Fayez Sayegh- the Party Years (1938-1947)

by Adel Beshara

  THE COMMUNIST PERSPECTIVE

  In response to this unjust capitalist tenacity and the hostile capitalist attitude toward the workers’ cause, some labor groups have taken counter actions bred by their desperation and deteriorating financial and spiritual conditions and stoked by certain anarchical groups adept in the art of Information, incitement, and agitation.

  In short, the basis of the Communist perspective is the conglomeration of workers and their quest to apply pressure to have their mounting demands gradually fulfilled. Eventually, they aspire to establish total control by workers over the assets of society, impose a “dictatorship of the working class”, eliminate classes and private ownership, and stamp out inheritance rights and private enterprise.

  Moreover, the Communist perspective is closely interwoven with an international campaign to bond workers together in international conferences aimed to develop a common policy for workers from across all nations. The campaign aims to mold these workers into a single group committed to reaching out to other working class groups around the world. It gives them more attention and care than it gives its own nation and its progress. Thus, we find that the communist worker is inclined to feel that his immediate interests are more closely linked to those of the worker in another country than to the interests of the nation at large. His loyalty, too, tends to be to the working class around the world rather than to his own nation. Unsurprisingly, then, communist workers often feign to ignore nationalist calls, transcend national interests, and deem themselves above national loyalty. Only recently, we observed the Arab Communist Party in Palestine calling for mutual understanding with communist Jews to combat the Palestinian people in their struggle against the foremost danger facing the nation: the danger of Jewish settlement in Palestine epitomized in the Zionist movement.

  THE NATIONAL PERSPECTIVE

  Against these two sectional factions, which tend to foster hostility, injustice, and exploitation in the nation, the National revival takes a counter position that has the capacity to ward off this hostility, surmount exploitation, and achieve social cohesion, national unity, state justice, and harmony among citizens. Let us discuss this perspective both in its fundamental premises and in its details.

  1. THE FUNDAMENTAL PREMISES

  The national doctrine begins by affirming the value and sanctity of work in the nation’s life. It disdains and combats the contempt that aristocratic classes have for work. The national revival considers work a sacred duty in the life of society and measures the value of citizens in proportion to their contribution to national progress. The national revival does not want parasites that live in society on the shoulders of those toiling classes who bear the responsibilities of work and production. Each citizen must work so society can live a happy refined life and the citizen can live a life of dignity and honor.

  However, work comes in various forms: economic, cultural, political, etc. Economic work falls in various subcategories: the entrepreneur is a worker, the manager is a worker, the technician is a worker, and employees are workers. Each of these categories of workers has rights and duties.

  The distribution of output, according to the national doctrine, is based on the axiom of production itself. This principle of justice affirms the right of every citizen to free life and the fruits of his labor.

  The national revival is not prepared to relinquish the principle that justice is the basis for the sound distribution of wealth and awarding common producers. Any system that is not based on justice is corrupt at its foundations. Just as capitalist exploitation is inconsistent with social justice, likewise worker domination that seeks to exploit the other classes and deny them their right to life is inconsistent with justice. Hence, under the system of the national state, justice (which recognizes the right of every producer to benefit from the fruits of his work) is fully guaranteed.

  Finally, the national doctrine insists on achieving the highest standards of living for every member of society, so that no class in society is deprived of life’s basic freedoms and rights, as is the case with the working classes in our country.

  2. FAIR NATIONAL POLICIES

  Based on this, the sound national state is bound to enact fair policies that seek to preserve the rights of all groups, secure social justice, and foster harmony and mutual understanding instead of decay and division. These policies would define the principles of equitable pay and the conditions of work dismissal, safeguard the workers’ right to rest by defining the hours of work they must perform and the time off they are entitled to, cover all the health provisions required to protect the workers’ health and cater for their needs in times of disease, disability, old age, and sudden dangers, and secure the workers’ right to express their opinions on the actions and procedures relevant to them. These policies must also contain provisions that protect the rights of employers to secure the continuation of work in an atmosphere conducive to national economies. Ensuring that these economies are not impeded and the rights of employers are not trampled is imperative.

  3. SOUND NATIONAL SPIRIT

  On its own, however, policy-making is insufficient. It is merely a formal legal expression of the right national spirit and the relationships that must prevail among citizens of all classes and groups. We cannot attain a perfectly good solution for the issues of work and workers except by infusing a national spirit into the people: the spirit of brotherhood, cooperation, mutual concern, and justice. Without this spirit, policy-making is of absolutely no value.

  The spread of the national spirit among the ranks of workers and capital owners is the only way to solve work problems and achieve justice and brotherhood. The spirit alone can save society from capitalist exploitation and shield it against the infiltration of the destructive communist spirit of anarchy and demagoguery into the nation.

