The Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP) or is a
Syrian nationalist
Syrian nationalism, also known as Pan-Syrian nationalism (or pan-Syrianism), refers to the nationalism of the region of Syria, as a cultural or political entity known as " Greater Syria".
It should not be confused with the Arab nationalism that ...
party operating in
Syria
Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...
,
Lebanon
Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to the north and east and Israel to the south, while Cyprus li ...
,
Jordan
Jordan ( ar, الأردن; tr. ' ), officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan,; tr. ' is a country in Western Asia. It is situated at the crossroads of Asia, Africa, and Europe, within the Levant region, on the East Bank of the Jordan Rive ...
, and
Palestine
__NOTOC__
Palestine may refer to:
* State of Palestine, a state in Western Asia
* Palestine (region), a geographic region in Western Asia
* Palestinian territories, territories occupied by Israel since 1967, namely the West Bank (including East ...
. It advocates the establishment of a
Greater Syrian
nation state
A nation state is a political unit where the state and nation are congruent. It is a more precise concept than "country", since a country does not need to have a predominant ethnic group.
A nation, in the sense of a common ethnicity, may inc ...
spanning the
Fertile Crescent
The Fertile Crescent ( ar, الهلال الخصيب) is a crescent-shaped region in the Middle East, spanning modern-day Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine and Jordan, together with the northern region of Kuwait, southeastern region of ...
, including present-day Syria, Lebanon, Iraq,
Kuwait
Kuwait (; ar, الكويت ', or ), officially the State of Kuwait ( ar, دولة الكويت '), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated in the northern edge of Eastern Arabia at the tip of the Persian Gulf, bordering Iraq to the nort ...
, Jordan, Palestine,
Cyprus
Cyprus ; tr, Kıbrıs (), officially the Republic of Cyprus,, , lit: Republic of Cyprus is an island country located south of the Anatolian Peninsula in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Its continental position is disputed; while it is geo ...
,
Sinai
Sinai commonly refers to:
* Sinai Peninsula, Egypt
* Mount Sinai, a mountain in the Sinai Peninsula, Egypt
* Biblical Mount Sinai, the site in the Bible where Moses received the Law of God
Sinai may also refer to:
* Sinai, South Dakota, a place ...
,
Hatay Province
Hatay Province ( tr, Hatay ili, ) is the southernmost province of Turkey. It is situated almost entirely outside Anatolia, along the eastern coast of the Levantine Sea. The province borders Syria to its south and east, the Turkish province of A ...
, and
Cilicia
Cilicia (); el, Κιλικία, ''Kilikía''; Middle Persian: ''klkyʾy'' (''Klikiyā''); Parthian: ''kylkyʾ'' (''Kilikiyā''); tr, Kilikya). is a geographical region in southern Anatolia in Turkey, extending inland from the northeastern coa ...
, based on geographical boundaries and the common history people within the boundaries share. It has also been active in the Syrian and Lebanese diaspora, for example in
South America
South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the southe ...
with over 100,000 members as of 2016, it is the second-largest legal political group in Syria after the ruling
Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party.
Founded in
Beirut
Beirut, french: Beyrouth is the capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, which makes it the third-largest city in the Levant region. The city is situated on a peninsula at the midpoint o ...
in 1932
by the Greek Orthodox Lebanese intellectual
Antoun Saadeh
Antoun Saadeh ( ar, أنطون سعادة, ʾAnṭūn Saʿādah; 1 March 1904 – 8 July 1949) was a Lebanese politician, philosopher and writer who founded the Syrian Social Nationalist Party.
Life and career Early life
Saadeh was born in 19 ...
as an
anticolonial
Decolonization or decolonisation is the undoing of colonialism, the latter being the process whereby imperial nations establish and dominate foreign territories, often overseas. Some scholars of decolonization focus especially on separatism, in ...
and
national liberation
Wars of national liberation or national liberation revolutions are conflicts fought by nations to gain independence. The term is used in conjunction with wars against foreign powers (or at least those perceived as foreign) to establish separat ...
organization hostile to
French colonialism
The French colonial empire () comprised the overseas colonies, protectorates and mandate territories that came under French rule from the 16th century onward. A distinction is generally made between the "First French Colonial Empire", that existe ...
, the party played a significant role in Lebanese politics and was involved in attempted
coups d'état in 1949 and 1961, following which it was thoroughly repressed. It was active in resistance against the
1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon and the subsequent occupation of southern Lebanon until 2000, while continuously supporting the Syrian presence in Lebanon out of belief in Syrian
irredentism
Irredentism is usually understood as a desire that one state annexes a territory of a neighboring state. This desire is motivated by ethnic reasons (because the population of the territory is ethnically similar to the population of the parent sta ...
.
In Syria, the SSNP had become a major
syncretic
Syncretism () is the practice of combining different beliefs and various schools of thought. Syncretism involves the merging or assimilation of several originally discrete traditions, especially in the theology and mythology of religion, thu ...
political force in the early 1950s, but was thoroughly repressed in 1955–56. It remained organized, and by the late 1990s had allied itself with the
Palestine Liberation Organisation
The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO; ar, منظمة التحرير الفلسطينية, ') is a Palestinian nationalist political and militant organization founded in 1964 with the initial purpose of establishing Arab unity and sta ...
and the
Lebanese Communist Party
The Lebanese Communist Party (LCP), abbr. PCL is a communist party in Lebanon. It was founded in 1924 by the Lebanese intellectual, writer and reporter Yusuf Yazbek and Fu'ad al-Shamali, a tobacco worker from Bikfaya.
History
Creation
The Syr ...
, despite the ideological differences between them. The SSNP was legalized in Syria in 2005, and joined the Ba'ath Party-led
National Progressive Front. From 2012 to 6 May 2014, the party was part of the
Popular Front for Change and Liberation
The Popular Front for Change and Liberation ( ar, الجبهة الشعبية للتحرير والتغيير, ''al-Jabha aš-š‘abiyya li'l-taghayyir wa'l-taḥrīr'') is a coalition of Syrian political parties and is the leader of the official ...
. During the course of the
Syrian Civil War, the party has become more prominent in Syria, where almost 12,000 fighters of the party's armed branch, the
Eagles of the Whirlwind
The Eagles of Whirlwind ( ar, نسور الزوبعة, ''Nusour al Zawba'a'') are the armed wing of the Syrian Social National Party. Around 6,000 to 8,000 men strong, they have participated in many battles and operations throughout the Syrian ci ...
, have fought alongside the
Syrian Armed Forces
The Syrian Arab Armed Forces ( ar, الْقُوَّاتُ الْمُسَلَّحَةُ الْعَرَبِيَّةُ السُّورِيَّةُ, al-Quwwāt al-Musallaḥah al-ʿArabīyah as-Sūrīyah) are the military forces of the Syrian Arab Re ...
against the
Syrian opposition
The Syrian opposition ( ar, المعارضة السورية ', ) is the political structure represented by the Syrian National Coalition and associated Syrian anti-Assad groups with certain territorial control as an alternative Syrian gover ...
and the
Islamic State
An Islamic state is a State (polity), state that has a form of government based on sharia, Islamic law (sharia). As a term, it has been used to describe various historical Polity, polities and theories of governance in the Islamic world. As a t ...
.
Background
Early Syrian nationalists
In the mid-nineteenth century
Butrus al-Bustani
Butrus al-Bustani ( ar, بطرس البستاني, ; 1819–1883) was a writer and scholar from present day Lebanon. He was a major figure in the Nahda, which began in Egypt in the late 19th century and spread to the Middle East.
He is consi ...
was one of the first to assert the existence of a
natural Syrian nation that should be accommodated in a reformed
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...
. He belonged to the
Nahda
The Nahda ( ar, النهضة, translit=an-nahḍa, meaning "the Awakening"), also referred to as the Arab Awakening or Enlightenment, was a cultural movement that flourished in Arabic-speaking regions of the Ottoman Empire, notably in Egypt, Leb ...
, thinkers influenced by the
Arabic Literary Renaissance and the
French Revolution
The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considere ...
and who wished to shape the
Tanzimat
The Tanzimat (; ota, تنظيمات, translit=Tanzimāt, lit=Reorganization, ''see'' nizām) was a period of reform in the Ottoman Empire that began with the Gülhane Hatt-ı Şerif in 1839 and ended with the First Constitutional Era in 1876. ...
reforms, which were an attempt to introduce a
constitutional monarchy
A constitutional monarchy, parliamentary monarchy, or democratic monarchy is a form of monarchy in which the monarch exercises their authority in accordance with a constitution and is not alone in decision making. Constitutional monarchies dif ...
with
religious freedom
Freedom of religion or religious liberty is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or community, in public or private, to manifest religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship, and observance. It also includes the freedom ...
to reverse the Ottoman state's creeping economic marginalisation and which would lead to the
Young Turks and the
Second Constitutional Era
The Second Constitutional Era ( ota, ایكنجی مشروطیت دورى; tr, İkinci Meşrutiyet Devri) was the period of restored parliamentary rule in the Ottoman Empire between the 1908 Young Turk Revolution and the 1920 dissolution of the G ...
.
An influential follower of al-Bustani was the Belgian
Jesuit
, image = Ihs-logo.svg
, image_size = 175px
, caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits
, abbreviation = SJ
, nickname = Jesuits
, formation =
, founders ...
historian,
Henri Lammens
Henri Lammens (1 Jul 1862 – 23 Apr 1937) was a Belgian Orientalist historian and Jesuit, who wrote (in French) on the early history of Islam.
Education and career as a Jesuit
Born in Ghent, Belgium of Catholic Flemish stock, Henri Lammens joi ...
, ordained as a priest in Beirut in 1893, who claimed that Greater Syria had since
ancient times
Ancient history is a time period from the beginning of writing and recorded human history to as far as late antiquity. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, beginning with the Sumerian cuneiform script. Ancient history cov ...
encompassed all the land between the
Arab peninsula
The Arabian Peninsula, (; ar, شِبْهُ الْجَزِيرَةِ الْعَرَبِيَّة, , "Arabian Peninsula" or , , "Island of the Arabs") or Arabia, is a peninsula of Western Asia, situated northeast of Africa on the Arabian Plate. ...
,
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 Mediter ...
, the
Levantine corridor
The Levantine corridor is the relatively narrow strip between the Mediterranean Sea to the northwest and deserts to the southeast which connects Africa to Eurasia. This corridor is a land route of migrations of animals between Eurasia and Afric ...
and the
Taurus Mountains
The Taurus Mountains ( Turkish: ''Toros Dağları'' or ''Toroslar'') are a mountain complex in southern Turkey, separating the Mediterranean coastal region from the central Anatolian Plateau. The system extends along a curve from Lake Eğirdir ...
