BEIRUT — On November 22, Lebanon marks its Independence Day — not as a ceremonial date, but as a reminder of a century-long struggle in which the Resistance stood at the forefront of expelling foreign occupiers and forging sovereignty.

Since the proclamation of Greater Lebanon in 1920, the French Mandate sought to mold the country into a “buffer zone,” not a truly free homeland. This design, however, collided with a society unwilling to surrender its destiny.

In Jabal Amel (aka the South), the earliest sparks of organized Resistance ignited under leaders like Sadiq Hamza and Adham Khanjar — Resistance leaders dismissed by the French as “bandits,” though in truth they were the first guardians of a people determined to defend their land and genuine identity. 

From the outset, this Resistance was both national and pan-Arab: the southern uprising of 1920 coincided with Iraq’s revolt against the British, and King Faisal’s government in Damascus supplied weapons and support, recognizing that the struggle for Syria’s independence was intertwined with southern Lebanon.

Amid this ferment, Sayyed Abdul Hussein Sharafeddine (ra), the revolutionary cleric and advocate of Arab unity and independence, emerged as a guiding intellect. 

On April 24, 1920, Sayed Sharafeddine convened the Wadi al-Hajir Conference, opening with a resolute rejection of foreign protection or guardianship, declaring instead the necessity of full and unyielding independence. 

This assembly became a “constitution” of liberty, laying the ideological foundation for Resistance that encompassed armed struggle, intellectual engagement, cultural defense, and political mobilization.

Sayyed Sharafeddine understood that effective opposition required a core of military Resistance — the backbone that would support broader societal efforts.
He oversaw armed formations, led by figures such as Hamza and Khanjar, who executed daring operations against the French. 

The Resistance then faced manipulation from colonial forces, who attempted to cast the struggle as a sectarian conflict and discredit Sharafeddine’s legitimacy. Yet he outmaneuvered these schemes, educating public consciousness, preventing internal divisions, and uniting communities against foreign designs.

Sayyed Sharafeddine proclaimed: “Either dignity that cannot be broken, or humiliation that shows no mercy. Either a free life, or degradation wasted in the mire of human humanity. Either independence without guardianship, or enslavement, where we sit as orphans at the table of the vile.”

Sharafeddine’s vision extended beyond Jabal Amel. He warned of partition and fragmentation, viewing them as tools that would render Lebanon and Syria vulnerable to imperial designs, particularly those of France and Britain. 

He tirelessly promoted full independence for Syria within its natural borders and cultivated a revolutionary awareness that planted the seeds of sovereignty in the collective consciousness of “Greater Syria.”

History would repeat itself during the Israeli occupation: from 1978 through the liberation of 2000, to the steadfastness of 2006 and 2024, Lebanon’s sovereignty depended less on the state itself and more on the Resistance — society rising to defend identity, honor, and the land when external aggression intersected with internal weakness.

Today, recalling this legacy reaffirms the meaning of independence. 

Sovereignty in Lebanon has never been a slogan; it is a stance, a principle, and a sacrifice. The struggle of Sayyed Sharafeddine and the generations of Resistance that followed remind us that freedom is earned and guarded by those willing to act, not merely claim.

As Shakespeare wrote, “This blessed plot, this earth, this realm” — the homeland — is not kept by those who merely claim it, but by those who dare to liberate it.