Will the Real Antun Saadeh Please Step Forward

 

Adel Beshara

 

In 1930, at still an unidentifiable date, a steamship sailed into Beirut with former immigrants returning to Lebanon to catch up with friends and relatives. Among them stood a young man in his mid-twenties. He was no different from anyone else on the ship except for his outward appearance. His travel documents identified him as Antun Khalil Sa'adeh, a former resident of Mount Lebanon and an émigré of almost ten years. He was relatively short but solidly built. His manner was straightforward and completely lacking in pomposity: literary or academic. Yet, he was an avid reader with a good memory and the necessary self-discipline of an autodidact.

Unbeknown to anyone on that ship, this young man was on a personal crusade to “liberate his people.” A monumental task under even the best of circumstances. The soubriquet for such a person alternates between various extremes: ‘visionary,’ ‘idealist,’ ‘utopian,’ ‘dreamer,’ ‘radical,’ ‘optimist,’ and ‘escapist.’ The choice depends on which side of the political spectrum one happens to be standing. Yet, if the diary entry for this young man on May 19, 1929, is anything to go by, it was not an expression of a private sentiment, but a serious aspiration:

I refuse to be a selfish man who knows not but to seek pleasure and wail over losing it. Nay, nay. I must not be selfish. I must think of the pain of millions of my fellow citizens. I then remind myself again… I must forget my own bleeding wounds in order to bandage the grievous wounds of my nation.

It is hard to doubt the sincerity of these words. The deeds and thoughts of this young man attest to their veracity. Despite a close shave with war and famine, Antun Sa’adeh’s entire life would revolve around the “motherland” like a bee around a hive. Almost everything he did and wrote about the “motherland” was conspicuous in one form or another. It was the title of his first published article and the compass of almost every other article that followed. No wonder! Nothing is more precious to man than his motherland. It is the giver of happiness, the place that stamps who you are, and the abode where you truly feel loved.

How can it possibly be anything but the “motherland” when the “motherland” in question is Syria! Yes, Syria - that legendary country about which André Parrot (1901–1980) once remarked: "Each civilized person in the world should admit that he has two home countries: the one he was born in, and Syria." For some unknown reasons 'Syria' entered Sa'adeh's soul like a revelation. It was more powerful, more intense that a love at first sight. In fact, so magnetic was the attraction between them that it is hard to establish who fell for the other first: did Sa'adeh fall for Syria or did Syria fall for Sa'adeh. It does not matter all that much. All we know, and perhaps all we need to know, is that Sa'adeh's love for 'Syria' was unequalled. He had a map of the country etched in his heart and a heart that would never allow him to forget this map.  

The axioms thus fixed: "motherland" and "Syria." No ifs or buts; no strings attached. A vision clear as day. More about this later. Let's go back to the ship.

 

*****

As the ship sails through calm weather towards Beirut Harbor, the young chap elbows his way through the passengers to cast a glance at the mountain range along the coastline. The range is a breathtaking view that commands anyone to stop and absorb the majesty of nature. It is a slice of heaven on earth. The name may have changed - from “Jabal Suria” to “Jabal Lubnan” - but not the beauty. This is one place that neither history nor politics has been able to erode or destroy - not yet anyway.

As the young man stood on the deck breathlessly enthralled with the scenery, an all too familiar sense of foreboding enveloped him. Haunting images came flooding back: the beloved mother who passed away leaving him in charge of two younger siblings; the humiliation that was much a part of life as it was of death; the destruction and chaos of a war that wrote a dark chapter in history; the folly of a blockade that crippled the life of an entire people; the suffering and grief of a famine that spread like a pall over the land.

It would take a mammoth effort to catalogue the miseries and disasters of that period. It was so traumatic that survivors, for a long time, did not like to talk about them. The following 'eyewitness' description will help jog some memories:

Wherever you go and in whichever direction you look, in Beirut, you find men, women and children, all hungry and with pleading eyes, begging from the passers-by. Multitudes of them stand in front of the doors of the few restaurants left and watch with yearning eyes every mouthful eaten by those inside — a sight that rends one's heart and makes the blood turn cold in one's veins.

Edward Nickoley, 1917, an employee with the Syrian Protestant College, later to become the American University of Beirut, wrote in his diary:

Starving people lying about everywhere; at any time children moaning and weeping, women and children clawing over rubbish piles and ravenous­ly eating anything that they can find. When the agonised cry of famishing people in the street becomes too bitter to bear, people get up and close the windows tight in the hope of shutting out the sound. Mere babies amuse themselves by imitating the cries that they hear in the streets or at the doors.

The Turkish feminist author Halide Edib (1882-1964) noted in her memoirs:

The nights in Beirut were atrocious: You heard the whining and screaming of starved people: ‘Ju'an, Ju'an’ (hungry, hungry).

