Civilization and the Making of the State in Lebanon and Syria (Middle East Today) 3030576892, 9783030576899

Table of contents :
Acknowledgements
Contents
1 Introduction
Contemporary State-Building and Development: The (Re)production of a Civilizational Standard
Civilization and the State: Tying Development and State-Building to Imperialism and Colonialism
The Argument: The Modern State as a Standard of Civilization
Chapter Breakdown
Works Cited
2 The Standards of Civilization and the Production of Statehood
Theories and Histories of State Formation in the Middle East
European State Formation: Historicizing the Conceptual Foundations Modern Statehood
Post-colonial Statehood: The Result of a Standard of Civilization
The Civilizing Project and European Colonialism in the Middle East
Conclusion
Works Cited
3 Equality as a Standard of Civilization: The Opposition Towards Ottoman Tolerance
Equality and Tolerance: Foundations of Governance in Europe and the Ottoman Empire
Equality as a Standard of Civilization
The Tanzimat Reforms: The Failure of Equality
Conclusion
Works Cited
4 Race, Religion, and Civilization in Programs of Governance and Modernization
Historic Intersections of Civilization, Race, and Religion
The Hatt-ı Şerif: Eradicating Inferior Government
Mount Lebanon: Racializing Religion
Continuing Civilizational Reform: The Hatt-I Humayun 1856
Racialized Religion and National Consciousness
Conclusion
Works Cited
5 Territory, Identity, and Governance: Creating Order from Disorder
Creating Civilized Boundaries: Territory, Identity, and Governance
Split Authority in Mount Lebanon: Territorialization and the Division of Greater Syria
The Land Code of 1858
Settling the Desert
Conclusion
Works Cited
6 Violent Resistance: Interactions with Modernity and European Interference
Violence as Resistance: European Interference and Revolt
European Modernization, Modernity, and the Emergence of Violent Resistance
The Aleppo Uprising, 1850
The Damascus Massacre, 1860
The Mandate System and Faisal’s Revolt
French Colonial Pacification: The Druze Revolt 1925
Conclusion
Works Cited
7 Nationalism as Resistance: Acquiescing to European Identifiers
Nationalism, Resistance, and Response
The Young Ottomans
The Young Turks, Arab, and Syrian Nationalists
Conclusion
Works Cited
8 Preventing Autonomy: European Interests and the Application of a Standard of Civilization
European Interests in the Ottoman Empire at the Beginning of the Reform Period
Applying the Standard of Civilization: Methods to Attain Political Interests
The Tanzimat: Hatt-ı Şerif (1839) and the Hatt-ı Hümayun (1856)
The French Mandate and Lebanon and Syria
French Governance and Political Representation in Lebanon and Syria
Conclusion
Works Cited
9 Conclusion: Taking Histories of Post-colonial Statehood Seriously
The Standard of Civilization and the Production of the State in Lebanon and Syria
(Re)Thinking Statehood
The Standard Lives On
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

MIDDLE EAST TODAY

Civilization and the Making of the State in Lebanon and Syria Andrew Delatolla

Middle East Today

Series Editors Fawaz A. Gerges Department of International Relations London School of Economics London, UK Nader Hashemi Josef Korbel School of International Studies Center for Middle East Studies University of Denver Denver, CO, USA

The Iranian Revolution of 1979, the Iran-Iraq War, the Gulf War, and the US invasion and occupation of Iraq have dramatically altered the geopolitical landscape of the contemporary Middle East. The Arab Spring uprisings have complicated this picture. This series puts forward a critical body of first-rate scholarship that reflects the current political and social realities of the region, focusing on original research about contentious politics and social movements; political institutions; the role played by nongovernmental organizations such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Muslim Brotherhood; and the Israeli-Palestine conflict. Other themes of interest include Iran and Turkey as emerging pre-eminent powers in the region, the former an ‘Islamic Republic’ and the latter an emerging democracy currently governed by a party with Islamic roots; the Gulf monarchies, their petrol economies and regional ambitions; potential problems of nuclear proliferation in the region; and the challenges confronting the United States, Europe, and the United Nations in the greater Middle East. The focus of the series is on general topics such as social turmoil, war and revolution, international relations, occupation, radicalism, democracy, human rights, and Islam as a political force in the context of the modern Middle East.

