A prominent figure of the twentieth century, Charles Malek was one of its world-class people like little known. Diplomat, philosopher, he notably made himself known as the representative of Lebanon at the San Francisco Conference, which gave birth to the United Nations. In 1958, he will chair the thirteenth session of the General Assembly of the organization.
Born in 1906 in Bterram located in the Koura in North Lebanon and belonging to the Orthodox community, Charles Malek quickly joined the American Mission School for Boys in Tripoli then the American University of Beirut where he obtained a degree in Mathematics and Physics. He then went to Cairo in 1929 for a job with the Rockefeller Foundation. From Egypt, he will begin to be interested in Philosophy and from where he will leave to continue his studies in Freiburg in Germany, first in 1930.
Criticizing the unfortunate rise of Nazism in Germany, he went to the United States as soon as they came to power in 1933, where he obtained the first PhD in Philosophy from Harvard University for a person from the Arab countries and began a career in teaching.
Charles Malek then returned to Beirut to found the Department of Philosophy at AUB, which he headed as chair until 1945.
From 1945, he will be appointed Ambassador of Lebanon to the United Nations and to the USA.
An outstanding diplomat
Representative of Lebanon to the UN from its foundation at the San Francisco conference, he was appointed rapporteur of the commission in charge of human rights from 1947 to 1948 and as such was one of the main drafters of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights with the wife of the American President, President of this Council and American delegate to the General Assembly, Eleanor Roosevelt and the French Ambassador to the UN, René Cassin. On December 10, 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights will be adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations, in Paris, at the Palais Chaillot, by 48 votes in favor, 8 abstentions and without any votes opposing it.
He will also participate in the founding of the Arab League.
Charles Malek will continue his UN career until 1955 as representative of Lebanon but also as President of the Economic and Social Council. He will succeed Eleanor Roosevelt, in accordance with his wishes, on the Human Rights Commission. He returned to the UN in 1958 to chair the 13th meeting of the General Assembly of the Organization. This post of President of the UN General Assembly will also be the source of a controversy: Charles Malek will be accused of having visited the Israeli pavilion at the New York fair and raised a toast to “l ‘friendship in the Middle East’ with the Israeli consul, despite his known political positions in favor of the Palestinian cause.
An interlude of Minister in Lebanon
Between 1956 and 1957, Charles Malek was appointed Minister of Education and the Arts. He will also cumulate the function of Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1956 to 1958. He will also be elected deputy in 1957 for a three-year term.
A return to civilian life marked by education
Returned to civilian life, Charles Malek returned to teaching in 1960. He will be professor of Philosophy but also on various subjects including those concerning Human Rights including many American universities including Harvard, the American University in Washington, DC, Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, University of Notre Dame in Indiana. He will also return to his chair of philosophy at AUB in Lebanon, which he will direct between 1962 and 1976. As such, Charles Malek will receive around fifty honorary degrees from various American and European universities.
Charles Malek will also be interested in the theological aspect by being the author of numerous comments on the Bible and the apocryphal writings of the beginning of Christianity. He will serve in this capacity as President of the World Council for Christian Education between 1967 and 1971 and as Vice President for the Unification of the Bible between 1966 and 1972.
One of the founders of the Lebanese Forces
Charles Malek in Lebanon will also be known for his role in the defense of the Christian cause during the civil war from 1975 to 1990. He will also be one of the founding fathers, considered to be at the origin of the ideological basis of the latter, despite not being a Maronite, of the Front pour la Liberté et l’Homme. This movement will become the Lebanese Forces, with the Presidents of the Kataëb Party, Pierre Gemayel and of the National Liberal Party, Camille Chamoun.
The death of Charles Malek
Charles Malek died on December 28, 1987 following kidney failure caused by various heart problems.
Read
100 years after November 11, 1918
Once upon a time, Lebanon’s independence: Bechara el Khoury