In his book Al Raghif (The Bread), the Lebanese writer and diplomat Toufic Youssef Aouad – a child during the famine – wrote:

There was a woman lying on her back, covered with lice. A newborn with enormous eyes was at her breast. The child kept pressing the breast with his hands and lips and would then give up and cry and cry.

When you are on a downward spiral nothing ever goes right. The disasters keep piling up coming and going like a charging bull. As soon as one disaster is felled, a new one pops up to take its place. It never rains: it pours. The example of Syria is all too clear. If the oppression and misery of the tyrant Turks wasn't enough, the country was visited by a swarm of locusts that devoured its fields and vegetation. The land that once flowed with milk and honey suddenly became desolate and miserable — a place of poverty and famine: "Its unhappy people are to be seen fighting with each other to secure orange-peel and sugar-cane with which to satisfy their hunger." The next disaster wasn't far off, either. No sooner the locusts had left, a severe epidemic of Typhus fever spread like wildfire infesting and destroying everything in its path. One disaster dwarfing another like there is no end. Yet, the real tragedy was yet to come:

Supposing there were to be found some persons in the country who were able and willing to help the inhabitants, the Young Turks would, by force, prevent them from doing so.

The Turks were now intent on inflicting the same pain and suffering on Syrians as they did to the Armenians:

An American aid worker to a Turkish officer: "If we do not succour these miserable human beings they will die of hunger."

The Turkish official: "That is exactly what we want!"

Speaking of despair, Brummana, the town that sheltered Sa'adeh during those dreadful times, was the sight of some of the most gruesome tales:

The food was cooked in enormous cauldrons, and it was inevitable in the preparation of such a quantity that a residue should stick to the bottom of the vessel and char there. Although this was burned, it contained a certain amount of nutriment, and it was carefully scraped off and given to the two watch-dogs that guarded the premises. When the people discovered this fact they went down on their knees and begged that it be given to them instead of the dogs, a request which could not be refused, and they devoured it as ravenously as the dogs themselves would have done.

An awful memory from Dr. Dray's hospice and soup-kitchen in Brummana. And who may this Dr. Dray be, you ask. Dr. Arthur Dray was his full name and he was a member of the Faculty of the Syrian Protestant College and an old acquaintance of Dr. Khalil Saadeh. And Dr. Khalil Saadeh, of course, is Antun’s father. No further explanation is necessary.

Incidentally, if the reader is wondering why Dr. Sa'adeh is nowhere to be seen in this narrative it is because he was in Argentina. It was not out of choice but circumstances. With the sword of oppression hanging over his head, he had wandered to the edge of the world to escape the prospect of certain death:

Fired by vengeance and hatred, the tyrant Turks crowned their actions by organising a court-martial, the members of which were of the type that possesses neither conscience nor character. [They] condemned innocent notables of Beirut to death, and have never ceased since then from passing on innocent Syrians all sorts of sentences, such as deportation, imprisonment for life, and so forth.

Thus, a self-imposed exile became a ready solution. No one wishes such a heart-heavy path upon themselves, not even upon his enemy. Sometimes circumstances or events beyond our control force us into the unenviable position of having to choose between two evils. Logic dictates that we pick the lesser evil over the greater evil.  

II

As one 'Khalil' was agonizing for the fate of his children, another was agonizing for the souls of men. Khalil Gibran - the Shakespeare of Syria - did not experience the tragedy of his country first-hand, but he felt it as deeply as the victims themselves. An exaggeration, you may say. Not so, at least not after you read ''Dead are my people." It is a poem of the most opulent description of the tragedy. We will suffice with the opening stanzas:  

Dead are my people

Gone are my people, but I exist yet,

Lamenting them in my solitude...

Dead are my friends, and in their

Death my life is naught but great disaster.

The knolls of my country are submerged

By tears and blood, for my people and

My beloved are gone, and I am here

Living as I did when my people and my

Beloved were enjoying life and the

Bounty of life, and when the hills of

My country were blessed and engulfed

By the light of the sun.

***

My people died from hunger, and he who

Did not perish from starvation was

Butchered with the sword; and I am

Here in this distant land, roaming

Amongst a joyful people who sleep

Upon soft beds, and smile at the days

While the days smile upon them.

***

My people died a painful and shameful

Death, and here am I living in plenty

And in peace...This is deep tragedy

Ever-enacted upon the stage of my

Heart; few would care to witness this

Drama, for my people are as birds with

Broken wings, left behind the flock.

 

The Great Famine of 1915-18 left an estimated 500,000 people dead. Today, it is often just a footnote in the history books even though it was the highest death toll by population of the First World War. Antun Sa'adeh was an eyewitness to this tragedy and to the misery and affliction with which thousands of families were visited.

