A statesman's role in shaping a region

Patrick Seale's scholarly new work The Struggle for Arab Independence: Riad El Solh and the Makers of the Modern Middle East in essence tells the turbulent story of the region through the life of this extraordinary Lebanese statesman, who played no small part in shaping it.

Seale, a noted Middle East expert, commentator and historian, also draws up a severe indictment of France and Britain, the two major colonial powers, for their shameful and brutal policies in the region in the first half of the 20th century, the echoes of which are being felt to this day.

Seale's most famous work is Asad of Syria: The Struggle for the Middle East (required reading for anyone with an interest in the Middle East). His latest, ambitious project — all 766 pages of it — is part biography, part history.

Seale has burrowed through Ottoman, British and French archives and interviewed various people, including the late Alia, Riad Al Solh's daughter and the author's personal friend to whom the book is dedicated.

Matters of the book

The book can be loosely divided into three parts: 1) the Arabs' struggle to break free from the Ottoman Empire; 2) their shocking humiliation and suffering at the hands of the French and British colonialists, who treacherously seized the territories following the Ottoman defeat in the First World War, having promised the Arabs full independence in return for help in bringing down the empire; 3) Lebanon's own struggle to shrug off French tutelage and emerge as a united, fully independent state.

The first few chapters take the reader back to the dying days of the Ottoman Empire. The Al Solhs were very much Arab members of Ottoman nobility, with Ahmad Pasha, Riad's grandfather, being the original "grandee" of the empire.

His father Rida Al Solh, too, was an official in the administration and Riad himself had an Ottoman upbringing.

As the empire decayed and the Young Turk Movement gathered steam, Arab deputies in the Ottoman parliament became increasingly suspicious of the Zionists' growing influence over the Young Turks who, the deputies felt, were not giving enough importance to the Zionist threat in Palestine.

Adding to the Arab nationalists' resolve was the cruelty of Jamal Pasha, the Ottoman minister of navy who was appointed the vali of Damascus. Pasha wiped out most of the leadership of the nationalist movement through a series of executions.

In fact, Riad and his father themselves narrowly escaped the gallows and were exiled to Smyrna (present-day Izmir) for two years till the end of the First World War.

The Arabs, under the Sharif Hussain of Makkah, revolted against the Ottomans with British help without realising what political and territorial arrangements would follow an Allied victory.

As Seale laments, "[W]ith hindsight, one can say that this revolt against the Turks proved far more damaging to the Arab and Muslim cause than could have been imagined at the time … and may well have set the Arabs on their catastrophic political decline."

Where the book is at its strongest is the clear manner in which it ravages the colonialists — especially the French — for their imperial excesses.

Seale lays bare the French occupation's litany of crimes in the Levant (such as the barbaric aerial bombings of Damascus in 1925 and 1945) and British duplicity in Palestine, which was to result in the violent emergence of the State of Israel in the heart of the Arab Middle East.

Not only did the French carve out Lebanon from historical Syria, thereby earning the wrath of Arab nationalists such as Riad, but throughout the hated Mandate period they also set a pattern of supporting and propping up the minorities in the Levant — the Maronites in Lebanon, the Alawites in Syria — against the Sunni Muslim majority of the region, a policy that has had implications to this day.

It is a miracle how Riad managed to survive the French Mandate period. Despite being sentenced to death in absentia, he kept the cause alive through diplomacy in Europe, incendiary articles in the nationalist press and inflammatory speeches. He always succeeded in staying a step ahead of the colonial security services.

The urbane Riad, with his high-quality education, was as much at home in the West as in the East.

Ironically, what he and some of his fellow militant nationalists stood for was against the interests of their own aristocratic families.

He got involved in resolving disputes among Palestinian leaders who then — as today — were often squabbling. Riad would go on to become Leban-on's first prime minister from 1943 to 1945; and then again from 1946 to 1951.

It would be fair to say that during the Second World War, there were many Arab nationalists who hoped for a German victory against the hated French and British occupiers.

Seale informs us that during this period if Syrians wished to speak favourably about Hitler, they would, to avoid French censors, curiously refer to him as Abu Rashid, whereas in Lebanon he was known as Abu Said.

The humiliating French defeat at the hands of the Germans had an impact on even traditionally pro-French communities in the Levant, such as the Maronites. It was at this time that Riad was most busy organising political meetings to mobilise opposition to the French.

Enter major-general Edward Spears, a unique character who became the strongest tool in the hands of the Arab nationalists. Some of book's most interesting bits are on Spears.

Conversion to Arabism

A close friend of Winston Churchill and a fervent Gaullist, Spears converted to Arabism after developing deep contempt for French colonial measures in the Levant.

He became so critical of the French that Churchill himself warned him, with characteristic flourish, that "we [the British] should discourage the throwing of stones since we have greenhouses of our own — acres and acres of them".

For his part, Spears described his change of heart thus: "A lifetime steeped in French feeling, sentiment and affection was falling from me. England alone counted now."

Spears eventually became a close friend of Riad and played a major part in the ending the French Mandate.

Riad's biggest achievement was that he wrested Lebanon's independence from France. He also brought the Muslims to agree with the concept of an independent Lebanese state. Eventually, Riad oversaw the departure of the last French soldier from Lebanon on December 31, 1946.

Riad's greatest nemesis in the end could have been the fanatical revolutionary Antun Saada, founder of the Parti Populaire Syrien (PPS). The PPS believed in a mystical vision of a unique pan-Syrian people. Saada's doctrine set him at odds with the pan-Arab nationalists, the narrow Lebanese nationalists and even the internationalist communists. His open call for an end to Lebanese independence and the armed attacks on the security forces alarmed the Lebanese state.

Lebanese president Bishara Al Khoury and prime minister Riad Al Solh decided to do away with Saada and, after a quick military trial in 1949, he was executed by firing squad. Two years later, on a visit to Amman, Riad himself was shot dead by members of the PSP.

Seale informs us that Yosef Argaman's 2007 book The Shadow of War, released by Israel's defence ministry, contains the testimony of an Israeli spy in Beirut who had orders from Tel Aviv in 1949 to kill Riad.

This has led to suspicion that Israel was behind Riad's assassination in 1951. But it also attests to the fear this pan-Arab idealist inspired in the enemies of the Arabs.