4 - In Defense of Lebanon

Summary

Chapter 4 examines what transformed popular organizations from allies to enemies in the late 1950s. On one side of the conflict were those groups against the government and Lebanese President Camille Chamoun. They included the Progressive Socialist Party, Najjadeh, Lebanese Communist Party, and the Arab Nationalist Youth. In speeches, petitions, and articles, these groups claimed that Chamoun’s recent actions in domestic and foreign policy were authoritarian, represented a threat to sovereign Lebanon, and were grounds for armed revolution. On the other side were the Kataʾib and Syrian Social Nationalist Party. They made the point that foreign interference from Syria and Egypt, and its leftist sponsors in Lebanon (most notably, the Progressive Socialist Party), challenged Lebanon’s sovereignty, the constitution, and their group. Given that defending Lebanon and its sovereignty was not, at least in the eyes of multiple popular organizations, sectarian, Chapter 4 represents a need to rethink sectarianism among sociopolitical actors in and beyond 1958. Indeed, whether groups had clear sect majorities (the Kataʾib and Najjadeh) or not (the Syrian Social Nationalist Party and Lebanese Communist Party), I argue that their perspectives before the conflict were quite complex, linked to multiple factors, and cannot be reduced to sectarianism alone.