III

The closer the ship moved to the shoreline, the more images flashed in Sa'adeh's mind. Some happy, some sad, and some to make you glad. Fond memories of his old school came flooding back to him. Ah, the memory of that time when he refused to carry the Ottoman flag at a function staged by the school for a visiting Turkish dignitary. Ah, the memory of climbing the school pole to down the flag of oppression for the flag of freedom. Ah, the memory of his mother smiling at him when he was very little, holding him close, telling him over and over how much she loved him. Yet, apart from the famine, one memory echoed vividly in his mind more than any other:

The location: Beirut.

The background: Several senior men arguing over whether the mandate for Syria should go to France or to Britain. Some stumping for the French, others for the British. A pathetic show of weakness and naiveté. A portrait that captures the gloomy mood of the time.

A deadlock ensues. No one is prepared to back down. No one is strong enough to deliver the knockout blow. The discussion drags on in a suffocating cycle until  one interjects:

"Let's ask this young lad. Who do you think should have the mandate over Syria - France or Britain?"

"I should think neither." Came back the response like a breath of fresh air.

And before any of the aloof and bewildered faces could say anything, another stronger dose is quickly administered:

"Gentlemen. I can't see why we cannot rule ourselves. We are worthy of independence as any other living people."

End of discussion.

The war-famine-blockade-carnage was kind of an eye-opener that shook Sa'adeh's world to the very core. They opened his eyes, aroused his curiosity, and inspired his humility and humanity.

I was only a child when the Great War broke out in 1914, but I had already begun to perceive and comprehend. The first thing that suddenly occurred to me, having witnessed, felt and actually experienced the affliction of my people, was this question: What was it that brought all this woe on my people?

‘What was it that brought all this woe on my people?’ An intriguing question that invites powerful answers.

No child of ten raises a question of such monumental importance unless he is gifted with boundless energy. Young boys and girls do not strive to move beyond their current circumstances; they do not ask soul-searching questions that strike at the very heart of one of the deepest mysteries in life; and, certainly, they do not test the limits and boundaries of their senses. They are often too busy with the little pleasures of life to think about larger forces.

 

----

There is more to the question ‘What was it that brought all this woe on my people?’ than purely intellectual concerns. Ultimately, how a person attempts to answer such a question strongly reflects the answer he or she prefers. There are reasonable and unreasonable approaches. Sa'adeh did not pose the question for satisfaction or to impress and attain a selfish goal. He posed it with insistence and urgency. He was not interested in consequences but in solutions and explanations. Consequences may inspire attention but it is attention that could peter off as quickly it develops. Often, they recede into memory, leaving behind them a stark silence.

Asking a question as revealing as that speaks volume about what kind of person Sa'adeh was. Obviously, the general orientation of his thinking was the "people" and not his personal well-being or interest. It moves with a rebellious spirit and a lofty objective that transcends the perverse logic of the fait accompli. The underlying issue was not what now can be done or how to pick up the pieces and move on, but what must be done to prevent the tragedy from happening again. This stood in stark contrast to current practices, which often involved half-baked solutions of the kind that do not require mental effort or energy.

 

 

; obviously, it was  

misery to languish. fade pondered the causes. did not look at the consequences It would, indeed, become the bedrock of his inner growth and intellectual development. Concerned societalists, by which we mean those who as not an ephemeral question posed in the spur of the moment

How do we know this? By the open-minded and closed-minded ways to look at the same information.

 

 

Yet, nothing scarred Saadeh more than to survive the war only to find his country fall into a greater adversity. The light at the end of the tunnel proved to be the light of an oncoming train. The dream towards which all his thoughts had converged, pounding his heart and soul, came to nothing. It dawned before his eyes like a nightmare. The empty promises ... the Balfour Declaration ... the Sykes-Picot Agreement ... the false pledges ... the political backstabbing ... the psychological intrigues ... the foreign avarice – all came together in a maddening crescendo. They proved stronger than the dream of the youthful Sa'adeh. The reality of desolation itself was more traumatic.

In politics, dreams and desires do not always match expectations. They do not cause harm to others, but they do not necessarily materialize into physical realities. We can dream as much as we like. We can have as many desires as we wish. But in the end dreams and desires may not get us too far in life. Without action they vanish into thin air or remain castles in the air. Action may not always fulfil our dreams and desires, but there can be no fulfilment without action.

