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Bassem Chit and Revolutionary Socialism in Lebanon

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Bassem Chit and Revolutionary Socialism in Lebanon CLOSE UP 65 Bassem Chit and Revolutionary Socialism in Lebanon Sune Haugbolle Figure 1 : Turkey Agenda. “Interview with the Late Bassem Chit on Politics and and Culture in Lebanon and the Middle East.” www.turkeyagenda.com Web. 16. Oct. 2014 This article discusses the Lebanese draws on the sociology of intellectuals, miss your voice, Bassem.” They refer to activist and writer Bassem Chit as an in particular Gramsci, in the analysis of Bassem Chit, the Lebanese revolutionary example of the intellectual rebel in Bassam Chit’s work and his post mortem socialist, writer and activist who died from Lebanon and the Arab world. It analyses veneration. a heart attack on October 1, 2014. For a the ideological tradition of revolutionary limited circle of Lebanese, Arab and inter- socialism and the Arab left. Through Keywords: Socialism; Arab Left; Intellec- national revolutionary socialists, Bassem an analysis of interviews and articles, tual History Chit is a rebel martyr, whose life and work Haugbolle attempts to locate the place continue to inspire. He died at the tender and nature of intellectual production in During the 2015 social protests against age of 34 after a life devoted to renewing the organisation of revolutionary activity, Lebanon’s political elite, I have often read Marxism and revolutionary socialism. His and the particular role rebel intellectuals on Facebook threads laments such as, friends and comrades now miss his voice play in bringing about social change. It “what would Bassem have said?” and “we and his sharp analysis more than ever, at a Middle East – Topics & Arguments #06–2016 CLOSE UP 66 time when they feel that a chink in the scape of thought and action. Finally, I that of culture, or in that of political admin- armour of the social system in Lebanon analyse his significance for Lebanese, istration.” Conversely, Havel’s definition may have opened. They also miss his com- Arab and international revolutionary would seem to celebrate the critical intel- pany and particularly his presence in the socialism through a reading of obituaries lectual who writes against the grain and protests and in the organisation of the as well as the fifth issue of the journal he speaks, as Edward Said would have it, ḥirāk (“movement”). helped founding, al-thawra al-dāʾima, truth to power. Power, of course, can be which is dedicated to his memory. located not just in the State but in all hege- The life and death of Bassem Chit accentu- monic structures, including institutions ate the challenges of organising dissent Rebel Intellectuals and Arab Marxism that pride themselves on being anti-hege- and formulating alternative ideological The “rebel intellectual” is somewhat of a monic, such as the Eastern European com- directions, which have come to the fore in tautology, as many sociologists see intel- munist parties, which Havel had in mind Lebanon’s trash protests. In this brief arti- lectuals as inherently rebellious agents of when he wrote his text in 1986, or the self- cle, I discuss Bassem Chit as an example social change in the modern era. More- styled mumānaʿa (“rejectionism”) of the of the intellectual rebel in Lebanon and over, many intellectuals themselves define Syrian regime today. For the same reason, the Arab world. I analyse the ideological rebellious change as their credo. The intel- Karl Mannheim thought that critical intel- tradition of revolutionary socialism and lectual, Vaclav Havel (167) has written, lectuals together must form a free-floating the tradition of the Arab left in which his should constantly disturb, should bear intelligentsia, a relatively classless stratum work inscribes itself. I am interested in witness to the misery of the world, of thinkers, able to see beyond the ideo- understanding the place and nature of should be provocative by being inde- logical blinders imposed by the left and intellectual production in the organisation pendent, should rebel against all hid- the right, and thus uphold a democratic, of revolutionary activity, and the particular den and open pressure and manipula- critical conversation. role rebel intellectuals play in bringing tions, should be the chief doubter of Bassem Chit was rooted in a different about social change. I draw on sociology systems, of power and its incantations, intellectual tradition, that of international of intellectuals, in particular Gramsci, in should be a witness to their mendacity. and Arab Marxism. The Lebanese Marxists my analysis of Bassem Chit’s work and the An intellectual who is not rebellious isn’t a that he read and knew generally hold dear veneration of him postmortem. true intellectual. This ideal certainly the Gramscian ideal of the organic intel- excludes many self-styled intellectuals, lectual, the ibn al-balad (‘son of the soil’) In order to place myself firmly in this anal- who uphold