Sa'id Taky Deen
Ramzi Stephan
only reflects the personal opinion of the auther.
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Sa'id Taky Deen: 1904-1960 By Dr. Alfred H. Howell .
Sa'id Taky Deen was born on 15 May 1904, in Ba'aqlin, a Druze village
located
in the Shuf, about sixteen miles south of Beirut center, less than four
miles east from the Bustani village of Dibbiyeh, where his future friendly
rival in AUB Alumni Association matters, Emile Bustani, was born three years
later. His family were prominent among the Druze landowners of that time. As
to the importance of family and other traditional values, Sa'id himself
noted in his memoirs: ...a strange incongruity in the Lebanese character.
Outside their country the Lebanese are often people of the world, as urbane
and sophisticated as any people can be. Back in their mountain villages,
even those among them who had achieved the highest distinctions abroad
immediately shed all sophistication and revert to type, becoming thoroughly
and shamelessly immersed in the pettiest mountain feuds. William R. Polk
notes, in his The Opening of South Lebanon, 1788-1840, (p. 52) that oral
tradition among the Druze required each of four categories to marry within
their respective ranks. Amirs (the Shihab family alone) were in the first
rank, muqataajis in the second, shaykhs in the third, and peasants below
that. In the Shuf, the shaykh rank included at that time, perhaps 20
families, including the family Toqqid-Din (sic.). Polk goes on to list the
muqataajis: Junblat, Arslan, and a dozen others. And finally he observes (p.
60) that the society of the area recognized three other basic splits:
village, party, and religion. In no case do these coincide. Then after a
long discussion of the complications that could arise, he adds: "this
interlacing of social ties and of opposition is perhaps the most important
single aspect of the society of the Shuf." Polk is writing of a period that
ended 150 years ago. Modern family names might be somewhat different but the
general structure of society would not have changed very much. Important for
our purpose is that the family Takieddine (however the Arabic may be
transliterated) was long-established and respected in the area - and always
involved in political issues or government service one way or another. Sa'id
was eldest of six brothers. An older sister, Adele, had married Khalil
Alamuddin, who became director of the American University Hospital. Sa'id
himself later became involved in political issues as we shall see, but his
only elective office was as President of the Alumni Association. At heart he
was a writer. Historian Kamal Salibi speaks of him as "the Druze man of
letters." Desmond Stuart refers to him as "distinguished Lebanese
litterateur." His list of publications follows at the conclusion of this
monograph. Sa'id's early education was at local schools, enhanced by the
guidance of his uncle, the well-known poet Amin Takieddine. This was
followed by admission to AUB Preparatory Dept. in 1918. He graduated (B.A.)
in 1925, the first member of his immediate family to attend AUB. Later many
others followed, including a younger brother Munir (B.A. 1951; M.A. 1952)
and his daughter Diana (B.A. 1957). Although Sa'id wrote mostly in Arabic,
his command of the English language was excellent, as attested by the many
spirited (sometimes vitriolic) articles that came from his pen in the
columns of Al-Kulliyah, his letters to the American Board of Trustees
Chairman, Harold Hoskins, over the Alumni Club House issue, reproduced at
the end of this monograph, and on other occasions. Almost immediately after
graduation, i.e., in September 1925, he left for the Philippine Islands,
where a relative was serving as a civilian employee in the Medical Service
attached to the U.S. Military Force (in occupation there since 1898). The
place-names Iloilo (district capital and chief commercial center on the
island of Panay) and Cebu (district capital and chief commercial center on
the nearby island of Cebu), both are mentioned in connection with these
early years. He was twice bankrupt, got rich three times. Sa'id there met an
attractive young Lebanese lady who had come out "the other way" (Sa'id had
come by way of the U.S.A. and she by way of Singapore). Her name was
Beatrice Joseph, of a Roman Catholic family. They were married. Diana was
born at Davao (major commercial center on island of Mindanao). Later, the
