Maarouf Saad ( ar, معروف سعد) (1910
[. Maarouf Saad Cultural Center.] or 1914
–6 March 1975) was a
Lebanese politician and activist. He served as Sidon's representative in the
Parliament of Lebanon
The Lebanese Parliament ( ar, مجلس النواب, translit=Majlis an-Nuwwab; french: Chambre des députés) is the national parliament of the Republic of Lebanon. There are 128 members elected to a four-year term in multi-member consti ...
between 1957 and 1972. He founded the
Popular Nasserite Organization in 1973. Saad was known to have a charismatic and populist relationship with the residents of Sidon and the adjacent
Palestinian refugee camps
Camps are set up by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to accommodate Palestinian refugees registered with UNRWA, who fled or were expelled during the 1948 Palestinian ...
, according to historian Samir Khalaf. Nonetheless, tensions developed between Saad and the
Palestine Liberation Organization in the 1970s as they competed for influence in Sidon. Saad's assassination sparked the
Lebanese Civil War
The Lebanese Civil War ( ar, الحرب الأهلية اللبنانية, translit=Al-Ḥarb al-Ahliyyah al-Libnāniyyah) was a multifaceted armed conflict that took place from 1975 to 1990. It resulted in an estimated 120,000 fatalities a ...
, and he is considered by many historians the conflict's first casualty.
[Dib, p. 259.]
Early life
![Arab rebels during 1936 Palestine revolt](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/54/Arab_rebels_during_1936_Palestine_revolt.jpg)
Saad was born to a
Sunni Muslim family in Sidon in 1910
or 1914.
[Zuwiyya, 1972, p. 62.] Unlike most of his political colleagues and rivals, Saad hailed from modest origins.
[Khalaf, 2013, p. 136.] According to the Maarouf Saad Cultural Center, he received his primary education at the Sidon Evangelical School and attended the Universal College of Aley, graduating in 1929. In 1930, he became a teacher, working in Lebanon,
Palestine and
Syria between then and 1936.
That year, he took part in organizing
Palestinian Arab
Palestinians ( ar, الفلسطينيون, ; he, פָלַסְטִינִים, ) or Palestinian people ( ar, الشعب الفلسطيني, label=none, ), also referred to as Palestinian Arabs ( ar, الفلسطينيين العرب, label=non ...
rebel activity in the
revolt against the
British authorities in Palestine.
However, according to historian Samir Khalaf, when Saad left Lebanon to volunteer with the rebels in 1936, it was during the middle of his secondary schooling, not before he graduated.
He served with
Abd al-Rahim al-Hajj Muhammad's ''fasa'il'' (guerrilla unit). He was imprisoned by the British authorities
and released in 1937.
On his return to Lebanon, he helped organize activity against the French authorities in the country. He was consequently jailed in 1940, and released in 1944 (according to the MSCC)
or 1945 (according to Khalaf). In 1945, he became a protege of the nationalist leader
Riad al-Solh.
As he grew close to al-Solh in 1945, Saad was accepted into the security forces as a police officer. He served this role until 1957.
In the early 1950s, Saad also worked as an athletics educator in Sidon's Maqased Benevolent Society. He had close relations with the
Palestinian refugees
Palestinian refugees are citizens of Mandatory Palestine, and their descendants, who fled or were expelled from their country over the course of the 1947–49 Palestine war (1948 Palestinian exodus) and the Six-Day War (1967 Palestinian exodu ...
who were present in the Sidon area in large numbers. He supported them politically and otherwise, while the Palestinian militias in turn offered him their backing. In the second half of the decade he became a staunch political follower of
Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...
ian President
Gamal Abdel Nasser, who was seen by the general Arab population as the paramount leader of the
pan-Arabist
Pan-Arabism ( ar, الوحدة العربية or ) is an ideology that espouses the unification of the countries of North Africa and Western Asia from the Atlantic Ocean to the Arabian Sea, which is referred to as the Arab world. It is closely c ...
movement at the time.
Political career
Early years
In 1957, Saad was elected to represent Sidon in the
Parliament of Lebanon
The Lebanese Parliament ( ar, مجلس النواب, translit=Majlis an-Nuwwab; french: Chambre des députés) is the national parliament of the Republic of Lebanon. There are 128 members elected to a four-year term in multi-member consti ...
, beating his opponent Nazih al-Bizri. In 1958, tensions between the mostly Muslim and
Druze opposition and the mostly Christian supporters of President
Camille Chamoun
Camille Nimr Chamoun OM, ONC ( ar, كميل نمر شمعون, ''Kamīl Sham'ūn''; 3 April 1900 – 7 August 1987) was a Lebanese politician who served as President of Lebanon from 1952 to 1958. He was one of the country's main Christi ...
—stemming from Chamoun's enmity with the
United Arab Republic
The United Arab Republic (UAR; ar, الجمهورية العربية المتحدة, al-Jumhūrīyah al-'Arabīyah al-Muttaḥidah) was a sovereign state in the Middle East from 1958 until 1971. It was initially a political union between Eg ...
