Syrian Social Nationalist Party الحزب السوري القومي الاجتماعي | |
|---|---|
 | |
| President | Rabi Noureddine Banat[1] |
| Founder | Antoun Saadeh[2] |
| Founded | 16 November 1932 (1932-11-16) |
| Banned | 29 January 2025 (2025-01-29) (in Syria)[3] |
| Armed wing | Eagles of the Whirlwind[4] |
| Ideology | |
| Political position | Syncretic[a] |
| National affiliation | National Progressive Front (2005-2012, 2014-2025, in Syria) Popular Front for Change and Liberation (2012-2014, in Syria) March 8 Alliance (since 2005, in Lebanon) |
| International affiliation | Axis of Resistance |
| Colours | Black White Red |
| Anthem | !نشيد الإنتصار (lit. 'Victory Anthem!') |
| Party flag | |
 | |
| Website | |
| https://ssnparty.org/ (Syrian chapter) | |
TheSyrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP;Arabic:الحزب السوري القومي الاجتماعي,romanized: al-Ḥizb al-Sūrī al-Qawmī al-ijtimāʻī) is aSyrian nationalist party operating inSyria,Lebanon,Jordan andPalestine. It advocates the establishment of aGreater Syriannation state spanning theFertile Crescent, including present-day Syria, Lebanon, Jordan,Iraq,Kuwait,Palestine region (includes Israel and its occupied territories),Cyprus,Sinai of Egypt,Hatay andCilicia of Turkey, based on geographical boundaries and the common history people within the boundaries share.[21] It has also been active in the Syrian and Lebanese diaspora, for example inSouth America.[22] Until thefall of the Assad regime it was an ally of the rulingArab Socialist Ba'ath Party, being the second-ranking party in theNational Progressive Front.
Founded inBeirut[23] in 1932[22] by the Lebanese intellectualAntoun Saadeh[24] as ananticolonial political organization hostile toFrench colonial rule, the party played a significant role in Lebanese politics. It launchedcoups d'état attempts in 1949 and1961, following which it was repressed in the country. SSNP was active in the fight against the Israeli military during the1982 Lebanon War and subsequentIsraeli occupation of Southern Lebanon until 2000, while simultaneously supporting theSyrian occupation of Lebanon due to its beliefs in Syrianirredentism.
In Syria, SSNP operated as anultranationalist movement until the 1950s; advocating armed uprising to establish aone-party state. It participated in the1949 Syrian coup d'état, which overthrew the democratically elected government ofShukri al-Quwatli. SSNP continued to engage in violent activities throughout the country; and was banned in 1955 after its assassination of a Syrian Ba'athist military officerAdnan al-Malki. Despite its ban, the party remained organized, and by the late 1990s had allied itself with thePalestine Liberation Organisation and theLebanese Communist Party, despite the ideological differences between them. The SSNP was legalized in Syria in 2005, and joined the Syrian Ba'ath Party-ledNational Progressive Front. From 2012 to 6 May 2014,[25][26] the party was part of thePopular Front for Change and Liberation.[27] The party took the side of theBa'athist government during theSyrian Civil War, where almost 12,000 fighters of its armed branch, theEagles of the Whirlwind, fought alongside theSyrian Arab Armed Forces against theSyrian opposition and theIslamic State.[28] Following thefall of the Assad regime, it was banned by theSyrian transitional government, though it still operates openly in other countries as well as clandestinely in Syria.[29][better source needed]
In the mid-nineteenth century,Butrus al-Bustani was one of the first to assert the existence of anatural Syrian nation that should be accommodated in a reformedOttoman Empire.[30] He belonged to theNahda, thinkers influenced by theArabic Literary Renaissance and theFrench Revolution[31] and who wished to shape theTanzimat reforms, which were an attempt to introduce aconstitutional monarchy withreligious freedom to reverse the Ottoman state's creeping economic marginalisation[32] and which would lead to theYoung Turks and theSecond Constitutional Era.
