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Lebanese Independence Day
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Lebanese Independence Day
Lebanese Independence Day (Arabic: عيد الاستقلال اللبناني, romanized: ʿĪd al-Istiqlāl al-Lubnānī, lit. 'Festival of the Lebanese Independence') is the national day of Lebanon, celebrated on 22 November in commemoration of the end of the French control over Lebanon in 1943, after 23 years of Mandate rule.
While the Lebanese have been in a constant struggle for independence from foreign powers since the age of the Old Testament, the modern struggle for Lebanese independence can be traced back to the emergence of Fakhr-al-Din II in the late 16th century, a Druze chief who became the first local leader in a thousand years to bring the major sects of Mount Lebanon into sustained mutual interaction. Fakhr-al-Din also brought western Europe back to Mount Lebanon. The French traveler Laurent d'Arvieux observed massive French commercial buildings in Sidon, Fakhr-al-Din's political centre, where bustling crowds of Muslims, Maronites, Orthodox Christians, Druze and Jews intermingled. Under his rule, printing presses were introduced and Jesuit priests and Catholic nuns encouraged to open schools throughout the land. Fakhr-al-Din's growing influence, disobedience and ambitions threatened Ottoman interests. Ottoman Turkish troops captured Fakhr-al-Din and had him executed in Istanbul in 1635.
In response to a massacre of Maronites by Druze during the 1860 civil war, 6000 French troops landed near Beirut, ostensibly to protect the Maronite communities. The Ottoman Sultan, Abdulmejid I, had no choice but to approve the French landing at Beirut and review the status of Mount Lebanon. In 1861, the Ottomans and five European powers (Britain, France, Russia, Austria, and Prussia) negotiated a new political system for Mount Lebanon in a commission chaired by Mehmed Fuad Pasha, the Ottoman Foreign Minister. The international commission established a tribunal to punish the Druze lords for war crimes and the commission further agreed on an autonomous province of Mount Lebanon, the Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate. In September 1864, the Ottomans and Europeans signed the Règlement Organique defining the new entity, including the French recommendation of an elected multi-communal council to advise the governor.
Electoral representation and rough demographic weighting of communal membership was established after the foundation of the autonomous Mount Lebanon province. A two-stage electoral process became refined over several decades, with secret balloting introduced in 1907. Mount Lebanon became the only Ottoman provincial council that was democratically elected, representing members of the major sects. Elections for one-third of the council seats took place every two years. The governor of Mount Lebanon, a non-Maronite Catholic from outside, was of Ottoman ministerial rank with the title Pasha, though a step below a full provincial governor. Presiding judges of district courts were from the same sect as the largest religious group in the district, with deputy judges representing the next two largest groups. Court decisions had to involve the Court President and at least one other judge. This system facilitated Maronite acquiescence, Druze re-integration and sectarian reconciliation in Mount Lebanon.
With the onset of World War I, the Ottoman Sultanate began to disintegrate. The Ottomans feared Arab independence. In response, the Ottomans abolished the autonomous province of Mount Lebanon in 1915, putting the mountain communities under emergency military rule. The repression culminated on 6 May 1916, with the hanging of 14 activists and journalists, including proponents of both Arab and Lebanese independence, Christians and Muslims, clerics and secularists. The location of the hangings in central Beirut became known as Martyrs' Square, today the focal point of public Lebanese political expression. Respect for Ottoman authority in the local community collapsed after this event. The Ottomans confiscated grain from the Levant during the war, resulting in a massive famine. Half the population of Mount Lebanon was wiped out. Both Schilcher and Khalife estimated up to 200,000 deaths in the mountain.
After the Turks were expelled from the Levant at the end of World War I, the Syrian National Congress in Damascus proclaimed independence and sovereignty over a region that also included Lebanon in 1920. In Beirut, the Christian press expressed its hostility to the decisions of the Syrian National Congress. Lebanese nationalists used the crisis to convene a council of Christian figures in Baabda that proclaimed the independence of Lebanon on 22 March 1920. Despite these declarations, the region was divided among the victorious British and French according to the Sykes–Picot Agreement, a secret 1916 pact of the UK and France.
Mount Lebanon Maronites under the Maronite Patriarch Elias al-Huwayyik lobbied the French for an enlarged Lebanon to become a Catholic Christian homeland. Patriarch al-Huwayyik shrewdly conflated a new Lebanon with ancient Phoenicia to highlight a unique personality. The Phoenician allusion derived from a European passion for romanticizing antiquity (see Ernest Renan's Mission de Phénicie, 1864). Among the wider public, the resurrection of Phoenicia and the concept of a distinctive Lebanon received stimulus from the literary output of Jibran Khalil Jibran. Jibran drew out feelings of oppression and conflict with established religion and interpersonal tensions. These themes resonated with a multi-sectarian Lebanon. Jibran's combination of Christian ambience with outreach to Muslims reinforced Lebanese nationalist thought. Incorporation of Jibran into school curricula in the 1920s helped make him by far Lebanon's most influential writer.
Greater Lebanon from Ra's Naqura in the south to Nahr al-Kabir north of Tripoli, and from the coast to the Anti-Lebanon mountains was established under the French provisional mandate in April 1920. Patriarch al-Huwayyik, with the Ottoman imposed famine in recent memory, insisted on the acquisition of the Biqa valley, a principal food producing area. The French were supposed to guide the population to self-determination with regular progress reports to the League of Nations. In reality, the French arrested and suppressed proponents of self-determination at various times.