For any young man nothing could be worse than to see his dreams go up in flames. The pain is doubly worse when everything else around unwittingly serves to bring it into clearer focus. If the spectacle of seeing his country being raped before his eyes is not enough, that of seeing its neighbours being spared is nothing less than gut-wrenching. To see Turkey emerge united under Ataturk; to see Iran regain its soul under Reza Shah; to see Egypt retain its territorial unity under the Khedive; to see the Arabian Peninsula revive under Islam; and, of course, to see Syria miss out altogether, is a sting to any pride. The old adage 'politics is a dirty game' could not be more true!

But all was not lost. There is always hope amid despair. And where there is hope, there is life. Hope fills us with fresh courage. It is what fuels us to be inquisitive and creative; it is what encourages us to take risks. The tide of hopefulness around Sa'adeh was all too powerful and visible to ignore. Yet, it did not dint his pride or rattle his confidence. He was simply too proud to let go, too stubborn to quit. His self-worth and defiant spirit would not allow it even he had tried.

The trick was to find good reasons for hope amid the gloom. It is not an easy undertaking by any stretch of the imagination. What chance is there of hope when everyone and everything around you is telling you “you have no hope;” when the powerful sages of the country were tumbling like dominoes to conceal their disappointment or to atone for their frustration; and when just about everyone in the country have given in to the temptation of blissful apathy or to the fake suspense of petty politics. It is not easy. It is painful, and it is wretched.

There is always an exception to the rule and the exception in this case was Sa'adeh. He was determined to make his hopes, not his hurts, to be the factor that would shape his future. His optimism was boundless - perhaps a bit immature, but irrepressible, nonetheless. Optimism and hope feed on each other. Hope begets optimism and optimism serves as a potent reminder that, even when we are at our rock bottom, there is no better substitute to hope.

However, before long, the great migration sweeping the land would carry Sa'adeh across great seas and oceans to another world. The 'New World' they used to call it. He had no say in the matter. It was purely a family exigency. What else could he do after the two most precious things in his life – the biological mother and the earthly mother - had been ripped away from him! Yet, a point will always come in one’s life when realism must transcend the boundaries of idealism. Otherwise, our idealism would spill into a kind of naïveté and an unwillingness to acknowledge reality and the weight of logic. The danger is to fall from idealism to cynicism. There is no power in cynicism.

 

CHAPTER II

BRAZIL

The journey to the 'New World' was simple enough but arduous. A stopover at Marseille - the port city in southern France founded by Sa'adeh's ancestors (the Phoenicians) in 600 B.C.E., then across the Pacific to Long Island, a short stay in the United States, and finally to Brazil. It sounds simple, doesn't it? Well, it is not. This is a voyage on the wild seas by a teenager at fifteen flanked by two younger siblings and with nothing else but the clothes on their backs. Such 'men' of mettle are rare. Yet, the entire challenge of the voyage dwarfed in significance for this teenager before the heartbreaking moment when the ship set sail and the homeland slowly disappeared behind the mist. Bewildered and perplexed, he could find no other means of consoling himself than to reflect on the vast sea around him:

"Do you know what this sea is called?" he asked his younger sibling.

"Sure. The Mediterranean."

"Correct. But did you also know that it used to be called the 'Syrian Sea'?"

It may come as a surprise to many, but it is true. Apparently, it goes back to the time when Hannibal ruled the waters of the Mediterranean from Carthage and everyone, including the Romans and the Greeks, dared not to swim in it without first obtaining his permission! A fable, perhaps. But one has only to consult the rare books and special collections at any library to realize that the Mediterranean was, indeed, called the 'Syrian Sea'. Still, how a teenager of fifteen could have known such a remote fact is a mystery. No one else seemed to have known it by any other name. The history books of the day called it the 'Mediterranean' as did historians far and near. A sneaking suspicion exists that some did know about the original name but, in their most inferior and disappointing guises, chose to distort it. This is not the conjecture of conspiracy theory, but a hard fact.

By invoking the old name, Sa'adeh more than reversed a negative trend: he rescued a historical fact from sinking deeper into eternal oblivion. It was the first service rendered to the country. Many more would come. The bond between the lad and his homeland was now complete and unbreakable.  

 

BRAZIL

Brazil was in the throes of an economic upswing. Everything about the country was exotic; the sights, architecture, environment, economy, health — everything. A perfect opportunity to make a quick buck and to flip the page to a new life. Any person in Sa’adeh’s position would have done exactly that, and that they did. Not Sa’adeh, though. The experience of the War had painfully ripped away layers of scales from his eyes and turned him into a man. It hardened his heart and made him wiser. It strengthened his faith and inspired his mind. Tragedies tend to have that type of effect on people. And so it was. Rather than capitulating, Sa’adeh turned the tribulation into a blessing. He stood his ground and did not flinch. The addiction to the homeland proved too strong and too resilient to shake-off.