More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14803

Andrew Delatolla

Civilization and the Making of the State in Lebanon and Syria

Andrew Delatolla Lecturer in Middle Eastern Studies School of Languages, Cultures, and Societies University of Leeds Leeds, UK

Middle East Today ISBN 978-3-030-57689-9 ISBN 978-3-030-57690-5 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57690-5 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover credit: Mikadun/shutterstock.com This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Acknowledgements

This book developed from a specific interest in the politics of Lebanon and Syria within a global context, and is the result of continuous discussion and debate with friends and colleagues on issues of statehood, imperialism, colonialism, Orientalism, and race. The extensive group of remarkable friends and colleagues that have thoughtfully engaged with me in these discussions include, but are by no means limited to Katerina Dalacoura, Fawaz Gerges, George Lawson, for their constant mentorship, as well as Daniel Neep, Charles Tripp, Christine Cheng, Joanne Yao, Hadi Makarem, Omar al-Ghazzi, Sophie Haspeslagh, Dima Krayem, Till Spanke, Martin Hearson, Julia Himmrich, Kiran Phull, Annissa Haddadi, Simone Datzberger, Margaret Ainley, Ida Danewid, Evelyn Pauls, Nicola Degli Esposti, Shourideh Molavi, Maria Fotou, Terri Ginsberg, Iman Hamam, Rabab el-Mahdi, and Marco Pinfari for having such great influence on my scholarship. I am indebted to these scholars, who have directly and indirectly influenced the direction of the book and arguments, having been generous in providing me with their insights and critiques. I am also grateful to have presented various parts of this book at conferences and workshops, having received terrific feedback at ISA, BISA, BRISMES, and Millennium. The project would not have been possible without the institutional and financial support of the Middle East Centre and Department of International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science, the Department of Political Science at the American University in v

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Cairo, the RJ Vincent Memorial Scholarship, and the Middle East Centre Emirates Ph.D. Scholarship. The arguments made throughout this book were inspired by extensive engagement with the Lebanese National Archives, the French Diplomatic Archives, the French National Archives, the British National Archives, the UK Parliamentary Archives, and the archives at l’Université Saint-Joseph in Beirut. Without the generosity and patience of the staff at the archives, this book would not have been possible. In addition to the academic and professional support that I have received over the years, making this endeavour a reality, none of it would have been possible without the support of friends and family. Lauren Sexton, Hayat Chedid, Karim Chedid, my parents Darlene and George Delatolla, my sisters Andrea and Victoria, my brother-in-law, Harry Williams, my grandparents Wadia and Romeo Shoiry and Catherine and John Delatolla, for all the love, encouragement, and instilling in me the importance of history and politics.

Contents

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Introduction Contemporary State-Building and Development: The (Re)production of a Civilizational Standard Civilization and the State: Tying Development and State-Building to Imperialism and Colonialism The Argument: The Modern State as a Standard of Civilization Chapter Breakdown Works Cited The Standards of Civilization and the Production of Statehood Theories and Histories of State Formation in the Middle East European State Formation: Historicizing the Conceptual Foundations Modern Statehood Post-colonial Statehood: The Result of a Standard of Civilization The Civilizing Project and European Colonialism in the Middle East Conclusion Works Cited

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CONTENTS

Equality as a Standard of Civilization: The Opposition Towards Ottoman Tolerance Equality and Tolerance: Foundations of Governance in Europe and the Ottoman Empire Equality as a Standard of Civilization The Tanzimat Reforms: The Failure of Equality Conclusion Works Cited Race, Religion, and Civilization in Programs of Governance and Modernization Historic Intersections of Civilization, Race, and Religion The Hatt-ı S¸ erif: Eradicating Inferior Government Mount Lebanon: Racializing Religion Continuing Civilizational Reform: The Hatt-I Humayun 1856 Racialized Religion and National Consciousness Conclusion Works Cited Territory, Identity, and Governance: Creating Order from Disorder Creating Civilized Boundaries: Territory, Identity, and Governance Split Authority in Mount Lebanon: Territorialization and the Division of Greater Syria The Land Code of 1858 Settling the Desert Conclusion Works Cited Violent Resistance: Interactions with Modernity and European Interference Violence as Resistance: European Interference and Revolt European Modernization, Modernity, and the Emergence of Violent Resistance The Aleppo Uprising, 1850 The Damascus Massacre, 1860