An influential follower of al-Bustani was the BelgianJesuit historian,Henri Lammens, ordained as a priest in Beirut in 1893, who claimed that Greater Syria had sinceancient times encompassed all the land between theArab peninsula,Egypt, theLevantine corridor and theTaurus Mountains, including all the peoples within theFertile Crescent.[33]
This was also accompanied with the rise of a profoundly idealistic patriotism, largely resembling Europeanromantic nationalism, idealizing the coming of aNational Revival 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 ofKahlil Gibran 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 ofNew York andWashington,Chicago andSan Francisco saying in your hearts, "I am the descendent of a people the builtDamascus andByblos, andTyre andSidon andAntioch, and I am here to build with you, and with a will."[34]
The SSNP was founded byAntun Saadeh, aLebanese journalist and lecturer from aGreek Orthodox family who had lived in South America from 1919 to 1930[10]: 43 who secretly established the first nucleus of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party in November 1932, which operated underground for the first three years of its existence;[10] in 1933, he started publishing the monthly journalAl-Majalla, which was distributed in theAmerican University of Beirut 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,[10] although an accusation of having been in contact with the German and Italianfascist movements was dropped after the Germans denied any relationship.[10] During his time in prison Saadeh wroteThe Genesis of Nations to lay out the SSNP's ideology. At that time, the Party joined ranks with other nationalist and patriotic forces including theNational 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 because their founder was Christian.[35]
Saadeh emigrated again to Brazil in 1938 and afterwards to Argentina, only to return to Lebanon in 1947 following thecountry'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 theAxis. 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 forNazi Germany and to the Axis powers, which led Saadeh to issue a lengthy letter to the editor-in-chef, restating that the SSNP is not aNational Socialist party and that no stance should be taken vis-à-vis the Allies or the Axis.[36]
While the Kataeb was committed to the notion of Lebanon as anation state defined as an entity presiding over the borders outlined first by theSykes–Picot Agreement in 1916, and afterwards by theFrench administrative division of its mandate into six states including the state of Greater Lebanon, and had espoused astrong 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 allsectarianism.[37][non-primary source needed]
When the Arabs lost the war in 1948, Saadeh propelled the Party into a fully confrontational stance: He deemedArabism 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.[38]
On 4 July 1949, a year after the declaration of the establishment of the state ofIsrael and the1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight (the Nakba), and a response to a series of aggressions perpetrated by the Kataeb-backed Lebanese government, the SSNP attempted its first revolution.[39]
Following a violent crackdown by government forces, Saadeh travelled to Damascus to meet withHusni al-Za'im in an attempt to obtain his support for the revolution. A decision was taken byKing Farouk,Riad el Solh andHusni al-Za'im to eliminateAntoun Saadeh, under the patronage ofBritish Intelligence and theMossad.[40] 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.[41][42]
Saadeh's wifeJuliette Elmir and their daughters were also handed over and were imprisoned at theGreek OrthodoxOur Lady of Saidnaya Monastery.[43][44] Shortly after her husband's death, Elmir was appointedal-Amina al-ula (First Keeper or First Trustee) of the SSNP and her home became the SSNP's headquarters under the leadership of George Abd Messih. The SSNP allowed women to participate in activism and politics, setting a trend for the social norms for women in politics in theLevant.[45]
After Saadeh was executed and its high-ranking leaders were arrested, the party remained undergrounduntil 1958 when it sided with the pro-Western presidentCamille Chamoun against the Arab nationalist rebels.[46]
On the last day of 1961, two SSNP members, company commanders in the Lebanese army, led an unsuccessful attempted lightning coup againstFouad Chehab, supported by some 200 civilian SSNP members.[47][39] 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.[39]
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.[48] Most of the party's known activists remained in prison or exile until a general amnesty in 1969.[47] In 1969, the party re-aligned towards Arab nationalism.[46]
| Syrian Social Nationalist Party | |
|---|---|
| Leaders | Inaam Raad Abdallah Saadeh Isaam Al Mahayri |
| Headquarters | Hamra Street (Beirut) Amioun (North Lebanon) Dhour El Choueir (Mount Lebanon) |
| Active regions | all Lebanon |
| Size | 10,000 fighters |
