The rebirth of the Lebanese identity in the philosophy of the Lebanese intellectual Samir Kassir

Abstract

During the last years of the Syrian control of Lebanon, Samir Kassir was undoubtedly one of the prominent Lebanese journalists who fought against it and tried to more distinctly define the fragile and broken Lebanese nationality. Kassir was mainly active in political comment and analysis and tried to introduce new and fresh ideas in order to awaken the Lebanese people from their ongoing lack of political consciousness, coma and social degeneration. He tried to bring about a shift in political views that originated in the people, Lebanon’s grass roots, rather than try to change the elite and corrupt political framework. His political and intellectual activities offered the Lebanese a new and promising national agenda that, supported by other similarly concerned intellectuals, might have given the Lebanese new hope in their turmoil. The article examines Kassir’s part in building the new hybrid Lebanese identity and argues that Kassir, as a modern Lebanese intellectual, first diagnosed the core problems involved in creating this Lebanese identity and later suggested his own understanding of what such a hybrid, reconstructed identity should be.

Keywords:

• Samir Kassir
• Lebanon
• Syria
• Lebanese opposition
• intellectual, Bashar al-Assad
• Rafiq al-Hariri
• hybrid identity

Public Interest Statement

Samir Kassir, who dealt bravely with the most sensitive issues regarding the Lebanese identity and the role of Syria in Lebanon, was one of the most promising writers in modern Lebanon. Along with his journalist writing he also wrote several books and publicist columns which, all together, expressed his innovative agenda and beliefs. In this article, the writer wishes to shed some light on the fragile Lebanese identity, Kassir’s understanding of this identity and his suggestions about how to see it, create it, preserve it and renew it. His unique, yet innovative and pioneering vision, paved the way for other Lebanese and Arab intellectuals to find the courage to express their own unique or controversial visions and to encourage the Lebanese to seek and embrace their own Arab, Lebanese, collective, ethnic or eclectic identities.

Notes

1. This definition is very vague as the “National Pact” says that there is no Arab, Western or “Arabian Face”, yet in this regard, it comes to sharpen the “Christian” identity as opposed to the Islamic one, whether Sunni or Shi’i.

2. PRO, FCO 17/1103: “Ex-President Chehab”, 16 September 1970. For more details about Shihab’s period, see Nassif (2008) and on the Civil War, see Matar (1976).

3. PRO, FCO 17/1103: telegram from Cecil Edward King, the British Embassy Beirut, to Michael Stewart, 15 June 1970.

4. Naor (2014). For more details on the Syrian involvement in Lebanon see: Deeb (2003), Osoegawa (2013), Ahmad Isa (2007), and Daghar (2001).

5. For more details on: UN’s Security Council Resolution 1559 (9/04)’s (n.d.).

Additional information

Funding

Funding. The authors received no direct funding for this research.

Notes on contributors

Ronen A. Cohen

Dr Ronen A. Cohen, who is a senior-lecturer and the chairman of the Department of Middle Eastern and Political Science Studies, and the chair of the Middle East & Central Asia Research Center (MECARC) at Ariel University in Israel. He mainly focuses in his research on Iranian Studies and regional politics. He published several books and numerous academic articles among commentary articles and has occasionally been interviewed on radio shows and in newspapers.

Yael Keinan-Cohen

Mrs Yael Keinan-Cohen is an MA student in the Middle Eastern Studies Department at Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel. Her MA thesis, the writing of which is being supervised by Dr Yossi Mann and Dr Dan Naor, deals with the somewhat delicate issue of the Lebanese identity and focuses on the critical era between the years 2005 and 2015 ten years after the Syrian withdrawal and the renewal of Lebanese independence and sovereignty. This is her first article.