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The Mandate System and Faisal’s Revolt French Colonial Pacification: The Druze Revolt 1925 Conclusion Works Cited

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Nationalism as Resistance: Acquiescing to European Identifiers Nationalism, Resistance, and Response The Young Ottomans The Young Turks, Arab, and Syrian Nationalists Conclusion Works Cited

185 187 188 195 210 211

Preventing Autonomy: European Interests and the Application of a Standard of Civilization European Interests in the Ottoman Empire at the Beginning of the Reform Period Applying the Standard of Civilization: Methods to Attain Political Interests The Tanzimat: Hatt-ı S¸ erif (1839) and the Hatt-ı Hümayun (1856) The French Mandate and Lebanon and Syria French Governance and Political Representation in Lebanon and Syria Conclusion Works Cited Conclusion: Taking Histories of Post-colonial Statehood Seriously The Standard of Civilization and the Production of the State in Lebanon and Syria (Re)Thinking Statehood The Standard Lives On

215 217 223 223 230 235 242 244

247 248 253 256

Bibliography

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction

The modern state in international relations and political science is often described by a set of generalizable and, at times, abstract criteria. This is inclusive of qualifications such as territory, government, population, and international and domestic recognition. The conceptualization of the state in an abstract manner, however, produces a significant problem for social scientific research, specifically when attempting to engage in analysis of modern statehood in the non-West. While some social scientists may argue that it is necessary to simplify or abstract states as units of study to develop generalizable theories from which we are better able to understand domestic and global politics, the practice of simplification in the social sciences can distort reality. Here, simplification and abstraction can make important differences invisible while highlighting conclusions that are problematic.1

1 This is most evident in realism, neorealism, liberalism, and, at times, in feminist and post-colonial literature. Realism, neorealism, and liberalism treat states as units with similar or the same goals and interests, with the same functions, or functioning in relation to an accepted set of universal norms (Morgenthau 2005; Waltz 1979; van de Haar 2009; Doyle 1996). Feminist and post-colonial scholarship, can, treat sources of oppression and repression as singular objects (Hooper 2001), or constructs the ‘third world’ or ‘developing world’ as a singular actor (Mohanty 1984; Said 1978).

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 A. Delatolla, Civilization and the Making of the State in Lebanon and Syria, Middle East Today, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57690-5_1

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Abstraction is a particular problem that occurs in political science and international relations with regard to the modern state. By engaging in abstraction, differences between states are often dismissed or simplified, reduced to regime type, institutions, and culture. The dismissive or reductive approach towards difference follows from arguments that the structure of the international state system and the characteristics of statehood create enough similarity to warrant the development of generalizable theories regarding state interests, relations, and organization. Based on this notion, political science, international relations, and development studies produce the assumption, often implicitly, that states exist on a linear scale, from strong to weak and failing; hegemonic to passive and submissive (Morgenthau 2005; Waltz 1979; Bellamy 2008; Clapham 1998; Grant 1999). Although the state can be viewed as a political system, one that is now present in every society, Shmuel Eisenstadt argued that ‘different types of political systems develop and function under specific social conditions, and the continuity of any political system is also related to such specific conditions’ (1993, p. 3). As such, abstracting and simplifying the state becomes problematic. While the modern state can be, justifiably, seen as a global system of social, political, and economic organization, following from Eisenstadt, it cannot be generalized due to variation in the historical social and political context from which it emerged. Herein, a fundamental problem becomes evident: variations in historical social and political contexts produce difference, yet an abstracted concept of modern statehood has become a benchmark, or a standard, to be attained. Investigating the application of this abstracted conceptualization of modern statehood, this book draws attention to the emergence of the post-colonial state in Lebanon and Syria and argues that the modern state in Lebanon and Syria was the result of a standard of civilization. Here, the standard of civilization is discussed as a political tool of the nineteenth century to distinguish ‘civilized’ from ‘barbarian’ societies, ‘to gate-keep membership of international society, and to justify colonialism’ (Buzan 2014, p. 576; Linklater 2016a). Although it can be argued that statehood has existed throughout history, not located in a single temporality or geography, the concept and conceptual framing of the modern state did not (de Carvalho et al. 2011). The state, as a concept that frames the legal-political organization of a society or a country through government and demarcated boundaries, began to take form in the fourteenth century, developing from the

