Читать книгу The Origins of the Lebanese National Idea - Carol Hakim - Страница 10

Introduction

Of all the ideologies that have marked the modern era, none has left a deeper imprint on the Arab world than nationalism. No other ideology has aroused as much emotion, passion, and devotion, engendered as much hope and exhilaration, despair and bitterness, and no other ideology has inspired, enthralled, and animated as many people. All the major events that have marked the history of the Arab world in the twentieth century—the wars and the revolutions, the bitter rivalry and antagonism among Arab states, the infighting among ruling elites within the same state, down to the quarrels that have at times divided one same family—have been underpinned by nationalist ideals and sentiments and at times fiery rhetoric.

Yet, in spite all the clamor and fervor that nationalism has aroused in the Arab world, the history of nationalism in the region has been marked by inconsistency, fluidity, contingency, and multiplicity. Several strands of nationalism, running the full gamut from local, regional, linguistic, communal, religious, and state based to nation based, have surfaced since the beginning of the twentieth century, vying and clashing with each other at times or overlapping and combining at other times. The national dreams and grand schemes devised by the leaders and peoples in the region, however, dashed against recalcitrant and intractable realities and their promise of freedom, unity, and better futures, remained ever more elusive. As the high hopes raised by nationalism faded, some sank in disillusionment and apathy; others cast around for alternative ventures and ideals; still others, seemingly impervious to adverse conditions, strove to keep the illusion alive. National allegiances and agendas in the Arab Middle East have hence remained tangled and ambivalent, and they have shifted and fluctuated over the course of the century according to changing contexts and circumstances.

The historiography of nationalism in the Arab Middle East has witnessed similar shifts and turns. Like the nationalists of the region, the historians and scholars who have studied the evolution and import of nationalism in the Arab Middle East have been influenced by contemporary conditions, dominant views, ideologies, and paradigms. For the most part, scholars have focused their attention on Arab nationalism, which dominated political discourse and rhetoric in the postindependence period. Scholars hence tried to trace the genesis of Arab nationalism, to determine its basic tenets and features, and to follow its evolution and its gradual dissemination. They initially scrutinized and analyzed the texts produced by Arab nationalist writers and then wove grand narratives that retraced the march of Arab nationalism from its earliest formulation to its ultimate political ascendancy through a long chain of publicists, activists, heroes, and martyrs. Thereafter, as the glow of Arab nationalism seemed to fade, historians sought to reexamine and revise their earlier narratives. Arab nationalism still captured their attention, but they sought to devise more critical approaches to its rise and development, giving further consideration to the social profile of the nationalist activists and publicists, to the differing experiences of the core Arab countries, to the political and socio-economic transformations underlying the emergence of Arab nationalism, and to the nationalization of the masses.¹

The focus of scholars and historians on Arab nationalism has generally overlooked other national and communal representations, allegiances, and identities. Admittedly, the perception of historians has been clouded by the hustle and bustle of political developments in the region. The early postindependence period was characterized by political instability, social mobilization and polarization, and sharp conflicts over the nature, and indeed the very existence, of Arab states and regimes. Local and state nationalisms were written off as inconsequential, illegitimate, or transient phenomena that would inevitably be wiped away by the spirit of the time—and as such little worthy of scholarly attention. Thereafter, the fading of Arab nationalism in the latter part of the twentieth century paradoxically coincided with the withering of most rival territorial strands of nationalisms in the region as the consolidation of authoritarian regimes dashed altogether earlier hopes of freedom and self-determination raised by nationalism.

This book attempts to fill in a gap in the literature on alternative local nationalist strands. It focuses on the early history of Lebanese nationalism, which has only been partly and indirectly addressed by studies on the history of Lebanon and the region. These have conventionally perceived and presented the establishment of a separate Lebanese entity as a special case in which a small Christian minority, the Maronites, living in compact territory, Mount Lebanon, gradually developed a nationalism of their own, an ideal that might be called “Lebanism.” Historians may disagree on the significance of this development, on the nature of Lebanese nationalism, and on its authenticity and legitimacy, but, by and large, most agree that a Lebanist ideal had crystallized in Mount Lebanon by the nineteenth century at the latest. The Maronite Lebanists, we are told, had by then developed clear nationalist inclination and were therefore striving to establish an independent state. Serious problems arose when, in the post—World War I period, they strove to include in their projected patria territories inhabited by a Muslim majority that refused to be incorporated in the separate Lebanon of the Maronites, dreaming instead to unite with their fellow Arab Muslim brothers within the framework of an independent Arab state. But in the end, due to the Maronite Lebanist determination, and French help, a Greater Lebanon fitting the ambitions of the former was established.