, including all the peoples within the
Fertile Crescent
The Fertile Crescent ( ar, الهلال الخصيب) is a crescent-shaped region in the Middle East, spanning modern-day Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine and Jordan, together with the northern region of Kuwait, southeastern region of ...
.
This was also accompanied with the rise of a profoundly idealistic patriotism, largely resembling European
romantic nationalism
Romantic nationalism (also national romanticism, organic nationalism, identity nationalism) is the form of nationalism in which the state claims its political legitimacy as an organic consequence of the unity of those it governs. This includes ...
, idealizing the coming of a
National Revival
National revival or national awakening is a period of ethnic self-consciousness that often precedes a political movement for national liberation but that can take place at a time when independence is politically unrealistic. In the history of Eur ...
to the Levant, that would shake off the Ottoman past and propel back what many started to see again as the cradle of civilization into the modern world's front stage. In that aspect, the works of
Kahlil Gibran
Gibran Khalil Gibran ( ar, جُبْرَان خَلِيل جُبْرَان, , , or , ; January 6, 1883 – April 10, 1931), usually referred to in English as Kahlil Gibran (pronounced ), was a Lebanese-American writer, poet and visual artist ...
(the English name of Jubran Khalil Jubran) who began expressing his belief in Syrian nationalism and patriotism are central. As Gibran said,
"I believe in you, and I believe in your destiny. I believe that you are contributors to this new civilization.... I believe that it is in you to be good citizens. And what is it to be a good citizen?... It is to stand before the towers of New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
and Washington
Washington commonly refers to:
* Washington (state), United States
* Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States
** A metonym for the federal government of the United States
** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...
, Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
, coordinates_footnotes =
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name ...
and San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
saying in your hearts, "I am the descendent of a people the built Damascus
)), is an adjective which means "spacious".
, motto =
, image_flag = Flag of Damascus.svg
, image_seal = Emblem of Damascus.svg
, seal_type = Seal
, map_caption =
, ...
and Byblos
Byblos ( ; gr, Βύβλος), also known as Jbeil or Jubayl ( ar, جُبَيْل, Jubayl, locally ; phn, 𐤂𐤁𐤋, , probably ), is a city in the Keserwan-Jbeil Governorate of Lebanon. It is believed to have been first occupied between 880 ...
, and Tyre and 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. ...
and Antioch
Antioch on the Orontes (; grc-gre, Ἀντιόχεια ἡ ἐπὶ Ὀρόντου, ''Antiókheia hē epì Oróntou'', Learned ; also Syrian Antioch) grc-koi, Ἀντιόχεια ἡ ἐπὶ Ὀρόντου; or Ἀντιόχεια ἡ ἐπ ...
, and I am here to build with you, and with a will."
Colonialism, Zionism, and sectarianism
The late 1920s and the early 1930s were also a period of cultural and political effervescence that greatly contributed to the emergence of
Syrian nationalism
Syrian nationalism, also known as Pan-Syrian nationalism (or pan-Syrianism), refers to the nationalism of the region of Syria, as a cultural or political entity known as "Greater Syria".
It should not be confused with the Arab nationalism that is ...
as a distinct ideology. In 1920, the French army toppled the first
Arab Kingdom of Syria
The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Western Asia, No ...
and the Hashemite
King Faisal, who had been proclaimed "King of all-Syria" by the
Syrian National Congress
The Syrian National Congress, also called the Pan-Syrian Congress and General Syrian Congress (GSC), was convened in May 1919 in Damascus, Syria, after the expulsion of the Ottomans from Syria. The mission of the Congress was to consider the futu ...
at the
Battle of Maysalun
The Battle of Maysalun ( ar, معركة ميسلون), also called the Battle of Maysalun Pass or the Battle of Khan Maysalun (french: Bataille de Khan Mayssaloun), was a four-hour battle fought between the forces of the Arab Kingdom of Syria an ...
. The British and the French dissected the region into spheres of influence in what later became known as the
Sykes-Picot Agreement, setting up colonial administrations throughout the Levant.
The
Great Syrian Revolt
The Great Syrian Revolt ( ar, الثورة السورية الكبرى) or Revolt of 1925 was a general uprising across the State of Syria and Greater Lebanon during the period of 1925 to 1927. The leading rebel forces comprised fighters of the ...
was brutally repressed in 1925 while a small clique of traditional landowners and notables coalesced around the newly founded administration of the
French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon
The Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon (french: Mandat pour la Syrie et le Liban; ar, الانتداب الفرنسي على سوريا ولبنان, al-intidāb al-fransi 'ala suriya wa-lubnān) (1923−1946) was a League of Nations mandate fou ...
.
Greater Lebanon
The State of Greater Lebanon ( ar, دولة لبنان الكبير, Dawlat Lubnān al-Kabīr; french: État du Grand Liban), informally known as French Lebanon, was a state declared on 1 September 1920, which became the Lebanese Republic ( ar, ...
was established on the ruins of the
Mutasarrifiyya of Mount Lebanon with arbitrarily drawn borders and with a state structure largely dominated by the Christian
Maronites
The Maronites ( ar, الموارنة; syr, ܡܖ̈ܘܢܝܐ) are a Christian ethnoreligious group native to the Eastern Mediterranean and Levant region of the Middle East, whose members traditionally belong to the Maronite Church, with the largest ...
, a community whose elite were historically well-disposed to the French, and who would ensure the
French colonial empire
The French colonial empire () comprised the overseas colonies, protectorates and mandate territories that came under French rule from the 16th century onward. A distinction is generally made between the "First French Colonial Empire", that exist ...
a strong foothold in the Arab world.
Jewish immigration to Palestine was increasing at an alarming speed, bringing to the shores of
Palestine
__NOTOC__
Palestine may refer to:
* State of Palestine, a state in Western Asia
* Palestine (region), a geographic region in Western Asia
* Palestinian territories, territories occupied by Israel since 1967, namely the West Bank (including East ...
Zionist
Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after ''Zion'') is a nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is known in Je ...
migrants who had little affinity to (
Revisionist Zionism
Revisionist Zionism is an ideology developed by Ze'ev Jabotinsky, who advocated a "revision" of the "practical Zionism" of David Ben-Gurion and Chaim Weizmann which was focused on the settling of ''Eretz Yisrael'' (Land of Israel) by independent ...
) or similarities with (
Marxist and Labor Zionism) the local
Palestinian Arabs
Palestinians ( ar, الفلسطينيون, ; he, פָלַסְטִינִים, ) or Palestinian people ( ar, الشعب الفلسطيني, label=none, ), also referred to as Palestinian Arabs ( ar, الفلسطينيين العرب, label=non ...
. Class tensions sharpened as some Palestinian landowners sold their lands to the
Jewish National Fund
Jewish National Fund ( he, קֶרֶן קַיֶּימֶת לְיִשְׂרָאֵל, ''Keren Kayemet LeYisrael'', previously , ''Ha Fund HaLeumi'') was founded in 1901 to buy and develop land in Ottoman Syria (later Mandatory Palestine, and subseq ...
, with little regard to national aspirations and plight of the peasantry. As the
Balfour Declaration
The Balfour Declaration was a public statement issued by the British government in 1917 during the First World War announcing its support for the establishment of a "national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine, then an Ottoman regio ...
became public, fears in the Levant of the parceling out of the region along
colonial
Colonial or The Colonial may refer to:
* Colonial, of, relating to, or characteristic of a colony or colony (biology)
Architecture
* American colonial architecture
* French Colonial
* Spanish Colonial architecture
Automobiles
* Colonial (1920 au ...
borders implied in the minds of many the need for concerted action throughout the Levant that would transcend traditional sectarian divides. Similarly,
communism
Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...
, perceived by many as an alien ideology that did not resonate much with the socioeconomic conditions of the early 20th century Levant, was looked upon with suspicion, particularly since many
Zionist
Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after ''Zion'') is a nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is known in Je ...
migrants settling in Palestine were coming from the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
.
Many Syrian and Lebanese youth saw these events as omens of an ill future in which the Levant, which had until then been a single economic and social entity within the
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...
referred to as
Bilad al-Sham
Bilad al-Sham ( ar, بِلَاد الشَّام, Bilād al-Shām), often referred to as Islamic Syria or simply Syria in English-language sources, was a province of the Rashidun, Umayyad, Abbasid, and Fatimid caliphates. It roughly correspon ...
, would be dismembered along religious, ethnic, and class lines. As the traditional elite stirred away from the people and slowly sought the good offices of the French High Commissioner, and given the repression with which the French Mandate was applied,
secret societies
A secret society is a club or an organization whose activities, events, inner functioning, or membership are concealed. The society may or may not attempt to conceal its existence. The term usually excludes covert groups, such as intelligence a ...
flourished in the late 1920s. Similarly, many begin to see the devastating effect that sectarianism was bringing upon the people of the region, be it pro-Christian
Separatism
Separatism is the advocacy of cultural, ethnic, tribal, religious, racial, governmental or gender separation from the larger group. As with secession, separatism conventionally refers to full political separation. Groups simply seeking greate ...
in Lebanon or the radicalism of
Islamist elements in Syria, which pitted each faction against the other and benefited no other than the colonial administration, and began to condemn the mixing of religion with politics. The path was hence laid down for the emergence of a
political ideology
An ideology is a set of beliefs or philosophies attributed to a person or group of persons, especially those held for reasons that are not purely epistemic, in which "practical elements are as prominent as theoretical ones." Formerly applied pri ...
that would simultaneously fight against the dismemberment of the region,
Zionism
Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after ''Zion'') is a Nationalism, nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is ...
, and
colonialism
Colonialism is a practice or policy of control by one people or power over other people or areas, often by establishing colonies and generally with the aim of economic dominance. In the process of colonisation, colonisers may impose their relig ...
, through
anti-colonialism
Decolonization or decolonisation is the undoing of colonialism, the latter being the process whereby imperial nations establish and dominate foreign territories, often overseas. Some scholars of decolonization focus especially on separatism, in ...
,
liberation war
Wars of national liberation or national liberation revolutions are conflicts fought by nations to gain independence. The term is used in conjunction with wars against foreign powers (or at least those perceived as foreign) to establish separat ...
, and
national revival
National revival or national awakening is a period of ethnic self-consciousness that often precedes a political movement for national liberation but that can take place at a time when independence is politically unrealistic. In the history of Eur ...