family moved to Manila, where he conducted a thriving business. This was
interrupted by the Japanese army of occupation which landed in the
Philippines simultaneously with the attack on Pearl Harbor, 8 December 1941,
local time. Corregidor was overwhelmed 6 May 1942, but guerilla fighting
con- tinued throughout the war. The Taky Deen family remained in Manila for
a time. Sa'id was mistaken for an American and interned for a period of 53
days in Intramuros (the old Spanish walled city). Fortunately, his wife and
daughter were not interned and were allowed to visit him and bring small
amenities. Later they moved to Baguio, the "summer capital" 125 miles north
of Manila at an elevation of 5,000 feet, and itself a scene of bitter
fighting before the war was over. The naval battle of Leyte Gulf, 23-26
October 1944, had opened the way to U.S. reoccupation of the Philippines. On
5 July 1945, Douglas MacArthur announced, "All the Philippines are now
liberated." Formal independence began 4 July 1946. Sa'id and his family
returned to Lebanon arriving early in 1948. His father had died, so
technically he was head of the family and family matters may have required
his attention. Some of his younger brothers were already well established;
Munir, the fourth, was in school at AUB as noted above. Returning with a
considerable fortune, some say "a millionaire," he threw himself into local
causes: village politics, national concerns (of which the unwelcome creation
of the State of Israel by western powers and Israeli treatment of the
Palestinian natives was most inflammatory - and he was inflamed). Always he
continued writing, but AUB Alumni affairs were central to his interest at
this time. He was elected President of the Association late in 1948, and
served four years, 1949-1952, inclusive. 1952 may mark a sort of watershed
in Sa'id Taky Deen's life. Reportedly he suffered a severe heart attack that
year, but this did not slow him up. More importantly he became fully active
in the affairs of the political movement known then as SSNP. Emile Bustani
followed him as President of the Alumni Association during 1953-55. Then
Sa'id dramatically entered the lists against Emile for election to that
office for the term 1956-7. The election, held
4 December 1955, was the most hotly contested in Association history.
Vituperations were traded freely. The Al-Kulliyah wrap-up story (January
1956 issue) reports that Bustani had characterized Takieddine (sic.) as "a
dangerously political man." Other quotes from the article underline Shaykh
Sa'id's "politicization" at this time: Takieddine promised that if he were
elected, he would make Al- Kulliyah an organ of propaganda for one cause --
Palestine... affirmed that if he were to become president he would, if
necessary, sell the chairs and tables of the Association to send members
abroad to lecture Europeans and Americans about this part of the
world...Takieddine's "supporting party" [SSNP?] argued and talked. Bustani's
"planes and cars" stood by [to bring voters to the polls].
However, they remained warm personal friends. The article carries a
two-column photograph of Taky Deen and Bustani deeply engrossed in a game of
parchesi while waiting for the votes to be counted. When the tally was
completed, 357 were for Bustani, 234 for Taky Deen. Because this Syrian
Social National Party (SSNP), known later in Lebanon as Parti Populaire
Syrien (PPS), was such a major factor in Sa'id Taky Deen's life during the
next few years, and an important though relatively unknown factor in the
lives of many AUB undergraduates and young alumni during those years, we
turn aside to examine it more closely: The founder was Antun Sa'adeh
(1904-49), born in Brazil, son of Khalil Sa'adeh (M.D. 1883). The latter
practiced medicine and also was editor of two magazines, published a
two-volume Arabic-English dictionary, was a correspondent of the NY Times,
and had other literary accomplishments to his credit. Nothing is known about
Antun's education or early influences (sic). In 1929, at the age of 25, he
returned to Lebanon and gathered a group of young intellectuals and
idealists around himself. It was Antun's vision that all inhabitants of
geographical Syria (defined as excluding Arabia itself but including all the
Fertile Crescent from the borders of Iran in the east, from the Taurus
mountains in the north and the Mediterranean Sea on the west and including