| Part of | Lebanese National Movement Lebanese National Resistance Front Front of Patriotic and National Parties |
| Allies |  PLO LCP Communist Action Organization in Lebanon PFLP PSP Syrian Arab Armed Forces Hezbollah Amal Movement Al-Mourabitoun |
| Opponents |  Lebanese Forces Tigers Militia Kataeb Party Al-Tanzim Guardians of the Cedars Israel Defense Forces South Lebanon Army Islamic Unification Movement Future Movement |
| Battles and wars | Lebanese civil war Israel–Hezbollah conflict Gaza war |
With the outbreak of theLebanese Civil War in 1975, the SSNP formed a military squad that allied with theLebanese National Movement (LNM), against thePhalangists and their allies of theLebanese Front. The SSNP saw the Lebanese Civil War as the inevitable result of the divisions of the Syrian nation into small states and away from aliberation war againstIsrael. 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.[46]
After the defeat of anti-Israeli forces in the1982 Lebanon War, the SSNP joined a number of the organizations who regrouped to resist the Israeli occupation, including thekilling of two Israeli soldiers in a Wimpy Cafe in west Beirut by party member Khalid Alwan. The U.S.Federal Bureau of Investigation blames the SSNP for the assassination, in 1982, ofBachir Gemayel, Lebanon's newly elected president supported by the Israelis besieging Beirut.[49] An SSNP member,Habib Shartouni, was arrested for the assassination and eventually convicted for it in 2017.[50]
In 1983, the party joined theLebanese National Salvation Front. In 1985, a member of the party,Sana'a Mehaidli, detonated a car bomb next to an Israeli military convoy atJezzin, South Lebanon. She killed two Israeli soldiers and become one of the first known femalesuicide bombers.[51]
The SSNP in Lebanon was broadly supportive of theSyrian occupation of Lebanon and was allied to pro-Syrian parties (including theMarch 8 Alliance) in the aftermath of the occupation.
The SSNP participated in a number of general elections in Lebanon, winning six seats in1992, although seeing a decline in subsequent elections winning two seats in both2005 and2009. The SSNP were involved in the2008 conflict in Lebanon, with gunmen attacking an SSNP office.[52][53][54][55][56]
Assaad Hardan was party leader for two terms. Hardan was succeeded byRabih 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 ofSaad Hariri.[46] As of the2022 Lebanese elections, the party did not win any seat and currently has no representation in the Lebanese Parliament.
During clashes in the context of the 2023Gaza war and border clashes between Israel and Hezbollah, the PSNS-L took part in the conflict and lost one of its members.[57]
Saadeh had intended SSNP to be an organization that created an Italian-styleRisorgimento which would bring about his project for "Greater Syria". The party promotedanti-communist conspiratorial rhetoric and believed in the formation of an all-encompassing,totalitarian state. Throughout the 1950s, the party acted as anultranationalist entity which plotted violent insurrections and committedterrorist attacks, political assassinations, and other criminal acts. TheSyrian Communist Party andBa'ath Party were its principal rivals, both of which denounced SSNP as a Western-backedZionist project aimed at underminingArab unity and aiding Western interests in the region. After the SSNP's assassination of a high-ranking Syrian military officer andArab nationalist,Adnan al-Malki, in 1955, Syrian authorities banned the party and organized a witch hunt against its members under pressure from the Ba'ath and Communist parties. Throughout the 1950s, SSNP members were captured and put on trial, imprisoned, or killed, ending the party's status as a political force in the country. The SSNP remained an outlawed group in Syria for decades, with the party's image being tarnished by the Malki affair as well as its alignment with Western interests andanti-Arab stances resented by the Syrian populace.[58][59][60]
The SSNP's stance during the Lebanese civil war and in Lebanese politics—where it has become a close ally ofHezbollah[28]—was consistent with that of Syria, which facilitated a rapprochement between the party and the Syrian government. During the latter years ofHafez al-Assad'spresidency, the party was increasingly tolerated. After the succession of his sonBashar al-Assad in 2000, this process continued. In 2001, while still officially banned, the party was permitted to attend meetings of the Ba'ath-ledNational 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".[28]
Over time, the SSNP and the Syrian Ba'athist regime experienced a dramatic turnaround in their historical relationship, from enemies to allies. The process started as the party reckoned that Hafez al-Assad's regional goals, such as consolidating Syria's control over Lebanon and thePLO, were consistent with the SSNP's goal of establishing Greater Syria,[47] while the SSNP reciprocated by acting as a Syrian proxy in Lebanon. The alliance has strengthened in the face of theSyrian Civil War.
