The Lebanese-Phoenician Nationalist Movement

Literature, Language and Identity

Basilius Bawardi

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9781784532376
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781786720122
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern History
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The question of belonging has formed the basis of the political, religious and cultural tensions in Lebanon, to the point that sectarian conflict on the country's future contributed significantly to the outbreak of civil war in 1975. This book focuses on the development of the Phoenician-Lebanese movement that struggled against the hegemonic status of Arabic language and culture. The Phoenician-Lebanese were a predominantly Maronite Christian group who attempted to remove themselves from the Muslim and Arab world throughout the twentieth century. Their demands for self-definition as a nation and their desire to establish their own culture were rooted in the concept of their ancient Phoenician past. Basilius Bawardi examines four prominent authors who formed the basis on which all engaged so-called Phoenician literature was built: Sharl Qurm, Sa'id 'Aql, Mayy Murr and Muris 'Awwad. The literary corpus of these writers was a critical component of the political activity that strove to distinguish the native Lebanese inhabitants from their Arab-Muslim neighbours.Studying these authors' works in both a literary and historical way, Bawardi shows how language was used to promote a specific political agenda and identifies the strong connections between language, literature and nation building.
As well as revealing the nationalist struggle as it emerges in prose and poetry, the book discusses the history and formation of modern day Lebanon and why language and literature are so crucial for members of a national minority.

CHAPTER 1

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND: THE BIRTH OF THE PHOENICIAN-LEBANESE NATIONAL THOUGHT

This chapter will discuss the historical and political developments which led to the formation of the Phoenician movement from the nineteenth century onward. The discussion will cover two domains, on the one hand, historical and political events and, on the other, literary and philosophical creation. I maintain that these two domains cannot be discussed or understood separately, and that they reciprocally construct each other. This is a central claim in this book that will become more and more evident throughout the chapters.

This chapter focuses on how the political entity of independent Lebanon emerged. One of the major issues is the definition of the Lebanese territory, a definition which entails different concepts of the ideal nationality of the inhabitants of Lebanon, as well as the ideal relationship between them. The development of the Phoenician movement emerged from a secular Syrian movement, striving to separate from the Ottoman Empire. Thus a suitable starting point would be the ideas that led to the rise of nationalistic thought among Syrian intellectuals and politicians, to be followed by the events and changes that led to the separation of the Lebanese movement from the Syrian movement.

Parallel to illustrating the historical events I discuss and analyse the intellectual writing of various members of the different movements. This analysis discusses the Phoenician movement in various localities around the world such as Alexandria, New York and Paris. Special attention is paid to the Ḥizb al-Katā'ib al-Lubnāniyya (henceforth al-Katā'ib) (the Phalanges Party) as a major player in the development of Lebanese nationalism. The present chapter focuses on the political events leading to this development, while the following chapter expands on the poetic and literary manifestations of these ideas.

Finally, I discuss the formation of al-Katā'ib – the Phalanges Party. In many ways it is this political party that shaped the separatist Lebanese identity. It was one of the first and most assertive speakers on behalf of Lebanese uniqueness vis-à-vis the Arabo-Muslim world, and called for Lebanese cultural and political independence. Party members were also the most prominent voices asserting the Phoenician roots of the Christian residents of the Lebanese region. The political activity of the Phalanges party, as well as other prominent groups among the Lebanese nationalists, brought to the fore yet another need – the need to recreate and reconstruct the past so that it manifested their political concepts and aspirations.

The acts and writings expressing Syrian and Lebanese nationalistic ideas resonated throughout communities of Syrians living outside the region. Their response to the local voices calling for a change of rule and for a definition of clear boundaries for each nation was expressed in political and intellectual essays. These essays discussed the boundaries of the geographical region of Syria and its history. This is the second phase in the consolidation of Syrian, and later also Lebanese, nationalistic ideas.

It seems that during the late nineteenth century, Syrianism was the most dominant concept among the nationalists of the area. Though most intellectuals and political activists did not hold well-defined nationalistic ideas or a clearly articulated political agenda, their strong association with Syria as the territory to which they belonged was clearly stated.¹ Before World War I, the majority of Arabs were not yet prepared to implement a separation from the Ottoman Empire. As we see in the next sub-chapter, Christian Arabs tended to favour complete independence.²

Syrianism in the Nineteenth Century: Proto-Nationalism and Redefined Identity

The development of a separatist view of Lebanon can be traced back to the second half of the nineteenth century. During that period, the Syrian national movement was taking its first steps, declaring its wish for independence and self-definition vis-à-vis the Ottoman Empire. Starting from 1860, the area of Mount Lebanon was considered as a specific region with its own unique community – the mutaṣarrifiyya. The definition of the area and its Christian inhabitants as a uniquely demarcated region was initiated after several violent incidents against Christians in Aleppo and Mount Lebanon. These events made it clear that for this particular community to prosper in security, they needed some distance from the rest of the population and some kind of autonomy. The unique quality and distinction of the Lebanese region from other Syrian areas (stretching from the Taurus Mountains in the north to Gaza in the south), was acknowledged and discussed by various Syrian intellectuals and political leaders. Special cultural characteristics and a distinct nature that exists nowhere else were attributed to the Lebanese region. The following section discusses this uniqueness in literary texts, political essays as well as historiographic writing demonstrating this approach.

