REVIEW ESSAY THE IMPORTANCE OF LEBANON

REVIEW ESSAY THE IMPORTANCE OF LEBANON

Firro, Kasis M. inventing Lebanon: Nationalism and the State Under the Mandate. London: I. B. Tauris, 2003. 274 pp.

O'Ballance, Edgar. Civil War in Lebanon, 1975-92. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998. 234 pp.

Salem, Ellie A. Violence & Diplomacy in Lebanon. London: I. B. Tauris, 1995. 296 pp.

Picard, Elizabeth. Lebanon: A Shattered Country, revised edition. London: Holmes & Meier, 2002. 236 pp.

Lebanon, a tiny republic with a Mediterranean culture that is part Christian and part Moslem, holds tremendous importance for the future of the Middle East and, especially, for U. S. policy in the region. This is true for two reasons: the first is that Lebanon remains a microcosm of the entire Middle East where a policy of consensus and co-operation has survived a horrific civil war; and, secondly, if Lebanon's history is carefully studied, the U.S. could have avoided numerous conflicts and complications in liberating Iraq.

The four books under review lead me to the above conclusion. The first study, Inventing Lebanon, deals with Lebanese politics during the Mandate period (ca. 1920-1943). The book examines the conflicting politics in Lebanon in the creation of "Greater Lebanon" against those who sought to include it in the Syrian state. Out of this conflicting process of nation building and turmoil a modern Lebanese nationalism evolved, but it also retained a strong element of ethno-religious loyalties and politics that threatened the state with disintegration.

Civil War In Lebanon is an account of the fighting in Lebanon between 1975 and 1992 in which the fragmented loyalties among the Lebanese, manipulated by outside interests, almost destroyed the state. Syrian intervention and the Taif Accord, according to the author, reestablished the poliey of consensus and co-operation with a balanced representation. Violence & Diplomacy in Lebanon is EHe Salem's political memoirs during his tenure as Lebanon's Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs (1982-1984). In that capacity, Salem describes his on-going negotiations with all the parties in the conflict and how difficult it was to reach any consensus with groups that will never trust each other. And, lastly, Picard's book, Lebanon, A Shattered County, which I previously reviewed for the JTWS, has added an assessment of Lebanon's progress after the war years.- its reconstruction and national reconciliation in the face of communal loyalties and the Islamic fundamentalist movement; its failure to secularize its political system; and the Shi'ite Moslem quest for power.

These four books on Lebanon highlight the problem of the entire Near and Middle East which can be summarized as irreconcilable and irreducible religious and ethnic conflicts among peoples who distrust each other. Thus, no secular regime (like Saddam's Bathists) has legitimacy, and western styled American democracy can not get legitimacy for that implies social democracy (equal rights for all) that is not understood or wanted in the region. The best we can achieve is either the establishment of a democratically elected theocracy (like Israel) or a confessional democracy (like Lebanon).

And, now, one last perception on the importance of Lebanon. These four books project the instability and conflicts in Lebanon which are also endemic in other parts of the Middle East and the Third World. Terrorism, in the form of car bombs, donkey bombs, suicide bombers and kidnappers, were standard-fare in Lebanon until the Sunnite and Shi'ite clergy decided that those actions was not what God (Allah) meant by jihad (struggle) nor was it what the Prophet Muhammad understood jihad to mean, thus, recruitment for terrorism dried up. Perhaps, this is the best path to end terrorism. The U.S. and its allies should try to work more closely with the moderate Moslem clergy in the region.

By A. J. Abraham*

*Professor of Middle East History, John Jay College (CUNY).

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