Antun Saadeh

Antun Saadeh (Arabic: أنطون سعادة‎) (March 1, 1904-July 8, 1949) was a Lebanese Syrian nationalist philosopher, writer and politician who founded the Syrian Social Nationalist Party.

Contents

Life

Born in 1904 in Dhour El Choueir, Ottoman Syria (modern-day Lebanon), Saadeh emigrated to Brazil after completing his education, joining his father, Khalil Saadeh, who was a prominent Arabic-language journalist there. In 1932, he returned to Beirut and began to teach at the American University of Beirut. The same year, he founded the Syrian Social Nationalist Party to oppose the French division of the region and push for unity. From 1935 on, he was repeatedly harassed and imprisoned by the French mandatory authorities, and, as a result, decided in 1938 to emigrate once again, returning to Brazil. After a short period there, he left for Argentina, where he continued his political journalism.

Saadeh returned to Lebanon on March 2, 1947, after the country's independence from France. On July 4, 1949, the party declared a revolution in Lebanon in retaliation to a series of violent intimidations staged by the government of Lebanon against party members. The revolt was suppressed and he traveled to Damascus to meet with Husni al-Za'im, the President of Syria at the time, who was, at had previously been agreed to, supposed to support him. However, he was handed by el-Zaim over to the Lebanese authorities. Saadeh and many of his followers were judged by a Lebanese military court, and were executed. The capture, trial and execution happened in less than 48 hours. Saadeh's execution occurred at dawn of July 8, 1949. According to Adel Beshara, it was and still is the shortest and most secretive trial given to a political offender.[1]

He published numerous books, treatises, and articles during his lifetime on a wide range of topics.

He emphasized the role of philosophy and social science in the development of his social ideology. He viewed social nationalism, his version of nationalism, as a tool to transform traditional society into a dynamic and progressive one. He also opposed colonization that broke up Greater Syria into sub-states. Secularization played an important role in his ideology. Secularization is taken by him beyond the socio-political aspects of the question into its philosophical dimensions.

Syrian Social Nationalist Party

Saadeh rejected Arab Nationalism (the idea that the speakers of the Arabic language form a single, unified nation), and argued instead for the creation of the state of United Syrian Nation or Natural Syria encompassing the Fertile Crescent, making up a Syrian homeland that "extends from the Taurus range in the northwest and the Zagros mountains in the northeast to the Suez Canal and the Red Sea in the south and includes the Sinai peninsula and the Gulf of Aqaba, and from the Syrian Sea in the west, including the island of Cyprus, to the arch of the Arabian Desert and the Persian Gulf in the east." (Kader, H. A.).

Saadeh rejected both language and religion as defining characteristics of a nation, and instead argued that nations develop through the common development of a people inhabiting a specific geographical region. He was thus a strong opponent of both Arab nationalism and Pan-Islamism. He argued that Syria was historically, culturally, and geographically distinct from the rest of the Arab world, which he divided into four parts. He traced Syrian history as a distinct entity back to the Phoenicians, Canaanites, Assyrians, Babylonians etc.[2] and argued that Syrianism transcended religious distinctions.

Saadeh was influenced by European fascist ideologies and modeled the Syrian Social Nationalist Party on the National Socialist German Workers’ Party.[3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12] Sa'adeh's party adopted a reversed swastika as the party's symbol,[4][5][6][7][8][11] and included developing the cult of a leader, advocating totalitarian government, and glorifying an ancient pre-Christian past and the organic whole of the Syrian Volk or nation.[7]

However, these claims of alleged Nazi and Fascist ideological influence on Saadeh were refuted by Saadeh himself. During a 1935 speech, Saadeh himself said: "I want to use this opportunity to say that the system of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party is neither a Hitlerite nor a Fascist one, but a pure social nationalist one. It is not based on useless imitation, but is instead the result of an authentic invention -- which is a virtue of our people" .[13]

According to historian Stanley G. Payne, the Arab nationalism was influenced by European fascism, with the SSNP being in 1939 one of the several shirt movements inspired by the brown shirts movement.[12] Saadeh would share with European fascism the belief in the superiority of his own people, theorizing a "distinct and naturally superior" Syrian race, although it wouldn't be a biologically pure race, but a fusion of the many races found in Syrian history.[12]

