DOCSLIB.ORG

THE POLITICS and LIBERATION of LEBANON by Etienne Sakr (Abu Arz)*

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
THE POLITICS and LIBERATION of LEBANON by Etienne Sakr (Abu Arz)* THE POLITICS AND LIBERATION OF LEBANON By Etienne Sakr (Abu Arz)* For 30 years, political events in Lebanon were dominated by Syrian occupation until 2005, when the Syrian army withdrew under international pressure. Yet the national future of Lebanon remains clouded in doubt and tension, as acts of terror against anti-Syrian elements continue, the March "Cedar Revolution" is stymied, and the country totters between freedom and political paralysis and breakdown. Events in Lebanon in the first half of 2005 Lebanese/Maronite-Palestinian fighting in altered the political state of affairs Beirut and Mount Lebanon.3 concerning Syria's long occupation of that By June 1976, Syria also sent its own country. Yet the outcome of these events is army into Lebanon to dominate the country still unclear and fluid. This article analyzes and subdue it to the will of Damascus. the history of the Lebanon issue and Manipulating the complex fighting scenario prospects for creating a new, more in Lebanon, Syrian-Palestinian cooperation equitable and stable order given the against the Christian community became dramatic changes which have taken place. the major motif. For example, in February 1980, the Syrians turned over the western STAGES AND METHODS IN SYRIAN area from Damur to the Zahrani to the PLA, OCCUPATION OF LEBANON along with heavy military equipment.4 On The hegemonic notion of Greater Syria July 20, 1976, following the launching of provides the ideological and historic Syria's direct military intervention in underpinnings for Damascus's drive to Lebanon, Hafiz al-Asad gave an historic eliminate Lebanese independence.1 Among speech in which he declared that its tools in realizing this goal was the "[throughout] history, Syria and Lebanon Saiqah Palestinian faction established in have been one country and one people"--a 1968. In April 1969, in the midst of tension political melody that would continue to between the Lebanese government and accompany this foreign conquest.5 Palestinian forces, Syria moved several The Lebanese National Movement hundred Saiqah fighters to the border with (LNM), consolidated under the leadership Lebanon. 2 This was a mere prelude to the of the Jumblatt Druze clan in 1976, became December 1975 Syrian decision to move another vehicle for the Syrian penetration of both Saiqah forces and the Qadisiyya and Lebanon. A combination of leftist Hittin brigades of the Palestine Liberation personalities and groups--including Army (PLA) to the Baka Valley and north Ba'thists and Communists--sought to Lebanon in order to contain and regulate exploit the Palestinian insurgency in and the chaos emerging from against Lebanon for their own domestic political ambitions.6 However, Kamal 86 Middle East Review of International Affairs, Vol. 9, No. 4 (December 2005) The Politics and Liberation of Lebanon Jumblatt, an aristocratic landlord in socialist he opposed. This included the assassination garb, wanted Lebanon to remain of President-elect Bashir Gemayel in independent: "We do not want to be a September 1982 and that of President Rene satellite state," he wrote to Asad.7 In Moawed in November 1989. response, Syrian operatives were sent to Syrian control over Lebanon was assassinate Jumblatt in 1977, and the LNM comprehensive in three respects. First, by lost its independence, submitting to Asad the 1990s, the Syrians had achieved an and becoming a lever of Damascus against exceptional evell of domestic pacification, the Christian population. Its traditional with hardly any expressions of political platform included a demand to redistribute opposition and little popular street protest. power away from the Christian This was due to the flight of political communities in favor of the Muslim and figures abroad and also due to Syria's policy Druze communities, to equalize regional of physical elimination of anyone who government expenditures and investments, dared challenge the absolute rule of the and to move toward a secular non-sectarian Asads. The assassinations of Gemayel, political system. Kamal's son, Walid, led Shaykh Hassan Khalid, Dany Chamoun, as the LNM and its core party element, the well as those of Lebanese Forces activists Progressive Socialist Party. Ramzy Irani and Pierre Boulos The mechanism of the Arab Deterrent demonstrated that point. Force (ADF), as proposed by the Arab Second, the Syrians were very adept in League at the October 1976 Riyadh and masking Lebanon with a veneer of normal Cairo conferences, became another mode social, political, and cultural life. Beirut for Syria's emerging domination of bustled, the radio blasted, and hotels were Lebanon. Ending hostilities and collecting full. However, underneath the surface, the weapons, in addition to supervising Lebanese lived in fear of voicing their Lebanese-Palestinian relations, were the opinions. A large enough number of high- ADF's primary purposes. Syrian forces profile Maronites willingly served as an were the overwhelming military elite front to hide the national infirmity. component, and so the ADF legitimized Among senior Lebanese Forces Syria's presence on Lebanese soil in pan- personalities, Samir Geagea gave approval Arab dress. Thereafter, the Syrians subdued to the Ta'if Accord, Elie Hobeika crossed the leftists, Muslims, Druze, Palestinians, the lines from his Israel connection to and Christian camp, each according to become a Syrian collaborator, and Fouad Syrian interests and timing.8 Syria's Malek ultimately succumbed to line up with creeping expansion became the the Syrians. Other well-known Maronites-- fundamental political