In the22 April 2007 election for thePeople's Council of Syria, the party gained three out of 250 seats in the parliament. In 2015, journalist Terry Glavin wrote, "But for a brief and friendly interregnum during the Baathist regime's phoneynational elections of 2012, the SSNP has been a member of Bashar al-Assad's ruling coalition since 2005."[8] Its Syrian leader isAli Haidar,[5] who has been one of the two non-Ba'ath party minister's in the Damascus government since 2012, as Minister of State for National Reconciliation Affairs.
L'Orient-Le Jour reported in 2021 that the Syrian uprising/civil war "was an opportunity for the SSNP to take on a new dimension". According to Syrian analyst Samir Akil, SSNP cadres mostly came from the Christian, Alawite, and Shi'ite communities, posing a direct threat to the Assad regime, which was seeking to monopolise control over minorities by theArab Socialist Ba'ath party.[46] During theSyrian revolution protests, the SSNP participated in counter-demonstrations in support of thegovernment.[61] Once theSyrian Civil War broke out, the government reciprocated, providing weaponry and training.[28] In the meantime, SSNP officials had become a target for rebel militants and were kidnapped and assassinated.[61] 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",[61] with the party regarding both the ongoing Syrian Civil War and theIraq War as attempts to partition those countries—and, eventually, Lebanon—along ethno-sectarian lines.[28]
In 2016, estimates of the number of SSNP fighters in Syria ranged from 6,000 to 8,000.[28] Lebanese fighters were 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".[28]
By February 2014, SSNP fighters were primarily deployed in the governorates ofHoms andDamascus and were said to be the most formidable military force other than the Syrian army inSuwayda.[61] SSNP fighters have participated in the battlesof Sadad,of Ma'loula, andof al-Qaryatayn, among others.[61][62] In 2016, party officials claimed that its membership had increased "by the thousands" since the start of the war as a result of its alleged "reputation as an effective fighting force in Syria".[28]
The party was allowed a larger role in theSyrian People's Assembly: it fielded thirty candidates for the2016 parliamentary election, winning seven seats.[28]
However, starting from 2018, these gains began to be reversed, as Bashar al-Assad initiated an intenseBa'athification programme in regime-held territories, which sought the stronger amalgamation of the Ba'athist-state nexus and the tightening of the grip of the state. As part of its attempts to strengthen theone-party state, the Ba'ath party has also cemented its monopoly over military forces, student activism, trade unions, youth organizations, and other social associations.[63] The new campaign also purged those Ba'ath cadres deemed insufficiently loyal from all levels of party organizations and promoted the re-structuring of Syrian society along the lines ofBa'athist ideology, characterized by absolute loyalty to theAssad dynasty, which is portrayed as the founding fathers of the Syrian state.[64][65]
The SSNP was one of the biggest losers in the2020 Syrian parliamentary elections, with its allotted seats being reduced from seven to three. The elections showcased the absolute dominance of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath party in the political system by increasing the Ba'athist share to two-thirds of the total, or 167 seats. This was also part of the Assad regime's wider clampdown on SSNP activities to curb its influence in Syria that was gained during the civil war. The Ba'athist government also dissolved theEagles of the Whirlwind, the SSNP's paramilitary wing in the country.[65]
The anti-SSNP clampdown was also part of Bashar al-Assad's feud with his cousinRami Makhlouf, who headed the SSNP (Amana) faction and was widely reviled as a symbol of corruption in the regime. Bashar al-Assad had banned the SSNP (Amana) faction on 10 October 2019 and ordered the confiscation of his cousin's business assets. Makhlouf's private militias, which fought alongside theSyrian military, were also disbanded by the government. SSNP leaders criticized their sidelining in the 2020 parliamentary elections as a betrayal, with many party cadres viewing the authoritarian measures of the government with dismay.[66][67][68]
In 2023, the SSNP announced their support for theHamas attack on Israel, congratulatingHamas for launching theoffensive and asking for thePalestinian National Authority to join the fight.[69] The SSNP further claimed thatterrorism is a "tool for theJewish project" rather than for Hamas.[70]
In the2024 parliamentary election, the last held in Ba'athist Syria, they retained their three seats as members of the National Progressive Front.[71]
Following the fall of the Assad dictatorship, the SSNP published a statement separating itself from the old regime, accusing it of "contributing to the fragmentation of our party's institutions" and calling for unity to maintain national sovereignty, institutions and interests. It also called for confronting the ongoingIsraeli invasion of Syria.[72]
In 1966,King Hussein had his security services sent into action to eradicate the SSNP from Jordan. The party had been active among thePalestinian population.[47]
In 2013 followers of the party established the "Movement of Syrian Social Nationalists in Jordan".[73][74]
Scholars and analysts have debated how the SSNP's ideology should be described. For example,L'Orient-Le Jour 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."[46] Christopher Solomon states that SSNP's persistent backing of theBa'athist government since itsoccupation of Lebanon, has positioned the party in theleft-wing side of political spectrum. Other sources are less definitive. Political rivals of SSNP have commonly labelledAntoun Saadeh as afascist ideologue who formed relations withNazis during theSecond World War.[75] Saadeh was aware of accusations of fascism, and he responded to them during his speech of 1 June 1935:
The system of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party is not a Hitlerite or a Fascist system, but that it is purely a Syrian system which does not stand on unprofitable imitation, but on basic originality which is one of the characteristics of our people.
