Today, marks the launching of the Lebanese National Resistance Front. A movement that was started in Sep. 1982 long before there was Hizbullah or Islamic organizations leading the fight against Israeli occupation. In fact, it was first started in March 1978 by an Iraqi Marxist, Hashim `Ali Muhsin (there is a one-line about him in Hanna Batatu's massive book on Iraq that he was born in a "mud hut" and then became the secretary general of the Union of Arab Workers). Muhsin was the secretary-general of the ultra-leftist organization, known as the Socialist Arab Action Party-Lebanon (originally a sister-party of the PFLP but later broke with it in 1980s). I wrote my MA thesis on this group (Muhsin was a hard core Stalinist but that is another story). Muhsin initiated it, and George Hawi of the Lebanese Communist Party and Muhsin Ibrahim of the Communist Action Organization, took the credit. Today, my sourses in Beirut told me, only comrade Fawwaz Trabulsi paid tribute to the small party in talking about the resistance movement. The Lebanese Communist Party and the Communist Action Organization habitually ignored the role of Muhsin.
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Today, marks the launching of the Lebanese National Resistance Front. A movement that was started in Sep. 1982 long before there was Hizbullah or Islamic organizations leading the fight against Israeli occupation. In fact, it was first started in March 1978 by an Iraqi Marxist, Hashim `Ali Muhsin (there is a one-line about him in Hanna Batatu's massive book on Iraq that he was born in a "mud hut" and then became the secretary general of the Union of Arab Workers). Muhsin was the secretary-general of the ultra-leftist organization, known as the Socialist Arab Action Party-Lebanon (originally a sister-party of the PFLP but later broke with it in 1980s). I wrote my MA thesis on this group (Muhsin was a hard core Stalinist but that is another story). Muhsin initiated it, and George Hawi of the Lebanese Communist Party and Muhsin Ibrahim of the Communist Action Organization, took the credit. Today, my sourses in Beirut told me, only comrade Fawwaz Trabulsi paid tribute to the small party in talking about the resistance movement. The Lebanese Communist Party and the Communist Action Organization habitually ignored the role of Muhsin.