reality in Lebanon. Boutros Harb, Carlos Edde, Nayla Moawed, Already in 1976, Asad had established and Robert Ghanem--followed suit when his sway over Lebanon, which enabled him they made the pilgrimage to Damascus in to impose Elias Sarkis, then-governor of the 2004 in order to seek Bashar Asad's support Central Bank, as the president. The for their presidential ambitions. Adept Chamber of Deputies met on April 10, Syrian cooptation of Lebanese politicians 1976. Those present unanimously agreed to broadcast a message of normalcy and amend the constitution in order to move up accommodation across the national and the election and then voted to make Sarkis international airwaves. president.9 Asad became both the source of Third, Syria did allow the minimal political power and the terminator of those opposition to act as an escape valve for Middle East Review of International Affairs, Vol. 9, No. 4 (December 2005) 87 Etienne Sakr (Abu Arz) Lebanese grievances. Therefore, when were audible, such as that of the late Albert Member of Parliament Fares Soueid Mukheiber in the Chamber of Deputies. A insisted in an April 2004 newspaper striking example of election interference interview that Syria should withdraw all its concerned the independent-minded Gabriel troops from Lebanon, not a political ripple Murr, brother of Michel Murr, minister of was noticeable.10 the interior and a Syrian ally. He defeated Finally, the Syrians were very adept at his Syrian-supported opponent (Michel's preventing any international pressure daughter and Gabriel's niece, Myrna) in a against their policy. No global protest to by-election for a legislative seat in the Metn Syrian occupation of Lebanon was heard region of Mount Lebanon in June 2002.13 for over 25 years. Yet within days the election results were overturned and Myrna Murr was declared Military & Security the victor. Later, the Lebanese authorities The Lebanese national army was under closed down Gabriel Murr's television absolute Syrian control. In an interview in station, sending scores of people into the summer of 2004, Syria's Prime unemployment. Minister, Muhammad Naji Otri, defined Syria's grip over Lebanon--its political this situation as "total coordination between personnel and government decisions-- the Lebanese and Syrian armies."11 Syria's began in 1976 and continued through 2005. military presence was felt even in the In the parliamentary election period of outlying regions of Lebanon, and its September 2000, Walid Jumblatt had intelligence surveillance agencies charged Syria with maintaining this system penetrated throughout society--both urban by sowing discord among Lebanese and rural. Telephone-tapping and communities, though forecasting that widespread use of informers spread a net of Syrian intervention could not last. He said, fear throughout the country. "It is not normal that [the Syrians] intervene Hundreds of Lebanese citizens were everywhere, in the labor unions, in public abducted. Among them, many were life, at the level of the press, and in the tortured, imprisoned, and transferred to the name of security."14 notorious Syrian Mezze prison, while others The eminent rector of the Universite de were sent to the Palmyra prison in the St. Joseph in Beirut, Selim Abou, explained desert, never to be heard from again. The how Syrian rhetoric was the reverse of 1992 abduction of well-known Lebanese reality. In this system of doubletalk, Syria Forces fighter Boutros Khawand was one "defends" rather than occupies Lebanon, well-known instance of Syria's methods.12 whereas were the Lebanese army to replace With five Syrian detention facilities from Hizballah along Israel's border, this would Tripoli in the north to Anjar in the west, the be said to serve Israel's interests rather than image of Lebanon as one big prison was manifest Lebanon's sovereign rule. The hardly an imaginary notion. Syrian presence was constantly justified by the formula that it is "legal,
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Constitutional Patriotism in Lebanon
    Sonderdrucke aus der Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg MAURUS REINKOWSKI Constitutional Patriotism in Lebanon Originalbeitrag erschienen in: New perspektives on Turkey 16 (1997), S. [63] - 85 CONSTITUTIONAL PATRIOTISM IN LEB ON Maurus Reinkowski* In this paper I will discuss the options of political identity the Lebanese have at their disposal against the background of the German experience. Germany and Lebanon, states at first glance completely different from each other, show some similarity in their historical experience. In the context of this comparison I will discuss constitu- tional patriotism, a political concept in circulation in Germany over the last fifteen years or so, and its potential application in the Lebanese case. Constitutional patriotism, unlike many other concepts originating in the West, has yet not entered the political vocabulary of the Middle East. The debate on democracy and the civil society is widespread in the whole of the Middle East, including Lebanon. Lebanon's political culture, polity and national identity, however, show some peculiar traits that might justify the introduction of the term constitutional patriotism into the Lebanese political debate. As democracy and civil society are both closely linked to the concept of constitutional patriotism they will be treated in the first chapter. The second chapter will be devoted to the question of whether and to what extent Lebanon differs from the mainstream of the modern Middle East's political history. I will venture to draw a parallel with the German "sonderweg" (deviant, peculiar way). The third section will present briefly the German discussion of constitutional patriotism and its innate link to the sonderweg.