  4

  THE NATIONAL PARTY APPEARS BAREFACED

  Joy to the nation that considers the past and sees the likes of Baalbek in its heritage. This eternal legacy has defied an age roaming around in continuous attempts to annihilate it with an insatiable appetite. But woe to the nation that is glued to the past and does not look to the future to build an eternal future worthy of the eternal past!

  Joy to the nation that boasts of its past, takes pride in it, and exerts conscious efforts to extricate it from the claws of intentional negligence and motivated forgetfulness. But woe to the nation that confines itself to boasting and accordingly neglects its present reality and its existing debilitating and degrading condition. It ignores its duty toward its future: a duty that is doubly imposed on it by the accumulation of its heritage in the past!

  Joy to the nation that has known glories and grandeur, but woe to the nation that forgets that its real glories are only those it succeeds in saving from dissolution and extinction and that builds more glories to exult over. The National Party was founded based on this principle by a group of young people versed in the past of their nation and its achievements and endowed with a faith in their nation inspired by this knowledge. They marched forward to build their new nation in the light of this faith. In other words, a dynamic revival in the form of young people who believe that the nation can be, or rather will be, more than it was in the past.

  Based on this principle, the National Party worked and struggled despite insurmountable obstacles to revive the nation it serves and to resurrect the people it loves. The Party’s struggle is the most conclusive proof that the vitality of the past in all areas of human activity, which contributed to all the domains of glory, has not ceased to exist. Instead, it remains alive inside the people and is poised to rebound as soon as it receives the true call of duty.

  Thus, the National Party was a real embodiment of the longing in the souls of sincere conscious citizens yearning for a new refined life whether or not they knew it. With its ideological cause and a framework that defines this yearning within a comprehensive conception of the meaning of nation and its cause, and with its reform programs, the Party became the ideal course
for the people to pursue in their drive to revive the nation, realize its cause, consolidate its independence, and raise it to the peaks of glory. Additionally, with its practical application and the currents of revival emanating from it, the Party became the effective instrument that will ensure the implementation of the required reform.

  Yes, indeed! The National Party represents the embodiment of the hopes that lurk within the souls of the people, the wishes that live in their hearts, and the duties that dwell in their consciences. Our eagerness to work for the Party and our belief in the success of its cause were born out of this realization and its commitment to the protection of the vital interests of the nation.

  * * *

  Ladies and Gentlemen,

  At one time, the affairs of the country were subject to the wills of its enemies who exercised total control over its resources. It was only natural for these enemies to focus on combating the burgeoning national revival, and simultaneously, actively encouraging all other groups and movements that represented the corruption of the existing order and worked to perpetuate foreign control. They did this instead of rising against corruption and trying to undermine the presence of foreign rule and domination.

  The tallest trees bear the brunt of storms. Some of them break and bow down before the crushing power of a storm while others fall as it gradually pulls away. Meanwhile, little shrubs and plants pass through the crisis neither aware of the storm nor noticed by it. Similar to the storms, when popular discontent sets in and a nation rises in revolt, the colonial powers blink at the weak small movements with callous and total disregard to their presence. They mobilize their spies and supporters and all the forces and authority they command to combat the conscious strong fledging movements. Some of these movements yield to pressure and then recoil, while others emerge from under the pressure with their heads held high in might and honor.

  The colonial foreigner was wiser than to oppress the national revival in a blunt and direct manner and more shrewd than to fight it for its patriotism in full public view. Therefore, he took a more cunning course: he tried to turn the people and its beguiled groups against the revival through the evil tactics of character assassination, rumor mongering, and fabricated accusations.

  Accordingly, the colonizer placed the Party behind a very thick screen, muffled its voice, and chained its hands. He simultaneously devised false accusations against the Party and spread vicious rumors about it to tarnish its reputation and drive a wedge between it and the national population.

  The Party sustained this situation. It traversed the campaign of malicious gossip and rumor mongering unaffected and unyielding. It was confident that the truth would inevitably come out. During that time, the rumors and allegations piled up. Some challenged the sincerity of the Party by claiming that it was a treasonous agent of foreign enemies! However, the accusers could not agree on the identity of this foreigner. Some said it was the Germans, Italians, British, French, or Zionists, but time proved them wrong. It proved that the Party is not and can never be a servant to the foreigner.

  The sole objective of the Party is to revive the people, rekindle its power and vitality, and resurrect it from its deep slumber by relying entirely on the will of the people and their faith. Time proved that the Party that openly fought and is still fighting the foreigner (regardless of his color, format, and status, whether he is a colonialist or a mandated person, or whether he is a seeker of special privileges or a player behind the scenes) does not work behind closed doors to spread the domination and influence of the foreigner. It fought and is still fighting Zionism publicly, legally, politically, and practically. It declares that the Palestinian question is a matter of concern for the Lebanese and not an external problem; and it refuses to believe in Jewish racism and Zionist fossilization and materialism. Such a party cannot derive its inspiration from the Zionist. Time has demonstrated that the foreigner who fabricated this monstrous accusation and tried to prove it is the same foreigner whose prosecutor general once stood before a foreign military tribunal and withdrew from the bill of indictment the accusation against the Party that it cooperated with foreigners.