, while
keeping communism in check. It also represented a clear departure from the
Arab nationalist
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 an ...
current that advocated the unification of the entirety of the Arab World, and which had implicit Islamic nationalist undertones. This ideology was to be that of a
Romanticized Secular
Secularity, also the secular or secularness (from Latin ''saeculum'', "worldly" or "of a generation"), is the state of being unrelated or neutral in regards to religion. Anything that does not have an explicit reference to religion, either negativ ...
Greater Syria based upon the natural geographical boundaries that defined the region loosely dubbed as the Fertile Crescent, an ideology that
Antun Saadeh
Antoun Saadeh ( ar, أنطون سعادة, ʾAnṭūn Saʿādah; 1 March 1904 – 8 July 1949) was a Lebanese politician, philosopher and writer who founded the Syrian Social Nationalist Party.
Life and career Early life
Saadeh was born in 19 ...
would come to assert with the foundation of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, where it found its full expression.
Foundation and early years
The SSNP was founded by
Antun Saadeh
Antoun Saadeh ( ar, أنطون سعادة, ʾAnṭūn Saʿādah; 1 March 1904 – 8 July 1949) was a Lebanese politician, philosopher and writer who founded the Syrian Social Nationalist Party.
Life and career Early life
Saadeh was born in 19 ...
, a
Lebanese journalist and lecturer from a
Greek Orthodox
The term Greek Orthodox Church (Greek language, Greek: Ἑλληνορθόδοξη Ἐκκλησία, ''Ellinorthódoxi Ekklisía'', ) has two meanings. The broader meaning designates "the Eastern Orthodox Church, entire body of Orthodox (Chalced ...
family who had lived in South America from 1919 to 1930
who in November 1932 secretly established the first nucleus of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, which operated underground for the first three years of its existence,
and in 1933 started publishing the monthly journal ''Al-Majalla'' which was distributed in the
American University of Beirut
The American University of Beirut (AUB) ( ar, الجامعة الأميركية في بيروت) is a private, non-sectarian, and independent university chartered in New York with its campus in Beirut, Lebanon. AUB is governed by a private, aut ...
and developed the party's ideology. In 1936 the party's open hostility to colonialism led to the French authorities banning the party and the imprisoning Saadeh for six months for creating a clandestine party,
although an accusation of having been in contact with the German and Italian
fascist
Fascism is a far-right, Authoritarianism, authoritarian, ultranationalism, ultra-nationalist political Political ideology, ideology and Political movement, movement,: "extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and pol ...
movements was dropped after the Germans denied any relationship.
During his time in prison Saadeh wrote ''The Genesis of Nations'' to lay out the SSNP's ideology. At that time, the Party joined ranks with other nationalist and patriotic forces including the
National Bloc, whereas it began militating, in secret, for the overthrow of the Mandate. Nonetheless, the alliance between the SSNP and the National Bloc did not last long: The National Bloc refrained from engaging in actual militant activities against the French, deciding instead to cooperate with the High Commissioner. Many SSNP members also felt that the NB refused to cooperate with them due to the fact that their founder was Christian.
Saadeh emigrated again to Brazil in 1938 and afterwards to Argentina, only to return to Lebanon in 1947 following the
country's independence from the French in 1943. On his way to Argentina, he visited Italy and Berlin, which increased the suspicions of the French that the SSNP might have been entertaining relations with the
Axis
An axis (plural ''axes'') is an imaginary line around which an object rotates or is symmetrical. Axis may also refer to:
Mathematics
* Axis of rotation: see rotation around a fixed axis
* Axis (mathematics), a designator for a Cartesian-coordinat ...
. Coming back shortly to Lebanon in 1939, he was questioned by the French authorities who accused him of plotting with the Germans. The charge was dropped when no evidence of collaboration had been found and after that Saadeh declared that even the French rule to which he was vehemently opposed would be better than German or Italian rule. Having afterwards left for Argentina, Saadeh found out that the Argentinian branch of the SSNP newspaper had been voicing its outright support for
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
and to the Axis powers, which led Saadeh to issue a lengthy letter to the editor-in-chef, restating that the SSNP is not a
National Socialist
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...
party and that no stance should be taken vis-à-vis the Allies or the Axis. By that time, the SSNP had grown exponentially and had clashed on many occasions with its primary ideological rival, the
Kataeb Party
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 lat ...
, a
Spanish Fascist-Inspired party that had been founded by
Pierre Gemayel
Pierre Amine Gemayel, also spelled Jmayyel, Jemayyel or al-Jumayyil ( ar, بيار الجميّل; 6 November 1905 – 29 August 1984), was a Lebanese political leader. A Maronite Catholic, he is remembered as the founder of the Kataeb Party ...
, a pharmacist and athlete after his return from the
1936 Berlin Olympics
The 1936 Summer Olympics (German: ''Olympische Sommerspiele 1936''), officially known as the Games of the XI Olympiad (German: ''Spiele der XI. Olympiade'') and commonly known as Berlin 1936 or the Nazi Olympics, were an international multi-sp ...
. Being vehemently
anti-communist
Anti-communism is Political movement, political and Ideology, ideological opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed after the 1917 October Revolution in the Russian Empire, and it reached global dimensions during the Cold War, w ...
in its early days, a position that would later change, it had also clashed with the
Syrian-Lebanese Communist Party, the latter accusing the SSNP of Nazi sympathies.
While the Kataeb was committed to the notion of Lebanon as a
nation state
A nation state is a political unit where the state and nation are congruent. It is a more precise concept than "country", since a country does not need to have a predominant ethnic group.
A nation, in the sense of a common ethnicity, may inc ...
defined as an entity presiding over the borders outlined first by the
Sykes–Picot agreement
The Sykes–Picot Agreement () was a 1916 secret treaty between the United Kingdom and France, with assent from the Russian Empire and the Kingdom of Italy, to define their mutually agreed Sphere of influence, spheres of influence and control in a ...
in 1916, and afterwards by the
French administrative division of its mandate into six states including the state of Greater Lebanon, and had espoused a
strong bond between the nation and the church as well as outright social ultraconservatism, the SSNP rejected these national claim on the basis that the borders outlining the newly created states were fictitious, resulting from colonialism, and do not reflect any historical and social realities. The party claimed that Greater Syria as defined by Saadeh represents the national ideal encompassing the historical people of Mesopotamia and the Fertile Crescent, bound together by a clearly defined geography and a common historical, social and cultural development path away from all
sectarianism
Sectarianism is a political or cultural conflict between two groups which are often related to the form of government which they live under. Prejudice, discrimination, or hatred can arise in these conflicts, depending on the political status quo ...
.
[A. Saadeh. ''The Genesis of Nations''. Translated and Reprinted. Dar Al-Fikr. Beirut, 2004]
The Party took a radical stance against the traditional notable class in Syria and Lebanon, including the large landowners and feudal lords, and called for the emancipation of the working class and the peasantry away from religion and sectarianism, into a socialist-inspired production-based economy. The SSNP also called for the reclamation of
Alexandretta which had been arbitrarily given to Turkey by France. With the start of the
Arab–Israeli conflict
The Arab–Israeli conflict is an ongoing intercommunal phenomenon involving political tension, military conflicts, and other disputes between Arab countries and Israel, which escalated during the 20th century, but had mostly faded out by the ...
in 1948, Saadeh radicalized the party's
Anti-Zionist stance by declaring that "Our struggle with the enemy is not a struggle for borders but for existence", and called on Party members to fight in the
Arab Liberation Army
The Arab Liberation Army (ALA; ar, جيش الإنقاذ العربي ''Jaysh al-Inqadh al-Arabi''), also translated as Arab Salvation Army, was an army of volunteers from Arab countries led by Fawzi al-Qawuqji. It fought on the Arab side in th ...
, although many regular Lebanese and Syrian army officers were already Party members.
When the
Lebanese Communist Party
The Lebanese Communist Party (LCP), abbr. PCL is a communist party in Lebanon. It was founded in 1924 by the Lebanese intellectual, writer and reporter Yusuf Yazbek and Fu'ad al-Shamali, a tobacco worker from Bikfaya.
History
Creation
The Syr ...
, which had fought against Saadeh's return in 1947 and which had been fighting for the title of head of the country's
Anti-Zionist
Anti-Zionism is opposition to Zionism. Although anti-Zionism is a heterogeneous phenomenon, all its proponents agree that the creation of the modern State of Israel, and the movement to create a sovereign Jewish state in the region of Palestine ...
movement, declared its acceptance of the
Partition Plan, infuriated and increasingly zealous SSNP members burned down a Communist headquarters. As communists defected away after the Communist Party's sudden pivot upon orders from the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
, the SSNP's ranks swelled.
When the Arabs lost the war in 1948, Saadeh propelled the Party into a fully confrontational stance: He deemed
Arabism
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 ...
as a purely rhetorical gimmick, condemned the incompetence and hypocrisy of the Arab leaders, and asserted that the creation of the State of Israel and the expulsion of the Palestinians was the direct result of this incompetence.
On 4 July 1949, a year after the declaration of the establishment of the state of
Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
and the
1948 Palestinian exodus
In 1948 Estimates of the Palestinian Refugee flight of 1948, more than 700,000 Palestinians, Palestinian Arabs – about half of prewar Mandatory Palestine, Palestine's Arab population – Causes of the 1948 Palestinian exodus, were expelled ...
(the Nakba), and a response to a series of aggressions perpetrated by the Kataeb-backed Lebanese government, the SSNP attempted its first revolution.
Following a violent crackdown by government forces, Saadeh traveled to Damascus to meet with
Husni al-Za'im
Husni al-Za'im ( ar, حسني الزعيم ''Ḥusnī az-Za’īm''; 11 May 1897 – 14 August 1949) was a Syrian military officer and politician of Kurdish origin. Husni al-Za'im, had been an officer in the Ottoman Army. After France institute ...
in an attempt to obtain his support. A decision was taken by
King Farouk
Farouk I (; ar, فاروق الأول ''Fārūq al-Awwal''; 11 February 1920 – 18 March 1965) was the tenth ruler of Egypt from the Muhammad Ali dynasty and the penultimate King of Egypt and the Sudan, succeeding his father, Fuad I, in 193 ...
,
Riad el Solh and
Husni al-Za'im
Husni al-Za'im ( ar, حسني الزعيم ''Ḥusnī az-Za’īm''; 11 May 1897 – 14 August 1949) was a Syrian military officer and politician of Kurdish origin. Husni al-Za'im, had been an officer in the Ottoman Army. After France institute ...
to eliminate
Antoun Saadeh
Antoun Saadeh ( ar, أنطون سعادة, ʾAnṭūn Saʿādah; 1 March 1904 – 8 July 1949) was a Lebanese politician, philosopher and writer who founded the Syrian Social Nationalist Party.