(a union between Egypt and Syria established in February), the government's attempts at containing political opposition, and the deployment of the
US Sixth Fleet
The Sixth Fleet is a numbered fleet of the United States Navy operating as part of United States Naval Forces Europe. The Sixth Fleet is headquartered at Naval Support Activity Naples, Italy. The officially stated mission of the Sixth Fleet in ...
—erupted into countrywide
civil strife
Civil disorder, also known as civil disturbance, civil unrest, or social unrest is a situation arising from a mass act of civil disobedience (such as a demonstration, riot, strike, or unlawful assembly) in which law enforcement has difficulty ...
in May.
Saad was among many Lebanese notables from the United National Front opposition coalition to have visited
Damascus and congratulated UAR President Nasser on the union's formation.
Saad used his Lebanese support base and allied Palestinian militias to gather arms and organize a defense of Sidon from government control, which he accomplished with ease. He headed a central command that oversaw an array of committees such as security, courts, military training and propaganda. With over 1,000 militiamen under his command, Saad led successful skirmishes against pro-government forces and prevented all government attempts at entering Sidon for the five-month duration of the crisis. While he frequently dispatched some of his men to aid opposition forces in neighboring areas, Saad's forces rarely launched attacks against regions outside Sidon.
Saad regarded the 1958 crisis a "popular armed uprising", claiming the opposition was forced into it after initially advocating a general strike to pressure Chamoun to step down from the presidency.
![Maarouf Saad and Nasser, 1967](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1a/Maarouf_Saad_and_Nasser%2C_1967.jpg)
In the 1968 election he won the highest number of votes for the Sidon seat, defeating Bizri for the fourth consecutive time. While Bizri gained the support of most of the city's middle and upper classes and had the backing of the government, Saad—who normally represented the opposition to the national government—drew substantial support from Sidon's poorer residents.
During his time in parliament, Saad was noted for his support for the cause of
social justice
Social justice is justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, Equal opportunity, opportunities, and Social privilege, privileges within a society. In Western Civilization, Western and Culture of Asia, Asian cultures, the concept of social ...
and the
Palestinian right of return. In Sidon, Saad gained a reputation for being a staunch opponent of discrimination and promoter of a comprehensive peace and social justice in the country. He co-founded the international Assembly of World Peace and helped contribute to the Organization for Solidarity of Asian and African People.
Wane of influence and tensions with PLO
While Saad was one of the staunchest Lebanese supporters of the Palestinian cause, he was also a critic of the PLO guerrillas' increasingly defiant attempts to gain control over Sidon, where Saad was traditionally dominant. In 1969 he was sharply criticized by the
as-Saiqa, a Syrian-backed faction of the PLO, for not agreeing to support their fighters during a shootout with the
Lebanese Army.
[Khazen, 2000, p. 277.]
In August 1970, a group of PLO guerrillas from the
Fatah and as-Saiqa factions based in the nearby
Ain al-Hilweh
Ain al-Hilweh ( ar, عين الحلوة, lit. meaning "sweet natural spring"), also spelled as Ayn al-Hilweh and Ein al-Hilweh, is the largest Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon. It had a population of over 70,000 Palestinian refugees but swell ...
camp came into conflict with Saad's Nasserist partisans, resulting in the death of one Nasserist fighter. The guerillas subsequently detained Saad in the camp and shut down his supporters' office in Sidon. A general strike in the area was declared as protest to Saad's detention and calls by incensed residents for the closing of guerrilla offices in Sidon were made. Saad was consequently released days later after intervention by an envoy sent by President Nasser.
Saad lost the 1972 parliamentary election. He alleged that Prime Minister
Saeb Salam
Saeb Salam (17 January 1905 – 21 January 2000) ( ar, صائب سلام) was a Lebanese politician, who served as Prime Minister six times between 1952 and 1973. Following his death, the Lebanese daily ''As-Safir'' described Salam as "most ...
's support for Bizri in retaliation for Saad's participation in anti-government protests prior to the election caused his defeat. However, Salam's support for Bizri was only a partial reason for Saad's loss of votes. Another factor was that the roughly 1,000 voters of Palestinian origin in Sidon switched from their traditional support for Saad to Bizri during the election. By that time, the PLO had become much stronger in the area and did not require the political cover Saad had traditionally lent them. This became another source of tension between Saad and the PLO, who were then targeting Saad's traditional voting base: the pan-Arabist sympathizers of the Old City of Sidon and local leftists. This also contributed to the waning of Saad's reputation as the "man of the people" in the city.
Saad had become the chairman of Sidon's municipal council in the early 1970s,
[Joint Publications Services, 1975, p. 71.] in effect becoming its mayor. However, Salam ordered the council dissolved in 1973 to Saad's protestations.
That year, Saad founded the
Popular Nasserite Organization, a group espousing
Arab nationalism
Arab nationalism ( ar, القومية العربية, al-Qawmīya al-ʿArabīya) is a nationalist ideology that asserts the Arabs are a nation and promotes the unity of Arab people, celebrating the glories of Arab civilization, the language a ...
and socialism in the
tradition of Nasser,
who died in September 1970. He also headed Sidon's fishermen's union.
