The Knight who Came Home to be Slain

By Pierre Abisaab

Like Ulysses sailing back to Ithaca, Samir Kassir returned to Lebanon after a long Parisian exile. Little did he know his life would be taken in one fell swoop; that, like the ancient Greek heroes, he was approaching a tragic end.

How could an intellectual like you leave your ivory tower in Paris, Samir? How did you manage to live in Beirut, a city in search of its soul, extricating itself from an exhausting war which had destroyed its structures, blurred its memory and trapped its elite in a maze of illusions and concessions? At the time, you were smiling as if you knew there was a role you wanted to play there, a position for your ambitions and, I confess, you deserved such a role more than anyone else of your generation, stuck between two epochs.

Upon your return, you fought the old political structures dominated by different forces, like Don Quixote with his windmills. Those same political structures would soon catch up with you in Beirut. And so you died in the beloved city as had Maroun Baghdadi, Ralph Rizk-Allah and so many others, yet your death was particular: you died like a Samurai.

You came back in the hope of making your dreams a reality, brandishing your pen in defiance of the situation. You came to struggle and fight, to live a strange and incredible love affair, and at the end, to die. Like Professor Ashenbach in Thomas Mann's "Death in Venice," you came to witness the end of a period and the beginning of a new one in a time of sickness and decay. Yet Beirut under the Second Republic is no Venice, and the new era has not come, or at least, you have not seen it, nor shall we in our lives. The political and religious parties - whether national or regional - continue to divide and define the appearance of our country. Only the contractors, traders and mercenaries of war and peace will fashion the future: without you, without us, Samir.

Reality could not support an intellectual with such political passion and radicalism; in the end you were burnt in the flames of your illusions.

As a young writer commenting on "Arab misery" or embracing the history of Beirut, you were an example of the Arab intellectual, driven with passion, heir to the nahda (renaissance) of earlier generations. You persisted until your last breath, defending your values with intensity and courage, fighting for the nation against the domination of our "brothers." And this you did as an independent intellectual fighting for an Arab nahda, without affinities for a party or a narrow group, but rather with an eye for the Palestinians and with your hand reaching to friend and foe alike from Damascus. Some of your friends warned you that you weren't being reasonable in your choice of allies, but no one could deny you were defending the independence of institutions and the sovereignty of the rule of law.

Samir Kassir lived most of his life in a short period of time: decisive years in Lebanese modern history. His life in politics was distinctive, unique and relentless, while his work was rich in ideas and creations. His life was full of battles and confrontations, political dreams, and personal aspirations. An exceptional course crowned with a sudden death. The end of an intellectual who, during his years at the French Lycée in Beirut, was mad for socialism. This is where his interest in Brecht's theater, the films of the Italian neo-realists and the French New Wave developed. What did you take from Brecht, Rosselini and Godard into politics, Samir?

After the Taif Accords, the intellectual and writer returned from Paris, publishing his writing and analysis in French and Arabic magazines, heading An Nahar's publishing house and founding the famous magazine - unique in the history of the Lebanese press - "Orient-Express," which did a great deal toward "arabicizing francophonia" and opening it to new horizons. He also presented the short-lived political TV show "Without Reserve," which was banned for what it dared to say. Kassir also invited anti-Zionist Jewish intellectuals, some of them Arabs, to a heated debate in Beirut 's Al Medina Theater. At that time, he was busy writing "Amateur of National Confessions," and when his critique of the successive governments increased in the daily An Nahar, the kid from Achrafieh was told he was not Lebanese but Palestinian and the government seized his passport, after which he was followed endlessly by the secret services.

In the final months of his life there was no doubt in Samir Kassir's mind that he was living a period of happiness, considering - in haste, unfortunately - that the "Arab spring" had finally arrived and with it, the victory of the ideas he had always fought for. Had our intellectual dreamer turned away from a reality too hard to fathom? Were you convinced, Samir, that Lebanon - with or without occupation - is changing? This is the knight returning to be slain, with the ruthless merchants ready to sell his blood. This is Samir Kassir, who never belonged to a community, a political party or a political faction, whether regional or national. He was the lost Arab who lived and died in Achrafieh. Or, as writer Elias Khoury called him in one of his famous stories, he was the "small mountain!"

Translated from the Arabic by Carole Corm

The Arabic version of this essay appeared in Al Hayat. The translation with permission of the author is exclusively published in Al Jadid

This essay appears in Al Jadid, Vol. 10, no. 49

Copyright (c) 2004 by Al Jadid