Adonis Diaries

I am reading an eye-witness account of how the Leader Antoun Saadi reflected, analyzed and decided on issues and events. Late Elias Gergis Konayze7 published a book “Ma2ather ma3 Saadi“

On page 206, Elias recount how a grave discontent, verging on a split, wracked a unit (moudiriyat) in Homs of the Syria National Social party in 1948.

The main issue is “How to handle the many demands/applications of new citizens to join the party, while this unit is a total disarray? Should all applications be postponed until the “old unit” has proven its worthiness in ideology and organizational functions (tanzim/nizaam)? Should the unit be disbanded and reconstituted before new members are considered to join?…”

The minister of the Interior in the party (3amid dakhiliyat) felt cornered and unable to decide on this issue and had to rely on the Leader Saadi to get a handle on the problem.

The Leader demanded to review all the documents (reports, letters and decisions) that were sent to the minister and all the reports from the various organizational echelons in the party.

Leader Saadi refrained from issuing a decision on that matter, but the detailed options considered in the discussion opened an alternative to resolve this difficult issue.

The alternative was to form/constitute a new unit exclusively of all the new members, a kind of “secret unit”, functioning parallel to the Old Unit so that the new members should Not divulge that they are indeed members in the Party.

As a few of the new members proved to be solid organizationally and ideologically…then they will be moved to join the Old Unit in order to establish a counter-weight to the discontented Older members and re-establish a healthy old unit…

I contend that this is “ideal” alternative is fraught with practical problems, unless the Party has already experimented before hand with this new organizational structure. Mainly, that new members are organized in a separate unit until a decision is made for a few to join the precursor older unit.

First, No such large discontent can surface unless a few in the leadership of the unit fomented the upheaval. Thus, the logical first step is to discard these leaders (fassel 7ayati) meaning No members are to remain in daily contact with the “suspended” members, in any form or shape. This bring up the follow question: Is the Unit capable of pinpointing the responses of Not staying in relation with the suspended member? Otherwise, the alternative is doomed to failure.

Second, how the reduced selected leaders to forming a New Unit can handle two units, unless they are demoted in the old Unit as mere members?

Actually, that how any political party should be structure when acting underground in a hostile State… organized in “Cells” Not knowing one another.

You can be a member and Not be obligated to claim your membership: Only your immediate “leaders”, those who accepted your application, should obviously recognize the validity of your membership. Only your “immediate leaders” are entitled to be contact with the Center and send “coded” reports on your “progress”

I posit that it is the “behaviors”/activities in his community of a member in a political party, organization/institution that should constitute the criteria of his level of indoctrination.

It is the job of the “immediate leaders” in a unit to evaluate and “correct” any discrepancies in the ideological foundation, the soundness of the belief system.