Ghassan Tueini, an SSNP cadre. Like Fayez, Tueini was a pupil of the existentialist Charles Malik. Although he was acting as liaison officer between the Party’s HQ in Beirut and the exiled Sa’adeh, Tueini kept the dialogue with Fayez secret. He did not disclose any details to Sa’adeh or warn him of Fayez’s intentions.
Embedded in this dialogue was the question of whether the Party (referred to as the “institution”) should remain a centralized unit floating in a world of abstract rhetoric and bound to the whims and fancies of an undisputed leader or if it should democratize and become more flexible and open to different possibilities. Fayez has no doubt about which possibility to start with:
I do not believe that compromise is possible in this matter. The institution can be either of two; an institution of individuals that respects and advances the individual, considering the entire social life and pertinent benefits as a tool whereby to reflect his rich entity and his fertile personality, in faith, love, and cultural production, or an institution of slaves and machines that exploits them for its own general “good” and its “teacher,” being “above” the individuals! ... As an active member of the Party, I work despite this contradiction. My sole objective is to purge the Party that I love, the nation that I serve, and the comrades with whom I work and struggle—I wish to rid them all of my slavery to impersonal considerations, which are the same exact “vague abstract considerations” — to cite Karim Azkoul — not the practical tangible considerations!14
After stating his preference for existential individualism, Fayez declares his readiness to take on any potential opposition. His tone is unmistakably existentialist and his intention is clearly to refashion the Party’s system:
I am aware that I am in a grave situation that is fraught with risk-taking, given the contradiction between the nature of the Party system and the essence of “nationalism” as understood by many on one hand and not just individualism as a school of thought but, rather, the entity of the individual and its realization on the other... I am even aware that this risk-taking will lead one day to an inevitable conflict with the representatives of the non-individualistic outlook and interests in our institution. However, I will not retreat, nor will I shy away from the battle. Moreover, if I do enter the battle, it would be from the inside not the outside, and I will declare the enemies of individualism in the Party to be enemies of the Party in the true sense of the word… In other words, I am adamant that my conflict will not be like that of Fakhri (i.e. not in a manner that destroys the possibility of fulfilling his duty towards the Party and compels the loyal Party members to take a non-neutral stance towards him, given the nonconformist nature of his work). In contrast, I will fight, within the party the tendencies which I believe contribute to the Party’s decline and demise, and which are even at work to transform the Party into an “accursed” movement that is detrimental to individual values and human dignity!15
If any doubt remains about Fayez’s existentialist intentions and plans for the Party, a paragraph from the same letter clears that up:
I am speaking of this conflict as if it is underway… and perhaps it is indeed underway, but “its execution is deferred,” for the two tendencies are effective, and strongly so… They are effective in the subconscious of members, fueled by the values harbored by the individual members who represent these two tendencies… I am confident that, despite the simplicity of the other tendency and its conformity with the mentality of the masses and with Information clichés and the mysticism of the nationalist struggle, the elite members have started to develop a feeling of their value as humans and their dignity as humans, and a feeling that followers, politics, and economy, are manifestations of their collective human lives and, thus, they must not be a master, a nightmare, and a restraint of their individual humanity… The publication of Umdat al-Thaqafah, al-Hadaf, and al-Ba‘th al-Qawmi, the lectures that I delivered this year in many places especially in the Student Executive Branch, the orientation of the newspaper, and my personal communications, all had a great
impact in reviving the individual human tendency within the national revival, and in ridding the Party of the idol of nationalism (at least in the psyche of its intelligentsia). Do not forget that my role – as Dean of Culture and Information and editor in chief of the newspaper - as well as my clean partisan slate unblemished by any scorch (I say this in all honesty, and you know that my intention is not to boast), all of this supports the mission that we fulfill within the Party so that the Party would fulfill it to the nation…16
Fayez then drops a bombshell concerning his first published existentialist work A Call from the Depths: Reflections on Man and Existence. Long considered “an agonized response” to a personal crisis arising from the tragedy of Palestine,17 he actually wrote the work to veer the national movement along a new trajectory:
I am fully engaged this fortnight in writing a book that will be a landmark in the history of this struggle within the national revival. If this book, entitled Nida’ al-A’amaq (A Call from the Depth) finds its way to intellectual nationalists, I will be confident about the future of freedom and spirit in the national revival.18
The concluding paragraph of the letter is especially revealing, blunt and vocal:
By the way, did you notice in the nationalist writings you read these days the abundant “spontaneous” emphasis on values, freedom, individualism, spirit, and the depths of the human being, etc.? Compare this to the past emphasis on idolizing the nation, regarding it as a physical entity, and the idolization of the system, etc.!19
Evidently, from the tone of this letter and the new direction that subsequently appeared in Fayez’s Party writings, Fayez did not disclose the full truth about his existentialist activities. He clearly strove to inculcate an existentialist perspective on the Party without explicitly seeking to change or modify its national doctrine. The inculcation occurred at the interpretive rather than at the textual level, which means that Fayez did not target the SSNP doctrine per se, but that he merely sought to impart an existential interpretation to it. He sought to reconcile the national doctrine of the SSNP to an existential outlook by carving out a common ground between them based on certain ideas or values that served as an anchor for him. Anyone agonizingly caught between two different currents that both appeal to his intellectual senses and pride was liable to fall into this trap. The painful irony of Fayez’s predicament is that both nationalism and existentialism appealed to him proportionately. Nationalism appealed to his patriotic and political aspirations while existentialism appealed to his gentle human nature and free spirit.
