L’arabisme avec et par-delà les défaites. Joseph Samaha : trajectoire sociale d’un intellectuel de la gauche beyrouthine

Joseph Samaha (1949–2007) was a central figure in Arab media, particularly in Beirut. He was a journalist with the al-Safīr daily newspaper for nearly two decades, co-founder of the Parisian journal al-Yawm al-sābi‘ in 1984, and then co-founder of the daily paper al-Akhbār in 2006. He had his first experiences with activism just as he was beginning his intellectual career, in the context of the political upheaval in Lebanon following the June 1967 defeat in the Arab-Israel war. His social trajectory and his writings—dating from the 1970s up until his death—form a rich material that sheds light on the social foundations for a continuity of Arabism—Arab protonationalism—in the Arab intellectual space, despite the overall transformations characterized by the decline of the left and Arab nationalism on one hand, and the rise of Islamism on the other. This article combines an analysis of Samaha’s writings in major periodicals with that of his biographical trajectory, structured by both Beirut as an intellectual space and by transnational movements, and an analysis of the political conjuncture. In so doing, this article, drawing on socio-history of political ideas and the sociology of intellectuals, seeks to examine the social conditions for the production and circulation of Arabism, but also the shifting makeup of its ideological foundation after the defeat of 1982.