Samir Qassir

The Lebanese journalist and intellectual Samir Qassir was assassinated by car-bomb in Beirut Thursday. Qassir was a pan Arabist, someone who criticized the Syrians, and also called for Arabs to examine ourselves and our society. He was a passionate advocate for free speech. Nur Al-Cubicle translated an article for us about him in Le Monde: Samir Qassir.

btw Qassir's mother was a 1948 Palestinian refugee and his father was Syrian. Qassim was a Greek Orthodox Christian, Professor of Political Science at St. Joseph’s University in Beirut, a History PhD and editorialist for the newspaper al-Nahar

Interview with Emile Sanbar from Le Monde.

Q. As editor of the Palestinian Studies Review, you knew Samir Qassir well since he worked for you from 1986 to 1994. What is the symbolic importance of his murder?

A. It’s a Lebanese murder, but it extends beyond Lebanon. An Arab intellectual has just been assassinated. We see it in the unprecedented emotion permeating through the intelligentsia from Morocco to Palestine. Figures in the Syrian opposition told me yesterday how overcome with sorrow they were. Samir was a Lebanese, his mother was a 1948 Palestinian refugee and his father was Syrian. These three dimensions highlight his identity as a true Arab. People say that he was "courageous". That came from his convictions. For him, the essential role of a journalist was to preserve freedom of speech, to help create a world without fear so that all Arabs can attain democracy, no longer confined to their tiny national spaces.

Q. Not only was Kassir a critic of the Lebanese state, the Syrian presence and corruption, he also attempted to define what he called the “Arab malaise” and its obstructive underpinnings or “handicaps”. What did he mean by that?

A. Qassir attempted to analyze the obstructions within the Arab world and the reasons for its inability to step aboard the train of modernity. The primordial handicap which bars democracy and freedom rested, according to Kassim, on the relationship between reality and truth. He used to say to the Arabs: Look, let’s stop reworking our history and revising the truth. Let us look reality in the face: the expulsion of the Palestinians in 1948, the Lebanese Civil War or the nature of nationalist Arab r�gimes. It’s the only way to overcome our collective malaise. And he was convinced that the Arab world possessed all the ability to overcome its “malaise”.

Q. What lies at the core of this handicap?
A. Samir realized that it was impossible to challenge an adversary, whoever that might be, without a critical assessment of oneself. He was our intellectual engine. That’s why he led so many battles, like that at the end of the 1990’s against a revisionist colloquium in Beirut in which Roger Garaudy figured prominently.

Originally from Le Monde.

This was a dark, dark act. Those of us in the relative safety of the West need to defend the Samir Qassirs of the Arab world. This act reminds all of us that the price of dissent can be death. It's all the more important that we continue to support free inquiry, free speech, public intellectuals, in America as well as in the Arab world.

Update: I was in New York at a conference of Arab writers when this happened; somebody briefly mentioned car bombings in Beirut during a reading, but I thought he was referring to Hariri. It saddens me that we were so happily, obliviously exercising our rights to free speech and assembly while Beirut mourned an Arab writer.

I knew nothing of this assassination until I came home and logged onto the internet, even though during my four days in NY I saw cable news and skimmed the newspapers. For 5 hours on the plane I watched everything MSNBC, Fox and CNN had to offer; there was a brief clip once about voting in South Lebanon, but nothing about the death of Samir Kassir. If you want to know what's really happening in the world, you have to work at it. Since we don't have cable, I don't normally see how completely useless these cable news channels are for learning anything important.

Comments

[David All]

Thanks Leila for this interesting post. Samir was a valiant advocate of freedom not only for Lebanon, but for Syria as well. Believe the latter was what cost him his life. Samir realized that Lebanese freedom would never be safe until Syria was free, too.
Agree with you about the uselessness of cable TV news. Have found that CBS News is still the best. Their online site is www.cbsnews.com. That is where I first learned of Samir's murder.

[Alison Chaiken]

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation to its credit paid quite a lot of attention to the Qassir murder. They had a regular news story plus a long interview with one of his friends. CBC's "As it Happens" can be heard on KALW 91.7 FM on weekdays from 5-6, and it also can be heard on a stream from CBC's website. Unfortunately the Qassir story is no longer available on the web site.

Disclaimer: now I've completely outed myself as a big-time KALW supporter.

[Hicham]

Thank you for this post on Samir Qassir;
I just wanted to say that his killing was a shock not only for libanese but certainly for many arabs across the region.
I'm a moroccan; I was, as I beleive, many of my fellow citizens very optimistic and sometimes passionate about speedy events unfolding in lebanon... it seemed as if something of a democratic uprising was taking place and we prayed for us to be contaminated. this assassination reminded us of the volatile nature of the region... I really hope that lebanese people wont have to pay anymore price to gain their freedom and show us the way.