Antoine (Antun in modern Lebanese colloquial) Saadeh was the founder of the Syrian Social National Party (SSNP) in the 1930's in Lebanon, which advocated the creation of a Greater Syria. For him, the newly established Republic of Lebanon was an anathema, the creation of the French mandatory power, through the direct complicity of the Maronite Patriarchate. Saadeh, himself a Christian (although not a Maronite) never looked into the issue from a pure religious perspective. He was more interested in the ideological and geopolitical framework of the Greater Syria he advocated as a complete entity. Saadeh was condemned by a military court and shot to death in 1949.
Even with a cursory Look at the events that are unfolding in Lebanon today, one can see how right Saadeh was in his analysis of the situation in the 1930's and 1940's. The endemic problems that he feared at the time still exist today and a permanent solution for the Lebanese problem is yet to be found.
This translations represents some reminisces about him through the eyes of some of his friends and relatives. This translation is one of several that I have been doing over the last months with the intention of later joining them together under a single volume. I hope that its on-line publishing and the comments I might get from the several installments will help me in my editing of the final product.
Issues of National Politics: A Reply to Patriarch Aridah
On the 6th of this month, the Maronite Patriarch1 delivered a speech where he spoke about Lebanese politics and its issues and analyzed them in a manner that is characteristic and traditional of the Patriarchate. His speech, then, was important and dangerous at the same time. This speech can't be ignored as others emanating from the Patriarchate. It demands to be answered and clarified in accordance to modern political thought, especially since the Patriarch talks precisely about the Syrian Social National Party (SSNP), which in turn puts on us the burden of answering it in exact terms.
We were waiting that the patriarch's speech would deliver issues and directions that would add political dimensions to the speech itself. However, what followed was not germane to it. Neither was it expressive of the speech's content. What followed were political maneuvers, which aimed at using the Patriarch and his influence.
Before we start analyzing the patriarch's speech something has to be said about the political aspect of his character, which are construed from his stances vis-à-vis different issues. For one, the patriarch had a positive stance on the issue of unity between Lebanon and Damascus. It seemed that he was very close to the national awakening. His stance regarding the monopoly of tobacco growing and manufacturing in Lebanon was a strong one. However, It was belated and not a successful stance.
If Patriarch Aridah had several blessed stances, he also had his share of not so blessed ones. Such was the case of his stance regarding the Jewish infiltration into Lebanon, an issue that caused Bishop Mubarak to exclaim:
“We elected you as a patriarch of the Maronites and not the Jews.”
We don't mention Bishop Mubarak's words so as to glorify him. It must be noted that the bishop too followed his master and became a bishop for the Jews.
From his past activities we see that Patriarch Aridah personally has no specific and calculated stance. He does not follow a certain political line. His political activities are dictated by events and by those who are close to him. Most of his stances are thus superficial. They are built on only shallow understanding of the events. In this regard the patriarch's stance on the 6th of this month
2 was no exception. Here is the dissection of his speech.
In his speech the patriarch goes on to solve problems that had already become irrelevant due to the passage of time. His stance regarding the issue of government in Lebanon is like his stance regarding the tobacco monopoly, since it is built on the same theory; to look into catastrophes after they happen and to see mistakes after they take place, without giving any importance to the real issues and without understanding their real motives. His stance would seem a most successful one at first glance. However, what happens is that he mixes right with wrong. He makes the people happy. The people try it and are sad. The same thing repeats itself and the people are repeatedly happy and sad…
It is obvious that same reasons would lead to same results. Thus the opposite of cure is created and the peoples' yearning is dead. It seems that religious peoples' dealing with political issues today is like their dealings with physical and psychological illnesses in the Middle-Ages, when the clergy had this omnipotent power over ignorant people. And as research in medicine showed that the clergy couldn't take the place of doctors, so did also research in the fields of politics and sociology. Thus a bishop or a patriarch is not equipped to handle issues that belong to the political or social scientist. Thus, if a clergyman involves himself in the cure of political, social, or economic issues, he creates bigger problem for scientists in those fields who try to come up with a solution for an important issue.