— Antun Saadeh, June 1935[10][76]
Throughout theSecond World War, Saadeh was rumoured to have close contacts with officials ofFascist Italy andNazi Germany.[77] Some scholars have made comparisons of SSNP's ideological and organizational resemblances with European fascism, and of its external symbols to those of German Nazism, although these criticisms are not accepted by the party itself.[78][6][7][8]Bellingcat calls it a "rabidlyanti-Semitic, fascist organization [with] international ties to thefar-right."[5]
According to historianStanley G. Payne,interwar Arab nationalism was influenced by European fascism, with the creation of at least seven Arab nationalist shirt movements similar to thebrown shirt movement by 1939, with the most influenced ones being the SSNP, the Iraqi Futawa youth movement and theYoung Egypt movement.[79] 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 "[emphasizing] military virtues and power [and stressing] self-sacrifice".[79] Also according to Payne, all these movements received strong influence from European fascism and praised the Italian and German fascism but "[they never became] fully developed fascist movements, and none reproduced the full characteristics of European fascism"; the influence in Arab nationalism remained long after 1945.[79] Also, Saadeh's superior race was not a pure one, but a fusion of all races in Syrian history.[79] The SSNP would be "[an] elite group, with little structure for mobilization".[79]
According to researcher Wissam Samia, Saadeh defined the policy of the SSNP in a newspaper he founded in 1947 called 'Suriah al-jadida' (New Syria) in a letter to its board of directors. He defined the party's policy as "Syrian nationalist policy that is not mixed with any foreign policy", and emphasized that the party's policy is not fascist, Nazi, or "democratic", and that the party's politics is not communist or Bolshevik.[80]
Prior to the fall of the Assad regime, the party referred to political opponents of the regime as "internal Jews."[81]
While in jail from early February to early May 1936, Saadeh completedThe 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 theZagros mountains in the north-west to theSuez Canal and theRed Sea in the south and includes theSinai peninsula and theGulf of Aqaba, and from theMediterranean Sea in the west, including the island ofCyprus, to the arch of the Arabian desert and thePersian Gulf in the east.[37][independent source needed] According to Saadeh, this region is also called the Syrian Fertile Crescent, the island Cyprus being its star.[82]
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 thecradle of civilizations, 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 thepre-Christian era empires ofBabylon andAssyria, of theHittites and the kings ofAram, then of theIslamic empires, all the way up until the present.[47]
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.[47] 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.[24]
Unlike other militant nationalist parties in the Arab World, Syrian Social Nationalist Party was unique in its espousal of an exclusive form of nationalism which glorified the pre-Christian era, advocating the union of all Syrian peoples under a "Greater Syria". The party admitted Christians, Muslims and Druzites into its ranks, but denied the Jews in Syria any membership, even if they were opposed to Zionism.[77]
The attitude of the party and its founder towards minorityseparatism 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. The incomingJewish 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 ethnicallyJewish state 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.[83] Similarly, theKurds were criticized for theircommunitarianism and their disposition to establish a Kurdish state in the north.