Sinai but not Egypt in the south) constituted a single nation with a common
cultural heritage, not Arab nor Muslim nor Christian nor even a combination
of all three. Unique! One pauses to admire the breadth of this vision --
sweeping away the religious and tribal barriers that, then and now, divide
the area into so many irreconcilable fac-tions. Sa'adeh himself was a man of
courage, decision, and powerful intellect. This evaluation taken from Albert
Hourani's Syria and Lebanon (p. 146), was written in 1946, before Taky
Deen's return to Lebanon. A.L. Tibawi's Modern Historv of Syria (written in
1969), also gives a favorable notice to this party. Leonard Binder, Politics
in Lebanon (1966) - a collection of papers given at Univ. Chicago 1962 --
includes a paper by Labib Zuwiyya-Yamak (AUB alumna Salah Labib Hikmat
Zuwiyya, B.A. 1947; M.A. 1949) who writes: "...The distinctive
characteristic of this party has been its emphasis on doctrine rather than
on political maneuvering. It was the first party in Lebanon, and in fact in
the entire Arab world, to think out the national problem in its entirety and
to develop a program of action to modernize not only the political process
but the entire life of the people..." (p. 157), and in footnote 28 (p. 165):
"...failure of SSNP to participate actively and constructively in the
democratic process in Lebanon derives from its negative attitude toward the
political entity of Lebanon and from its total commitment to
modernism...rejection of traditional values [including traditional religious
values]. It has alienated all who believe in Lebanese nationalism and/or
Arab nationalism as well as those who do not subscribe to its concept of
modernity." Jamil Sawaya, a close friend of Sa'adeh and a founding member of
SSNP (though he later broke away) reported that a group of idealistic young
men under the spell of Antun's vision and personality met around the tennis
court of the Shuwayr High School. During that summer of 1929 they hardly
ever missed a game of tennis and it was rare not to find Sa'adeh seated
under an oak tree nearby, reading a book or talking to a group of young men.
Sawaya lists seven fellow students at AUB, with whom he discussed these
matters, and five others (non-AUB-ites apparently) who were added to the
group next year making a core in-group (might one call them apostles?) of
twelve. The AUB group included: George Abdel-Masih, B.B.A. 1933 Raja Boulos
Khawli, B.A. 1934 Fakhri Boutrus Ma~luf, B.A. 1934 Wadi Jamil Talhuk, B.A.
1934 Fuad Habib lists two other names not in 1966 Alumni Directory --
apparently did not graduate. He does not list Nasib Hammam, M.D. (1932), who
probably should be included.
In the summer of 1931, Sa'adeh went off to work for a newspaper in Damascus.
In autumn 1932, he left Damascus and took up residence in Beirut. There he
and his faithful group of twelve determined to draw up "statutes." At first
they wanted it to be a secret organization, since to apply for permit was to
be denied. And so it was done. For admission to the organization, one must
be between ages 18 and 40, must be screened and accepted by the inner
circle, must take oath to obey the party principles and the commands of the
leader. One could not resign but might be expelled. Thus the Syrian Social
National Party was founded "officially" (though unknown to Government
officials) late in 1932. According to a letter written by Bayard Dodge on 27
September 1940 in response to an inquiry from the U.S.Consul General,
Sa'adeh applied for a position as tutor in German in 1933, but was turned
down. Both Rarpat and Munro assert that he did in fact tutor AUB students in
German, but this may have been merely a smokescreen to cover comings and
goings on party business. The party appealed widely to young idealistic
intellectuals for its positive, clear-cut if somewhat impractical platform,
but also for a certain mystique that seems to appeal to young
post-adolescents everywhere, involving fraternal commitment to a leader or
cause. The same seems to be at the core of certain Sufi orders, or Islam
itself. It may be found everywhere: in the Arthurian legends, in the
Iroquois tribal long-house, in secret fraternities at modern colleges, in
missionary societies and street Qangs, and so on. It was an active,
demanding party, with meetings and training programs. The latter included,
so one former member informed me, para-military drill with wooden guns.