From that point onward, nothing became as much of a compass in his life as the homeland. The proof is in the pudding. His first newspaper article, in 1920, was about the “Homeland” – so would almost every article thereafter. A single passage from that first article is sufficient to tune into his mood:

The Syrian does not tolerate abuse and, most certainly, does not want to be branded as a traitor. On the contrary, he loves his country and is devoted to it. However, love and devotion are not enough. What are important are the deeds that every person makes towards his homeland! These are the hopes that the homeland invests in its citizens and we must hope that providence will bring them to pass.

Once “Homeland” became firmly fixed in his mind, nothing could take him away from it. Nothing could come between them, or break the tie that bound them so closely together. Everything else after that became inconsequential and meaningless. The “Homeland” became the rallying point, the sacred icon, the landscape of all his action and thought. Ultimately, the “Homeland” - with all its twists and turns, trials and tribulations, needs and demands, joys and tragedies – would become the bedrock of his vision and he a willing instrument of that vision. It was not yet a glamorous vision, but a vision nonetheless. 

For one thing, the vision was all-encompassing. The “Homeland” was a place for everyone. No individual person or group was excluded. The land belonged to the ‘sons and daughters of the nation’ en toto. Actually, there was one proviso: the privilege was to be denied to those who violate or undermine its sanctity and unity. A perfectly legal and fair stipulation, but tucked deep within its folds and recesses is a range of implicit assumptions concerning the nature of its ownership. Logically, if the land belongs to everyone then it cannot be claimed by one race, one religion, or one ethnic group alone; its integrity requires voluntary collaboration among different races, religions, and ethnicities. No room existed for narrow loyalties and partial interests.

Steadfast, Sa’adeh turned to the task that awaited him. The vision haunted and drove him and kept him restless and brave. He was a hard man to please, but his devotion was single-minded and total. The task was a bit more daunting than usual, though. It demanded a very alert state of mind. It demanded more than part-time attention. It demanded the conversion of hearts and minds. And we all know how hard it can be to change people.

With so little to draw on, Sa’adeh turned to the only outlet available to him – writing. His creativity burst through in hundreds of articles. The vision assumed a more definite form. It turned into a plan, complete with a name: Syria. Not the diminutive ‘Syria’ we are accustomed to, but the ‘Syria’ of which Andre Parrot once said: "Every person has two homelands: His own and Syria." It is the ‘Syria’ of Butrus al-Bustani, that great educator who, in a moment of great despair, appealed to its inhabitants for common sense: ‘You (antum) drink one water, and you breath one air, and the language that you speak is one. Your land on which you walk and your welfare, your customs are one.’ It is the ‘Syria’ of Khalil Gibran, who was prepared to stake his life for its sake.

 

 A naive fantasy, so judged the sceptics. Hardly surprising.  Sceptics do not endorse the logic of vision; they do not realize that, in facing the harsh reality of injustices, people need a hope that comes from a vision; and they do not understand the power that a vision is capable of generating.

In times of despair and overwhelming adversity, when the souls are unsettled, only the strong and brave survive the journey. Those who swim with the tide get no further than the tide. Those who stand up and persevere get to ride the tide and the current as well. That’s how Sa’adeh understood life and he was not afraid to leave everything behind in order to follow his dream. And so the articles kept piling up, like snow, each article representing a complete triumph of one idea over another: Integration over segregation; Belongingness over isolation; Cooperation over competition; Inclusion over exclusion; Participation over ostracism; Totality over particularity; Tolerance over bigotry. Now, this may all sound like a poetry exercise. From a present-day perspective, it is just that. Integration, belongingness, cooperation, participation, tolerance, etc, are ideals we all take for granted. We may disagree over the substance, but only the fools and losers among us are likely to reject them outright.

The articles then shifted and morphed to root out every possible threat to the “Homeland.”

 

 

In Sa’adeh’s homeland there was a place for everyone. No individual person or group or sect or tribe or family or race or ethnicity was left out. The land belonged to them alone with no partners.

 

Those who swim with the tide get no further than the tide.

The “Homeland” was ‘Syria’, pure and simple - the Syria of which the historian Andre Parrot once said: "Every person has two homelands: His own and Syria." But why was it ‘Syria’ and not ‘Lebanon’ or the ‘Arab nation’ or the ‘Islamic umma’ or the ‘Ottoman state’ or the ‘Orient’ or ‘the Levant’ – names that were coming into vogue! This, indeed, is the mother of all questions.

The answer is not as bamboozling as one might think. Had Sa’adeh been a man of vogue it could easily have been this or that. Had he been a political opportunist it most likely would not have been Syria. Had he been a sectarian person it would probably have gone Lebanon’s way. Had he been an agent for some foreign country it would have been where that country’s interests lay. Being neither this nor that left “Homeland” as his only point of reference.

