Makdisi, Usama. "Reconstructing the Nation State: the modernity of sectarianism in Lebanon". Middle East Report, No.200 (1996): 23-26.

Makdisi, Usama. "Reconstructing the Nation State: the modernity of sectarianism in Lebanon". Middle East Report, No.200 (1996): 23-26.

• Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri has proclaimed a new vision for a modern Lebanon based on national, rather than sectarian, identities. These statements are part of a larger narrative that separates modern nationalism from pre-modern sectarianism; that narrative is bullshit because sectarian identities were formed only during the modern period of the Lebanese nation-state (23-24, 26).
• Nationalism is seen as healthy, democratic, and inclusive, whereas sectarianism is seen as undemocratic, exclusive, and destabilizing. These perceptions and categorizations, however, were created only during the colonial era (23-24).
• The creation of Lebanon was the result of European, primarily French, attempts to establish a non-Arab and non-Muslim nation in the Middle East to counter what they perceived as the baleful influences of Islam and the Ottoman Empire. It was European interference that essentialized religious identities in Lebanon, by making Christian and Islam the primarily identities and favoring Christians economically and politically (24).
• Before the 19th Century, communities in Lebanon were religiously mixed and dominated by class divisions between nobles, 'a'yan', and the commoners, or 'ahila'. Both the a'yan and ahila included different confessional groups and no particular religion dominated any significant region (24).
• During the 19th Century, local elites in Lebanon sought to take advantage of the increased European presence in the Levant to seek to advance their own position in Lebanese society. Bolstered by relative population increases, the Maronite and Druze communities gained European support for a project of dividing Lebanon along religion identarian lines, called 'taifa' (24).
• The politicization of religion sometimes worked to the benefit of local elites by reinforcing their status as leader of a taifa community, but this religious discourse was also used by others to advance their own causes, as with a religiously-inspired revolt by Maronite peasants against Maronite landlords in 1858. Moreover, the use of taifa identities threatened to supplant traditional a'yan-ahali distinctions, something that the nobles fought hard to prevent (24-25).
• Following WWI, Lebanon entered a new period of intense contestation over national identity, inspired by Wilsonian principles of self-determination and the policies of the Young Turks and enabled by greater educational and economic opportunities and the rise of print media. The creation of Lebanon in 1926 was a result of joint efforts by local elites and the French (25).
• The idea of taifa had been well-established by 1920, meaning that most domestic disputes were over the form of the Lebanese nation. The Maronites generally supported France and argued that they should control an independent Lebanon on the basis of making up the largest minority of the population. Sunnis generally rejected the idea of Lebanon and demanded unification with Syria (25).
• Originally, in 1926, the Maronites had been given nearly all political power in Lebanon. Power was redistributed between the taifa in 1943, when the National Pact, guaranteeing Maronites the presidency, Sunnis the prime ministership, and Shias the speaker of parliament. More broadly, the National Pact divided the population on religious lines, linking voting rights and personal law to religion, and guaranteeing the power of taifa elites over their communities (25).
• These divisions paralyzed state development in Lebanon, as nearly all social and governmental services were handled by taifa elites for their own taifa, not by the central government. This effectively meant that most services were provided through informal channels of corruption and patronage on the basis of religious affiliation (25).
• The Lebanese Civil War ended with the Taif Agreement, which made a deal among sectarian elites similar to the National Pact. The same kind of elite-dominated national politics has reemerged in Lebanon following the end of the civil war, with sectarian divisions determining access to services and the needs of the population majority being largely ignored (26).
• The creation of an elite-dominated sectarian system in Lebanon during the 1930s and 1940s created popular resentment by the working classes and disadvantaged sectarian groups. Working class protest has cut cross sectarian lines and seen mass mobilization in strikes and protests, especially in the 1970s, that were violently suppressed by the government. Especially during the civil war, this contestation occurred within sectarian groups as popular militias tried to oust their own elites (25-26).
• The popular sectarianism that emerged during the Lebanese Civil War should be seen as much a response to resentment at the existing sectarian elite in power since the National Pact as to communal tensions with other sectarian groups (26).