Recent studies on Lebanese history have provided new details and perspectives that have significantly enriched this traditional narrative.² Nevertheless, basic assumptions have not changed, and the general impression one gets from recent books on Lebanese history in this period is still by and large the same. In the first two chapters of Zamir's book, covering the pre-1920 period, for instance, the Maronites are rarely mentioned without their traditional adjunct, Lebanist—that is, Maronite Lebanist. The establishment of a Lebanese state is portrayed as the fulfillment, for the Lebanese Christians, of “their centuries-old dream of a state of their own.”³ This aim, Zamir goes on, was achieved thanks to the efforts of the Maronite Patriarchate and the Administrative Council of the Lebanese mutasarrifiyya, who “steadfastly pursued their objective,” in accordance with the “genuine aspirations” of the Maronites.⁴ For his part, Salibi begins his account of the establishment of Lebanon by warning us that among the Arab subjects of the Ottoman Empire, by the end of World War I, a “national consciousness, to the extent that it existed, was blurred and confounded by traditional loyalties of other kinds which were often in conflict with one another.”⁵ Nevertheless, further on in the text, Salibi seems to single out the Maronites as the only exception to this pervasive confusion in national sentiment among the rest of the population of the Arab lands of the Ottoman Empire: “In Mount Lebanon and the adjacent parts of the old Vilayet of Beirut, the Maronites . . . were one party whose demands the French were prepared to listen to. Of all the Arabs, barring only individuals or politically experienced princely dynasties, they appeared to be the only people who knew precisely [my italics] what they wanted: in their case, as they put it, a ‘Greater Lebanon’ under their paramount control, separate, distinct and independent from the rest of Syria.”⁶

In the end, Salibi continues, the Maronites who had “willed it [Greater Lebanon] into existence were fully satisfied with what they got and wanted the country to remain forever exactly as it had been finally constituted.”⁷ Akarli's book is limited to the history of the mutasarrifyya period. Nevertheless, in the concluding parts of his book, which deals with the last years of this regime until the creation of the state of Lebanon, he asserts that a sense of “Lebanese-ness had emerged among the residents of the Mutasarrifiyya," by the beginning of the twentieth century that, “unlike many other nationalisms on the rise in the non-Western world . . . was not an intellectual construct alone, but was rooted in fifty-odd years of political experience.”⁸ Finally, Trabulsi presents a more nuanced picture, warning his readers at the beginning of the book that “the reduction of identity of the Lebanese to one unique form of identity—their sectarian affiliation—is too simplistic and reductionist an approach to an extremely complex situation,” and that politicized religious sects should be seen as “historical products rather than historical essences.”⁹ He also acknowledges the existence of different national currents within the Maronite community in the crucial 1915-20 period, but his general history of modern Lebanon does not dwell much on the earlier development of these different national orientations.¹⁰

In sum, the general sense one gets from the literature on Lebanon is the existence of a well-articulated, widespread, and popular Lebanese nationalism, at the very least within the Maronite community, by the time of the establishment of the Lebanese state. Evidence of this fact can be adduced, for instance, from the seemingly unanimous claim by the Maronites for the establishment of a Greater Lebanon in the 1918–20 years. However, the emergence of nationalist claims in Mount Lebanon and some adjoining districts in the period preceding the establishment of the Lebanese state needs to be accounted for and elucidated. It needs to be historicized and contextualized with a view to determining the origin, nature, and salience of nationalist inclinations among the population of Mount Lebanon. Similarly, the conventional representation of the development of Lebanese nationalism as a linear and gradual process, dating back a few centuries or less, needs to be probed and assessed. This book addresses some of these issues and questions. It critically reassesses the existence, nature, and scope of a Lebanese national movement before the establishment of the Lebanese state in 1920. In doing so, it addresses two separate issues. On the one hand, it seeks to probe and revise previous assumptions and perspectives that have characterized the study of the early history of Lebanese nationalism; on the other hand, it engages the more general debate on the rise of nationalism in the Syrian provinces of the Ottoman Empire.