Members contributed as much as they could (either time or money) to its
leader's objectives. Sa'adeh devoted full time to its affairs. Membership
increased. By 1935, it had become so large as to attract attention of the
French mandate authorities. Sa'adeh and his lieutenants were arrested but
soon released. Then in 1938, after his movement was well established, for
reasons which have not been disclosed, he went back to South America,
apparently to Argentina. When Sa'adeh departed for South America, Ni'ma
Thabit (one of the twelve) became leader. When WW II broke out (Sa'adeh
being absent) SSNP declared for the German side. This act as well as certain
of its "principles" and the mahdi-like nature of its leadership, may perhaps
have given rise to Hourani's and Tibawi's observations that it was perhaps a
bit too close to fascism, despite its commendable call for secularization,
modernization, and political reform. He returned to Lebanon for the second
time in March of 1947. In 1949, he called upon his followers to rise against
the unpopular and corrupt government of Bishara al-Rhuri, then beginning a s
econd term. The rising aborted. Antun, betrayed by his supposed ally Col.
Husni al-Za'im, then newly installed as dictator in Damascus, was sent back
to Lebanon, summarily tried and executed on 8 July 1949. As to the events of
1948 and 1949, Edgard Milhim Abboud (B.A. 1942; B.Sc. 1945), now living in
suburban Washington, D.C., told me much about the exciting and tragic events
of these two years, in which he himself had been an active participant. He
too was condemned to death but remained in hiding until amnesty was granted.
These events did not affect Sa'id Taky Deen in any way and must be omitted
here. Mr. Abboud also informed me that he (Abboud) was very close to the
small inner circle that controlled SSNP, both as an undergraduate at AUB and
later. He also became a close friend of Sa'id Taky Deen soon after the
latter's return to Lebanon in 1948, and secured the necessary special
dispensation from Antun Saadeh to admit Taky Deen (then over the statutory
age of 40). The date must have been soon after Taky Deen's arrival, prior to
Saadeh's death. It was at first a provisional sort of affiliation. As noted
above, Taky Deen had nothing to do with the abortive uprising in June 1949.
Edgard Abboud recalled also later events - centering at the Taky Deen
family's large and graciously hospitable house on Abdul Aziz Street in Ras
Beirut. There, during the mid 1950's, Sa'id pursued some business interests,
his all-consuming writing interests, and, especially after 1952, SSNP (or
perhaps known locally as PPS) party interests. He apparently became a sort
of consultant on the party's public relations, though it is not clear
whether he ever held any formal title in the party's hierarchy. Abboud
remembers him as a chain smoker, a "regular chimney, throwing one cigarette
away half- finished as he let another." His daughter remembers him as always
busy with his writing -- or talking to someone but she could never hear what
was being said because he always shooed her off to practice her piano
lessons. Having met and come under the personal influence of Antun Saadeh
years earlier, and having later become much involved in the cause for which
the latter had died a martyr, Sa'id wrote (in Arabic) a moving half-factual,
half- fictional account of Saadeh's summary trial and hasty execution on 8
July 1949, under the title: "The Priest Who Confessed Him." Political events
reached fever heat in 1958, the year when U.S. Marines landed in Lebanon. A
bomb thought to have been thrown by pro-Nasser (i.e., anti-SSNP/PPS)
partisans had exploded (harmlessly) on the lawn of Taky Deen's home during
May 1958. For this and perhaps other reasons (there is a report that he had
been condemned to death in abstentia by a Baathist courtmartial in Damascus
and was in fear of his life) Sa'id thought it wise to move about, never
spending two nights in the same bed. Later that year, Edgard Abboud, now
married and established in his own home in a distant, more peaceable part of
Beirut, arranged for him to occupy the ground floor of the gracious Abboud
villa. There Sa'id could write to his heart's content and there he received
numerous visitors including cabinet ministers and others who sought his
opinion on pressing matters of the day. He sailed for America in September
1958, a little more than ten years after his triumphant return to Lebanon,
settling first in Mexico, then on San Andres Island, a dependency of
Columbia far out in the Caribbean Sea. The story of his life during those
last few years is not at all clear. Some have said that the fortune he had
brought back from the Philippines was gone, and for that reason he was
depressed. Whatever the circumstances, he died in San Andres on 10 February
1960, apparently bankrupt. Eventually his body was brought back and buried
with those of other members of his family in his village of Baaqlin. A large
representation from PPS was there to do him honor. Nevertheless, even then
some elements in the party tried to have his body delivered by the air line
to Damascus instead of Beirut, apparently intending to exploit its presence
there, because of the honor and the affection in which he had been held, as
an occasion for an emotional political rally. A short biographical sketch
such as this cannot do full justice to the achievements and drama (in this
case tragic drama) of a life such as that of Sa'id Taky Deen. There is need
for a Lebanese writer who would be familiar with the complex social and
political forces at work at that time but yet able to analyze impartially.