The idea of a Greater Syria was first articulated during the 1860s by the Lebanese³ intellectual, Buṭrus al-Bustānī (1819–83) under the influence of Protestant missionaries.⁴ Al-Bustānī was a prominent figure in the second half of the nineteenth century who considered Arabism as his cultural affiliation while defining Syria as his territorial homeland. His loyalty to the Ottoman Empire was not in question.⁵

Fruma Zachs⁶ states that proto-nationalism in the Syrian case, in the nineteenth century, is the stage at which certain variants in the identity of groups of people began to coalesce. These changes in identity were mainly a means of cultural identity, motivated by economic and social changes and the desire of certain groups of people to build their self-identity or to redefine the identity they already possessed, rather than manifestations of aspirations for political self-determination. This process of constructing self-identity could also be thought of as a prerequisite for the eventual creation of a national identity.

In the second half of the nineteenth century, as a result of internal and external interactions, a bourgeois middle class developed in Beirut comprised of intellectuals and merchants. Most of the intellectuals worked diligently on developing the Arabic language and Arab civilization. In addition, on the national and political level, they encouraged local Syrian and Arab patriotic nationalist thought. These developments were influenced by several factors, including the Western political, social, and educational influence on the area, Christian missionary activities, and the civil war in Lebanon and Syria in 1860, which confirmed to the conflicting sides the urgent need for a non-sectarian solution that would allow the different groups of this area to live together peacefully and cooperatively.

I argue that two major components reflected the consolidation of the new Syrian thinking during the nineteenth century. The first is the literary output – mainly the narrative fiction. In this genre one can detect Syrian elements – some hidden, while others were clearly visible. Syria was described as a unique region with its own distinct past and special features. It was a place and a culture to be proud of. A leading theme was the Syrian nature, which allowed for the emergence of a distinctive people who nurtured it and clearly differentiated it from other peoples residing in neighboring regions.

The second component was the new historiography, which placed at its centre the Syrian territory and the Syrian people, emphasizing their unique features. One of the first authors whose writing demonstrates these two components, was a journalist, poet and literary critic, Khalīl al-Khūrī (1836–1907). Al-Khūrī's writings and contributions to the construction and consolidation of Syrian nationality have been neglected by modern scholarship; the following will be an attempt to bridge this existing lacuna.⁷

His literary work was among the first to address and engage with the construction and consolidation of Syrian nationality. Though lacking in terms of literary value, these texts nevertheless had immense influence over subsequent generations of Lebanese authors and politicians.

Al-Khūrī supported the modernization of the Arab world. He maintained, however, that this modernization should not be a blind imitation of the West; rather it should be a balance between the original Oriental-Syrian-Arab character and the new knowledge coming from the West. For instance, he called for educating women, arguing that this was the only way to make them productive members of society.⁸

In 1858, al-Khūrī established a newspaper – Ḥadīqat al-ʼAkhbār. This platform provided al-Khūrī and other members of his milieu with a platform where they could express and discuss their new ideas. It also served as an educational tool, making their economic and social ideas visible and accessible to many social strata of the Lebanese region. The newspaper was a great success and, as of the 1860s, was published twice a week. Its publication ceased in 1911, a few years after al-Khūrī's death.

Al-Khūrī's concept of the Arabic language and its role in triggering social and cultural changes is an interesting gateway to his nationalistic ideas. According to Al-Khūrī, the Arabic language needed modernization in order to deal with the various spheres of modern life. Consequently, language should become an instrument of modernization in the renaissance of the Syrian Arab nation, or even all Arab countries.⁹

Al-Khūrī's arguments for the rewriting of the classical Arabic local historiography were part of the various manifestations of the emerging Syrian identity. Thus, his writings revealed his political aspirations, expressing his pride in his belonging to the Syrian homeland. Al-Khūrī glorified his homeland's nature (ṭabī ‘a) and geography, defining it as unique among other regions of the world. Indeed, these two themes, nature and geography, played a significant part in the construction and expression of this new territorial identity.

These two subjects, nature and geography, can be conceived as part of the classical travel account, yet sometimes without actual traveling, since the writers were local people who wrote about their own city and society. The third theme constructing Syrian identity was biographies of men of religion (‘ulamā’) and notables (’a‘yān) from these cities and towns, including descriptions of their customs.