    [Show full text]
  • U.S. Department of State
    1998 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices -- Lebanon Page 1 of 10 The State Department web site below is a permanent electro information released prior to January 20, 2001. Please see w material released since President George W. Bush took offic This site is not updated so external links may no longer func us with any questions about finding information. NOTE: External links to other Internet sites should not be co endorsement of the views contained therein. U.S. Department of State Lebanon Country Report on Human Rights Practices for 1998 Released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, February 26, 1999. LEBANON Lebanon is a parliamentary republic in which the President is by tradition a Maronite Christian, the Prime Minister a Sunni Muslim, and the Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies a Shiâa Muslim. The Parliament consists of 128 deputies, equally divided between Christian and Muslim representatives. In October Parliament chose a new president, Emile Lahoud, in an election heavily influenced by Syria. He took office in November. The judiciary is independent in principle but is subject to political pressure. Non-Lebanese military forces control much of the country. These include about 25,000 Syrian troops, a contingent of approximately 2,000 Israeli army regulars and 1,500 Israeli-supported militia in the south, and several armed Palestinian factions located in camps and subject to restrictions on their movements. All undermine the authority of the central Government and prevent the application of law in the patchwork of areas not under the Governmentâs control. In 1991 the governments of Syria and Lebanon concluded a security agreement that provided a framework for security cooperation between their armed forces.
    [Show full text]
  • Lebanon: Managing the Gathering Storm
    LEBANON: MANAGING THE GATHERING STORM Middle East Report N°48 – 5 December 2005 TABLE OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS................................................. i I. A SYSTEM BETWEEN OLD AND NEW.................................................................. 1 A. SETTING THE STAGE: THE ELECTORAL CONTEST..................................................................1 B. THE MEHLIS EFFECT.............................................................................................................5 II. SECTARIANISM AND INTERNATIONALISATION ............................................. 8 A. FROM SYRIAN TUTELAGE TO WESTERN UMBRELLA?............................................................8 B. SHIFTING ALLIANCES..........................................................................................................12 III. THE HIZBOLLAH QUESTION ................................................................................ 16 A. “A NEW PHASE OF CONFRONTATION” ................................................................................17 B. HIZBOLLAH AS THE SHIITE GUARDIAN?..............................................................................19 C. THE PARTY OF GOD TURNS PARTY OF GOVERNMENT.........................................................20 IV. CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................. 22 A. A BROAD INTERNATIONAL COALITION FOR A NARROW AGENDA .......................................22 B. A LEBANESE COURT ON FOREIGN
    [Show full text]
  • A Main Document V202
    ABSTRACT Title of dissertation: TELEVISION NEWS AND THE STATE IN LEBANON Jad P. Melki, Doctor of Philosophy, 2008 Dissertation directed by: Professor Susan D. Moeller College of Journalism This dissertation studies the relationship between television news and the state in Lebanon. It utilizes and reworks New Institutionalism theory by adding aspects of Mitchell’s state effect and other concepts devised from Carey and Foucault. The study starts with a macro-level analysis outlining the major cultural, economic and political factors that influenced the evolution of television news in that country. It then moves to a mezzo-level analysis of the institutional arrangements, routines and practices that dominated the news production process. Finally, it zooms in to a micro-level analysis of the final product of Lebanese broadcast news, focusing on the newscast, its rundown and scripts and the smaller elements that make up the television news story. The study concludes that the highly fragmented Lebanese society generated a similarly fragmented and deeply divided political/economic elite, which used its resources and access to the news media to solidify its status and, by doing so, recreated and confirmed the politico-sectarian divide in this country. In this vicious cycle, the institutionalized and instrumentalized television news played the role of mediator between the elites and their fragmented constituents, and simultaneously bolstered the political and economic power of the former while keeping the latter tightly held in their grip. The hard work and values of the individual journalist were systematically channeled through this powerful institutional mechanism and redirected to serve the top of the hierarchy.