Nationalism is an especially complex and fraught concept that has generated countless and endless debates among historians and social scientists. Some aspects of these debates that are particularly relevant to this study have centered on the nature and origins of nationalism. In contrast to nationalists who claim that nations are ancient, natural, immutable, and enduring entities, most scholars today are agreed that nationalism is a relatively modern phenomenon that first emerged in western Europe by the end of the eighteenth century in conjunction with the rise of the modern state and the expansion of market relations, and then spread in successive waves, and in several modular forms, across the globe until the nation-state model became the accepted and mandatory international norm for the political organization of societies.¹¹ Furthermore, recent scholarship has moved away from the notion that nations are the natural development of communities based on abstract criteria such as language or religion and tend to view nations as contingent historical constructs or in line with the seminal metaphor of Benedict Anderson as “imagined communities.” However, historians differ on the significance of premodern formations, memories, and solidarities for the development of nationalism. For some, modern nations are not totally rootless and arbitrary entities, and some elements of continuity can be discerned between premodern groups and modern nations as the latter derive some of their features and vigor from ancient solidarities, traditions, and myths.¹² Others assert that modern nations are fundamentally different entities from premodern formations and that apparent continuities between both should not be seen as evidence of historical continuity and evolution as much as an illusive effect of nationalist ideology and history that “secures for the contested and contingent nation the false unity of a self-same, national subject evolving through time.”¹³ Hence, nationalists draw on previous histories, traditions, myths, and symbols, but they do so very selectively and thoroughly transform them, obscuring or disregarding parts of their past and traditions that might be at odds with their ideal visions of the nation, and constructing or reconstructing new myths and traditions to weave new, seamless, and epic histories tracing the evolution of their nation from the origins of time to the present in line with their nationalist objectives. In sum, “beneath a supposed continuity,” nationalism “involves not the reproduction of a given identity or tradition so much as the selection, reformulation and, if necessary, invention of symbols and narratives to suit present purposes.”¹⁴ This study concurs with this latter view; it gives special attention to the formulation of an idealized history by several Maronite authors since the mid-nineteenth century to support particular schemes and agendas, and it illustrates instances when myths and legendary historical episodes were interwoven into an emerging nationalist narrative to fit contemporary concerns as well as the different emphases of these histories in relation to the inclinations of their authors and their particular context.

Scholars of nationalism have also stressed the importance of socioeconomic, cultural, and political transformations brought about by capitalism and the emergence of the modern state for the rise and development of nationalism. Hence, the expansion of market relations and the consolidation of the modern state contribute to the breakdown of premodern social structures and the dissolution of ancient ties and values, and their reconstitution along new and more uniform lines favoring the appearance and spread of nationalism. Scholars have tended, however, to place different emphases on cultural, socioeconomic, and political transformations. This might be attributed partly to the fact that these scholars have tried to explain different moments and aspects of the nationalist dynamic, from the structural and historical factors that underlay the development of nationalism to the cultural reconstructions that have accompanied them.¹⁵ In any event, similar transformations underlay the emergence of nationalist representations and agendas in the Arab world in the nineteenth century following the incorporation of the Ottoman Empire into the world economy and the vast movement of reforms initiated by the Ottoman government, which concurrently contributed to strengthen the authority of the central state, to integrate, albeit unevenly, the various provinces of the empire, and to bring more closely together the diverse communities of the Empire. All these transformations “prompted the transition from a social system that was not conductive to nationalism to one that was apposite to the ideology.”¹⁶ And indeed, the first stirrings of nationalism began to show in the Lebanese and Syrian provinces of the Ottoman Empire in the second half of the nineteenth century, as several parallel and overlapping strands of nationalist representations and agendas ranging from Ottomanism, to Arabism, to Syrianism, to Lebanism began to appear.