This new historiography existed in parallel with the traditional kind, but did not replace it. Its authors were Christian intellectuals, especially Greek Orthodox and Protestants, mainly from coastal towns such as Beirut and Tripoli who began to publish books with titles that included the term ‘Syria’. As their writings strove to encourage a new concept, which was also the source of a new identity, namely Syrian, the chief subject of their books was Greater Syria as one entity, as a country; and they began to pen its history, geography, archaeology and, to some extent, its physical nature. Most of the books belonging to this new genre were written after 1860, following the civil war in Mount Lebanon and Damascus, and are referenced in al-Khūrī's book, Kharābāt Sūriyā (The Ruins of Syria).

Some other examples of the new historiography are the following: ’Ilyās Maṭar (1857–1910) wrote al-‛Uqūd al-Durriyya fī Tārīkh al-Mamlaka al-Sūriyya (Decades of Pearls in the Annals of the Syrian Kingdom), published in Beirut in 1874. In 1881, the Greek Orthodox Jurjī Yannī (1854–1941) published in Beirut Tārīkh Sūriyā (History of Syria). The modern genre was more accessible to a wider audience and introduced them to this new Syrian concept, or identity, in their own language. Through these books, the intellectuals could convey their own vision as a reality to the inhabitants of Syria.¹⁰

In terms of the local geographical literature, from about 1870 onwards, the geographic perception that was part of local historiography became evident also in authentic Syrian narrative fiction. This kind of writing was based mainly on classical descriptive geography and travel accounts, which were influenced by the Western model. An important example of such a combination is Al-Khūrī's pioneering work Wayy, ’Idhan Lastu bi-’Ifranjī (Alas, I'm not a foreigner). It is a local Arabic narrative fiction, which represents an embryonic stage of the modern Arabic novel and it preceded those literary works commonly referred to as the first fictional narratives, specifically the works of Fransīs al-Marrāsh (1835–1874) and Salīm al-Bustānī (1848–1884). Narrative techniques that combine traditional Arabic and Western narrative styles were reflected clearly in the translations published in Al-Khūrī's newspaper. Al-Khūrī published his above-mentioned work in Ḥadīqat al-ʼAkhbār consecutively from issue no. 93, 3/1 (November 1859) to issue no. 151, 7/23 (March 1861). This work can be read as a reaction to the local social and educational developments that were taking place in the second half of the nineteenth century. As usual, al-Khūrī wanted to balance the dominating foreign influence on the literary taste with a local creative production that treated various local phenomena. The text was a kind of social observation accompanied by severe criticism of hollow and false Westernization/Europeanization. Wayy, ’Idhan Lastu bi-’Ifranjī deals with the theme of the interaction between East and West, highlighting the necessity of achieving a balance between the two cultures, and the need to preserve the original Syrian identity in order to achieve real modernization.¹¹

The central personality who interwove the geographic dimension into literature, namely the novel in the incipient development of an authentic Arabic fiction, was the above-mentioned intellectual Salīm al-Bustānī from Beirut. By 1862 he had already replaced his father, the leading intellectual, Buṭrus al-Bustānī, as dragoman (interpreter) at the American consulate in Beirut. The following year he was made deputy principal to his father at the National School, where he headed the departments of history, nature and English. This background was reflected later in his literary writing in his periodical al-Jinān (The Paradises), which he published and edited with his father between the years 1870 and 1886. Al-Jinān was published twice a month and was very well known among the populations of Greater Syria, Iraq, and Egypt; it even reached readers in European capitals such as London, Paris, and Berlin. In contrast to other newspapers in the region of Syria and in the Arab provinces until that time, al-Jinān paid special attention and devoted large and regular sections to literary issues and included newly introduced genres, such as the ’uqṣūṣa (short story), romantic and historical novels.

Salīm was part of a Christian Arab middle class circle that encouraged local patriotism and saw ‘Syrian nature’ and geography as fertile soil for an advanced civilization. He underlined these two elements – Syrian nature and geography – and their link to the Syrian individual, in his authentic literary writing in al-Jinān, sometimes using the plot as a tourist guide to give readers as much geographical information as possible on what he termed ‘the Syrian region’, i.e. Greater Syria.

He strove for two goals: the first was didactic, namely to educate his audience (both women and men) in general, and to instruct them on the magnificent landscape and ruins of the Syrian region in particular. Thus the narrator in his novels develops from an individual traveler to the voice of the collective. The second was to provide his readers with a primordial bond with their land, history, and civilization, which for him were an integral part of these geographical locations. Salīm perceived them not merely as geographical sites, but also as sources to evince and document the magnificent civilization tha...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Note on Transliteration
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1. Historical Background: The Birth of the Phoenician-Lebanese National Thought
• 2. Phoenician-Lebanese Literature: Founding Generation
• 3. The Second Generation: Mayy Murr and Mūrīs ‛Awwād
• 4. Summary – or is it the End of the Phoenician Movement?
• Appendix I
• Appendix II
• Appendix III
• Appendix IV
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Back cover