    [Show full text]
  • The Oral History and Memory of Ras Beirut: Exceptional Narratives of Co-Existence
    Middle East Studies Association (MESA) Conference Washington, DC, November 2014 The Oral History and Memory of Ras Beirut: Exceptional Narratives of Co-existence Maria Bashshur Abunnasr, PhD This paper is a very condensed version of my past dissertation research and my current project on the oral history and memory of Ras Beirut sponsored by the Neighborhood Initiative at the American University of Beirut. For those of you who do not know Beirut, Ras Beirut is the western-most extension of the city and is most renown as the location of the American University of Beirut (AUB) founded by American missionaries in 1866 as the Syrian Protestant College. To many Ras Beirut is a place famous, indeed exceptional, for its association with tolerance, education, and cosmopolitanism. And that association is largely credited to AUB. The focus of this paper, however, is not on AUB’s role in Ras Beirut. It reverses the lens to consider the local community’s role in making Ras Beirut’s past through what I term, “narratives of coexistence.” Comprised of primarily (though not exclusively) Greek Orthodox Christians and Sunni Muslims, Ras Beirut’s local community claims its foundation is based on ta’ayoush, Arabic for coexistence. They consider their history of peaceful coexistence the bedrock of Ras Beirut’s exceptionalism that distinguished Ras Beirut from other parts of Beirut, of Lebanon, and of the region. While they recognize the presence of the AUB as momentous to the future shape of Ras Beirut as a cosmopolitan hub, their narratives insist on the influence, if not the determination, of their 1 coexistence on the missionary choice of Ras Beirut as the site for the College in the first place.
    [Show full text]
  • Patience and Comparative Development*
    Patience and Comparative Development* Thomas Dohmen Benjamin Enke Armin Falk David Huffman Uwe Sunde May 29, 2018 Abstract This paper studies the role of heterogeneity in patience for comparative devel- opment. The empirical analysis is based on a simple OLG model in which patience drives the accumulation of physical capital, human capital, productivity improve- ments, and hence income. Based on a globally representative dataset on patience in 76 countries, we study the implications of the model through a combination of reduced-form estimations and simulations. In the data, patience is strongly corre- lated with income levels, income growth, and the accumulation of physical capital, human capital, and productivity. These relationships hold across countries, sub- national regions, and individuals. In the reduced-form analyses, the quantitative magnitude of the relationship between patience and income strongly increases in the level of aggregation. A simple parameterized version of the model generates comparable aggregation effects as a result of production complementarities and equilibrium effects, and illustrates that variation in preference endowments can account for a considerable part of the observed variation in per capita income. JEL classification: D03, D90, O10, O30, O40. Keywords: Patience; comparative development; factor accumulation. *Armin Falk acknowledges financial support from the European Research Council through ERC # 209214. Dohmen, Falk: University of Bonn, Department of Economics; [email protected], [email protected]. Enke: Harvard University, Department of Economics; [email protected]. Huffman: University of Pittsburgh, Department of Economics; huff[email protected]. Sunde: University of Munich, Department of Economics; [email protected]. 1 Introduction A long stream of research in development accounting has documented that both pro- duction factors and productivity play an important role in explaining cross-country income differences (Hall and Jones, 1999; Caselli, 2005; Hsieh and Klenow, 2010).