the powers that be. It also who speaks for the subjugated classes. ysis, I should make it clear that I was a runs counter to Gramsci’s (97n) broad def- According to Gramsci (5), every social friend of Bassem’s. In 2012 and 2013 I inition of an intellectual as “the entire group creates organically ‘one or more recorded several interviews with him in social stratum, which exercises an organ- strata of intellectuals which give it homo- Beirut, which I use here in addition to his isational function in the wide sense – geneity and an awareness of its own func- writings to place him in the leftist land- whether in the field of production, or in tion not only in the economic but also in Middle East – Topics & Arguments #06–2016 CLOSE UP 67 the social and political fields.’ The trouble (Rodinson 337-48; Tibi 7-17). Historical socialism of Nasser and the Baath Party. in the Middle East is that in reality, very few materialism laid the ground for socialist This group included people who were of the coryphées of, for example, Leba- visions of development and indepen- influenced by Trotsky and the so-called nese Marxism, including the founders of dence. Within the larger spectrum of Fourth International. Traces of Trotskysm the Lebanese Communist Party, have socialism, which also included Salama can be found in the work of Yassin Hafez, hailed from a working-class or peasant- Musa’s Fabianism, Arab Marxism was from George Tarabishi and others who clus- class background. Despite their middle- the beginning a strictly intellectual tradi- tered around the group Arab Socialism in class pedigree (or perhaps because of it), tion of writers and publishers who became the early 1960s, which later developed they hold on to the idea that they repre- enthralled with the Bolshevik revolution into what Tareq Ismael, writing in 1976, sent the perspective of the poor and the and in the early 1920s established com- called a New Arab Left (Ismael). This cur- needy. Therefore, instead of taking their munist parties in Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, rent is the intellectual foundation on which claims to organic status at face value, we Sudan, Iraq and Palestine. The path of rev- Bassem Chit built his own commitment. It must locate intellectuals in their social set- olution in the age of the Comintern was also provided the methodological and ting. In order to do that, grand theory must set and defined by the rigours of Marxist- organisational inspiration for his re-read- be complemented by careful, local histo- Leninist dogma as imposed by Stalin, as ing of the revolutionary situation in Leba- ries. As Gramsci (18-20) himself was well the Arab communist peers discovered non and the Arab world after 2011. aware, intellectuals serve different func- when they became enrolled in training Importantly, the New Left was not just an tions in different political economies and and ideological regimentation. For intellectual current but also a political cur- cultural contexts. The nature of hegemony decades, the overall ideological and polit- rent, albeit far from a unified one. Despite must be located before a successful analy- ical authority of the Soviet Communist their different strategic approaches to the sis of intellectuals can be made. In this Party meant that Arab communists strug- Palestinian issue, and different accents of article, I seek to do so by outlining the gled to develop the Marxist system of Marxism, they shared a sentiment that it intellectual tradition and the social milieu thought into a flexible methodology that was necessary to break with the past lead- that Bassem was a product of and in which might help them understand the realities ership of Arab regimes. The late 1960s and he inscribed his work. and differing conditions of their own early 1970s saw the formation of the Popu- Bassem certainly loved Gramsci, but not countries (Sharif). lar Front for the Liberation of Palestine as much as he loved—and had read—Marx. In reaction to Stalinism and the domina- (PFLP) and the Democratic Front for the He would pepper his speech and writings tion of the Communist Party of Syria and Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) in Palestine, with citations from Marx, and he was well Lebanon by Khaled Bakdash, a group of the Communist Party-Political Bureau in versed in the Arab Marxist tradition. This Lebanese, Palestinian and Syrian intellec- Syria, and the Organisation for Commu- tradition arguably stretches back to the tuals inspired by the British ‘new left’ of the nist Action in Lebanon. The Arab Marxist debate between Islamic reformers and so- late 1950s wrote critically against the party, tradition—at least in the Levant—is strongly called materialists in the Nahda period against Moscow, and against the Arab influenced by the political affiliation of Middle East – Topics & Arguments #06–2016 CLOSE UP 68 many writers with these groups, and their the Cold War meant critiquing the lack of international class identity (Browers).
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