In this first of two pieces on Lebanon, Michael Lavalette looks at the role of Western Imperialism in the creation of modern Lebanon

Part One: imperialism and the creation of modern Lebanon.

Israel’s attack on Lebanon is not the first time the country has suffered from Western imperialist interference or Israeli attack. In fact, such interference and aggression are something that has been part of the country’s history since its inception in its modern form in 1920. 

Modern Lebanon is a small mountainous country on the Eastern Mediterranean. It’s about the size of Wales. It was created at the end of World War One and came out of the breakup of the Ottoman Empire. It was formally established in 1920 and was part of the ‘New Middle East’ imposed on the region by British and French Imperialism under the cover of the League of Nations.

Prior to World War One, Lebanon was part of the Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans ran their Empire with a relatively ‘light touch’. As long as regional centres paid their taxes to Constantinople, the authorities were happy to leave them alone to administer their locality. The Ottoman Empire included Muslim, Christian and Jewish communities. Muslims were treated better than Jews and Christians, but both Jews and Christians were given protected status as ‘people of the book’. There were certain tasks they were barred from, they paid additional taxes to guarantee their protection, and their tax burden was greater than Muslims, but beyond this, they were left very much to their own devices and were allowed to follow their own religious practices and services.

In the Mount Lebanon area (which is much smaller than contemporary Lebanon), Christian Maronite and Druze (a small subset of Shia Islam) communities lived in close proximity and relative harmony. This, however, started to change with the expansion of British and French imperialism into the Eastern Mediterranean during the nineteenth century. 

The Mediterranean has always been a key region of the capitalist world. Its importance grew with British and French intervention into North Africa and the Levant. The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 significantly shortened the routes between Britain, France, and India and what was then known in the West as ‘Indo-China’ (modern Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia) and this further emphasised the importance of the region. The discovery of oil in present-day Iran and Iraq at the turn of the twentieth century solidified the importance of the region to the global imperial powers.

Capitalism and sectarianism

By the middle of the nineteenth century, the Ottoman Empire was increasingly drawn into the orbit of the Western capitalist system. Beirut grew in size and importance. Between 1827 and 1862 the value of goods transmitting through Beirut increased by 800%. Over the same period, the population of the city expanded from around 6,000 to almost 50,000 and its Christian population tripled over this time frame. By the eve of the First World War, Beirut’s population would expand to 120,000.

These factors produced two significant aspects in the development of the region. First, partly in response to a series of popular rebellions (in 1820 and 1840) and partly as a response to growing British and French interference in the Levant, the Ottomans introduced legislation in the 1830s (called the ‘Tanzimat’) which aimed to modernise the economy and formally introduced equality between Christians, Jews and Muslims. Secondly, the French demanded recognition of their right to protect and defend the Maronite Christian community of Mount Lebanon against any harm, a demand which the Ottomans conceded.

In the Mount Lebanon region, these developments saw the growth in wealth, power and influence of the Maronite community. The Maronite Church was the biggest landowner in the region (controlling just over a third of all land in Mount Lebanon). Beirut was the central port servicing Damascus, Syria and Palestine, and the Christian merchants of the city grew in power as a result. The Tanzimat allowed Christian’s traders and merchants to exploit their links with British and French capital to increase their wealth and influence relative to their Muslim neighbours. These tensions were to explode in 1860 in Damascus when the Muslim population rose up and destroyed the Christian merchant quarters of the city.

In the aftermath of the Damascus events, an increasingly sectarian system started to operate in Mount Lebanon with power and influence distributed on ethnic grounds (in an attempt to manage the claims of Maronites, Druze, Sunni and Shia Muslims). 

In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, up until the outbreak of the First World War, Beirut and Mount Lebanon continued to develop and expand their influence. Beirut became the main port of the Eastern Mediterranean. Grain, raw silk and eventually oil were exported out the port (destined primarily for France) with cotton and manufactured goods imported in (primarily from Britain). Beirut soon established itself as the economic, judicial, cultural and political capital of Mount Lebanon and rivalled Damascus as a key regional centre. Such was Beirut’s development that the German Kaiser Wilhelm II described it as the ‘jewel in the crown of Empire’ when he visited in 1898.

The turn of the twentieth century also saw what is referred to as the ‘Arab awakening’ (Al Nahda) with growing nationalist demands for increased autonomy (within the Ottoman Empire) for Bilad Al-Sham (essentially modern Lebanon, Palestine and Syria). The Young Turk rebellion of 1908 (which demanded constitutional reform within the Ottoman regime) further fuelled nationalist dreams of Arab independence, with both Damascus and Beirut being key centres fomenting Arab nationalist ideas and drawing supporters from all the communities (Christian, Sunni and Shia) in the region. However, the dreams were dashed as the young Turks moved against the Arab nationalist enforcing a policy of ‘Turkification’.

