- Antun Sa’adeh
On February 20, 1937, the
Lebanese authorities tried to prevent and later disband a national celebration
held by the SSNP in the Lebanese mountain town of Bikfayyah. This
celebration followed a large popular welcoming rally held on January 19, 1937,
in the mountain town of Amatour in the Shuf area. Like the first rally, the
Bikfayyah celebration was well-organized and intended to demonstrate the popular
support for the SSNP and its leader in that area of Mount Lebanon.
Sa’adeh, it should be noted,
had insisted on having the celebration in this particular town. When a local
party member reminded him that Bikfayyah was recognized as a centre for the
government and the pro-French Maronite political parties, and that the SSNP
local branch in this district was relatively weaker, Sa’adeh replied: “Because
Bikfaya was recognized as such, I want the celebration to take place in it.”
At any rate, government
security forces led by the local governor (Qa’immaqam), Fu’ad al-Baryyidi,
attempted to seize the flags raised in the celebration and disperse the
participants. Violent clashes ensued and led to the encirclement of the Lebanese
security forces by participating SSNP members. In the wake of the
bloody clashes, Sa’adeh issued a communiqué in which he attacked the government
and the ruling sectarian class. He argued that the Social Nationalists were not
strangers in Lebanon, but members of the Lebanese State with the right to
express their opinions in regard to its destiny. Sa’adeh then warned:
If
Lebanon has an entity, then it is the entity of the Lebanese people as a whole,
unless the ruling class in Lebanon regards itself as Lebanon and the Lebanese
people as nothing but the ruled community; then we have the honour to declare
that one of the most important goals of the SSNP is to eliminate this bad image
of our national life - the image of the ruler and the ruled - and to put an end
to civil privileges in the state.
The Lebanese government
reacted angrily to Sa’adeh’s communiqué. According to observers, “a vast and
well-organized campaign of persecution against the party” ensued. This was
accompanied by an attempt to arrest Sa’adeh. On March 9, 1937, the authorities
succeeded in arresting him for the third time, on a charge of inciting the
people against public order. He was kept in prison for two months, during which
he was tried but proven innocent.
While in prison, Sa’adeh wrote
Nushu’ al-Ummah
al-Suriyyah
(The Genesis of the Syrian Nation),
but the French
authorities confiscated the manuscript and never returned it. Following
Sa’adeh’s arrest, hundreds of youths in Tripoli and al-Kura supporting the SSNP
petitioned the Lebanese President complaining about the government’s
restrictions on freedoms and appealing to him for Sa’adeh’s release. In response
to the tone used in their petition, the government accused those who had signed
it of conspiracy against general order and of contempt of the government. They
were subjected to two trials and each fined a certain amount.