What is “Syria National Social Party”?
Posted by: adonis49 on: December 8, 2008
What is “Syria National Social Party”? (Part 1, December 7, 2008)
Note: I am planning three articles on the subject; the creation of the party, a short history after the execution of Antun Saadeh, and the ideological foundations.
Syria National Social Party (SNSP) is a secular political organization that had membership in the States of Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Jordan, and Iraq and is currently mainly located in Lebanon and Syria. This party was created in Lebanon in 1936 during the French mandate to Lebanon and Syria by Antun Saadeh, who was teaching at the American University at Beirut (AUB) and was also a Brazilian national. The father of Antun, Khalil Saadeh and a Christian Greek Orthodox by birth, published a daily in Brazil and was a secular thinker.
The principles of the SNSP were founded on the premise that Syria (formed by the present States of Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Jordan, and Iraq) is a complete nation, socially and culturally with definite natural borders. This notion of “Syria Nation” was not new in spirit but the creation of this party gave it body and political objectives for independence from France, Britain, and any other colonial power. Antun Saadeh warned the Syrian people, even in 1936, of the implantation of the Jews in Palestine and he knew that if the Syrian do not get organized then the organized Zionists will prevail and we will have to deal with this new foreign body for decades to come.
France, Britain, and Zionism comprehended the nature and the danger of the SNSP and did their best to eradicate it legally and politically. They managed to disrupt the figurant ascendance of the SNAP among the people by paying dailies to blemish its purposes and creating sectarian political parties among the Christian and Moslem castes. That is why France created, shortly after, the Maronite Phalange Party (Kataeb) and a counterpart Sunni party to challenge the secular tendencies of the SNSP and infuse pride in a Lebanon that was not a State yet and was under French mandate. The fear of France was very material since it was fighting an independence uprising in Syria for a long time.
There was another secular political party in “Syria” called the “Communist Party” founded in the twenties and it was far more vehement against the SNSP than the confessional parties. This communist party was a poor satellite to Moscow and supported the creation of the State of Israel! Stalin figured that Israel will promptly turn communist. Israel didn’t care from where support came; it received arms shipment from Czechoslovakia and then a nuclear power plant in 1956 from socialist France and on and on.
The SNSP made in roads in all the religious castes, even among the staunch Arabic Sunni sect that is always in favor of a Caliphate and seeking support from Sunni States. It is to be understood that Saadeh didn’t view the Arabic issue from a romantic perspective of rough bedwins and so forth. In fact, his father Khalil lambasted Britain for appointing Fayssal of Hijaz (Arabic Peninsula) as King to Syria in 1919 because Syria was urban in nature and didn’t care for bedwins’ mentality of razzia and loot. Later in 1948, the Syrian Baath Party was founded on many crappie sentimentality of pride in the bedwin nature and rough living behavior and spread the notion of Arabism and an Arabic Nation. Saadeh claimed that the Arab World is composed of four distinct nations such as the Arabic Peninsula, Syria, Egypt and Sudan, and the Northern African Arab States. Thus, Saadeh insisted that “Syria Nation” has a distinctive civilization that spoke the Arabic language; actually, Antun Saadeh refused to speak any Arabic slang but enforced classical Arabic and his family communicated in classical Arabic.
France arrested Saadeh twice, banished legally his party and then forced him to leave Lebanon in 1938. While in prison Saadeh wrote his book “Origin (Rise) of Nations”. Antun Saadeh lived in Argentina till 1947 and published “Islam in its two messages: Christ and the Prophet Mohammad”; the gist of it was that all sects in Syria have religious foundations based common denominator in beliefs; that the verses and message of the Prophet Mohammad before he had to flee to Medina were almost identical to the Christian verses and messages. When Saadeh landed in Lebanon in 1947 he was welcomed by a massive popular rally at the airport disregarding the barriers set up by the Lebanese government. That unprecedented mass rally frightened the Lebanese government into frenzied reactions (Lebanon was then recognized as an independent State in 1943; Lebanon had to wait till 1946 for the last French soldier to vacate the land). As Saadeh landed the Lebanese government issued a mandate for his arrest. Saadeh refused and isolated himself in Dhour Chouweir in Mount Lebanon where he resumed organizing his party and spreading his message. The SNSP was to win the election to the Parliament in 1948 but the Lebanese government made sure to rob it out of a victory and kept the pressure on this party. When the UN recognized Israel in 1948 and partioned Palestine by the resolution of 193, Saadeh asked for arms and ammunition to fight in Palestine and was denied any support. Nevertheless, the SNSP sent fighters into Palestine and many died martyrs and were composed from all the “Syrian” States’ citizens.
The USA and British oil companies were negotiating the installation of an oil pipeline with the Syrian government that kept refusing the deal. Britain initiated a military coup and brought in General Hosni Zaim who signed the contract. Saadeh gave hard time to both the Syrian and Lebanese governments claiming that the deal of an oil pipeline to Tripoli was a highway robbery of our national resources; thus, he was to be eliminated.
Saadeh was instigated to revolt in 1949 after countless harassment by the Lebanese government and the action failed. Antun Saadeh was captured in Syria and convicted within 24 hours in July, by a makeshift tribunal, and executed by a firing squad in Lebanon. Six other members were selected on confessional basis, 3 Christians and 3 Moslems, and executed by firing squads.
There are firm evidences that Britain and Israel were behind the instigation and capture and hurried execution of Antun Saadeh; he was not even fifty. Antun Ssadeh could speak and write fluently in at least four languages and he wrote and published extensively and his production was later published in a dozen books. One of the manuscripts is titled “Bankruptcy of Isolationism” meaning that the ideologies and practices of the confessional parties in Lebanon have failed miserably.
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