The allegation that Fayez utilized his senior Party posts to promote an existentialist outlook is also true. An unpublished essay found in his archival records suggests that his existentialist coaching inside the Party began in 1945 upon the creation of a cultural department in the SSNP. As noted earlier, this department was placed under his personal direction. The essay strikes an unmistakably existentialist note. In it, Fayez takes the first tentative step toward the fusion of SSNP national doctrine with existentialism:
“By instituting a Department for Culture and Fine Arts, at this point in its history, our revival has taken a decisive step toward acknowledging its unequivocal embracing of [that] current” that values human life above abstract ideas. He then discusses how social manifestations serve as an avenue available for man to
… redress his personal deficiencies and individual limits and to cooperate with other humans to express his own entity. This avenue is available for one to return from within this rich human life to himself at moments of seclusion and to attain within his innermost being a connection with the spiritual entity existing in the depth of the universe (i.e. the ultimate reality connected to the depths of human character).20
Fayez continued to utilize the nationalist vocabularies of the SSNP as he veered toward existentialism. However, he seemed to be more comfortable with himself imparting to these vocabularies a “human” touch and a “moral” range rather than adhering to them as mere nationalist slogans. He begins to tap into a vision of nationalism that mediates between individual and nation and hews closer to the spirit of personal freedom as a national objective. A novel idea in its time and place, this idea was already attracting attention in Western scholarship, particularly at the hands of American political scientist, Hans Morgenthau.21 Morgenthau wrote:
Nationalism as a political phenomenon must be understood as the aspirations for two freedoms (one collective, the other individual): the freedom of a nation from domination by another nation and the freedom of the individual to join the nation of his choice.22
Since nationalism arose in opposition to state oppression of the individual, then, in Morgenthau’s opinion, it represents a triumph for individual liberty and collective security combined.
Especially striking is the subtle and unannounced manner with which Fayez pursued his objective. Only a select few like-minded existentialist party cadres were privy to his intentions. They remained tight-lipped on the subject or surreptitiously encouraged him to follow his ideas without considering the repercussions too much. The rest of the Party had almost no grasp of existential philosophy to understand what was happening or to question his intentions. Anyway, the reverberation of the Party’s slogans in Fayez’s fiery speeches and the extraordinary reticence shown by his seniors served as an adequate tranquilizer.
EXISTENTIAL NATIONALISM
The 1940s was a period of great uncertainty and drastic change. The scale of human misery and destruction during the World War II, the tragedies of human suffering, the atrocious and unprecedented loss of life, and the unspeakable crimes that were committed did more than change the political landscape: it left many people stunned and looking for answers. Both thinking and practice changed radically because of the conflict. The war riveted the eyes of the intellectuals on questions of human life and dignity. It kindled renewed interest in practical moral issues and raised questions of great philosophical importance into existing assumptions, claims, concepts, and methods.23 Totalitarian ideologies were particularly targeted: absolute uniformity, single mass party, centrally managed networks and systems, undisputed leadership, economic regimentation, national pride, and political terror. The consensus that emerged, at least among the philosophers and intellectuals of the day, can be summarized in two points:
The lion’s share of the blame for the human atrocities of the war rested squarely on the shoulders of totalitarian regimes on both sides of the political spectrum.
Totalitarian ideologies are innately and functionally inimical with the cherished values and dignity of human life.
Existentialism arose from the chaos of this disillusioned world. It took a bleak yet powerful stance of integrity that some began to fear but others admired. Existentialists acknowledged what they saw, but they refused to romanticize or mythologize it. They admitted that life was absurd, but not humankind. Once man comes to grips with the absurdity of life, he can choose to bring meaning into his life. He just needs to step forward and make choices that make life meaningful. This panacea to avoid mental, emotional, and spiritual conformity allows totalitarianism to take control.
As an active member of a political party founded on a comprehensive ideology, Fayez felt the full brunt of this new climate. Two circumstances fed its impact on him: (1) the exposure of the American University of Beirut where he was studying to the anti-collectivism spirit and the new intellectual emphasis on individual freedom as an empirical point of reference, and (2) the subjection of the students to a tirade of verbal criticism of militant nationalism and institutional collectivism.
One active person on this front was Charles Malik, Fayez’s philosophy teacher. An admirer of German philosophy who studied under Heidegger in Freiberg under “the suffocating environment created by Nazism in the mid-1930s,”24 Malik made no secret of his fondness for existential philosophy and his disdain for collective ideologies. In the process, nationalism received a fair share of criticism.25 The basic message was that nationalism, like al
l other ‘isms’ binds us to a sense of determinism or false security that ultimately deters our better natures. Its emphasis on conformity can be just as stifling to our autonomy and personal integrity as any social concentrated system. Even when it is not anti-individualism, nationalism’s collective pursuits can reduce the individual in us to the passive status of a participant subject.
The ever-alert Fayez quickly picked up the message. His familiarity with existentialism and its contemporary relevance and place within philosophical schools of thought gave him an advantage over other members of Malik’s audience. Also, having studied under Malik, he understood his teacher’s intentions very clearly. At the first opportunity, he published a modest rebuttal in which he took issue with Malik’s singular depiction of nationalism as a collective thought-form that skewers the meaning and identity of man. Drawing on an existential approach, Malik had classified nationalism as a worldview that recognizes only the “national” in the being and everything else as worthless. The hardcore nationalist Fayez rejoined with an equally existential argument that the nationalist worldview regards man first as a “social being” and then as a “national being” at an elevated stage in human development. Furthermore, as a “social being”, Fayez asserted that a nationalist is not necessarily a robot of the collective will, as Malik had claimed, but a dynamic factor and a prime mover in the formation and advancement of that will: