By: Hisham Bustani*
(The original Arabic Version was published in Al-Adab Magazine, Issue 6/7 2005, pages 107-109)
Some will say: “a dreamer”, “his mind is still there in the 1950s ad 60s”, “unrealistic” and “roaming outside history”.
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I was provoked by the proceedings of the “Seminar on the Future of the Syrian-Lebanese Relations” published in the last issue of Al-Adab(1)! And since all the participants are “Syrians” (Hussien Al-Oudat, Michelle Kilo, Omar Ameralay and Yasin Haj-Salih), and intellectuals; I was surprised by the amount of misinformation presented, and basing political analysis on it, as if taking an opposing position against a certain Arab regime (in this case: the Syrian regime), requires adopting automatically the Arab saying: “My Enemy`s enemy is my friend” in an ultimate context.
And above all that, this “enemy`s enemy” becomes a descendent from outer space and detached from history, with no past, no mechanisms of movement, and outside the applications of the laws of development and evolution. It becomes necessary for the “Syrian” to take an “innocence sentence” from his “Syrianism” so as not to “Go Out”(2): not out of “Lebanon” the country (that happened already), but out of the “Lebanese comprehension” or the “comprehension of Lebanon”, which is a reflection of the “comprehension of Syria”, the “comprehension of Palestine” and the “comprehension of Jordan”, i.e. the fake comprehension of post-colonial state as a “national project”, detached from history, geography and even interest. Thus, these “projects” will not be a continuity of each other, but rather “coexisting”, “side-by-side” issues; “neighboring countries”, just like “Israel”.
It is the comprehension and the “project” of the post-colonial state which has become the slogan of this era and its program, and is the basic prelude for “reshaping the region” as Collin Powell has declared before the invasion of Iraq: The disintegration of the “Nation comprehension” into the comprehension of the canton and sect; the disintegration of the region into margins and the margins into annexes; and reattaching all that on the only allowed center: “Israel”.
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The Film: Memento(3). Unusually starts at the end of the story, and ends at the start of it, because the main issue (as in all things in this world) is there at the beginning. The main character in the film has a strange illness: his memory does not hold anything for more than a few minutes, and then all the events and people disappear forever. So, he registers important things on pieces of paper, and photographs every individual he meets with a Polaroid camera, writing on its back side his impressions on that person, which will become a final judgment. As for ultimate facts: he tattoos them on his body.
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Let us start, from the beginning.
The “two neighboring countries”(4) are not “countries” in the first place! And so is the case for the other “two neighboring countries”(5) that lie south of the above mentioned “neighboring countries”. Does anyone of you remember something called “Syria”?? Or have our post-colonial state-oriented minds stopped comprehending nothing from this word except the post-colonial country that holds the same name??
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Flash Back 1: The Sykes-Picot Agreement, 1916
It is accordingly understood between the French and British governments:
That France and Great Britain are prepared to recognize and protect an independent Arab states or a confederation of Arab states (a) and (b) marked on the annexed map, under the suzerainty of an Arab chief. That in area (a) France, and in area (b) Great Britain, shall have priority of right of enterprise and local loans. That in area (a) France, and in area (b) Great Britain, shall alone supply advisers or foreign functionaries at the request of the Arab state or confederation of Arab states.
That in the blue area France, and in the red area great Britain, shall be allowed to establish such direct or indirect administration or control as they desire and as they may think fit to arrange with the Arab state or confederation of Arab states.
That in the brown area there shall be established an international administration, the form of which is to be decided upon after consultation with Russia, and subsequently in consultation with the other allies, and the representatives of the sheriff of Mecca.
It shall be agreed that the French government will at no time enter into any negotiations for the cession of their rights and will not cede such rights in the blue area to any third power, except the Arab state or confederation of Arab states, without the previous agreement of his majesty`s government, who, on their part, will give a similar undertaking to the French government regarding the red area. (6)
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The Blue Area??
God how far away is the year 1916! We are all the offspring of a new millennium! Maybe the builder Abu-Sleiman, grandfather of Nazih Abu Afash(7), will remind us that he never said once on his trips to villages in “Lebanon” that he was “going to Lebanon”, but he always said that he is “going south”(8). Maybe my grandfather Subhi Abdel-Kader Al-Bustani will remind us that when he escaped from Damascus to Amman in 1916 (to evade enrollment in the Ottoman Army) through the ports of Beirut and Haifa, not a single person had stopped him and asked: “where the hell are you going”, and not a single border policeperson asked him for passport and visa.
There is a large family the resides in the Horan Plains(9): Al-Zo`bi family. They were divided by the Sykes-Picot line into two parts. One part became south of the line, now “Jordanians”; and the other part north of the line, now “Syrians”. One family.
Had anyone of you visited Al-Azhar Mosque in Cairo? When the mosque was a university in the past, there were rooms for the Arab students divided on a “regional” basis. I asked the tour guide: “I wonder where the Jordanian students used to study?”. “There, in that room to the left of the mosque yard.” He replied. “And the Palestinians?” I asked again, “In that same room” came the reply, “and the Syrians and the Lebanese?” I went on in my curiosity, “In that same room” he went on, “It is the room of the Shwaam”(10)
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Flash Back 2: From the King-Crane Commission Report, August 28, 1919
1. The largest percentage for any one request is that of 1,500 petitions (80.4 per cent) for United Syria, including Cilicia, the Syrian Desert, and Palestine. The boundaries of this area are usually defined as “The Taurus Mountains on the north- the Euphrates and Khabur Rivers, and the line extending east of Abu Kamal to the east of Al Juf on the east; Rafa and the line running from Al Juf to the south of Aqaba on the south, and the Mediterranean Sea on the West.” In addition to being the first plank of the Damascus program, a United Syria received strong support from many Christians in all the O. E. T. As., as the number of petitions indicates.
2. In opposition to Syrian Unity, six of the nineteen pro-Zionist petitions ask for a separate Palestine, and presumably it is implied in the others(11).
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The Film: Diary of a People (12). In it appears Moh`md Azzeh Darwazeh(13) reminding us that the first decision of the first Arab conference against the Balfour Declaration(14) and the division agreements was that Palestine is a part of Syria, and that the conference demands the independence of Syria as a whole and as one unit.
Nowadays, nobody remembers. Nobody wants to remember. Generations has grown over the Zionist idea that designates “Palestine” as a “unique territory” that is distinguished from the land that surrounds it, and that there is no continuity between “Palestine” and the regions around it. Let`s think: In whose favor is the separation of southern Syria from its Homeland and declaring it a trans-history/trans-geography entity?
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Flash Back 3: From the Resolutions of the Palestine Arab Conference, 10 February 1919
We consider Palestine as part of Arab Syria as it has never been separated from it at any time. We are connected with it by national, religious, linguistic, natural, economic and geographical bonds.
In view of the above we desire that one district Southern Syria or Palestine should not be separated from the Independent Arab Syrian Government and to be free from all foreign influence and protection(15).
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We drown in details and in pseudo-national flags. “Lebanon will again be re-built”??(16). Do you really think so when “the General” Michelle Awn, the self-acclaimed “liberator of Lebanon” lands in Beirut coming from the country which has previously occupied his country to brag that “the liberation” was achieved in the US Congress by the “Syria Accountability Act”(17) and in the UN Security Council by the Resolution 1559(18), and that Rafiq Al-Hariri`s murder(19) did nothing but “accelerate” this “liberation”(20)?!! Here he is: Awn pointing out to the main beneficiaries of the Hariri murder, and possibly the perpetrators, as we see Al-Hariri`s body becomes a “ride” for disagreeing born-again allies: Fascists and sectarians with socialists and democrats and capitalists, all together with allies of Israel and Allies of the US and allies of France! (Allies? Subordinates is the correct word). Nothing connects and gathers this bizarre group except their hostility to memory: The memory of the war(21), the memory of their past and current alliances(22), the memory of the blood that`s still warm on the blades of knives and axes, and the memory of a Homeland……not a post-colonial state.
The numbers continue to increase on “Al-Mustaqbal” screen(23), intensifying the amnesia. Each day will distance you further, and the main character will forget: forget how the leader of the “Progressive Socialist Party” will seek the pardon of Sameer Ja`ja the Godfather and Military Leader of the sectarian/fascist Lebanese Forces Militia(24), and to build an alliance with his party; forget how the owners of “Al-Mustaqbal” Channel are also building a coalition with the same fascism; forget who stood in front of the US Congress to testify against his people(25); forget “Al-Kheyam” prison(26) and the screams of torment that used to keep the residents of the surrounding villages awake all night; forget “Qana”(27); forget “Sabra” and “Chatilla” Massacres(28); forget the Patriarch`s pilgrimage to Washington DC(29); forget the “Syrian” construction workers who were thrown to their death from atop buildings constructed with their sweat(30). We`ll level down-town Beirut to the ground, and over the ruins will rise a new Parisian memory(31).
Hussien Al-Oudat forgot all that, and the alliance of Capitalism with Fascism became “an original democratic protest movement”(32). Michelle Kilo forgot all that stating that “the speech of the Lebanese opposition assured that it is not within the American context”, and that the “USA is not behind the Palestinian and Lebanese democracies”!! (What democracies?? The democracies of occupation and militias??!).
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The “Syrian” Hussein Al-Oudat describes what`s happening as “the return of Lebanon to Lebanon”(33), while the “Syrian” Michelle Kilo becomes more pessimistic following the pro-resistance demonstration(34) after he concluded that the Syrian army will withdraw “but Syria will not”!!! So that`s the issue: You don´t like the withdrawal of the ruling class and their “security” tools, but instead you want comprehensive popular/social/economical disengagement. The withdrawal of Syria from Syria and the return of Lebanon to an invented memory.
In similar days, but a century ago, the Arab “national state” was being developed, not by the factors of politics, feelings and speech, but materialistically: The formation of an Arab national market. The families of Damascus merchants were expanding outside the Damascus center to settle in the peripheries, opening new trade horizons and forming objectively one of the most important factors of the evolvement of the nation state. Until this minute, you`ll find the grandsons of these merchants in the cities of Beirut (Lebanon); Nablus (Palestine); Irbid, Jerash, Ajloun, Mafraq, Zarqa, Amman, Sult, Kerak and as south as Ma`an (Jordan). The latter town is even divided into two neighborhoods: The Shami neighborhood (i.e. Syrian) and the Hijazi neighborhood (the northern region of the Arab Peninsula). Thus the commercial network between the Arabs of Syria and the Arabs of Hijaz to the South and the Arabs of Iraq to the East was becoming more integrated and an Arab national market was vividly forming. The Syrians revolted against the Ottomans to realize the National State which was never born: In came the French and British mandates and their expressions of progress: Division, subordination, and robbery.
Now, after a century of defeats and frustrations, we started talking about the withdrawal of Syria from Syria and the return of Lebanon to Lebanon; and Omar Ameralay compares Syria with the French Colonialism and says that Hezbollah is the “representative of the Syrian Colonialism”!!
Where is your Marxism, you who call yourselves “Leftist Democrats”?? The Democratic Left Movement in Lebanon declares: “We are going ahead with the battle of extracting the independent national Lebanese decision, and we will succeed as the Palestinian National Leadership headed by Yaser Arafat have succeeded before us in refusing the saying `Palestine is the south of Syria` and the went on in their battle to retrieve Palestine”!!!!(35) Talk about Marxist analysis and invented entities and histories!!
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Flash Back 4: “Palestine” in the Arab Popular Comprehension before its Invention
*We, the undersigned, members of the General Syrian Congress assembled in Damascus on the 2nd of July 1919 and composed of delegates from the three zones, namely the southern, eastern and western, and furnished with credentials duly authorising us to represent the Moslem, Christian and Jewish inhabitants of our respective districts, have resolved to submit the following as defining the aspirations of the people who have chosen us to place them before the American Section of the Inter-Allied Commission
(……)
7. We reject the claims of the Zionists for the establishment of a Jewish commonwealth in that part of southern Syria which is known as Palestine, and we are opposed to Jewish immigration into any part of the country. We do not acknowledge that they have a title, and we regard their claims as a grave menace to our national, political and economic life. Our Jewish fellow-citizens shall continue to enjoy the rights and to bear the responsibilities which are ours in common.
8. We desire that there should he no dismemberment of Syria, and no separation of Palestine or the coastal regions in the west or the Lebanon from the mother country; and we ask that the unity of the country be maintained under any circumstances(36).
**The People of Northern and Costal Syria regard Southern Syria (Palestine) a piece continuous with Syria(37).
***And what is more astonishing is that poor unlucky Palestine has become a toy in the hands of politicians doing with it what they want. They did not stop at their declarations of giving Palestine to the Jews, but they started suggesting things that will lead to the detachment of the Arab People in Palestine from Syria and making it [Palestine] a separate political unit, and we don´t know what is this “separate unity” under the supervision of the British. With these suggestions they`ll: a) Give Palestine to the Jews, b) fragmented it and detached it from Syria and with this detachment the [Arab population] will decrease and the Jews will increase and they`ll have a majority in everything(38).
****In our earlier letters we demanded no separation of Palestine from Syria, and we protested what is intended of transferring Palestine into a homeland for the Jews. And when the American committee [the King Crane Commission] visited this country it was assured that all the people of Syria from the South to the North unanimously reject the Zionist movement (……) and we demand no separation of Palestine from Syria under any circumstances(39).
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Because we forget, and because the film wants to remind us that the “beginning” is the base, and that we are not creatures floating in outer-space; that we are not without a history; that we are not the “children of today”; we must tattoo all of the above on our bodies, maybe someday we`ll remember that we did not arrive to this world on the back of a flying saucer, and we were not created in a test-tube in some galactic black hole.
Who, then, is roaming “outside history”?? Who then is struggling to erase his memory to be a “born-again”, all “clean” from the sins of geography …… and history?? Are we that stupid??
*Writer and activist. Member of the Follow-up Committee of the Resistant Arab People`s Alliance. Member of the Anti-Normalization Committee of the Union of Professional Associations and the Higher Executive Committee for the Protection of Homeland and the Confrontation of Normalization in Jordan. A Leftist militant, active against Imperialism and Globalization.
Foot Notes:
1.”Seminar on the Future of the Syrian-Lebanese Relations”, participants: Hussien Al-Oudat, Michelle Kilo, Omar Ameralay, moderated by: Yasin Haj-Salih, Al-Adab: Issue 3/4/5 2005, pages 25-31.
2.”Syria Go Out” was one of the main slogans chanted at the demonstrations in Lebanon against the Syrian presence in Lebanon.
3.Memento, Directed by: Christopher Nolan, Starring: Guy Pearce, Carrie-Anne Moss, and Jo Pantoliano.
4.Syria and Lebanon.
5.Jordan and Palestine.
6. http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/mideast/sykes.htm, for the map of the areas check: http://www.passia.org/palestine_facts/MAPS/Sykes_Picot_agreement_1916.htm
7.A Syrian poet, his grandfather was a builder and built many houses in lots of villages in what is called now “Lebanon”.
8.Nazeeh Abu-Afash, the Second September 11: Diaries of Disgrace, Al-Adab: Issue 3/4/5 2005, page 10.
9.Plains that extend in the area north of “Jordan” and “Palestine” and south of “Syria”.
10.Shaam is an Arab word that describes historic Syria which was divided by the British and the French Colonialists into four “countries”: Syria, Jordan, Palestine and Lebanon. Arabs refer to their peers who come from the historic Syria region in a collective term: Shwaam.
11.http://www.damascus-online.com/history/documents/king_crane.htm
12.Diaries of a People, Directed by: Qais Al-Zubaidi, Produced by PLO.
13.Moh`md Azzeh Darwazeh, (1887-1984), a renowned Arab militant against the British Colonialism and later the Zionist project in Palestine. When I did research on him for this article, I found out that he is a descendent of the “Freihat” clan which resides east of the Jordan river, giving further evidence that “seperationists” have a false argument.
14. For the full text of the Balfour Declaration: http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/mideast/balfour.htm
15.Kayyali, Palestine – A Modern History, pp. 60-3. in: http://www.aqsa.org.uk/chapterContents.aspx?id=44
16. A well-known Lebanese song which was played extensively on the return of Michelle Awn to Lebanon from his exile in France.
17. The text of the Act (dated May 1, 2003) can be seen on http://www.theorator.com/bills108/s982.html
18. Text for Resolution 1559 can be found at http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/lebanon/res1559.htm
19. A former Lebanese Prime Minister whose assassination on February 14, 2005 led to the reactions we see in Lebanon these days.
20.Check http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/05/08/news/beirut.php
21. The Lebanese Civil War (1975 to 1990): a sectarian war where today`s allies were yesterday`s enemies and fought against each other what they called “wars of deletion” to completely delete the “other`s” entire population, and where “killing on the ID card” (checking religion on the ID and killing the person if from “another” sect) was a regular act.
22. Many (almost all) of those who formed the alliance to eject the Syrian forces and security presence in Lebanon were allies to Syria and were beneficiaries from the Syrian presence! Also alliances were made with the Zionists by some sects against their own compatriots to get political, logistical and military support to annihilate them!!
23.Al-Mustaqbal TV station which is owned by Rafiq Al-Hiriri, the assassinated ex-PM of Lebanon. Since his death, the TV station continuously show a “day counter” on the top left corner of the screen to illustrate how many days have passed since the assassination has been done without any knowledge of the perpetrators. This openly contradicts with the policy adopted by the same Al-Hariri current and its allies who directly blamed Syria for the killing.
24.The Lebanese Forces is a Christian Maronite sectarian military organization that fought viciously during the civil war, made alliances with “Israel”, and was involved in the massacres of the Palestinian refugee camps. It`s Leader, Sameer Ja`ja, was sentenced for life imprisonment for his role in many murders committed during the civil war. He was released last month on a special pardon after spending 11 years of his sentence due to the efforts of the “Syria-Out” coalition and the pressures they made following the Syrian withdrawal. The Lebanese Forces and the Progressive Socialist Party fought a “deletion war” against each other during the civil war!!
25.In September 2003, Michelle Awn testified against Syria in front of a US Congressional Committee paving the way for the “Syria Accountability Act”.
26. A prison set-up by the Zionists and was run by the client South Lebanon Army led by Antwan Lahd during the Zionist occupation of South Lebanon. The prison is well-known for the unbelievable torture that used to occur in it, the screams of those being tortured deprived the inhibitors of surrounding villages from sleep. The prison is kept until now as a witness to Zionist brutality and can be visited. Many of the South Lebanon Army members including its leader fled to “Israel” after the liberation o South Lebanon. These days, discussions are “growing” towards giving a “pardon” to Antwan Lahd and his boys to return to Lebanon!!!
27. In 1996, Zionist bombarded Lebanese civilians taking shelter in a UN premises south of Lebanon. Read the Robert Fisk account at: http://www.bintjbeil.com/E/occupation/robert_fisk_qana.html
28.Sabra and Chatilla Massacres: In September 1982, and during the Zionist occupation of Lebanon, the Lebanese Forces Militia under coordination with the Israeli Army went in the two refugee camps named above and killed around 3000 of the inhabitants. Ariel Sharon (then the Israeli Defense Minister) was involved in the operation and his role was documented even in the report issued by the investigation committee of the Israeli Knesset which is known as the Kahana report.
29. Patriarch Sfier`s visit to Washington and meeting with Bush on March 16, 2005. The Patriarch plays a key role in Lebanese Politics. Check http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/03/20050316-6.html
30. During the “Syria Out” demonstrations, a number of Syrian construction workers were killed in ugly ways like throwing them from high construction sites. This was one of the most extreme expressions of the “Syria-out” movement and reflects the embedded fascist content of some of its constituents. Oddly enough, the news of the tragic deaths of these workers was never mentioned in the main stream media, or any other media!
31. In the period following the end of the civil war, down-town Beirut which was heavily damaged by the war and was the witness of its savageness and brutality, was acquired by Solidaire, a construction company whose largest shareholder is Rafiq Al-Hariri, which erased all the buildings and instead build a “new” down-town that looks like a part of Paris. Down-town Beirut is now known as “the Solidaire”.
32.”Seminar on the Future of the Syrian-Lebanese Relations”, mentioned above, page 25.
33. ibid, page 25.
34.On March 9, 2005, and following 3 weeks of anti-Syria demonstrations, Hezbollah and other factions organized a massive demonstration. An estimated 1 million attended and it was seen as a support for the Lebanese resistance and a refusal to US, French and Zionist interferences in Lebanon.
35. From a statement of the Lebanese Democratic Left Movement, As-Safir Newspaper, Feb. 5, 2005. Quoted in: Samah Idriss, “So That What Lies Ahead Will Not Be More Disastrous”, Al-Adab: 3/4/5 2005, page 37 (in Arabic).
36.From the resolutions of the General Syrian Congress, Damascus, 2 July 1919, http://www.aqsa.org.uk/chapterContents.aspx?id=46 quoted from George Antonius, The Arab Awakening, pp. 440-2.
37.From the resolutions of the Second Conference of Arabs in Palestine which was held in Damascus February 1920, quoted in: Issa Al-Sifri, Arab Palestine Between Mandate and Zionism, page 34, mentioned in “Al-Nakba” Documents, the Palestinian General Commission for Information website (in Arabic) http://nakba.sis.gov.ps/index.html
38.From the Memorandum of the Islamic Christian Association in Yaffa to General Watson on the Zionist intention in Palestine, 1919. Mentioned in “Al-Nakba” Documents, the Palestinian General Commission for Information website (in Arabic) http://nakba.sis.gov.ps/index.html
39. From the Memorandum of the Islamic Christian Association to the British Military Governor in Jerusalem to express the refusal of the “Jewish Homeland” and separating Palestine from Syria, 20 August 1919. Taken from: George Antonius, The Arab Awakening, who quoted it from: Shawn Lesly, Mark Sykes: Life and Letters. Mentioned in “Al-Nakba” Documents, the Palestinian General Commission for Information website (in Arabic) http://nakba.sis.gov.ps/index.html