[Lebanon Bomb Critically Wounds Militia Leader](_blank)
''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
''. 21 January 1985. Relations between Sidon's residents and the government grew increasingly tense, partly a result of Saad's own increasingly antagonistic relationship with the national government.
Death and aftermath
In late 1974, the fishing enterprise Protéine, owned by former president and Saad opponent Chamoun, attempted to streamline fishing off of Sidon's coast,
and monopolize the fish trade there.
[Mardelli, p. 260.] Chamoun offered to salary some of Sidon's unionized fishermen, but they largely objected. Pressured by his popular base,
Saad organized a general strike and large demonstrations against Protéine's announced move on 26 February 1975. He declared he was defending his "hometown's downtrodden poor".
During the protests, Saad was shot and severely wounded, reportedly by a
Lebanese Army sniper.
He died of his injury in a Beirut hospital
[Khazen, 2000, p. 268.] on 6 March.
Saad's killing brought his family and the
PNO widespread public sympathy and boosted their reputation among the Lebanese left and the Sunni Muslim community.
Despite his previous tensions with the PLO, Saad's funeral in Sidon on 7 March became a scene of Lebanese-Palestinian solidarity and was the second largest public show of support for the PLO in Lebanese history,
quickly becoming a huge anti-government protest. Subsequently, countrywide small-scale clashes erupted between Saad's supporters—Lebanese and Palestinian, including the PLO—and the Lebanese Army.
Sidon was shut down for weeks because of the violence and a bomb destroyed Protéine's office in Beirut. By late March, 19 people had died in the confrontations.
By 13 April, the skirmishes evolved into open warfare between rival forces in the country.
Saad's assassination is attributed by many analysts to have been the spark that set off the
Lebanese Civil War
The Lebanese Civil War ( ar, الحرب الأهلية اللبنانية, translit=Al-Ḥarb al-Ahliyyah al-Libnāniyyah) was a multifaceted armed conflict that took place from 1975 to 1990. It resulted in an estimated 120,000 fatalities a ...
,
or at least one of its chief catalysts. It is more generally accepted that the
attack on a Palestinian bus by
Phalangist
The Kataeb Party ( ar, حزب الكتائب اللبنانية '), also known in English as the Phalanges, is a Christian political party in Lebanon. The party played a major role in the Lebanese Civil War (1975–1990). In decline in the la ...
militiamen a few weeks after Saad's death marked the beginning of the civil war.
Personal life
Saad had two sons,
Mustafa
Mustafa ( ar, مصطفى
, Muṣṭafā) is one of the names of Prophet Muhammad, and the name means "chosen, selected, appointed, preferred", used as an Arabic given name and surname. Mustafa is a common name in the Muslim world.
Given name Mou ...
and
Ousama, and five daughters,
Mona, Jamileh Saad Younes,
Wafaa, Shahnaz Saad and Roula Saad, some of whom became involved to various degrees in Lebanese politics as part of the PNO. Mustafa served in the Lebanese parliament until his death in 2002 and during the civil war, founded a military wing for the PNO. Ousama succeeded his brother as Sidon's MP after his death and was reelected in 2005. He lost to the
Future Movement
The Future Movement ( ar, تيار المستقبل) is a Lebanese political party affiliated with the Sunni sect. The party was founded as a coalition in 1995 led by Rafic Hariri but was officially founded in 2007. The party is led by Saad Har ...
candidate in 2009, but stayed the secretary-general of the PNO and maintained an active Nasserist presence in the city of
Sidon
Sidon ( ; he, צִידוֹן, ''Ṣīḏōn'') known locally as Sayda or Saida ( ar, صيدا ''Ṣaydā''), is the third-largest city in Lebanon. It is located in the South Governorate, of which it is the capital, on the Mediterranean coast. ...
within the broad March 8 coalition in Lebanese politics. On 6 May 2018, he took advantage of the new electoral law and was reelected to the parliament. Meanwhile, Mona Saad continues to head th
Maarouf Saad Social and Cultural Foundation [Zaatari, Mohamed]
Ousama Saad declares he will stand in vacated Sidon seat
'' The Daily Star''. 29 July 2002.
See also
*
List of assassinated Lebanese politicians
This is a list of many, but not all, of the assassinated Lebanese political figures:
*Amine Abouchahine - senior member of the Progressive Socialist Party. Assassinated on 15 July 1975 by a member of the Kataeb Regulatory Forces.
*Sheikh Ahmad A ...
*
Osama Saad
*
List of political families in Lebanon
References
Bibliography
*
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Saad, Maarouf
1910s births
1975 deaths
People from Sidon
People from Beirut vilayet
Lebanese Sunni Muslims
Assassinated Lebanese politicians
Lebanese Arab nationalists
Lebanese socialists
Members of the Parliament of Lebanon
Nasserists
People of the Lebanese Civil War
Popular Nasserist Organization politicians