The appearance of fledging national representations and agendas did not, however, presage their subsequent development in an orderly, linear, and predictable fashion. As a matter of fact, nationalism in the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire did not evolve in a neat, staged way, in line with contemporary developments in certain parts of eastern Europe and the Balkans, from a preliminary national revival phase during which historians, linguists, and other members of the intelligentsia formulated and propagated studies on the history, language, and culture of the prospective nation, to an intermediate phase that saw the formation of nationalist movements that started to organize and agitate, to a final stage during which the national movement succeeded in mobilizing the rest of the population and turned into a mass national movement.¹⁷ In the Syrian provinces of the Empire, no large-scale nationalist movements emerged before the collapse of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I—if we take a national movement to mean one that develops a clear and coherent agenda and aims to mobilize the population in view of the establishment of its own particular state. Elements of nationalist thinking, identifications, and projects appeared every so often, but they never crystallized into coherent ideologies or movements. As argued in the following chapters, nationalist agendas for the most part remained articulated around the necessity of the reform of the Empire, not its dismemberment or demise, and the different strands of nationalism that emerged in the Empire remained closely connected to the fortunes of the various reform movements and the differing visions of reform that emerged in the Lebanese and Syrian provinces. Nationalist agendas aimed mostly at informing and complementing the general movement of reform implemented by the Ottoman state and at inflecting its development in a direction more in line with the aspirations and interests of local forces in the Arab provinces. Elites in the Lebanese and Syrian provinces displayed, however, great reluctance to follow through on the implications of these national visions and programs, and when in the first decades of the twentieth century developments in the Ottoman Empire threatened more directly the interests of local elites, the latter ratcheted up their opposition by promoting decentralization plans within the framework of the Empire that eventually fizzled out. Nationalist agendas and representations in the Arab provinces hence remained ambivalent and in flux up until the collapse of the Ottoman Empire at the end of War World I. It was only then that the ambivalent and inchoate reformist and nationalist programs of the elite crystallized into full-fledged nationalist agendas. The terms Ottomanism, Syrianism, Arabism, and for our purpose, Lebanism, aim hence to denote the development of national ideals and representations among the local populations of the Empire, which displayed some elements of modern nationalism but had not developed into articulate and coherent nationalist ideologies or movements.

A central contention of this study is that, contrary to conventional accounts, the appearance and evolution of nationalism in the Lebanese province followed in its broad lines developments in the rest of the Syrian provinces. In a similar vein, nationalist agendas and representations emerged and fluctuated in the Lebanese Mountain in conjunction with various schemes and reformist programs developed by the Maronite clerical and secular elite in Mount Lebanon to take advantage of, circumvent, or check the efforts initiated by the Ottoman government by mid-nineteenth century to reassert its authority in the Syrian provinces and to reorganize the Empire along new principles of government. These endeavors, accompanied by the growing intervention of the European powers in the domestic affairs of the region, initially led to a period of profound instability and protracted disturbances in the Lebanese Mountain, which culminated with the massacres of 1860. During this troubled period, schemes to establish a semi-independent Christian entity in Mount Lebanon were mooted by some Lebanese clerical circles in conjunction with French Catholic and liberal circles. These schemes, however, foundered, and the Ottoman government ultimately succeeded in its efforts to reestablish its authority over Mount Lebanon, which was granted a limited autonomous regime, known as the mutasarrifiyya, in 1861. Thereafter, the population of the Mountain accommodated to the new regime, which provided sixty years of “long peace” but failed to bring prosperity and stability. Dismal socioeconomic and political conditions in Mount Lebanon eventually led some members of the Lebanese elite and activists to devise, by the beginning of the twentieth century, reformist political projects and programs to cope with the growing problems of the Mountain. At the same time, they envisioned national representations in line with their reformist projects. Like their counterparts in the remaining Syrian provinces, however, Lebanese activists and members of the elite wrestled with several nationalist agendas and representations, which notably encompassed Ottomanism and Syrianism. However, in addition to the agendas contemplated by the other inhabitants of the Syrian lands, activists from the Lebanese provinces benefited from and considered another alternative, namely Lebanism, which presented an additional option to Syrianism and Ottomanism and denoted distinct projects to address the particular problems of their own province. And like their counterparts in the Syrian provinces, their national representations appeared and evolved in relation to the lines of the various political programs they formulated. The reform projects and national representations of the Lebanese elites varied according to the delicate fluctuations in the general situation of the Ottoman Empire, accounting for frequent shifts in political agendas and representations. The different national representations envisioned by local Lebanese and Syrian elites, notwithstanding strong assertions about the historical and actual reality of the purported nations they envisaged, represented potential ideals to be fulfilled in some undetermined future. During this period, this future was not as yet distinctly perceived by the elite and in any case did not appear as immediate. Furthermore, at the time, it still seemed possible to envision the association and coexistence of different national communities within the confines of the Ottoman Empire. Therefore, members of the secular Lebanese elite remained reluctant to choose between their different political and national ideals, often combining several nationalist agendas and identities, which for them remained, until the end of the period under study, political options and potential alternatives that could be changed and revised.