Of course, not everything in vogue is necessarily correct. In most cases, it is not. If something is in vogue, its life-span will almost definitely be ephemeral. What is in vogue today might not be trendy tomorrow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

: Turkey would emerge united under Ataturk; Iran would regain its soul under Reza Shah; Egypt would retain its unity; and the Arabian Peninsula would preserve its character. Nothing is worse for a young man than to see his dreams go up in flames.

 

 was scared by the war. from the study years at the Syrian Protestant College (later, the American University of Beirut), this Dr. Dray was a light in the midst of a web of darkness.  a  the Brummana Soup-Kitchen of Dr. . he would take with him in 1920.

The situation in the country was so irreparable that it defied all reasonable logic: social discord, religious sectarianism, backwardness, corruption, exploitation, to name a few. More than that, the country was carved up and under foreign rule, freedom of expression and freedom of association were proscribed, and political dissent was punishable. But all these problems fade in significance before the psychological hurdles:

The situation was one of desperation and fear. Espionage was widespread in all places and treachery concealed in every corner. Foreign armies were occupying the strategic positions, and the intelligence bureau was sending its agents into all milieus of the populace. People's thoughts were uneasy for they found themselves in a chaotic condition, which prevented mutual understanding. Everyone's spirits were in darkness and the future looked gloomy. The ordinary citizen had been reduced to sub-human level: he was unacquainted with the past, unable to comprehend the present, or perceive the future, and unwilling to share with others his true opinion, if he dared to think at all.

 

It sounds far-fetched, even bazaar, but it is true. However, it does beg the question: what type of person would be gain _ or foolish -enough to leave behind him a life of comfort, security and potential enrichment to take on a nightmare scenario of such proportion?

Practically penniless and unknown, Sa'adeh had only one credential _ a penetrating intellect and an indomitable will that would not be deviated by an inch from the appointed path. But in a world in which power and politics reigned supreme and personal gifts were an afterthought, this credential counted almost for nothing. Pessimism and sarcasm in the country was such that on announcing his 'intentions' the ridicule rained down on Sa'adeh like hailstones: ‘Fine! Then set out right away to the local cemetery, dig up some corpses and blow life back into them because it is easier to bring the dead back to life than to work with this people who are more dead than alive. If this is the purpose for which you have come back, my advice to you is return from where you came from. Others added to the gloom by posting one grumble after another.

No one wanted to have anything to do with Sa'adeh. He was stepping into totally unfamiliar territory and raising the stakes far too high and too quickly. He was acting in opposition to the duly determined majority will. Nobody knew what to make of his plan: was it motivated by a lust for power and prestige? Was it an expression of a hidden agenda? Was it induced by despair or pathological hatred? Was it the product of such narrowness of mind that it could almost be called insanity? Everyone around Sa'adeh seemed to think so. He appeared to them like a fictional character out of this world, yet he was right there in flesh and blood. Nothing seemed to make sense. He felt at home in their presence; they felt strangers in his. That was a good part of what put them off.

 

Anyone else would have packed his bag then and there and left on the first ship out of the country. But Sa'adeh was too proud to let go. He was organically made to lead and simply could not allow such talk affect him. Nothing to him was worse than sentimentality. With unflinching logic he declared: "There is a latent power inside you which, if unleashed, could change the course of history._ No one took him seriously. The language was out of character. It was sheer heresy. No one was in the mood for big talk. Sa'adeh did not crack up. His capacity for leadership lay as much in his ability to listen as in his ability to speak. He listened and listened until the right opportunity came along. His perseverance paid off: a handful of people agreed to come along with him on the most perilous adventure of their life. The plan was simple enough: to take on the might of the existing order through a ‘Party_ of devoted, dedicated, selfless, even puritan men and women, united in a common cause. It was no easy task by any stretch of the imagination, but the power of Sa'adeh's thought, his single mindedness of purpose, and the trenchancy of his analyses carried the day through. The idea grew into a vision, the vision into a party, and the party into a living organ. Not a lifeless dogma, but a vision for action. After that there was no turning back. Everything else was now trifles, hypocrisy, "parson's talk._ Victory was the only commandment to observe.

As the ‘vision_ bound for the rough and tumble of realpolitik, success, at least for the interim period, now depended largely on the person in charge _ Sa'adeh. After all, he was the independent creative spirit behind the enterprise. He did not disappoint, just as well. A brilliant orator, Sa'adeh turned out to be a hardy leader of the kind that inspire courage and forestall panic. Through personal examples he led the group to a safer spot, across a territory dotted with landmines, bringing it to its senses in periods of high exaltation and keeping it focused when it is extremely easy to become conceited. At this point, Sa'adeh ceased to be the uthtaz (the Professor). He became al-qa'id al-umm (General Commander), and, then, az-zaim (The Leader), a title that did not intend the subjugation of the people to a tyranny, as most people wrongly and unfairly suspected. Nor was it divinely anointed.