Life and career Early life
Saadeh was born in 19 ...
, under the patronage of
British Intelligence
The Government of the United Kingdom maintains intelligence agencies within three government departments, the Foreign Office, the Home Office and the Ministry of Defence. These agencies are responsible for collecting and analysing foreign and do ...
and the
Mossad
Mossad ( , ), ; ar, الموساد, al-Mōsād, ; , short for ( he, המוסד למודיעין ולתפקידים מיוחדים, links=no), meaning 'Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations'. is the national intelligence agency ...
. As a result, Al-Za'im handed Saadeh over to Lebanese authorities, who had him executed on 8 July 1949. It was the shortest and most secretive trial given to a political offender.
SSNP in Lebanon
From confrontation to accommodation
After Saadeh was executed and its high-ranking leaders were arrested, the party remained underground
until 1958 when it sided with the pro-Western 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 ...
against the Arab nationalist rebels.
This occurred right after the Party was accused of having plotted the assassination of
Adnan al-Malki
Adnan al-Malki ( ar, عدنان المالكي) (1918 – 22 April 1955) was a Syrian Army officer and political figure in the mid-20th century. He served as the deputy-chief of staff of the army and was one of the most powerful figures ...
, a left-leaning
Baath Party army officer in Syria, and after Party members had fled to Beirut. The Party at that time still viewed the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
with contempt, and opposed the
Arab Nationalist
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 an ...
current of
Nasser, while retaining its commitment to Syrian Nationalism. Indeed, the idea of having Greater Syria subsumed under the creed of Arab Nationalism founded on the
Arabic language
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...
,
Arab
The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Western Asia, ...
and
Islamic culture
Islamic culture and Muslim culture refer to cultural practices which are common to historically Islamic people. The early forms of Muslim culture, from the Rashidun Caliphate to the early Umayyad period and the early Abbasid period, were predomi ...
was abhorred by the SSNP, which retained its profound belief in Syrian social and anthropological historicism, namely the process of national and social association that characterizes the
Fertile Crescent
The Fertile Crescent ( ar, الهلال الخصيب) is a crescent-shaped region in the Middle East, spanning modern-day Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine and Jordan, together with the northern region of Kuwait, southeastern region of ...
and that differentiates it from the
Arabian Peninsula
The Arabian Peninsula, (; ar, شِبْهُ الْجَزِيرَةِ الْعَرَبِيَّة, , "Arabian Peninsula" or , , "Island of the Arabs") or Arabia, is a peninsula of Western Asia, situated northeast of Africa on the Arabian Plate ...
or
North Africa
North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...
.
1961 coup d'etat
On the last day of 1961, two SSNP members, company commanders in the Lebanese army, led an unsuccessful attempted lightning coup against
Fouad Chehab, supported by some 200 civilian SSNP members.
In the scholarly literature, the coup has been explained as stemming from the party's ideological preference for violence ("bullets over ballots"), its frustration at exclusion from the Lebanese state, and both political and military criticism of the rule of Fouad Chehab.
Advisors of Chehab who allegedly witnessed armed SSNP partisans gathering around the central areas of Beirut rushed to the presidential palace to inform Chehab of the insurrection. This resulted in a renewed proscription and the imprisonment and/or execution of many SSNP leaders. Most of the party's known activists remained in prison or exile until a general amnesty in 1969.
In 1969, the party re-aligned towards Arab nationalism.
Lebanese Civil War
With the outbreak of 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 ...
in 1975, the SSNP formed a military squad that allied with the
Lebanese National Movement
The Lebanese National Movement (LNM) ( ar, الحركة الوطنية اللبنانية, ''Al-Harakat al-Wataniyya al-Lubnaniyya'') or Mouvement National Libanais (MNL) in French, was a front of leftist, pan-Arabist and Syrian nationalist par ...
(LNM), against the
Phalangists
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 ...
and their allies of the
Lebanese Front
The Lebanese Front ( ar, الجبهة اللبنانية, ''al-Jabha al-Lubnaniyya'') or ''Front Libanais'' in French, was a coalition of mainly Lebanese Nationalist parties formed in 1976 by majority Christian intellectuals during the Lebane ...
. The SSNP saw the Lebanese Civil War as the inevitable result of the divisions of the Syrian nation into small states and away from a
liberation war
Wars of national liberation or national liberation revolutions are conflicts fought by nations to gain independence. The term is used in conjunction with wars against foreign powers (or at least those perceived as foreign) to establish separat ...
against
Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
. In the mid-1970s, there were tensions within the party between "a reformist branch close to the Palestinian factions and another more inclined toward Damascus"; it reunified in 1978.
After the defeat of anti-Israeli forces in the
1982 Lebanon War
The 1982 Lebanon War, dubbed Operation Peace for Galilee ( he, מבצע שלום הגליל, or מבצע של"ג ''Mivtsa Shlom HaGalil'' or ''Mivtsa Sheleg'') by the Israeli government, later known in Israel as the Lebanon War or the First L ...
, the SSNP joined a number of the organizations who regrouped to resist the Israeli occupation, including the
killing of two Israeli soldiers in a Wimpy Cafe in west Beirut by party member Khalid Alwan. The U.S.
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, ...
blames the SSNP for the assassination, in 1982, of
Bachir Gemayel
Bachir Pierre Gemayel ( ; 10 November 1947 – 14 September 1982) was a Lebanese militia commander who led the Lebanese Forces, the military wing of the Kataeb Party in the Lebanese Civil War and was elected President of Lebanon in 1982 ...
, Lebanon's newly elected president supported by the Israelis besieging Beirut. An SSNP member,
Habib Shartouni
Habib Tanious Shartouni ( ar, حبيب الشرتوني; born 24 April 1958) is the convicted assassin of the Lebanese president-elect Bachir Gemayel.
Early life
Habib Tanious Shartouni, a Maronite Christian, was born in a small village called ( ...
, was arrested for the assassination and eventually convicted for it in 2017.
In 1983 the party joined the
Lebanese National Salvation Front. In 1985, a member of the party,
Sana'a Mehaidli
Sana'a Mehaidli ( ar, سناء محيدلي; August 14, 1968 – April 9, 1985) was a member of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party who, at the age of 16 blew herself and a Peugeot filled with explosives up next to an Israeli convoy in Jezzine, Leb ...
, detonated a car bomb next to an Israeli military convoy at
Jezzin
Jezzine ( ''Jizzīn'') is a town in Lebanon, located from Sidon and south of Beirut. It is the capital of Jezzine District. Surrounded by mountain peaks, pine forests (like the Bkassine Pine Forest), and at an average altitude of 950 m (3 ...
, South Lebanon. She killed two Israeli soldiers and become one of the first known female
suicide bombers
A suicide attack is any violent attack, usually entailing the attacker detonating an explosive, where the attacker has accepted their own death as a direct result of the attacking method used. Suicide attacks have occurred throughout histor ...
.
[Ricolfi, L., & Campana, P. (2004)]
Suicide missions in the Palestinian area: a new database
After the Civil War
The SSNP in Lebanon was broadly supportive of the
Syrian occupation of Lebanon
The Syrian occupation of Lebanon ( ar, الاحتلال السوري للبنان, french: Occupation syrienne du Liban) began in 1976, during the Lebanese Civil War, and ended on 30 April 2005 after the Cedar Revolution and several demonstrati ...
and was allied to pro-Syrian parties (including the
March 8 Alliance
The March 8 Alliance ( ar, تحالف 8 آذار, taḥāluf 8 adhār}) is a coalition of political parties and independents in Lebanon formed in 2005 that are united by their pro-Syrian stance and their opposition to the March 14 Alliance. It ...
) in the aftermath of the occupation.
The SSNP participated in a number of general elections in Lebanon, winning six seats in
1992
File:1992 Events Collage V1.png, From left, clockwise: 1992 Los Angeles riots, Riots break out across Los Angeles, California after the Police brutality, police beating of Rodney King; El Al Flight 1862 crashes into a residential apartment buildi ...
, although seeing a decline in subsequent elections winning two seats in both
2005
File:2005 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf of Mexico; the Funeral of Pope John Paul II is held in Vatican City; "Me at the zoo", the first video ever to be uploaded to YouTube; Eris was discovered in ...
and
2009
File:2009 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The vertical stabilizer of Air France Flight 447 is pulled out from the Atlantic Ocean; Barack Obama becomes the first African American to become President of the United States; 2009 Iran ...
. The SSNP were involved in the
2008 conflict in Lebanon, with gunmen attacking an SSNP office.
Assaad Hardan was party leader for two terms. Hardan was succeeded by
Rabih Banat in 2020, but with a growing split in the party between Hardan's followers, who are closer to the Syrian government and the March 8 Alliance, and Banat's followers, who are closer to the administration of
Saad Hariri
Saad El-Din Rafik Al-Hariri ( ar, سعد الدين رفيق الحريري, translit=Saʿd ad-Dīn Rafīq al-Ḥarīrī; born 18 April 1970) is a Lebanese-Saudi politician who served as the prime minister of Lebanon from 2009 to 2011 and 2016 ...
.
As of the
2022 Lebanese elections, the party did not win any seat and currently has no representation in the Lebanese Parliament.
SSNP in Syria
In Syria, the SSNP grew to a position of considerable influence in
the years
''The Years'' is a 1937 novel by Virginia Woolf, the last she published in her lifetime. It traces the history of the Pargiter family from the 1880s to the "present day" of the mid-1930s.
Although spanning fifty years, the novel is not epic i ...
following the
country's independence in 1946, and was a major political force immediately after the restoration of democracy in
1954
Events
January
* January 1 – The Soviet Union ceases to demand war reparations from West Germany.
* January 3 – The Italian broadcaster RAI officially begins transmitting.
* January 7 – Georgetown-IBM experiment: The fir ...
. It was a fierce rival of the
Syrian Communist Party and of the radical pan-Arab
Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party, the other main ideological parties of the period. In April 1955 Colonel
Adnan al-Malki
Adnan al-Malki ( ar, عدنان المالكي) (1918 – 22 April 1955) was a Syrian Army officer and political figure in the mid-20th century. He served as the deputy-chief of staff of the army and was one of the most powerful figures ...