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Lebanese Independence Day
Lebanese Independence Day (Arabic: عيد الاستقلال اللبناني, romanized: ʿĪd al-Istiqlāl al-Lubnānī, lit. 'Festival of the Lebanese Independence') is the national day of Lebanon, celebrated on 22 November in commemoration of the end of the French control over Lebanon in 1943, after 23 years of Mandate rule.
While the Lebanese have been in a constant struggle for independence from foreign powers since the age of the Old Testament, the modern struggle for Lebanese independence can be traced back to the emergence of Fakhr-al-Din II in the late 16th century, a Druze chief who became the first local leader in a thousand years to bring the major sects of Mount Lebanon into sustained mutual interaction. Fakhr-al-Din also brought western Europe back to Mount Lebanon. The French traveler Laurent d'Arvieux observed massive French commercial buildings in Sidon, Fakhr-al-Din's political centre, where bustling crowds of Muslims, Maronites, Orthodox Christians, Druze and Jews intermingled. Under his rule, printing presses were introduced and Jesuit priests and Catholic nuns encouraged to open schools throughout the land. Fakhr-al-Din's growing influence, disobedience and ambitions threatened Ottoman interests. Ottoman Turkish troops captured Fakhr-al-Din and had him executed in Istanbul in 1635.
In response to a massacre of Maronites by Druze during the 1860 civil war, 6000 French troops landed near Beirut, ostensibly to protect the Maronite communities. The Ottoman Sultan, Abdulmejid I, had no choice but to approve the French landing at Beirut and review the status of Mount Lebanon. In 1861, the Ottomans and five European powers (Britain, France, Russia, Austria, and Prussia) negotiated a new political system for Mount Lebanon in a commission chaired by Mehmed Fuad Pasha, the Ottoman Foreign Minister. The international commission established a tribunal to punish the Druze lords for war crimes and the commission further agreed on an autonomous province of Mount Lebanon, the Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate. In September 1864, the Ottomans and Europeans signed the Règlement Organique defining the new entity, including the French recommendation of an elected multi-communal council to advise the governor.
Electoral representation and rough demographic weighting of communal membership was established after the foundation of the autonomous Mount Lebanon province. A two-stage electoral process became refined over several decades, with secret balloting introduced in 1907. Mount Lebanon became the only Ottoman provincial council that was democratically elected, representing members of the major sects. Elections for one-third of the council seats took place every two years. The governor of Mount Lebanon, a non-Maronite Catholic from outside, was of Ottoman ministerial rank with the title Pasha, though a step below a full provincial governor. Presiding judges of district courts were from the same sect as the largest religious group in the district, with deputy judges representing the next two largest groups. Court decisions had to involve the Court President and at least one other judge. This system facilitated Maronite acquiescence, Druze re-integration and sectarian reconciliation in Mount Lebanon.
With the onset of World War I, the Ottoman Sultanate began to disintegrate. The Ottomans feared Arab independence. In response, the Ottomans abolished the autonomous province of Mount Lebanon in 1915, putting the mountain communities under emergency military rule. The repression culminated on 6 May 1916, with the hanging of 14 activists and journalists, including proponents of both Arab and Lebanese independence, Christians and Muslims, clerics and secularists. The location of the hangings in central Beirut became known as Martyrs' Square, today the focal point of public Lebanese political expression. Respect for Ottoman authority in the local community collapsed after this event. The Ottomans confiscated grain from the Levant during the war, resulting in a massive famine. Half the population of Mount Lebanon was wiped out. Both Schilcher and Khalife estimated up to 200,000 deaths in the mountain.
After the Turks were expelled from the Levant at the end of World War I, the Syrian National Congress in Damascus proclaimed independence and sovereignty over a region that also included Lebanon in 1920. In Beirut, the Christian press expressed its hostility to the decisions of the Syrian National Congress. Lebanese nationalists used the crisis to convene a council of Christian figures in Baabda that proclaimed the independence of Lebanon on 22 March 1920. Despite these declarations, the region was divided among the victorious British and French according to the Sykes–Picot Agreement, a secret 1916 pact of the UK and France.
Mount Lebanon Maronites under the Maronite Patriarch Elias al-Huwayyik lobbied the French for an enlarged Lebanon to become a Catholic Christian homeland. Patriarch al-Huwayyik shrewdly conflated a new Lebanon with ancient Phoenicia to highlight a unique personality. The Phoenician allusion derived from a European passion for romanticizing antiquity (see Ernest Renan's Mission de Phénicie, 1864). Among the wider public, the resurrection of Phoenicia and the concept of a distinctive Lebanon received stimulus from the literary output of Jibran Khalil Jibran. Jibran drew out feelings of oppression and conflict with established religion and interpersonal tensions. These themes resonated with a multi-sectarian Lebanon. Jibran's combination of Christian ambience with outreach to Muslims reinforced Lebanese nationalist thought. Incorporation of Jibran into school curricula in the 1920s helped make him by far Lebanon's most influential writer.
Greater Lebanon from Ra's Naqura in the south to Nahr al-Kabir north of Tripoli, and from the coast to the Anti-Lebanon mountains was established under the French provisional mandate in April 1920. Patriarch al-Huwayyik, with the Ottoman imposed famine in recent memory, insisted on the acquisition of the Biqa valley, a principal food producing area. The French were supposed to guide the population to self-determination with regular progress reports to the League of Nations. In reality, the French arrested and suppressed proponents of self-determination at various times.
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