See also

References

  1. ^ Adel beshara (2010). Outright Assassination: The Trial and Execution of Antun Sa'adeh, 1949. Ithaca Press. ISBN 978-0-86372-348-3. 
  2. ^ Saadeh
  3. ^ Simon, Reeva S. (1996). Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East. Macmillan Reference USA. ISBN 0028960114. http://books.google.com/books?id=vKptAAAAMAAJ&q=%22Syrian+Social+Nationalist+Party%22+nazi&dq=%22Syrian+Social+Nationalist+Party%22+nazi&pgis=1. "The Syrian Social Nationalist party (SSNP) was the brainchild of Antun Sa'ada, a Greek Orthodox Lebanese who was inspired by Nazi and fascist ideologies." 
  4. ^ a b Ya’ari, Ehud (June 1987). "Behind the Terror". Atlantic Monthly. http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/87jun/yaari.htm. "[The SSNP] greet their leaders with a Hitlerian salute; sing their Arabic anthem, "Greetings to You, Syria," to the strains of "Deutschland, Deutschland über alles"; and throng to the symbol of the red hurricane, a swastika in circular motion." 
  5. ^ a b Pipes, Daniel (1992). Greater Syria. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195060229. http://books.google.com/books?id=J3PsAb1uV94C. "The SSNP flag, which features a curved swastika called the red hurricane (zawba'a), points to the party's fascistic origins." 
  6. ^ a b Rolland, John C. (2003). Lebanon. Nova Publishers. ISBN 1590338715. http://books.google.com/books?id=-JVOKeNkllgC. "[The SSNP's] red hurricane symbol was modeled after the Nazi swastika." 
  7. ^ a b c Johnson, Michael (2001). All Honourable Men. I.B.Tauris. ISBN 1860647154. http://books.google.com/books?id=Zydtz0dDntQC. "Saadeh, the party's 'leader for life', was an admirer of Adolf Hitler and influenced by Nazi and fascist ideology. This went beyond adopting a reversed swastika as the party's symbol and singing the party's anthem to the song Deutschland über Alles, and included developing the cult of a leader, advocating totalitarian government, and glorifying an ancient pre-Christian past and the organic whole of the Syrian Volk or nation." 
  8. ^ a b Becker, Jillian (1984). The PLO: The Rise and Fall of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Weidenfeld and Nicolson. ISBN 0297785478. http://books.google.com/books?id=sgu7AAAAIAAJ&q=SSNP+swastika&dq=SSNP+swastika&pgis=1. "[The SSNP] had been founded in 1932 as a youth movement, deliberately modeled on Hitler's Nazi Party. For its symbol it invented a curved swastika, called the Zawbah." 
  9. ^ Yamak, Labib Zuwiyya (1966). The Syrian Social Nationalist Party: An Ideological Analysis. Harvard University Press. http://books.google.com/books?id=98tBAAAAIAAJ&q=The+Syrian+Social+Nationalist+Party:+An+Ideological+Analysis&dq=The+Syrian+Social+Nationalist+Party:+An+Ideological+Analysis&pgis=1. 
  10. ^ Nikki R. Keddie (2006). Princeton University Press. ed. Women in the Middle East: Past and Present (illustrated ed.). p. 97. ISBN 0691128634. "The leading Nazi-influenced group was the Syrian National Party" 
  11. ^ a b Matthias Küntzel, Colin Meade (2007). Telos Press Publishing. ed. Jihad and Jew-hatred: Islamism, Nazism and the Roots of 9/11. p. 26. ISBN 0914386360. http://books.google.com/books?id=q9Y8E-AYVeoC&pg=PA26&dq=Syrian+Social+National+Party+swastika&lr=&as_brr=3&as_pt=ALLTYPES&hl=es. "Back in 1932 Antun Saadeh had founded the Syrian People's Party which asserted the superiority of Syrians over other peoples and followed Nazi models even in its outward expressions, a swastika-like flag, the open-handed salute, etc." 
  12. ^ a b c Stanley G. Payne (1996). A history of fascism, 1914-1945 (illustrated, reprint ed.). Routledge. pp. 352–354. ISBN 1857285956, 9781857285956. 
  13. ^ http://books.google.com/books?id=iAWBkDAv4TkC&pg=PA45&dq=Syrian+social+nationalist+nazi+fascist

Bibliography

On Antun Saadeh:

External links