A COMMON VISION: CONTESTING HISTORY AND EDUCATION IN POSTWAR LEBANON A thesis Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of Georgetown University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Arab Studies By Gregor P. Nazarian, B.A. Washington, D.C. April 25, 2013 Copyright 2013 by Gregor P. Nazarian All Rights Reserved ii A COMMON VISION: CONTESTING HISTORY AND EDUCATION IN POSTWAR LEBANON Gregor P. Nazarian, B.A. Thesis Advisor: Fida Adely, Ph.D. ABSTRACT This paper examines Lebanese history textbooks and debates surrounding reform of the history curriculum to show how history education functions in postwar Lebanese society. Although the Ta’if Agreement ending the civil war called for a unified history curriculum to foster national unity, repeated failures of reform efforts have left the outdated 1970 curriculum in place and a variety of privately published textbooks in Lebanese classrooms. The lack of a unified history curriculum has come to be seen as a symbol of sectarianism, and specifically of the problem of multiple competing visions of Lebanon’s history and identity. History education in Lebanon provides a particularly rich source for studying the production of history because it provides a forum for multiple voices of opposition to speak directly to each other on historical issues. By contesting the history curriculum, a wide variety of actors including journalists, politicians, bureaucrats, teachers, and textbook authors engage in the production of Lebanon’s history. In this paper I examine the processes informing construction of official texts (including curricula and textbooks) and political contests among interest groups and the state over the functions of education. I analyze four twelfth-grade history textbooks to show how private publishers and textbook authors diverge and converge in constructing historical narratives within the confines of what the curriculum marks as official history. This examination suggests that a centralized curriculum, minimal as it is, and a crucial state exit exam work to constrain the broad range of narratives possible in private textbooks. I also investigate two major failed attempts to iii update and unify the history curriculum through media coverage and the views of policymakers, politicians, and educationalists toward the process. The debates surrounding these attempts show how unstated disagreements over the social and political function of history education have compounded disagreements over its proper content, undermining efforts at reform. Although the history curriculum may remain unchanged, it still informs new editions of textbooks and inspires lively public debate, all of which constitutes a continuing process of historical production aimed at creating a history, or histories, of Lebanon. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER ONE: HISTORY AND EDUCATION IN LEBANON ............................... 1 Lebanese Historiography ....................................................................................... 3 Classic Debates ............................................................................................ 3 New Concerns ............................................................................................ 10 The Lebanese Educational System ...................................................................... 13 A History of History Education ................................................................. 15 Civic Education .......................................................................................... 18 Literature Review ................................................................................................. 19 Education and Post-conflict Reconciliation ............................................... 19 Education and National Identity in Lebanon ............................................. 21 Conclusion ........................................................................................................... 23 CHAPTER TWO: HISTORY TEXTBOOKS ............................................................... 25 Textbooks in Lebanon .......................................................................................... 25 Previous Studies ......................................................................................... 28 Reading Textbooks .................................................................................... 31 The Curriculum .......................................................................................... 33 The Sample ................................................................................................ 35 Content Analysis .................................................................................................. 38 The Ottomans ............................................................................................. 38 The Allied Victory and the Paris Peace Conference .................................. 42 The King-Crane Commission .................................................................... 48 The French Mandate .................................................................................. 50 The Palestinians and Israel ......................................................................... 54 Gamal Abdel Nasser .................................................................................. 55 Hafez al-Asad ............................................................................................. 57 Synthesis .................................................................................................... 58 Can the Textbook Speak? .................................................................................... 62 The Case of Civic Education ..................................................................... 64 CHAPTER THREE: REFORM, DEBATE, AND FAILURE ...................................... 69 Nemer Frayha and the 2001 Effort ...................................................................... 70 Sami Gemayel and the 2012 Effort ...................................................................... 74 The State of the Debate ........................................................................................ 78 The Causes of Failure ......................................................................................... 81 CHAPTER FOUR: DEBATE AND THE PRODUCTION OF HISTORY .................. 86 Objective History ................................................................................................. 87 Pluralist History ................................................................................................... 91 Nationalist History ............................................................................................... 92 Commemorative History ...................................................................................... 93 Making Sense of History ..................................................................................... 94 CHAPTER FIVE: CONCLUSION ............................................................................... 98 BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................ 103 v CHAPTER ONE HISTORY AND EDUCATION IN LEBANON For any people to develop and maintain a sense of political community, it is necessary that they share a common vision of their past.1 Lebanon’s education system is among the best in the region by almost any measure, having been the site of significant efforts in private education beginning in the late Ottoman period. The weaknesses of the education system stem from the corrosive effects of sectarianism, the central dysfunction of Lebanese political life. Lebanese history has always been a political battleground, and the teaching of history in schools especially so. Political and ideological disputes, compounded by the civil war, have prevented the Lebanese state from imposing a unified and up-to-date history curriculum. Although the Ta’if Agreement ending the civil war called for a unified history curriculum to foster national unity, repeated failures of reform efforts have left the outdated 1970 curriculum in place and a variety of privately published textbooks in Lebanese classrooms. The lack of a unified history curriculum has come to be seen as a symbol of sectarianism, and specifically of the problem of multiple competing visions of Lebanon’s history and identity. Journalists, politicians, and educationalists argue that privately published textbooks encourage tendentious sectarian narratives of Lebanese history, and that the outdated curriculum leaves students ignorant of modern history and thus doomed to repeat its violent mistakes. Education is not simply a site where finished narratives of Lebanese history are deployed, but also a site of the production of history. The past does not become history exclusively in the libraries of AUB and Université Saint-Joseph. History is produced by various nonprofessionals 1 Kamal Salibi, A House of Many Mansions: The History Lebanon Reconsidered (Berkely: 1 in any number of public spaces, but perhaps nowhere more than in education. History education in Lebanon provides a particularly rich source for studying the production of history because it provides a forum for multiple voices of opposition to speak directly to each other on historical issues. Public debates over defining the proper history represent “primary, and singular, sites of critique of deeply felt and broadly held ideas, principles, and values,”