, a Ba'athist officer who was a very popular figure in the Syrian army, was assassinated by a party member. This provided the Communists and Ba'athists with the opportunity to eliminate their main ideological rival, and under pressure from them and their allies in the security forces the SSNP was practically wiped out as a political force in Syria.
The SSNP's stance during the Lebanese civil war and in Lebanese politics—where it has become a close ally of
Hezbollah
Hezbollah (; ar, حزب الله ', , also transliterated Hizbullah or Hizballah, among others) is a Lebanese Shia Islamist political party and militant group, led by its Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah since 1992. Hezbollah's parami ...
—was consistent with that of Syria, and that facilitated a rapprochement between the party and the Syrian government. During
Hafez al-Assad
Hafez al-Assad ', , (, 6 October 1930 – 10 June 2000) was a Syrian statesman and military officer who served as President of Syria from taking power in 1971 until his death in 2000. He was also Prime Minister of Syria from 1970 to 1 ...
's
presidency
A presidency is an administration or the executive, the collective administrative and governmental entity that exists around an office of president of a state or nation. Although often the executive branch of government, and often personified by a ...
, the party was increasingly tolerated. After the succession of his son
Bashar in 2000, this process continued. In 2001, although still officially banned, the party was permitted to attend meetings of the Ba'ath-led
National Progressive Front coalition of legal parties as an observer. In Spring 2005 the party was legalised in Syria, in what has been described as "an attempt to allow a limited form of political activity".
Over time, the SSNP and the Syrian Baathist regime experienced a dramatic turnabout in their historical relationship, from enemies to allies. The process started as the party reckoned that Hafez al-Assad regional goals such as consolidating Syria's control over Lebanon and the
PLO were consistent with the SSNP's goal of establishing Greater Syria,
while the SSNP reciprocated acting as a Syrian proxy in Lebanon. The alliance has strengthened on the face of the
Syrian Civil War.
In the 22 April 2007
election
An election is a formal group decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office.
Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has opera ...
for the
People's Council of Syria, the party gained 3 out of 250 in the parliament. In 2015, journalist Terry Glavin wrote that "But for a brief and friendly interregnum during the Baathist regime’s phoney
national elections of 2012, the SSNP has been a member of
Assad
Asad ( ar, أسد), sometimes written as Assad, is an Arabic male given name literally meaning " lion". It is used in nicknames such as ''Asad Allāh'', one of the by-names for Ali ibn Abi Talib.
People
Among prominent people named ''Asad'', ...
’s ruling coalition since 2005."
Its Syrian leader is
Ali Haidar,
who has been one of the two non-Baath party minister's in the Damascus government since 2012, as Minister of State for National Reconciliation Affairs.
Notable SSNP politicians in Syria include
Diala Barakat,
Issam Al Mahayri,
Joseph Sweid
Joseph Sweid (born 1958) has been Syrian Minister of State since 2011 and a member of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party. He has served as the Minister of Expatriates.
Sweid was born in Damascus in 1958. He earned his LLB degree at the Unive ...
,
Bushra Massouh, and
Issam Bagdi
Issam Yacoub Bagdi is a Syrian politician and a member of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party
The Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP) or is a Syrian nationalist party operating in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Palestine. It advocates th ...
.
Role in the Syrian Civil War
The Syrian revolution and civil war "was an opportunity for the SSNP to take on a new dimension", regaining its strength (particularly among Christian and Shi'ite minority groups) and taking on a new purpose.
During the
civil uprising phase of the Syrian Civil War the SSNP participated in counter demonstrations in support of the
government
A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state.
In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government is a ...
.
Once
the war broke out, the Syrian government reciprocated providing weaponry and training.
In the meantime, SSNP officials had become a target for rebel militants and were kidnapped and assassinated.
Bashar al-Yazigi, head of the political SSNP bureau in Syria stated that the "opposition is seeking to create sharp sectarian rifts and fragment Syrian society"
with the party regarding both the ongoing Syrian Civil War and the
Iraq War
{{Infobox military conflict
, conflict = Iraq War {{Nobold, {{lang, ar, حرب العراق (Arabic) {{Nobold, {{lang, ku, شەڕی عێراق (Kurdish languages, Kurdish)
, partof = the Iraq conflict (2003–present), I ...
as attempts to partition those countries—and, eventually Lebanon—along ethno-sectarian lines.
As of 2016, estimates of the number of SSNP fighters in Syria range from 6,000 to 8,000.
Lebanese fighters are included in their ranks, even though the party claims that "their proportion within the group's total fighting force has decreased steadily, as more Syrians sign up".
By February 2014, SSNP fighters were primarily deployed in the governorates of
Homs
Homs ( , , , ; ar, حِمْص / ALA-LC: ; Levantine Arabic: / ''Ḥomṣ'' ), known in pre-Islamic Syria as Emesa ( ; grc, Ἔμεσα, Émesa), is a city in western Syria and the capital of the Homs Governorate. It is Metres above sea level ...
and
Damascus
)), is an adjective which means "spacious".
, motto =
, image_flag = Flag of Damascus.svg
, image_seal = Emblem of Damascus.svg
, seal_type = Seal
, map_caption =
, ...
and were said to be the most formidable military force other than the Syrian Army in
Suweida
, timezone = EET
, utc_offset = +2
, timezone_DST = EEST
, utc_offset_DST = +3
, coordinates =
, grid_position = 296/235 ...
.
SSNP fighters have participated in the battles
of Sadad,
Ma'loula
Maaloula or Maʿlūlā ( arc, ܡܥܠܘܠܐ in Eastern Aramaic Syriac script, ' in Western Aramaic Maalouli script; ar, مَعلُولَا) is a town in the Rif Dimashq Governorate in Syria. The town is located 56 km to the northeast of Dama ...
or
al-Qaryatayn
Al-Qaryatayn ( ar, ٱلْقَرْيَتَين, syr, ܩܪܝܬܝܢ), also spelled Karyatayn, Qaratin or Cariatein, is a town in central Syria, administratively part of the Homs Governorate located southeast of Homs. It is situated on an oasis i ...
, among others.
In 2016, party officials say its membership has increased "by the thousands" since the start of the war as a result of its alleged "reputation as an effective fighting force in Syria".
The party is taking on a larger role in Syria's official political system: it fielded 30 candidates for the
2016 parliamentary election, winning 7 seats.
SSNP in Jordan
In 1966
King Hussein
Hussein bin Talal ( ar, الحسين بن طلال, ''Al-Ḥusayn ibn Ṭalāl''; 14 November 1935 – 7 February 1999) was King of Jordan from 11 August 1952 until his death in 1999. As a member of the Hashemite dynasty, the royal family of ...
had his security services sent into action to eradicate the SSNP from Jordan. The party had been active among the
Palestinian population.
In 2013 followers of the party established the "Movement of Syrian Social Nationalists in Jordan".
Ideology
Scholars and analysts have debated how the SSNP's ideology should be described. Many Western scholars have superimposed its ideological and organizational resemblances to European fascism, and of its external symbols to those of German Nazism, although these criticisms are not accepted by the party itself.
Recent accounts by Western journalists also describe it as fascist.
Terry Glavin
Terry Glavin (born 1955) is a Canadian author and journalist.
Career
Born in the United Kingdom to Irish parents, he emigrated to Canada in 1957. Glavin has worked as a journalist and columnist for '' The Daily Columbian'' (reporter, columnist ...
writes that it "sports its very own stylized
swastika
The swastika (卐 or 卍) is an ancient religious and cultural symbol, predominantly in various Eurasian, as well as some African and American cultures, now also widely recognized for its appropriation by the Nazi Party and by neo-Nazis. It ...
ndsings an anthem to the tune of
Deutschland, Deutschland Uber Alles",
while
Bellingcat
Bellingcat (stylised as bellngcat) is a Netherlands-based investigative journalism group that specialises in fact-checking and open-source intelligence (OSINT). It was founded by British journalist and former blogger Eliot Higgins in July 2014 ...
calls its a "rabidly anti-Semitic, fascist organization
ith
The Ith () is a ridge in Germany's Central Uplands which is up to 439 m high. It lies about 40 km southwest of Hanover and, at 22 kilometres, is the longest line of crags in North Germany.
Geography
Location
The Ith is immediatel ...
international ties to the far-right."
[ Other sources are less definitive. For example, '']L'Orient-Le Jour
''L'Orient-Le Jour'' () is a leading French-language daily newspaper in Lebanon.
History
''L'Orient-Le Jour'' was first published on 15 June 1971, following the merger of two French language Lebanese dailies, ''L'Orient'' (founded in Beirut in ...
'' write that Saadeh's "national vision was based on belonging to one’s geographical milieu, rather than one’s race. His supporters insist that their leader chose the party’s emblem long before he learned of Nazism."
Saadeh was aware of accusations of fascism, and he responded to them during his speech of 1 June 1935:
According to historian Stanley G. Payne, interwar Arab nationalism was influenced by European fascism, with the creation of at least seven Arab nationalist shirt movements similar to the brown shirt movement by 1939, with the most influenced ones being the SSNP, the Iraqi Futawa youth movement and the Young Egypt movement. These three movements would share characteristics like being territorially expansionist, with the SSNP wanting the complete control of Syria, belief in the superiority of their own people (with Saadeh theorizing a "distinct and naturally superior" Syrian race), being "nonrationalist, anti-intellectual, and highly emotional" and " mphasizingmilitary virtues and power nd stressingself-sacrifice". Also according to Payne, all these movements received strong influence from European fascism and praised the Italian and German fascism but " hey never becamefully developed fascist movements, and none reproduced the full characteristics of European fascism"; the influence in Arab nationalism remained long after 1945. Also, Saadeh's superior race was not a pure one, but a fusion of all races in Syrian history. The SSNP would be " nelite group, with little structure for mobilization".