Through a long series of years, Sa'adeh was able to build something out of nothing. It was achieved without the power of money or politics. A matchless affection for the moral truth was crucial, though:

 

Every political or military plan, no matter how complete it is, cannot be realized except through morals that can support it. By this I mean resilient morals that incorporate such things as intense belief, will power, perseverance, and the realization that principles are more important than life itself. This is because human life without human principles that man can hold on to and built his personality and sense of existence, is worthless: it is equivalent to barbaric life. At all levels of national and political activity in our country, every group and milieu that failed to develop a moral system with which to coordinate their actions and policies have ended in failure, disappointment, and confusion.

Amiable, good-natured, cheerful, and polite, as a good leader should be, Sa'adeh was a moralist of the highest caliber. He declared: "Every system needs morals. In fact, morals are at the core of every system if it is to succeed. That was a good part of the reason why he could not ‘fit in.

Secrecy was his other main weapon. It was not eternal, nor was it intended to be. In politics, secrets are hard to keep. Sa'adeh knew all along that his secret was destined to come out. He even planned for the 'when' and 'how'. But things don't always turn out as planned. Someone let the cat out of the bag before the big day. No one knew who it was. No one really cared to know. The secret was out; the rules of the game changed. This was more urgent than attempting to settle scores. Logic prevailed. It had to. The enemies were at the door. They were as plentiful as the stars in the sky.

Nothing could prepare Sa'adeh for what lay ahead. His enemies proved to be as relentless as he was. They were understandably outraged by his feat and equally shocked by his courage to venture where others had always feared to tread. He was given a simple ultimatum _ recant or face the consequences. The answer came back just as swiftly: recant, never. The wolves closed in for the kill. Heads began to roll. Sa'adeh stood his ground. He had done nothing wrong. He had none of the usual qualities or appearances normally taken to mark a dangerous radical. Argumentative, yes; testy, yes; uncompromising, yes; but these were hardly grounds for shoving him out of the way.

When all else failed, the wolves turned to the 'oldest form of mass media' -rumor mongering. They invoked the perennial maxim "if you want to destroy somebody, spread rumors about them._ No stone was left unturned. Sa'adeh ceased to be a human being, a citizen of the state, a member of the population. He was made inherently heinous and evil. The rumors spread like wildfire. They were nasty but preposterous all the same. Some of them were repeated almost verbatim reminiscent of Goebbels' famous words: "If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it." Sa'adeh was reduced to a ‘madman_ -a pejorative diagnosis but, nonetheless, true. It takes a ‘madman_ to take on such a mammoth project and stand up to ruthless politicians who will go to whatever lengths necessary to stay in power.

To deceive him intentionally, to calumniate him, to blacken his name, all this Sa'adeh considered as normal. In fact, it would be hard to exceed the cynical brutality with which he faced all this. He came out fighting like a lion as if there was no tomorrow. No gossipry or nasty innuendos, just words of gentle admonition used to great effect. One example would suffice:

The problems of heaven are solved in heaven. They are problems between the individual and God, not between one group and another. Therefore, it is useless for the groups to fight each other over Heaven since it is God who will pass the final judgment on the Day of Resurrection, and it is Him that the people believe in. We cannot win the earth if we are fighting among each other for Heaven. History is replete with examples that support this observation. If we want to win the earth we must fight for it as united ranks. When we win earth we will win the Heavens. There can be no goodness or progress except on earth. The contemptible will languish before the dignified and those who win the land will wear out those who failed to look after it. The path to the Heavens requires progress not decadence. It should be entered in honor, not in disgrace. So look after your country and protect your land because heaven and earth are on it.

 

Nevertheless, the populace was spellbound by the rumors, and understandably so. Rumors make more fascinating reading than ideas and programs. They require neither intellectual exertion nor creative brainstorming. In the end the truth prevailed. Sa'adeh proved too elusive and too indefatigable for the head¬hunters. He evoked even stronger feelings when he announced that he would never surrender and would fight on to victory:

Even if they succeed in eliminating hundreds of us they can never eliminate the immortal truth that lives in our souls. They can never eliminate the rest of us who want to establish truth and crush falsehood. Victory will inevitably be on our side whether in our lifetime or after we have died. We are neither afraid nor fearful of death.

 

With the same corresponding affection he told his supporters: "Your age is the age of heroism. Do not abandon the path of heroism and succumb to the illusive path of compromise."

