We need no strenuous effort of thought to demonstrate that our present reality is saturated with problems—economic, financial, and social crises, as well as all forms of disasters and tragedies that our people are struggling with. We aspire to change this painful reality and realize a new one in which we live with dignity and well-being, lifting our Nation to its rightful place under the sun.
The point of departure in the process of change must begin with essential steps, the first of which is to shed light on our distressing reality and to rely on scientific–social research to uncover its problems and complexities, initiating a serious and proper confrontation grounded in the language of critical reason and in a rational–scientific analytical method that enables us to formulate effective solutions capable of transforming and transcending this reality.
If we do not resort to the human being’s fundamental attribute—the power of reason, God’s gift to humanity, “the supreme fundamental law” by which we perceive, think, discern, designate goals, draw plans, and act in existence…[1] If we do not adopt reason as the highest law and as the instrument of discernment and understanding, casting its light upon the problems and crises afflicting our society, then the causes of the calamities and misfortunes tearing our society apart and worsening our Nation’s condition—its deterioration, decline, and backwardness—will not become clearly evident to us, even though all of them directly affect its life and interests. Meanwhile, our enemy, lurking with malice, seizes upon our ignorance, fragmentation, and divisions, working with meticulous planning to uproot us from our land and fulfill its biblical dream.
Transforming our wretched condition cannot be achieved through impulsive measures or random attempts that only deepen our confusion. Such transformation can only come through a genuine renaissance project—one that opens the path to national and social unity and lays the foundations for a new psychological, social, and political order. Only then can we cease being mutually hostile political entities or fragmented religious and tribal groups, divided in our interests and divergent in our aims.
True renaissance can come only through a movement that liberates the soul from the servitude of surrender to the current state and to the accidents of history; that generates a new spirit within the people and a unified national will that saves the Nation’s vitality from the chaos of fragmentation and weakness; that establishes in society “a system of cooperation instead of the system of collision established by the reactionary renaissance[2]; and that unifies the Nation’s forces, capacities, minds, and stored talents, making them an effective power capable of achieving what it wills.
[1] Antun Sa´adeh, Al-Muhadarat al-'Ashr (The Ten Lectures) 1948, Beirut, 1976, p. 27.
[2] Antun Saadeh, “Paving the Road for Syria to Live,” Al-Jumhur, Beirut, Year 1, No. 41, 12 July 1937.