Nationalism
Greater Syria, natural Syria
While in jail from early February to early May 1936, Saadeh completed ''The Genesis of Nations'' which he had started writing three months before the French authorities in Lebanon discovered the secret organization and arrested its leader and his assistants. In his book, Saadeh formulated his belief in the existence of a Syrian nation in a homeland defined as embracing all historic Syria extended to the Suez Canal in the south, and that includes modern Syria, Palestine, Israel, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, and Kuwait. The boundaries of the historic environment in which the Syrian nation evolved went much beyond the scope usually ascribed to Syria, extending from the Taurus range in the north-east and the Zagros mountains
The Zagros Mountains ( ar, جبال زاغروس, translit=Jibal Zaghrus; fa, کوههای زاگرس, Kuh hā-ye Zāgros; ku, چیاکانی زاگرۆس, translit=Çiyakani Zagros; Turkish: ''Zagros Dağları''; Luri: ''Kuh hā-ye Zāgro ...
in the north-west to the Suez Canal
The Suez Canal ( arz, قَنَاةُ ٱلسُّوَيْسِ, ') is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea through the Isthmus of Suez and dividing Africa and Asia. The long canal is a popular ...
and the Red Sea
The Red Sea ( ar, البحر الأحمر - بحر القلزم, translit=Modern: al-Baḥr al-ʾAḥmar, Medieval: Baḥr al-Qulzum; or ; Coptic: ⲫⲓⲟⲙ ⲛ̀ϩⲁϩ ''Phiom Enhah'' or ⲫⲓⲟⲙ ⲛ̀ϣⲁⲣⲓ ''Phiom ǹšari''; T ...
in the south and includes the Sinai peninsula
The Sinai Peninsula, or simply Sinai (now usually ) (, , cop, Ⲥⲓⲛⲁ), is a peninsula in Egypt, and the only part of the country located in Asia. It is between the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Red Sea to the south, and is a l ...
and the Gulf of Aqaba
The Gulf of Aqaba ( ar, خَلِيجُ ٱلْعَقَبَةِ, Khalīj al-ʿAqabah) or Gulf of Eilat ( he, מפרץ אילת, Mifrátz Eilát) is a large gulf at the northern tip of the Red Sea, east of the Sinai Peninsula and west of the Arabian ...
, and from the Mediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the ea ...
in the west, including the island of Cyprus
Cyprus ; tr, Kıbrıs (), officially the Republic of Cyprus,, , lit: Republic of Cyprus is an island country located south of the Anatolian Peninsula in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Its continental position is disputed; while it is geo ...
, to the arch of the Arabian desert and the Persian Gulf
The Persian Gulf ( fa, خلیج فارس, translit=xalij-e fârs, lit=Gulf of Persis, Fars, ), sometimes called the ( ar, اَلْخَلِيْجُ ٱلْعَرَبِيُّ, Al-Khalīj al-ˁArabī), is a Mediterranean sea (oceanography), me ...
in the east. According to Saadeh, this region is also called the Syrian Fertile Crescent, the island Cyprus being its star.
Greater Syria corresponds to the Mesopotamian
Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the F ...
basin of Bilad al-Sham
Bilad al-Sham ( ar, بِلَاد الشَّام, Bilād al-Shām), often referred to as Islamic Syria or simply Syria in English-language sources, was a province of the Rashidun, Umayyad, Abbasid, and Fatimid caliphates. It roughly correspon ...
before it was arbitrarily dissected by the colonial powers. According to Saadeh, geographical factors play an important role in setting the parameters for the process of association and thus for the establishment of a nation. He held that the process of human evolution
Human evolution is the evolutionary process within the history of primates that led to the emergence of ''Homo sapiens'' as a distinct species of the hominid family, which includes the great apes. This process involved the gradual development of ...
from hunter-gatherer
A traditional hunter-gatherer or forager is a human living an ancestrally derived lifestyle in which most or all food is obtained by foraging, that is, by gathering food from local sources, especially edible wild plants but also insects, fungi, ...
to settled agriculture was among the most important factors that led to the creation of private property and the class system
A social class is a grouping of people into a set of hierarchical social categories, the most common being the upper, middle and lower classes. Membership in a social class can for example be dependent on education, wealth, occupation, incom ...
. Saadeh highlighted the role that the class system played in the flourishing of trade and commerce and the creation of wealth, ascribing it to be a characteristic of the Semitic peoples
Semites, Semitic peoples or Semitic cultures is an obsolete term for an ethnic, cultural or racial group.[Phoenicians
Phoenicia () was an ancient Semitic-speaking peoples, ancient thalassocracy, thalassocratic civilization originating in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily located in modern Lebanon. The territory of the Phoenician city-st ...]
. He also stressed the link between the economic modes of production
In the Marxist theory of historical materialism, a mode of production (German: ''Produktionsweise'', "the way of producing") is a specific combination of the:
* Productive forces: these include human labour power and means of production (tools, ...
and the establishment of cultural norm
Naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORM) and technologically enhanced naturally occurring radioactive materials (TENORM) consist of materials, usually industrial wastes or by-products enriched with radioactive elements found in the envir ...
s and values, a view he shared with Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...
.
However, Saadeh believed that while the economic modes of production can create culture, culture acquires a life of its own with time and eventually becomes embedded and perpetuated in its people, who come to recognize themselves as a living organism. Hence comes the importance of the state in serving the interest of the nation, and of national democracy as the legitimate source of political legislation. The party espouses the idea that the fundamental basis of nation is the territory or geographical region, not the ethnical bond. The natural environment and geographical specifications of a certain land is what eventually allows, or disallows, its transition from a socio-economic phase to another.
These natural geographical factors hence create the societal framework in which man establishes his existence, beliefs, habits, and value systems. Saadeh's critique of ethnic nationalisms led him to hence develop a framework of geographical nationalism, the idea of the "natural homeland". When he applied this model to the case of the Fertile Crescent, the conclusion he reached was straightforward: the natural geographical factors of the basin lying east of the Mediterranean is what has allowed it to become the cradle of civilization
A cradle of civilization is a location and a culture where civilization was created by mankind independent of other civilizations in other locations. The formation of urban settlements (cities) is the primary characteristic of a society that c ...
s, what has driven throughout the course of human history movements seeking to unify it, what has allowed it to establish, through ethnic, religious and cultural assimilation and mixing, a high culture and civilization, and what has made it the prize coveted by all imperialist powers. Saadeh advocated for all ethnoreligious groups to consider themselves as descendants of the pre-Christian era empires of Babylon
''Bābili(m)''
* sux, 𒆍𒀭𒊏𒆠
* arc, 𐡁𐡁𐡋 ''Bāḇel''
* syc, ܒܒܠ ''Bāḇel''
* grc-gre, Βαβυλών ''Babylṓn''
* he, בָּבֶל ''Bāvel''
* peo, 𐎲𐎠𐎲𐎡𐎽𐎢 ''Bābiru''
* elx, 𒀸𒁀𒉿𒇷 ''Babi ...
and Assyria
Assyria (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , romanized: ''māt Aššur''; syc, ܐܬܘܪ, ʾāthor) was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization which existed as a city-state at times controlling regional territories in the indigenous lands of the A ...
, of the Hittites
The Hittites () were an Anatolian people who played an important role in establishing first a kingdom in Kussara (before 1750 BC), then the Kanesh or Nesha kingdom (c. 1750–1650 BC), and next an empire centered on Hattusa in north-centra ...
and the kings of Aram
Aram may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* ''Aram'' (film), 2002 French action drama
* Aram, a fictional character in Japanese manga series '' MeruPuri''
* Aram Quartet, an Italian music group
* ''Aram'' (Kural book), the first of the three ...
, then of the Islamic empires
This article includes a list of successive Islamic states and Muslim dynasties beginning with the time of the Islamic prophet Muhammad (570–632 CE) and the early Muslim conquests that spread Islam outside of the Arabian Peninsula, and continui ...
, all the way up until the present. The SSNP claimed that the Greater Syria is the natural home of the Syrian people with clearly defined geographic boundaries, yet that its people are suffering from what Saadeh described as a "woe" (''al-wail'') owing to an identity crisis
In psychology, identity crisis is a stage theory of identity development where it involves resolution of a conflict over the 8 stages of the lifespan.(Schultz, 216) The term was coined by German psychologist Erik Erikson.
The stage of psychosoci ...
due to Ottoman occupation, colonialism, and sectarianism. Saadeh claimed that the ''renaissance'' of the Syrian nation is inevitably linked to the purge of these "decadent" forces through the reinforcing of national solidarity, resistance against colonialism, and adoption of secularism
Secularism is the principle of seeking to conduct human affairs based on Secularity, secular, Naturalism (philosophy), naturalistic considerations.
Secularism is most commonly defined as the Separation of church and state, separation of relig ...
.
In Saadeh's vision of "harmony" among the country's ethnic and religious communities through a return to a so-called Syrian "racial unity" which was itself in fact a mixture of races, neither Islam nor pan-Arabism was important, and therefore religion wasn't either. Saadeh's concept of the nation was shaped mainly by historical concrete interactions amongst people over the centuries in a given geography, rather than being based on ethnic origins, race, language or religion. This led him also to conclude that the Arabs could not form one nation, but many nations could be called Arab.
Syrian people
The SSNP's Greater Syria ideal posed a problem for all of the existing nationalist movements because of its clear departure from Arab nationalist
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 an ...
and Islamic undertones, and its inextricable link with what the party leader defined as "the Syrian people", Greater Syria being its natural homeland. The notion of a Syrian people is the cornerstone of the SSNP, and is defined according to the Party as the people inhabiting the Fertile Crescent, whose culture and socio-economic conditions have been a direct consequence of its own interaction with the natural environment.
The Syrian people, according to the Party's founder, is a cultural and socio-economic body of people hailing from a very heterogeneous background, but whose social mixing and assimilation over time within the Levantine basin has allowed for the emergence of a high settled civilization and for the extension of this people over the entirety of Natural Syria. In a clear departure from ethnic
An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, ...
, racial
A race is a categorization of humans based on shared physical or social qualities into groups generally viewed as distinct within a given society. The term came into common usage during the 1500s, when it was used to refer to groups of variou ...
and religious
Religion is usually defined as a social system, social-cultural system of designated religious behaviour, behaviors and practices, morality, morals, beliefs, worldviews, religious text, texts, sacred site, sanctified places, prophecy, prophecie ...
understandings of a nation, the Syrian people is a "mixture of races generated by migrations and intermarriages", its social life and cohesion having been shaped and determined by the environment and geography in which it developed. Hence the SSNP rejects racial notions of nationalism, Saadeh himself having ridiculed European racial doctrines in the opening chapters of the Genesis of Nations.