    [Show full text]
  • Review Th Art Guerrilla Marketing
    The National 08 Friday, January 2, 2009 www.thenational.ae 09 review th art Guerrilla marketing A new book chronicles the war of images waged in Lebanon’s political posters – and the way artists and designers shaped the country’s larger conflicts, writes Kaelen Wilson-Goldie Walk through the streets of virtually Pierre Gemayel, Bashir Gemayel, of Beirut’s poster wars, and the first ageing portfolios of artists, illustra- posters commemorating April 13, any neighbourhood in Beirut and Elie Hobeika, Egypt’s Gamal Abdel serious and comprehensive investi- tors and designers, whom she in- 1975, the date when Kataeb fighters you’ll find the faces of political lead- Nasser, Syria’s Hafez and Bashar As- gation of the way that fifteen years of terviewed over the course of her re- ambushed a bus full of Palestinian ers – past and present, local and for- sad and Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah fighting left an indelible mark on the search as well. In April 2008, Maasri passengers in the neighbourhood eign – plastered onto construction Khomeini. city’s visual culture – one that per- presented parts of this collection in of Ain al Rummaneh, killing more walls, building façades and shut- Some of the city’s posters are tat- sists to this day. Maasri is not the first a meticulously installed exhibition than thirty and sparking the fuse of tered storefronts. Lebanon’s presi- tered and torn while others are person to single out the posters as a titled Signs of Conflict, which was civil war. dent, Michel Suleiman, has gone so freshly pasted, evidence of the ongo- uniquely Lebanese phenomenon: in produced by the arts organisation The LF poster, from 1983, glorifies far as to call for an end to the relent- ing process of marking territory as recent years a number of Lebanon’s Ashkal Alwan for the fourth edition combatants (and, by implication, less postering, but his pleas have loyal to one faction or another.
    [Show full text]
  • Book Reviews / the Levantine Review Volume 2 Number 1 (Spring 2013) ISSN: 2
    Book Reviews / The Levantine Review Volume 2 Number 1 (Spring 2013) BOOK REVIEWS Lebanon After the Cedar Revolution, Are Knudsen and Michael Kerr (eds); London: C. Hurst & Company, 2012. 323 pp. $29.95 Reviewed by Franck Salameh Since the end of World War I, the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, and the emergence of the current state system, the Middle East has been racked with military conflict and political turbulence, at times adrift on quests for political frameworks to absorb and manage the region’s cultural, ethnic, religious, and linguistic diversity. Lebanon, for all its perplexities and defects, seemed to have found a workable formula, some ninety years ago. Lebanon’s power-sharing system," says Michael Kerr, "has proved to be one of the most resilient and enduring forms of government the region has known" since the emergence of the current state system; something none of Lebanon’s neighbors have yet been able to attain. Today, as Arabs from the Maghreb to the Persian Gulf clamor for equality, freedom, and representative institutions, casting a searching gaze over Lebanon's successes (and failures) may be instructive, and indeed salutary, for a region in transition facing mounting transformational challenges, and scraping for reform, suffrage, and order. “Lebanon has the task of transmitting to the Western world the faintest pulsations of the Eastern and Arab worlds,” wrote Lebanese parliamentarian, Kamal Jumblat, some seventy years ago.1 Lebanon has also “the task of intercepting—before anyone else—the life ripples of the Mediterranean, of Europe, and of the universe, in order to cast them and retransmit them [… to the Middle East’s] realms of sand, mosques and sun.”2 This is an element of an “Eternal Truth” claimed Jumblat.
    [Show full text]
  • Zahle and Bar Elias: Municipality-Led Evictions in Central Bekaa Conflict Analysis Report – September 2018
    Empowered lives. Resilient nations. Zahle and Bar Elias: Municipality-Led Evictions in Central Bekaa Conflict Analysis Report – September 2018 Supported by: This report was written by an independent researcher as part of a conflict analysis consultancy for the UNDP “Peace Building in Lebanon” Project to inform and support UNDP Lebanon programming, as well as interventions from other partners in the framework of the Lebanon Crisis Response Plan (LCRP). Through these reports, UNDP is aiming at providing quality analysis to LCRP Partners on the evolution of local dynamics, highlighting how local and structural issues have impacted and interacted with the consequences of the Syrian crisis in Lebanon. This report has been produced with the support of the Department for International Development (UKDFID). For any further information, please contact directly: Tom Lambert, UNDP Social Stability Sector Coordinator at [email protected] and Joanna Nassar, UNDP “Peace Building in Lebanon” Project Manager at [email protected] Report written by Bilal Al Ayoubi The views expressed in this publication are solely those of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect the views of UNDP, nor its partners. UNDP © 2018 All rights reserved. Cover Photo © UNDP Lebanon, 2018 Empowered lives. Resilient nations. Zahle and Bar Elias: Municipality-Led Evictions in Central Bekaa Conflict Analysis Report – September 2018 Supported by: 1 Zahle and Bar Elias: Municipality-Led Evictions in Central Bekaa Conflict Analysis Report – September 2018 Table of Contents