  Others took aim at the Party’s aims and principles. Some claimed that the Party is an enemy of the Lebanese entity and strives to undermine its existence. Others alleged that the Party is an enemy of Arab cooperation and seeks to tear it apart. Others still maintained that the Party merely aspires for a political union with adjacent states. The principles of the Party and the statements of its senior leaders have exposed these allegations to be patently false in every aspect, and the work of the Party has all but put them to rest. Indeed, the Party has proved, in both word and deed, that it does not seek a political union, a political merger, or a patch up fusion of states or statelets. Rather, its first and foremost mission is substantive and constructive reform in the realm of societal life. It is a social party versus a political party. It does not interfere in politics except when the nation stands in need of sound policy guidance on the most ideal programs for social reform. The Party has also demonstrated, in word and deed, that it is an enemy to every enemy of the independence and dignity of Lebanon and that it would defend this independence at any cost for the sake of consolidating Lebanon as a fortress for freedom and fundamental spiritual values. Finally, the Party has indicated, both practically and theoretically, that, for Lebanon to lead a safe life, it must not barricade itself behind a steel frame of hostility and constant quarrel with its neighbors. Ideally, a state of cordial political relations should exist between Lebanon and its neighbor states. There should be cooperation in all the domains of life consistent with regional realities and the principle of partnership. In addition, maximum cooperation and friendly relations should exist between Lebanon and all members of the Arab League within the framework of respect for the sovereignty of member states.

  Others directed their criticism at the Reform Principles. They alleged that the Party seeks to undermine religion and constrict the work of the clergy by calling for national cohesion, repudiation of sectarian disunity and in-fighting, separation of religion from state, and the prevention of religious clerics from interfering with state and judicial affairs. However, they did not think to mention that the Party has a true and deep respect for religion and calls for the veneration of moral values. They neglected to reveal that it fights sectarianism because sectarianism corrupts religion and fractures the nation. They did not mention that the Party resists the interference of clerics in state affairs because it distracts them from their religious duties and subordinates state affairs to the control of individuals who are not qualified to manage the civil affairs of society.

  Still others alleged that the Party was an enemy of feudalists although the Party is only an enemy of feudalism as a system: a bad system that squanders the wealth and resources of vast areas of the homeland and facilitates the creation of unemployed groups that live off the labor of toiling men and women screaming for help.

  The accusations kept coming in succession, but the Party, confident that the truth would triumph in the final round, learned to tolerate them. That round has now come, and the light of truth has burst forth. The truth of the Party has become clear to all: its objectives, intentions, and programs. If the era of independence can claim one merit, it is that it has enabled the sincere groups in the country to work freely to demonstrate the reality of their causes. It has enabled them to scale the open podium of life with their true and bare faces and remove the thick screens of suppression and misguidance that had prevented this from happening in the past. Thus, the present era can take pride in the fact that it enabled the first step on the path to true independence.

  * * *

  Ladies and Gentlemen,

  I do not intend to explain to you in this address the principles, objectives, and program of the Party. These principles have been amply proclaimed, published, and clarified; and the people have lost faith in mere rhetoric and want deeds and actions. Let us ask then, “What has the Party a
chieved so far and what is it doing?”

  First, the National Party practically managed to restore to the nation its sovereignty and control over its affairs well before it had obtained its political sovereignty and independence. During the colonial era, the Party defied the authority of the ruling colonialist, his Senegalese lances, and his tanks, prisons, detention camps, press campaigns, and speeches. It challenged his will to maintain the status quo as it existed. It stood firm disseminating the call for the nation’s cause and preaching the reform principles that lead to the advancement of society. With this, the nation’s sovereignty and will were effectively realized.

  Second, the Party has practically succeeded in achieving social unity and popular consensus. Instead of a people riven with antagonistic factions, conflicting classes, and warring families, the Party has given rise to a group of young people solely committed to nothing else but their participation in a unified national life, and unwilling to identify with any form of communal solidarity, whether it is sectarian or class or clannish, as elements that divide the people unnecessarily and tear its unity apart.

  Third, the Party has truly succeeded in building a new citizen despite the old environment and the currents of backward and spurious life that envelop it. It has liberated him from these forces, aroused in him the sense of responsibility and duty, empowered him with strength and discipline, and launched him into society as an unswayable and loyal soldier shining the light of a new and progressive life on society.

  Fourth, the Party has practically succeeded in creating a prototype of the new society to which the nation aspires: a society of modern upright citizens whose new life rotates within the life of the old society as a leaven working to change the old condition in its entirety.