Romantic nationalism
The attitude of the party and its founder towards minority separatism
Separatism is the advocacy of cultural, ethnic, tribal, religious, racial, governmental or gender separation from the larger group. As with secession, separatism conventionally refers to full political separation. Groups simply seeking greate ...
and movements calling for ethnically-separate homelands was one of outright hostility. Saadeh was also hostile to all religiously-motivated political movements, or movements that did not call for the separation between Church (or Mosque) and State. Thus he called Wahhabism
Wahhabism ( ar, ٱلْوَهَّابِيَةُ, translit=al-Wahhābiyyah) is a Sunni Islamic revivalist and fundamentalist movement associated with the reformist doctrines of the 18th-century Arabian Islamic scholar, theologian, preacher, an ...
and Islamism
Islamism (also often called political Islam or Islamic fundamentalism) is a political ideology which posits that modern states and regions should be reconstituted in constitutional, economic and judicial terms, in accordance with what is ...
a "return to the desert", a "dry ideology of Arabian tribes" that had no commonalities with the high civilization of the Fertile Crescent. The incoming Jewish migrants to Southern Syria (Palestine) and the Jewish communities were criticized for their "foreign and racial loyalties", their unwillingness to assimilate, and their active willingness to create an ethnically Jewish state
In world politics, Jewish state is a characterization of Israel as the nation-state and sovereign homeland of the Jewish people.
Modern Israel came into existence on 14 May 1948 as a polity to serve as the homeland for the Jewish people. ...
in Palestine, with Saadeh deeming the Jews as the community unable and unwilling to assimilate, and having criticized the notion that Jewishness can be a cornerstone for a nation-state. For the SSNP, the Jews do not constitute a nation as they are a heterogeneous mixture of peoples in a similar sense that Muslims and Christians do not constitute a nation. Similarly, the Kurds ug:كۇردلار
Kurds ( ku, کورد ,Kurd, italic=yes, rtl=yes) or Kurdish people are an Iranian ethnic group native to the mountainous region of Kurdistan in Western Asia, which spans southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, northern Ir ...
were attacked for their communitarianism
Communitarianism is a philosophy that emphasizes the connection between the individual and the community. Its overriding philosophy is based upon the belief that a person's social identity and personality are largely molded by community relati ...
and their disposition to establish a Kurdish state in the north. In what relates to the Arab–Israeli conflict, the party has since its establishment adopted a hard-lined anti-Zionist
Anti-Zionism is opposition to Zionism. Although anti-Zionism is a heterogeneous phenomenon, all its proponents agree that the creation of the modern State of Israel, and the movement to create a sovereign Jewish state in the region of Palestine ...
stance, while retaining its belief that a secular and democratic state in Palestine is the only proper solution to the conflict.
The societal cohesion of the Syrian people and its ability to properly assimilate newcomers, minorities, and migrations, is essential to its survival to its progress, and any movement that seeks to assert ethnic, religious, or racial separatism within the Syrian homeland is one that ought to be met with outright hostility. The answer to these threats, according to the Party, lay in the rebirth of the Syrian people, the Renaissance.
The Renaissance
The Syrian people, as outlined above, is, according to Saadeh, among the first people to have historically moved from the tribal phase into the settled agricultural phase and towards the establishment of private property
Private property is a legal designation for the ownership of property by non-governmental legal entities. Private property is distinguishable from public property and personal property, which is owned by a state entity, and from collective or ...
and social classes
A social class is a grouping of people into a set of hierarchical social categories, the most common being the upper, middle and lower classes. Membership in a social class can for example be dependent on education, wealth, occupation, inco ...
. This first transition allowed the Syrian people to prosper exponentially and to excel in most of the crafts of the ancient world. Saadeh and the party espoused the belief that a new transition has to take place, a transition to the modern age
The term modern period or modern era (sometimes also called modern history or modern times) is the period of history that succeeds the Middle Ages (which ended approximately 1500 AD). This terminology is a historical periodization that is applie ...
, which ought to have two prerequisites: the secular
Secularity, also the secular or secularness (from Latin ''saeculum'', "worldly" or "of a generation"), is the state of being unrelated or neutral in regards to religion. Anything that does not have an explicit reference to religion, either negativ ...
unity of the Syrian people and its renaissance. The unity of the Syrian people firstly implies debarring the clergy from interfering in state affairs, and enacting a full separation between Church-Mosque and State. This would inevitably allow the Syrian people to regain its unity and social cohesion.
The second task of the party is to work towards the Renaissance, which the party leader described as being a dynamic undertaking that would shatter what he described as the old regime
Old or OLD may refer to:
Places
*Old, Baranya, Hungary
*Old, Northamptonshire, England
* Old Street station, a railway and tube station in London (station code OLD)
*OLD, IATA code for Old Town Municipal Airport and Seaplane Base, Old Town, Ma ...
. The Renaissance ideal, which Saadeh traces back to the ingenuity of the first Syrians – the Assyrians and the Phoenicians, among others, lies in the mastery of the Syrian people over the sciences and the crafts, which he eulogizes in The Genesis of Nations while attacking what he deemed as the antiquated notions of religious fatalism
Fatalism is a family of related philosophical doctrines that stress the subjugation of all events or actions to fate or destiny, and is commonly associated with the consequent attitude of resignation in the face of future events which are thou ...
. In order to regain its mastery over the crafts and over its own destiny, Saadeh underlines the need for intellectualism
Intellectualism is the mental perspective that emphasizes the use, the development, and the exercise of the intellect; and also identifies the life of the mind of the intellectual person. (Definition) In the field of philosophy, the term ''inte ...
, education, and the pursuit of knowledge as cornerstones of the future Syrian society, a notion he summarizes in his famous quote, "Society is knowledge, and knowledge is power".
Social nationalism
While the Renaissance is underlined as a romanticized notion of spiritual, intellectual, and patriotic elevation, the SSNP elaborated a simple yet straightforward doctrine pertaining to how the Syrian People ought to organize itself once the Renaissance has begun, albeit the fact that Saadeh had not developed the idea completely. The social-nationalist model elaborated by Saadeh is reflected in the "Communiqué of the First Social Nationalist Revolution of 1949".
The first of these principles is the abolition of feudalism
Feudalism, also known as the feudal system, was the combination of the legal, economic, military, cultural and political customs that flourished in medieval Europe between the 9th and 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a way of structur ...
and of the rule of the traditional notables
An Assembly of Notables (French: ''Assemblée des notables'') was a group of high-ranking nobles, ecclesiastics, and state functionaries convened by the King of France on extraordinary occasions to consult on matters of state. Assemblymen were ...
and landowners
In common law systems, land tenure, from the French verb "tenir" means "to hold", is the legal regime in which land owned by an individual is possessed by someone else who is said to "hold" the land, based on an agreement between both individual ...
, which the Party deems responsible for the "desolate state of things to which the country had gotten to", including maintaining educational levels at an all-time low and being instrumental in the loss of Palestine. The second principle is " opposing capitalist tyranny". Despite its belief in the necessity of private property, the SSNP declared defending workers' rights and establishing a framework that guarantees these rights as an inalienable right. This is coupled with the need to establish mandatory education
Compulsory education refers to a period of education that is required of all people and is imposed by the government. This education may take place at a registered school or at other places.
Compulsory school attendance or compulsory schooling ...
, universal healthcare
Universal health care (also called universal health coverage, universal coverage, or universal care) is a health care system in which all residents of a particular country or region are assured access to health care. It is generally organized ar ...
, the nationalization of vital areas of the economy such as the production of raw materials, and a strong centralized state that is able to give economic directions. The third principle stated is combating communism. This remains a topic of debate, however, as the strongly pronounced nationalistic features of SSNP ideology would permit scholars to interpret ''social nationalism'' as a distinctive breed of National Syndicalism
National syndicalism is a far-right adaptation of syndicalism to suit the broader agenda of integral nationalism. National syndicalism developed in France in the early 20th century, and then spread to Italy, Spain, and Portugal. It is general ...
.
Liberation war
Perhaps one of the most striking features of the Party throughout its history is the zealous and the almost mystical devotion of its members to the notion of liberation war
Wars of national liberation or national liberation revolutions are conflicts fought by nations to gain independence. The term is used in conjunction with wars against foreign powers (or at least those perceived as foreign) to establish separat ...
. Most Party members have historically conducted military, guerrilla, and assassination operations. Saadeh himself had a very revolutionary
A revolutionary is a person who either participates in, or advocates a revolution. The term ''revolutionary'' can also be used as an adjective, to refer to something that has a major, sudden impact on society or on some aspect of human endeavor.
...
view of life and death, whereas the Renaissance and the "New Generation" would not see the light of day without sacrifice: "we love life because we love freedom, and we love death when death is a path to life" is among the few quotes of Saadeh which the SSNP reveres.
Since its foundation in 1932, the SSNP adopted direct action and violence
Violence is the use of physical force so as to injure, abuse, damage, or destroy. Other definitions are also used, such as the World Health Organization's definition of violence as "the intentional use of physical force or Power (social and p ...
against those it deemed as the enemies of the Syrian People, to which it referred to as the "forces of darkness", while the founder referred to the Party as the "Sons of Life" (Abna` al-Hayat): Colonialism and particularly French colonialism in Syria and Lebanon, the feudal landowning and notable class, politicians it deemed to be traitors or corrupt, Zionist settlement of Palestine, Christian separatism in Lebanon, Islamic fundamentalism in Syria, a list to which could be added the communists, although this last addition would change in the course of the years as both would join ranks in the LNRF.
In 1949, it declared the "First Renaissance Revolution" against the Lebanese government, an armed confrontation with the Lebanese and Syrian security forces that ended in a disaster and the execution of Antun Saadeh by the Lebanese authorities on 8 July. Not too long later, party members assassinated the Lebanese Prime Minister Riad al-Solh
Riad Reda Al Solh ( ar, رياض الصلح; 17 August 1894 – 17 July 1951) was the first prime minister of Lebanon after the country's independence. who was instrumental in Saadeh's death penalty. To avoid being caught, the assailants committed suicide. When one of the assailants survived and woke up in the hospital, he completed his suicide attempt by tearing up his wounds and falling from the bed. The assassination of the general prosecutor who judged Saadeh was also conducted by a Party cell, and Party members are believed to have been involved in the assassination of Husni al-Zaim, the Syrian dictator who captured Saadeh and handed him over to the Lebanese authorities.
In 1982, party member Habib al-Shartouni assassinated the Lebanese President Bachir Gemayel
Bachir Pierre Gemayel ( ; 10 November 1947 – 14 September 1982) was a Lebanese militia commander who led the Lebanese Forces, the military wing of the Kataeb Party in the Lebanese Civil War and was elected President of Lebanon in 1982 ...
, seen as betraying the country in the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982. The party also undertook many operations against Israeli presence in Lebanon, including a military operation in broad daylight against Israeli officers stationed in Beirut, which triggered the beginning of the generalized armed struggle for Lebanese liberation. Party member Sana'a Mehaidli
Sana'a Mehaidli ( ar, سناء محيدلي; August 14, 1968 – April 9, 1985) was a member of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party who, at the age of 16 blew herself and a Peugeot filled with explosives up next to an Israeli convoy in Jezzine, Leb ...