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thirteenth-century Old French ‘estat ’ or ‘estate’ and Latin word ‘status ’. ‘Estat ’ and ‘status ’ were used to describe the position, condition, status, order, or arrangement of an entity. In a figurative sense, these terms referred to public order or community organization, sometimes within a legal context. In the fourteenth century, the term ‘state’ was used in relation to status rei plublicae or the status or condition or the republic (Lazzeri 1995). It is this foundation from which the knowledges and practices of the modern state began to emerge and later, in the late eighteenth century, was deployed as a standard of civilization. By making this argument, it is possible to consider how the modern state, as a standard of civilization, was embedded in histories of nineteenth-century global transformations, altering the social, political, and economic conditions and contexts of society in Lebanon and Syria. The book focuses empirically on rational state-building, the civilizing project, in Lebanon and Syria, tracing the developments and immediate consequences of rational state-building into independence. The following section of this chapter considers some of the arguments and discussions concerning contemporary state-building and development. It engages in these discussions to make an argument about historically constituted and embedded knowledges and practices of modern statehood. Here, the arguments produced in the contemporary scholarship highlight particular aspects of modern statehood as a standard of civilization which can then be historicized. This includes how the state or polity is abstracted from its social and political context and measured against a set of criteria produced in relation to an ideal type. Additionally, what becomes apparent in making this connection is the continuity of the modern state as a standard of civilization in state-building and development, which reproduces a practical and intellectual coloniality regarding statehood. From this engagement, it is possible to historicize these contemporary deliberations to the global transformations of the nineteenth century. This follows from Aníbal Quijano, who argued that the intellectual conceptualization of the process of modernity produced a perspective of knowledge and a mode of producing knowledge […] it is […] a specific rationality or perspective of knowledge that was made globally hegemonic, colonizing and overcoming other previous or different conceptual formations and their respective concrete knowledges. (Quijano 2000, pp. 549–550)

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Emergent from intertwined processes related to colonialism and capitalism, the coloniality of knowledge/power, or Eurocentrism, functions by establishing ‘binary, hierarchical relations between categories of object and reflects a particular secular, instrumental, and technocratic rationality’ (Tucker 2018, p. 219). Secularity, instrumentality, and rationality are, as Quijano argues, ‘exclusively European products’, from which ‘intersubjective and cultural relations between Western Europe and the rest of the world were codified’ in binary and hierarchical relations, such as ‘East-West, primitive-civilized, magic/mythic-scientific, irrationalrational, traditional-modern – Europe and not Europe’ (Quijano 2000, p. 542). Building on this scholarship, Karen Tucker notes how this coloniality of knowledge ‘refers to historically rooted, racially inflected practices that routinely elevate the knowledge forms and knowledgegenerating principles of colonizing cultures’ (2018, p. 220). What is produced from these binaries and hierarchies are benchmarks to be attained by those exogenous to ‘exclusively European products’. Due to the racial inflections of these binaries and hierarchies, and in relation to the modern state, what emerges is a standard of civilization, discussed in further detail in Chapter 2. Specifically, and explored below, are discussions on contemporary statebuilding and development as practices that are engaged in the abstraction and simplification of modern statehood based on a European- or Westerncentric conceptualization.2 This, as argued below, produces typologies and hierarchical measurements that are ‘racially inflected’ and reproduce the state as a standard of civilization.