    [Show full text]
  • Project of Statistical Data Collection on Film and Audiovisual Markets in 9 Mediterranean Countries
    Film and audiovisual data collection project EU funded Programme FILM AND AUDIOVISUAL DATA COLLECTION PROJECT PROJECT TO COLLECT DATA ON FILM AND AUDIOVISUAL PROJECT OF STATISTICAL DATA COLLECTION ON FILM AND AUDIOVISUAL MARKETS IN 9 MEDITERRANEAN COUNTRIES Country profile: 3. LEBANON EUROMED AUDIOVISUAL III / CDSU in collaboration with the EUROPEAN AUDIOVISUAL OBSERVATORY Dr. Sahar Ali, Media Expert, CDSU Euromed Audiovisual III Under the supervision of Dr. André Lange, Head of the Department for Information on Markets and Financing, European Audiovisual Observatory (Council of Europe) Tunis, 27th February 2013 Film and audiovisual data collection project Disclaimer “The present publication was produced with the assistance of the European Union. The capacity development support unit of Euromed Audiovisual III programme is alone responsible for the content of this publication which can in no way be taken to reflect the views of the European Union, or of the European Audiovisual Observatory or of the Council of Europe of which it is part.” The report is available on the website of the programme: www.euromedaudiovisual.net Film and audiovisual data collection project NATIONAL AUDIOVISUAL LANDSCAPE IN NINE PARTNER COUNTRIES LEBANON 1. BASIC DATA ............................................................................................................................. 5 1.1 Institutions................................................................................................................................. 5 1.2 Landmarks ...............................................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • The Reconstructions of Beirut Joe Nasr, Éric Verdeil
    The reconstructions of Beirut Joe Nasr, Éric Verdeil To cite this version: Joe Nasr, Éric Verdeil. The reconstructions of Beirut. Salma K. Jayyusi, Renata Holod, Attilio Petruccioli and André Raymond. The City in the Islamic World, Brill, pp.1116-1141, 2008, Handbook of Oriental Studies, 10.1163/ej.9789004162402.i-1500.299. halshs-00261149 HAL Id: halshs-00261149 https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-00261149 Submitted on 6 Mar 2008 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. The Reconstructions of Beirut The City in the Islamic World, Brill, Leiden Joe Nasr, independent researcher, associated with the Institut Français du Proche-Orient, Beirut, Lebanon Eric Verdeil, CNRS, UMR 5600 Environnement Ville Société, Lyon, France Introduction Beirut has successively been seen as the icon of the war-destroyed city, the paradigmatic case of “urbicide”1 and then as the symbol of a city rebirth through the reconstruction of its city center,2 praised in real estate journals and sold as a booming touristic destination to natives of the Arabo-Persian Gulf. Both images place Beirut as a city out of compare, out of norm, defining it as a unique and extraordinary city.
    [Show full text]
  • Lebanon's Versatile Nationalism
    EUI Working Papers RSCAS 2008/13 MEDITERRANEAN PROGRAMME SERIES Lebanon’s Versatile Nationalism Tamirace Fakhoury Muehlbacher EUROPEAN UNIVERSITY INSTITUTE, FLORENCE ROBERT SCHUMAN CENTRE FOR ADVANCED STUDIES MEDITERRANEAN PROGRAMME Lebanon’s Versatile Nationalism TAMIRACE FAKHOURY MUEHLBACHER EUI Working Paper RSCAS 2008/13 This text may be downloaded only for personal research purposes. Additional reproduction for other purposes, whether in hard copies or electronically, requires the consent of the author(s), editor(s). Requests should be addressed directly to the author(s). If cited or quoted, reference should be made to the full name of the author(s), editor(s), the title, the working paper, or other series, the year and the publisher. The author(s)/editor(s) should inform the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies at the EUI if the paper will be published elsewhere and also take responsibility for any consequential obligation(s). ISSN 1028-3625 © 2008 Tamirace Fakhoury Muehlbacher Printed in Italy in May 2008 European University Institute Badia Fiesolana I – 50014 San Domenico di Fiesole (FI) Italy http://www.eui.eu/RSCAS/Publications/ http://cadmus.eui.eu Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies The Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies (RSCAS), directed by Stefano Bartolini since September 2006, is home to a large post-doctoral programme. Created in 1992, it aims to develop inter-disciplinary and comparative research and to promote work on the major issues facing the process of integration and European society. The Centre hosts major research programmes and projects, and a range of working groups and ad hoc initiatives. The research agenda is organised around a set of core themes and is continuously evolving, reflecting the changing agenda of European integration and the expanding membership of the European Union.
    [Show full text]