Hence, the period preceding the demise of the Ottoman Empire did not witness the development of nationalist movements, Lebanese or otherwise, but a shifting and tentative quest for national representation among some members of the Maronite elite, as well as their Syrian counterparts, that evolved and fluctuated in relation with their diverse reformist agendas. Nevertheless, during this period, some core ideas and basic historical myths around which Lebanese nationalism eventually crystallized were formulated by members of the Lebanese clerical and secular elite. They only matured into coherent nationalist claims in the few months that preceded the establishment the Lebanese state.

The book reconstructs the complex process that led to the appearance of Lebanist national agendas and representations among certain clerical and secular circles within Mount Lebanon by the middle of the nineteenth century. It then follows the subsequent development and fluctuation of such ideas and attempts to assess their impact on the rest of the population. It deals with other national representations adopted by certain actors hailing from the Mountain, such as Ottomanism and Syrianism, underscoring the interaction of these differing views with, and their impact on, Lebanism itself. At the same time, the book examines the diverse forces and personalities who promoted such agendas within and without the Mountain. Indeed, as the nineteenth century unfolded, large numbers of the population of the Mount Lebanon began to move outside the Mountain, settling in the neighboring town of Beirut, in Egypt, and in the Americas. Their views greatly influenced those expounded by part of the elite within the Mountain and therefore need to be incorporated in this study. Hence, although this study concentrates on Mount Lebanon proper, and more particularly on the Maronite community, it follows the activity of certain Lebanese groups and personalities outside the confines of the Mountain, in Beirut, Egypt, or farther away, when and where their views are relevant to the analysis of the formulation of national ideals.

Chapters 1 to 3 cover the period stretching from 1840 until 1861, which witnessed a critical situation in the Mountain following the withdrawal of the Egyptian forces of Muhammad Ali from Syria, the demise of the Emir Bashir II, and the reestablishment of Ottoman rule in the Syrian provinces. At that time, the aspirations of some local Maronite clerical circles to establish the dominance of their community in the Mountain converged with the romantic fantasies and projects of some French Catholic and liberal circles who dreamed of a Christian regeneration of the East in agreement with prevalent Western civilizing and expansionist presumptions. The interaction between these Maronite and French circles gave birth to vague political projects aiming at establishing a semi-independent Maronite entity in Mount Lebanon. The most elaborate formulations of such schemes surfaced in the years 1860-61, when projects supporting the establishment of an enlarged Christian Greater Lebanon and portending the entity established in 1920 were devised. At the same time, the interaction between some Maronite and French circles generated historical narratives depicting the Maronites as an historical nation, striving to attain self-determination and deserving to be helped by the Western, and especially French, powers to fulfill their objective.

The diverse political projects devised between 1840 and 1860 failed to materialize and were replaced by other political ambitions following the establishment in Mount Lebanon, in 1861, of the mutasarrifiyya regime. At the same time, the ideals and views that had sustained such schemes faded away; as the Maronite Church accommodated to the new regime, it revised and altered its political views and policies. It gradually abandoned its former semi-separatist schemes and aspirations and began to promote more conservative political views, articulated around the safeguard of the spiritual, social, and political autonomy of the Maronite community within the framework of a multinational and multireligious Empire along with a staunch commitment to the preservation of the special regime of Mount Lebanon that fairly secured this basic aim.

Chapter 4 deals with the revised views and aspirations of the Maronite Church during the mutasarrifiyya period, whereas chapter 5 to chapter 7 cover the views of the secular political and intellectual elite during this same period. By the beginning of the twentieth century, a new secular Maronite elite took the lead in addressing the growing political and socioeconomic problems of the Mountain. The main drive of this secular elite throughout this period remained reformist, and its claims focused on political and economic reforms to improve a dismal situation in the Mountain. Its activity and mode of thinking were deeply influenced by the reformist movement that had emerged by the mid-nineteenth century in the region and should be seen within the framework of this reformist activity.

The projects devised by the Lebanese activists during this second phase remained mainly articulated around a large autonomy for Mount Lebanon within the framework of the Ottoman Empire. They evolved into more explicit claims for the independence of an enlarged Lebanon only in the aftermath of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Chapter 8 covers this troubled period and the circumstances that led to the establishment of a Lebanese state.