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 MinisterRiad al-Solh 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.[84]
In 1982, party memberHabib al-Shartouni assassinated the Lebanese PresidentBachir Gemayel, seen as betraying the country in theIsraeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982.[46] 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 memberSana'a Mehaidli, known as the firstfemale suicide bomber, detonated herself in her car along with an Israeli convoy in south Lebanon.[85]
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.[86]
The SSNP was organised with a hierarchical structure and a powerful leader.[86]
The party's emblem is the whirlwind (Arabic:زوبعة,romanized: Zawba'a). 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 party flag features a red hurricane, called theZawba'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.[10]: 45 According to SSNP lore, the black color symbolizes the Dark Ages of Ottoman rule, colonialism, sectarian division, national division, and backwardness. TheZawba'a represents the blood of the SSNPmartyrs 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 scholars claim that the symbol was modeled after theNaziswastika[78][6][7][87][88][89] a claim that the party vehemently denies.[28]
Arab nationalist thinkerSati' al-Husri considered that Saadeh "misrepresented" Arab nationalism, incorrectly associating it with aBedouin image of the Arab and with Muslim sectarianism. Palestinian historianMaher 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.[90] The party also accepted that due to "religious and political considerations", the separate existence of Lebanon was necessary for the time being.[86] 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.[86]
JournalistChristopher Hitchens and his team were assaulted in February 2009 by SSNP paramilitaries in the streets ofBeirut before being rescued by a crowd. The attack left Hitchens with body injuries and a limp in his leg.[91] Reporting toVanity Fair in May 2009, Hitchens described SSNP as a "suicide-bomber front" that carries out terrorist operations inLebanon on behalf ofBa'athist Syria. He asserted that SSNP was a violentfascist movement; noting itsirredentist ambitions of creating "Greater Syria", a project that sought the annexation or partial conquest of numerous nation-states in the region.[92] Recounting the events of the assault, Hitchens stated:
"What shook me is how nearly it could have got fantastically nasty. We could have been hurt or taken away. These militias have their own private dungeons. I wouldn't fancy spending time in one of those."[91]
Lebanese historianKamal Salibi 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 resentedMaronite 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.[93]
Prof. Salibi remarks on the beginnings of Saadeh's party in the 1930s: "[A]mong 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 Muslims were suspicious of their reservations with regard to pan-Arabism. The Lebanese authorities were able to suppress them without difficulty."[94]
The SSNP flag, which features a curved swastika called the red hurricane (zawba'a), points to the party's fascistic origins.
... during his speech of 1 June 1935 ... Antun Saadeh declared ... '... The Syrian Social Nationalist Party is neither a Hitlerite nor a Fascist one, but a pure social nationalist one. It is not based on useless imitation, but is the result of an authentic invention. ...'
It survived and made itself useful during Syria's occupation of Lebanon by relying on its militia, unique ideology, and adopting a politically pragmatic approach that brought the SSNP from the right side of the political spectrum to its current place in the camp of the left.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link)Our Syria has distinct natural boundaries…
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link){{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link){{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link)[The SSNP] greet their leaders with a Hitlerian salute; sing their Arabic anthem, "Greetings to You, Syria," to the strains of "Deutschland, Deutschland über alles"; and throng to the symbol of the red hurricane, a swastika in circular motion.
Saadeh, the party's 'leader for life', was an admirer of Adolf Hitler and influenced by Nazi and fascist ideology. This went beyond adopting a reversed swastika as the party's symbol and singing the party's anthem toDeutschland über alles, and included developing the cult of a leader, advocating totalitarian government, and glorifying an ancient pre-Christian past and the organic whole of the Syrian Volk or nation.
[The SSNP] had been founded in 1932 as a youth movement, deliberately modeled on Hitler's Nazi Party. For its symbol it invented a curved swastika, called the Zawbah.
The flag of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party has a black background with a red hurricane (reversed swastika) in the middle, encircled by a white rim ...also pages 111–112 in the edition ofCornell University Press, 1967: "Thus, the Syrian national anthem for the PPS sang "Syria, Syria uber alles" to the same familiar tune of "Deutschland, Deutschland uber alles" (176) The hand gestures in saluting and the "long live the leader" bore striking resemblances to the Nazi practice. The swastika was replaced with a hurricane as a PPS symbol, (177) while the storm or combat troops were present in both. Both Hitler and Saadeh, in addition to having the same title of 'the leader', held and exercised all legislative and executive authority."
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