Imperial carve up

The outbreak of war in 1914 saw increased repression against the Arab nationalists. In 1915 and 1916, for example, 33 people were sentenced to death for their opposition to the Ottoman regime. The dented hopes of the nationalists also provided the ground upon which the British and French would try to foment rebellion against the Ottomans during the war.

The First World War brought terrible hardship to Beirut. The city was located in the Ottoman Empire but dependent on trade with both France and Britain, which suddenly dried up. The city, and Mount Lebanon more generally, faced dreadful famine with outbreaks of typhoid and cholera.

But the war, and its outcome, would have a far more significant impact on the future of the region. During the war, the British entered into three ‘agreements’ that would shape the future Arab world. First, the McMahon–Hussein correspondence saw the British indicate to Arab leaders their support for an independent Arab state in the post-war period if they were to rise up against the Ottomans (which they did).

Second, at the same time, the French and British were meeting to discuss how they would divide the Ottoman Empire in the event of their victory in the war. The Sykes-Picot Accords divided the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire into two broadly defined zones, one French and one British. 

Third, in 1917 in the Balfour Declaration, the British committed their support to a ‘Jewish Homeland’ in Palestine. The three agreements were obviously contradictory and British’s post-war position effectively combined their commitment to the Sykes-Picot Accords alongside their commitment to the Balfour Declaration.

The broad terms of the Sykes-Picot agreement would form the basis of the division of the Arab world after the war, though the body which ratified the division of the spoils of war was the newly formed League of Nations. Whilst the broad outlines of the division of the Arab world were agreed upon, there was still some disagreement and bargaining over where the actual state lines would be drawn.

As the discussions were taking place at the League of Nations, some Zionist lobbyists tried to argue that Palestine should be a much larger geographical entity than it ended up being. They initially hoped it would include both sides of the river Jordan, but were rebuffed by the British who wanted a separate Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. They then tried to argue that Palestine should include all the land up to the Litani River – the largest river in present-day Lebanon and a key water source for agriculture in the region – and also the Golan Heights (which is Syrian, though under Israeli occupation at present). Any such settlement would have meant that the tributaries of the Jordan, alongside the cities of Sidon, Tyre and Jabal’Amil would have been in Palestine. The British were happy to take up these demands both because it extended their potential land grab and to prove their commitment to provide a ‘national homeland for the Jews’.

But the French pushed back against these proposals. A joint French-British military commission met between June 1921 and February 1922 to discuss Palestine’s northern borders. A final accord between the two imperial powers was ratified in March 1923 establishing the Lebanon-Palestine border about 28 miles south of the Litani.

For their part, the French proposed to divide Syria and to carve Lebanon off as a separate country. To make Lebanon a viable entity, they wanted to include key parts south of Beirut (beyond the Latani to the border with Palestine) and east of Mount Lebanon, in the Bekaa Valley. They also felt that this greater Lebanon would be a bulwark against belligerent Sunni Muslims in Syria.

But a ‘Greater Lebanon’ created two issues for them. First, it diluted the Maronite population in the new Lebanon from being the majority in Mount Lebanon to being about a third of the population of the new country. Second, many of those in the Bekaa and in the south were Shia and considered themselves to be Syrian!

Almost all of Lebanon’s Muslim population rejected the French Mandate and the geographical boundaries of ‘greater Lebanon’ preferring either an independent Arab state or annexation by Syria. Many non-Maronite Christians (mainly Eastern Orthodox Christians) expressed similar wishes to their Muslim counterparts.

The Maronite Christians themselves were divided. Some ‘Arabists’ opposed the French Mandate and argued that the French presence made them vulnerable, as it was assumed they aligned with French imperial interests. However, for many wealthy Maronites, this new Lebanon offered them the chance to extend their wealth, power and influence under French protection. Rather than being ‘Arabs’, they defined their roots as Phoenician and this, alongside their Western Catholic beliefs, meant they identified themselves as a minority in an Arab world. Crucially, this view drove some to seek alliances with Zionist settlers in Palestine, seeing Maronites and Zionists as European-influenced minorities in Arab lands.

From 1920, the French imposed a regime of direct rule upon Lebanon that would stay in place until 1943. Its flag would be the French tricolour with a cedar tree in the white section. It’s official languages listed as French and Arabic. The economies of Syria and Lebanon were treated as one, though controlled via multiple French companies (‘Common Interests’ and the franchise-holding companies) that had a monopoly on public service provision and owned and controlled large parts of the economy.

Whilst direct rule was to be implemented, the French set up an advisory Chamber of Deputies and Senate to represent the sects and regions of the country. Appointees were drawn from the wealthy, but people were also selected according to their ethnic background. From its inception, the French institutionalised and embedded the sectarian divisions of the country into the state apparatus. The purpose was ‘divide and rule’ and it had huge long-term consequences for the country which continue to reverberate today.