Contemporary State-Building and Development: The (Re)production of a Civilizational Standard The state is often depicted as being a standard and universal object, framed by the idea of centralized authority with a particular set of 2 The use of the terms European and Western are used to discuss the real consequences regarding international power dynamics, material flows, and exclusions that produce and reproduce global hierarchies that ascertain a group of ‘European’ or ‘Western’ civilized states, norms, and ideals in contrast to the ‘other’ (Said 1978; Fanon 2001). While Europe and the West are constructed, as is its ‘other’, this book does not aim to deconstruct the binary, but explore how its construction has had real effects, highlighting the normative and cultural transnational links that are made evident by the discussions of the standards of civilization (Gong 1984; Donnelly 1998; Fidler 2001).

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government institutions. The central purpose of the state is argued to be the successful and legitimate governance of a delineated territory and population (Weber 1946, p. 77). From this definition, an ideal type3 is produced. This ideal type facilitates the measurement of the state through an analysis of capability and capacity, where the capability and capacity to govern a population and territory without fault, external intervention, or internal challenges exogenous to governing institutions is perceived as strength. As such, the strongest states in the international state system are often considered to be those that are the closest to the ideal type. Measuring the state in this manner, however, creates a linear scale of incapability to capability, from failure and weakness to strength. In this regard, incapability, state weakness, and failure requires determined development and state-building projects to re-establish domestic order and legitimate governance. By engaging in such practices, the assumption of what a strong state is and is not is reproduced, simplifying statehood to the core institutions of governance. As such, the primary engagement of state-building and development projects are to rebuild or fix deficiencies in institutions. The strategies employed in state-building and development are based on the notion that states, as objects, can be improved, and that there is a single logic and practice of statehood that must be followed to facilitate progress. This gives little-to-no attention to the negative social, political, and economic consequences of external intervention; or the impact of pre-existing logics and prejudices by individuals and parties engaged in development and state-building. To determine which states require interventions, in the form of state-building or development, assessments of capacity and strength are developed. The indicators that measure strength for contemporary state-building and development projects are used to label states with a typology: strong, weak, failing, failed. Robert Rotberg and Stewart Patrick describe state failure and weakness as the inability or unwillingness of governing bodies to provide the elements that are required for statehood such as, legitimate political institutions that provide a framework for economic management, social welfare, and physical security

3 The ideal-type is an abstract and hypothetical framing that establishes a generalized conceptual benchmark. In this case, the ideal type with regards to the concept of the state is a focus on its associated institutional characteristics and functions, which do not correspond to any single case, but that are reproduced in scholarship and measurements of statehood (Weber 1997, p. 90).

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(Rotberg 2004; Patrick 2006, p. 29). Rotberg argues that indicators of state failure include: enduring violence, victimization of citizens by the state, loss of control over peripheral territory, growth of criminal violence, flawed institutions, deteriorating infrastructure, lacking provisions of basic services, uneven economic opportunity, and widespread corruption (Rotberg 2004). Susan Rice and Stewart Patrick have developed a similar set of indicators as Rotberg to employ when examining state capacity. In addition to the chosen indicators of state failure or weakness, Rice and Patrick also propose a set of practical policies that focus on the development of institutions with the aim to limit damage and steer the state away from collapse.4 Regardless of whether measuring states against an abstract set of criteria is unintentional, this practice places the state on hierarchy, or scale, of effectiveness and efficiency that support assumptions regarding the ability to ‘fix’ perceived deficiencies. Although this may seem justified, developed with good intentions, the indicators exclude further qualitative analysis that would often point to sociological issues including customary political, economic, and social hierarchies that can be in contention with official state institutions. Despite the often overlooked sociological factors that either contradict or become intertwined—in unpredictable and sometimes problematic ways—with institutions of statehood, the concern of development and state-building is focused on the end goal of such projects. The aim, according to Amartya Sen, is to provide populations with new freedoms. This references the Hegelian notion that the state is an environment that provides freedoms which would otherwise not be enjoyed (Patten 1999). Specifically, Sen argues that Development requires the removal of major sources of unfreedom: poverty as well as tyranny, poor economic opportunities as well as systematic social deprivation, neglect of public facilities as well as intolerance or over activity of repressive states. (Sen 1999, p. 3)

4 Rice and Patrick (2008) provide indicators that place states on a scale depending on their capacity to fulfil necessary criteria. This includes GNI per capita, GDP growth, income inequality, inflation, regulatory quality, government effectiveness, rule of law, voice and accountability, control of corruption, freedom ratings, conflict intensity, political intensity, political stability and absence of violence, incidence of coups, gross human rights abuses, territory affected by conflict, child mortality, primary school completion, undernourishment, percent population with access to improved water sources and with access to improved sanitation facilities, life expectancy.