Taky Deen was, as his daughter has said, a symbol of what Lebanon could be
if there were more dedicated idealists like him. He was a patriot and a
philanthropist. He had been attracted to SSNP/PPS by that party's original
idealistic stand against sectarianism in favor of secularism, by its
condemna-tion of "feudal" characteristics (war-lordism, Zu'amism, personal
and/or family aggrandizement, tribal loyalties against the interests of the
common weal). Taky Deen gave himself to SSNP/PPS - invested all he had in
it -- and it ruined him. One must understand of course how the party itself
had changed as time went on. Men with other doctrines had joined it. Perhaps
the original young idealists had lost their idealism in favor of "realism,"
as they approached middle-age - willing to compromise with principles for
reasons of political expediency. Perhaps other elements had entered the
party with other motivations. We have already alluded to the golden plaque
in the Alumni Club House, dedicated 10 February 1961. He will be remembered
among AUB Alumni and others who know the full story as the one to whom
credit and honor is due for having revived, one might almost say refounded,
the modern Alumni Association, virtually defunct since Shehadi days. The
Alumni Club House, the revived Al-Kulliyah and its one-time running mate
Middle East Forum, are monuments to his vision and energy. Perhaps more
importantly, he also has a permanent place in the hearts of those many
Lebanese who know and love his widely popular plays, short stories and other
writings. One evaluation of his work has kindly been provided by Dr. Nadim
Naimy (B.A., 1953; M.A. 1956), Chairman of the Department of Arabic and Near
Eastern Languages at AUB. Chairman Naimy writes as follows: Sa'id Taky Deen
started his literary career as a dramatist and a journalist while still an
undergra~uate at the AUB. He succeeded towards the middle of this century in
becoming one of the prominent Lebanese prose writers. His works, almost a
dozen in number, fall mainly into the dramatic, the fictional, the
autobiographical, the aphorismic, and the journalistic socio-political
essay. Though in many ways pioneering in the light of Lebanese litera- ture
at the time, Taky's main contribution in these works, lies not so much in
their originality of conception or profundity in content, but in his style:
a biting sarcasm, assisted with a quick moving language, a strong sense of
humour, a remarkable ability of detection and of drawing scenes and sharp
contrasts, a tremendous skill in drawing on Lebanese life, particularly
village life: its customs, practices, beliefs and feuds whether political,
religious, social, cultural or other. All these give Taky Deen a distinct
way of writing which is entirely his own, and for which he is remembered.
During the latter part of his career, however, Taky Deen unexpectedly
decided to throw his lot as a writer and figure with the Syrian Popular
Party, a secular movement working for a united greater Syria. This sudden
move on the part of Taky Deen succeeded at the time to arouse in the local
press a good deal of publicity around his name and literature, but it can be
said almost with certainty that not much was added, as a result of the move,
to the basic literary achievements of Sa'id the writer.