However, it is one of the iron laws of nature that when charismatic leaders elicit strong positive feelings among their supporters, they also elicit strong negative feelings among their opponents. Sa'adeh found that out quickly. In next to no time his opponents snapped back at him with greater vengeance and ferocity. The attack assumed a more subtle form; yet, the basic intention remained the same: to silence Sa'adeh or to drive him out. Dialogue was ruled out. Sword and words don't cross. When the only language you know and believe in is the language of the sword, words take backseat. Sa'adeh was driven out: not for nine weeks, not for nine months, but for a whole nine years. An exile without return was the intended purpose, but the plan backfired.

Nine years later and Sa'adeh was back, stronger, wiser and more farsighted than before. To this day, people still talk about the monster welcome he received on the day of his homecoming. They came in hordes from far and wide _ Jordan, Palestine, al-Sham, and from every corner of Lebanon -to catch a glimpse of him. He reciprocated, as only great leaders do, with a resounding speech. "I am instructing you to return to the field of battle," he told the crowd. A massive bombshell of an announcement! But it was not exactly music to his opponents' ears. It stung them hard and deep. They thought that after all these years his tone would have mellowed and became less rasping, pugnacious, and brutal. He proved them wrong.

Trouble was not long in arriving. A warrant for his arrest was issued; a substantial reward for his capture, dead or alive, was posted; the armed forces were put on alert; the loyal press was armed with smutty innuendos; the whole country was brought to a standstill _ all because the man had dared to speak out, to question, to challenge, to defy, to swim against the tide. It was more than a sheer display of force. It was a declaration of war. They turned on him like vengeful demons. But Sa'adeh was unrepentant. His consecration to the cause was deep. Absolutely nothing, not even a death threat, would deflect him from the path of his objective duty.

Before long a truce was arranged. Sa'adeh returned to the things he knew best and his opponents marked time until they could take strike again. The tit-for-tat went on for almost two years. It turned into a marathon feud. Neither side was prepared to budge, to capitulate, to give an inch. But as with all feuds, it had to end somewhere, somehow. As soon as a catalyst came along the feud shifted into overdrive. Both sides decided to take their mutual antipathy with them into the street. A battle ensued. Sa'adeh stood his ground, but the onslaught continued. His enemies were on a mission to win, but not only that win convincingly. Events moved too quickly to the fall. Sa'adeh was besieged. Heavy guns turned on him. Some barrages aimed at his public record while others raked his personal history. Nothing turned up. The record was clean as a whistle. The bar was raised higher and higher with each sequel, but to no avail. Sa'adeh again proved invincible, but the never-ending rounds of intimidation, demotion, rejection, exile, and sneering took their toll. It pushed him to the brink of exhaustion.

Undeterred, Sa'adeh went on the offensive. This is where he had always belonged and always liked so much to be. He did not dread the prospect of defeat as long as it came after a fight. His own words attest to that:

 

If we have to fall, we must do so in a way that befits free men, not in ways that befit slaves& Those who cannot bear any demands on them, they sink down, succumb and collapse. Few will cry for them. They fall as the butt of all men's contempt and ridicule. They fall in surrender to the degradation they earned. They fall having destroyed themselves before they are destroyed by others.

 

We are in our attitudes very negative in life, that is, we do
not accept any accomplished fact imposed on us or any
condition determined for us from outside.
We are not weak except if we choose to be weak, if we choose to
accept the circumstances that others have contrived or the
events that have been imposed on us, and if we choose to
resignedly accept the material and ethical decline, which
cannot be avoided so long as we have capitulated.
Those who fall in battle without surrender may have been
beaten but not conquered.
The ones who are truly conquered are those who surrender and accept lives of degradation.
Woe to the capitulators who reject struggle and thereby reject freedom gaining only the slavery they deserve.

 

Sa'adeh took the fight right up to his enemies. He challenged them on their own turf, even offered them a one on one fight. The offer was turned down. It was too little too late. His fate had been sealed long before then. What transpired next was the stuff of a Greek tragedy: in a most despicable act of treachery, Sa'adeh was betrayed by his own ally, bundled and surrendered to his enemies, incarcerated, interrogated, tried, and executed in no less than forty eight hours. A world record that stands uncontested to this day!

Thus ended the life of Antun Sa'adeh, a life lived in struggle and honor. He suffered beyond description but he never relaxed his monumental self discipline. He never lost his grip for one visible second, never permitted any blow to blunt the edge of his faith, his logic or his vision. With Sa'adeh, wrote the Lebanese literati Kamel al-Haj, "politics became a stepladder for the greater and loftier things in life & It ceased to be a distraction pursued for its own sake, and became an inspiration and an experience._ Indeed, the objects of petty politics never did interest Sa'adeh. He was more into the significant and the beneficial. That is why he has gone down to posterity as a great man, one of the few men who ever wrote history as brilliantly as he made it.