LITMIR.BIZ

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anybody. In spite of the relative calm that prevailed for nearly fifteen years, underlying tension persisted until the final conflagration of 1860, which eventually forced the abrogation of the Dual Qaimaqamiyya regime.

      The Shakib Effendi Règlement further aggravated the crisis of authority in the Mountain. It provided for the division of political, judicial, and fiscal authority among several officials—Ottoman governors, qaimaqams, muqata'jis, judges, and wakils, notwithstanding domineering consuls—whose powers were not always neatly defined and who vied with each other to define to their own advantage, alter, or obstruct the implementation of the new regime. Hence, the new councils, which were meant to limit the fiscal and judicial authorities of the muqata'jis, were undermined by the latter, who took advantage of their remaining local authority to hinder the working of the councils by thwarting plans for a cadastral survey aiming to apportion taxes on a more equitable basis. For their part, the peasants and villagers strove to eliminate altogether the judicial and fiscal prerogatives of the muqata'jis and to put an end to their exactions. Finally, Ottoman walis, officials, and special envoys, trying to sort out all of the conflicting claims of local parties, adopted at times measures at odds with each other in an attempt to conciliate everyone; at the same time, their tentative attempts to reassert the control of the central government were frustrated by the local consuls who pulled in different directions to protect the interests of their protégés. Under the circumstances, the new regime tottered on the brink of paralysis, and in the absence of any effective authority to settle all of the conflicting claims and counterclaims, the Mountain slowly descended into near chaos and anarchy.

      

      Festering political and socioeconomic disputes spurred realignments and mobilizations that fed into a developing process of communal crystallization and regrouping. The intertwined conflicts that pitted Christians against Druzes in the mixed districts, inconsistently backed by the Christians in the northern districts, as well as the underlying contest between both communities for overall dominance in the Mountain, hardened the boundaries between the Druze and Christian communities in the Mountain. Claims and counterclaims started to emerge in defense of the putative rights of the contesting communities, highlighting their divergent interests and enhancing the communal awareness of the members of each community.

      The process of communal regrouping was furthermore buttressed by the Shakib Effendi Règlement, which formally introduced for the first time the communal factor at the political and institutional levels. The principle of allocating political and administrative charges on a communal basis, which henceforth became an enduring feature of the Lebanese political system, was adopted by the negotiating parties in Istanbul as a trade-off between the Ottoman attempt to centralize and rationalize local administrations and the concern of the European powers, characteristic of the reform period, to grant equal powers to the various religious communities. In the Mountain, the organization of the political and administrative system along communal lines activated the politicization of communal allegiances and solidarities and contributed to the gradual political identification of the people of the Mountain along communal lines.

      However, the process of communal regrouping unfolded slowly, unevenly, and inconsistently. It was confounded by the many horizontal and vertical social and political divisions that drove, for instance, some Christian muqata'jis to side with their Druze counterparts against the pretensions of the peasants and villagers. At the same time, the process of communal regrouping was hindered by local and kinship ties and solidarities that highlighted the lingering and countervailing significance of such ties and complicated the process of communal mobilization and integration. Finally, the process of communal regrouping stirred up intracommunal contests in which various actors and groups vied with each other over the leadership of each community, the interpretation of communal identity, and the objectives of communal mobilization. These intracommunal divisions and contests were more pronounced within the Maronite community than the Druze, which by virtue of its geographic concentration, its smaller size, and close kinship and social ties succeeded in overcoming more easily internal tensions and rivalries and in unifying its ranks.⁴⁶ For the Maronite community, attempts at unification exposed and exacerbated diverse overlapping vertical and horizontal divisions. Local and kinship ties and solidarities encumbered efforts to rally the community in defense of its putative interests, and in the 1841 and 1845 clashes, for instance, the Maronites mobilized along parochial lines in small quasi-independent and at times rival groups that defied attempts at coordinating their efforts. Moreover, the community remained racked by disputes between muqata'jis and increasingly assertive peasants, villagers, and townsmen, determined to put an end to muqata'jis privileges and abuse. Even the Maronite Church, which strove to unify the ranks of the community, found itself paralyzed by internal divisions, as the Patriarch and various bishops and priests bickered over policies and priorities.⁴⁷ Eventually tensions boiled over in 1958, when the peasants of Kisrawan revolted against their Khazin lords. The peasants expelled all the Khazin shaykhs, along with their families, from the district and established for several months a peasant commune, precipitating a intense contest within the community that underscored once again the inability of the Church to act as an effective leader of its community, or even as an arbitrator and mediator between the conflicting parties.⁴⁸

      The Peasant Revolt of Kisrawan ended in a final conflagration in the Mountain in 1860. The massacre of thousands of Christians in the clashes, as well as the slaying of more in Damascus, prompted a firm Western reaction and a French military intervention. These developments revived the “dream” of some French and Maronite circles to establish a semi-independent Christian entity in Mount Lebanon. But before moving to this new episode in the development of the Lebanist ideal, two texts of significant importance to this study need to be examined.

      MURAD'S NOTICE

      In the year of 1844, a brief pamphlet entitled Notice Historique sur l'Origine de la Nation Maronite et sur ses Rapports avec la France, sur la Nation Druze et sur les diverses population's du Mont Liban,⁴⁹ by Mgr Nicolas Murad, Archbishop of Laodicea and representative of his nation to the Vatican, was published in Paris. Its author was none other than the special envoy of the Patriarch sent to Istanbul in 1842, who had since then moved to Paris in an attempt to obtain French help for the restoration of the Shihabs.⁵⁰ His treatise is of special importance to our subject. It is a pure product of the post-1840 period, and it illustrates and epitomizes many of the events, ideas, and processes already observed. Murad's treatise embodied the Church's stance at this crucial stage and endorsed its political project aiming at the establishment of a Christian Emirate in the whole of Mount Lebanon under the leadership of the Shihabis. At the same time, this pamphlet, written and published in French,⁵¹ was meant to reach and influence French public opinion. It was therefore is a perfect example of the “mirror game” between some French and Maronite circles, which it typically reflected. More so, it summed up some of the views and ideas that arose from this interaction between both sides in 1844; at the same time, it served as a future reference and starting point in the ongoing operation of the process.⁵²

      Murad's book also constituted the first piece of literature by a Maronite defending fledging national ideas and aspirations. His attempt to legitimize and defend, on historical grounds, the idea of a Christian Emirate constituted a foundation and a source of significant value for future Lebanist nationalist thought. It was the first attempt to conceptualize ideas along the lines according to which Lebanism later developed, and, in this sense, represented a milestone in the evolution of this nascent ideal. It thus became a model for future Lebanese nationalist thought. Not that all the authors who embraced and upheld Lebanism adopted altogether the views and opinions expressed by Murad, but most of them later reproduced some basic legitimizing historical concepts of this pamphlet for the establishment of a semi-independent or independent Lebanese entity.

      The pamphlet itself is quite short. It consists of a brief introductory letter to the French king, Louis Philippe I,⁵³ to whom the whole book is dedicated, reminding him that “since the days of King Louis [IX], of sainted memory, all the very-Christian kings had honored the Maronites with their powerful protection.” Therefore, Murad goes on, he allowed himself to present to the French monarch “this work destined to make known and appreciated this devoted [Maronite] nation in France,” and most important, in the hope that “His Majesty, will not only do for us what his august

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