, known as the first female suicide bomber
Female suicide bombers are women who carry out a suicide attack, wherein the bomber kills herself while simultaneously killing targeted people. Suicide bombers are normally viewed as male political radicals but since the 1960s female suicide attac ...
, detonated herself in her car along with an Israeli convoy in south Lebanon. The party joined arms with the Communists, the PLO, the Arab nationalists, and other groups to fight against the Israeli invasion – see Lebanese National Movement
The Lebanese National Movement (LNM) ( ar, الحركة الوطنية اللبنانية, ''Al-Harakat al-Wataniyya al-Lubnaniyya'') or Mouvement National Libanais (MNL) in French, was a front of leftist, pan-Arabist and Syrian nationalist par ...
/Lebanese National Resistance Front
The Lebanese National Resistance Front – LNRF ( ar, جبهة المقاومة الوطنية اللبنانية, ''Jabhat al-Muqawama al-Wataniyya al-Lubnaniyya'') or Front National de la Résistance Libanaise (FNRL) in French, but best known ...
.
Today, the party's military wing fights alongside the Syrian Arab Army
The Syrian Army, officially the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) ( ar, الْجَيْشُ الْعَرَبيُّ السُّورِيُّ, al-Jayš al-ʿArabī as-Sūrī), is the army, land force branch of the Syrian Armed Forces. It is the dominant military ...
against the Free Syrian Army
The Free Syrian Army (FSA) ( ar, الجيش السوري الحر, al-jaysh as-Sūrī al-ḥur) is a loose faction in the Syrian Civil War founded on 29 July 2011 by officers of the Syrian Armed Forces with the goal of bringing down the governm ...
and ISIS
Isis (; ''Ēse''; ; Meroitic: ''Wos'' 'a''or ''Wusa''; Phoenician: 𐤀𐤎, romanized: ʾs) was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. Isis was first mentioned in the Old Kingd ...
in the Syrian Civil War. Journalist Terry Glavin write in 2015 that it "lavishly indulges a habit of suicide-bombing and assassination" and runs "death squads on behalf of its patron... Bashar Al-Assad
Bashar Hafez al-Assad, ', Levantine pronunciation: ; (, born 11 September 1965) is a Syrian politician who is the 19th president of Syria, since 17 July 2000. In addition, he is the commander-in-chief of the Syrian Armed Forces and the ...
, mostly in the vicinity of Homs
Homs ( , , , ; ar, حِمْص / ALA-LC: ; Levantine Arabic: / ''Ḥomṣ'' ), known in pre-Islamic Syria as Emesa ( ; grc, Ἔμεσα, Émesa), is a city in western Syria and the capital of the Homs Governorate. It is Metres above sea level ...
and the suburbs of Damascus
)), is an adjective which means "spacious".
, motto =
, image_flag = Flag of Damascus.svg
, image_seal = Emblem of Damascus.svg
, seal_type = Seal
, map_caption =
, ...
".
Secularism
The SSNP's ideology was an entirely secular form of nationalism; indeed, it posited the complete separation of religion and politics as one of the two fundamental conditions for real national unity, alongside economic and social reform.[Hourani, p. 326]
Party form
The SSNP was organised with a hierarchical structure and a powerful leader.
Iconography and symbolism
Emblem and flag
The party's emblem is the whirlwind (in Arabic ''Zawba'a'', زوبعة). It was designed by the SSNP students at the American University of Beirut while the party was still clandestine and before the French authorities had uncovered it in 1936. Saadeh stated the whirlwind was found engraved on ancient Syrian artifacts, and it is known from for example Sumerian art. The SSNP emblem has been said to be a combination of the Islamic crescent and the Christian cross. The party flag features a red hurricane, called the ''Zawba'a'', within a white disc on a black background. Each arm symbolizes one of the four virtues of the party's mission: freedom, duty, discipline and power. According to SSNP lore, the black color symbolizes the Dark Ages of Ottoman rule, colonialism, sectarian division, national division, and backwardness. The ''Zawba'a'' allegedly represents the blood of the SSNP martyr
A martyr (, ''mártys'', "witness", or , ''marturia'', stem , ''martyr-'') is someone who suffers persecution and death for advocating, renouncing, or refusing to renounce or advocate, a religious belief or other cause as demanded by an externa ...
s bound together as Muslims and Christians through freedom, duty, discipline and power as a hurricane to purge the Dark Ages and spark their nation's rejuvenation and renaissance. Critics and many scholars claim that the symbol was modeled after the Nazi
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...
swastika
The swastika (卐 or 卍) is an ancient religious and cultural symbol, predominantly in various Eurasian, as well as some African and American cultures, now also widely recognized for its appropriation by the Nazi Party and by neo-Nazis. It ...
a claim that the party denies.
Criticism
Ideological criticism
Arab nationalist thinker Sati' al-Husri
Sāṭi` al-Ḥuṣrī, born Abu Khaldun Sati' al-Husri,( ar, ساطع الحصري, August 1880 – 1968) was an Ottoman, Syrian and Iraqi writer, educationalist and an influential Arab nationalist thinker in the 20th century.
Early life
Of Syri ...
considered that Saadeh "misrepresented" Arab nationalism, incorrectly associating it with a Bedouin
The Bedouin, Beduin, or Bedu (; , singular ) are nomadic Arab tribes who have historically inhabited the desert regions in the Arabian Peninsula, North Africa, the Levant, and Mesopotamia. The Bedouin originated in the Syrian Desert and A ...
image of the Arab and with Muslim sectarianism. Palestinian historian Maher Charif sees Saadeh's theory as a response to the religious diversity of Syria, and points to his later extension of his vision of the Syrian nation to include Iraq, a country also noted for its religious diversity, as further evidence for this. The party also accepted that due to "religious and political considerations", the separate existence of Lebanon was necessary for the time being.
From 1945 onward, the party adopted a more nuanced stance regarding Arab nationalism, seeing Syrian unity as a potential first step towards an Arab union led by Syria.
Scholarly criticism
Lebanese historian Kamal Salibi
Kamal Suleiman Salibi ( ar , كمال سليمان الصليبي ) (2 May 19291 September 2011) gives a somewhat contrasting interpretation, pointing to the position of the Greek Orthodox community as a large minority in both Syria and Lebanon for whom "the concept of pan-Syrianism was more meaningful than the concept of Arabism" while at the same time they resented Maronite
The Maronites ( ar, الموارنة; syr, ܡܖ̈ܘܢܝܐ) are a Christian ethnoreligious group native to the Eastern Mediterranean and Levant region of the Middle East, whose members traditionally belong to the Maronite Church, with the larges ...
dominance in Lebanon. According to Salibi,
Saadeh found a ready following among his co-religionists. His idea of secular pan-Syrianism also proved attractive to many Druzes and Shiites; to Christians other than the Greek Orthodox, including some Maronites who were disaffected by both Lebanism and Arabism; and also to many Sunnite Muslims who set a high value on secularism, and who felt that they had far more in common with their fellow Syrians of whatever religion or denomination than with fellow Sunnite or Muslim Arabs elsewhere. Here again, an idea of nationalism had emerged which had sufficient credit to make it valid. In the Lebanese context, however, it became ready cover for something more archaic, which was essentially Greek Orthodox particularism.
Prof. Salibi remarks on the beginnings of Saadeh's party in the 1930s: " ong its first members were students and young graduates of the American University of Beirut." This early party was "mainly Greek Orthodox and Protestants with some Shi'ites and Druzes... ." In Lebanon as a whole the party was not popular. "Christians were generally opposed to their Syrian unionism, while Moslems were suspicious of their reservations with regard to pan-Arabism. The Lebanese authorities were able to suppress them without difficulty."[K. S. Salibi, ''The Modern History of Lebanon'' (New York: Praeger 1965) at 180.]
See also
*Antoun Saadeh
Antoun Saadeh ( ar, أنطون سعادة, ʾAnṭūn Saʿādah; 1 March 1904 – 8 July 1949) was a Lebanese politician, philosopher and writer who founded the Syrian Social Nationalist Party.
Life and career Early life
Saadeh was born in 19 ...
*1958 Lebanon crisis
The 1958 Lebanon crisis (also known as the Lebanese Civil War of 1958) was a political crisis in Lebanon caused by political and religious tensions in the country that included a United States military intervention. The intervention lasted for aro ...
*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 ...
*Lebanese National Movement
The Lebanese National Movement (LNM) ( ar, الحركة الوطنية اللبنانية, ''Al-Harakat al-Wataniyya al-Lubnaniyya'') or Mouvement National Libanais (MNL) in French, was a front of leftist, pan-Arabist and Syrian nationalist par ...
* Mountain War (Lebanon)
*Lebanese Communist Party
The Lebanese Communist Party (LCP), abbr. PCL is a communist party in Lebanon. It was founded in 1924 by the Lebanese intellectual, writer and reporter Yusuf Yazbek and Fu'ad al-Shamali, a tobacco worker from Bikfaya.
History
Creation
The Syr ...
*Anti-Zionism
Anti-Zionism is opposition to Zionism. Although anti-Zionism is a heterogeneous phenomenon, all its proponents agree that the creation of the modern State of Israel, and the movement to create a sovereign Jewish state in the region of Palestin ...
*Secularism in Lebanon
Notes
References
Citations
Sources
* Charif, Maher, ''Rihanat al-nahda fi'l-fikr al-'arabi'', Damascus, Dar al-Mada, 2000
* Albert Hourani, Hourani, Albert, ''La Pensée Arabe et l'Occident'' (French translation of ''Arab Thought in the Liberal Age'')
* Irwin, Robert, "An Arab Surrealist". ''The Nation (U.S. periodical), The Nation'', 3 January 2005, 23–24, 37–38.
* Salibi, K. S., ''The Modern History of Lebanon'' (New York: Praeger 1965)
* Salibi, Kamal, ''A House of Many Mansions: The History of Lebanon Reconsidered'', University of California, Berkeley, 1988; reprint: London, I.B. Tauris, 1998
* Seale, Patrick, ''Asad: the Struggle for the Middle East'', Berkeley, University of California Press, 1988
*
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External links
SSNP website
SSNP School
Tahawolat Magazine
Articles about society and culture
Attacks attributed to the SSNP
{{Authority control
Syrian Social Nationalist Party,
Articles containing video clips
Political parties in Syria
Syncretic political movements
Political parties established in 1932
Axis of Resistance