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Similarly, Rotberg asserts that, notwithstanding the elements that may be inducing failure and weakness, states can be revived through the development of a stabilized environment by driving forward notions of law and order. Once a relative peace has been established, three goals should be pursued concurrently: economic development, rejuvenation of civil society, and the reintroduction of rule of law (Rotberg 2004). The goals outlined by Rotberg are commensurate with establishing effective control, from which new freedoms are derived. However, the legitimate economic development, rejuvenation of civil society, and the reintroduction of rule of law are narrowly understood by those pursuing these goals. They do not reflect the political, economic, and social customs of the society where the projects are being developed, but those of the modern state as an ideal type (Muppidi 2004). By conceiving the modern state as an entity that is universal and objective, it gives credence to understanding rights and freedoms as being universal standards that reflect global human progress (Sen 1999, p. 229). Although poverty, tyranny, social deprivation, social neglect, and sociopolitical intolerance are problems that require engagement, the methods of engagement to alleviate these problems should be carefully considered. By placing emphasis on state capacity and institutional reform to alleviate sources of ‘unfreedom’, an international reproduction of paternalistic relations between the global north and the global south,5 the west and the east, is (re)developed. It assumes that human progress is linear, ongoing, and direct; that it follows a particular and unique experience of development located in Western society and civilization. Here, divergence is akin to moving backwards, reasserting binary and hierarchical relations (Quijano 2000; Tucker 2018). By engaging in state-building and development as a way to fix deficiencies, emphasis is placed on establishing political rituals that mimic those present in the strongest states, specifically Western states. The goal of intervention in state-building and development, whether such projects include, or are limited to, institution building, capacity building, or

5 The global south as a concept can be critiqued due to its reproduction of an ordered

world that divides the ‘developed’ north from the ‘underdeveloped’ south, as had been done with such conceptual framings of the ‘third world’. However, the global south is a useful concept that reflects the core-periphery ordering of the world that developed in the nineteenth century and that persists into the twenty-first century (see Levander and Mignolo 2011; Dryzek 2006; Wallerstein 2007; Rosenberg 2010).

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economic aid, is to pacify populations and governments that are deemed subversive, unstable, and which pose an implicit or explicit threat domestically or internationally. The aim, as with colonial endeavours, has been to ‘fight war in the “social milieu”’ by engaging in practices to ensure the ‘rise of social forms of governance [that are] distinctly modern and capitalist variant on the science and practice of household rule’ (Owens 2015, p. 279). By encouraging the development of new political rituals to replace those that are viewed as illegitimate, regressive, and uncivilized, a set of supposed universal moral and ethical codes are also deployed. State-building and development projects are, then, sustained strategies to replace knowledges and practices that are perceived as backward, or unruly, in an effort to reorder society within a rational design that is ‘commensurate with the scientific understanding of natural laws’ (Scott 1998, pp. 4–5). By pacifying and stabilizing states that are considered underdeveloped, underperforming, failed, or weak, economic growth can be encouraged and the threat of violence is decreased, facilitating the establishment of new practices that are considered legitimate by the strongest states in the international state system. The assumption that engagement in state-building and development can produce effective change to the benefit of the targeted state and society is based on good intentions but, as argued by Raja Menon, it ‘can never become an ethically driven pursuit disentangled from power and interests’ (2016, p. 11). Highlighted by Menon, the decision to engage in state-building and development, targeting specific states, is always, explicitly or implicitly, driven by power and interests. In making the argument that state-building and development practices are entangled in the pursuit of power and interests, Menon highlights the case of the Kurdish population in Iraq. He argues that the U.S. had only developed an interest in the Kurdish population following the Iran–Iraq War (1980–1988), having ignored their plight throughout the period of conflict with Iran (Menon 2016, pp. 11–12). Following the war, however, and after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait (1990–1991), the U.S. began to further engage with the Kurds. U.S. policy in Iraq became concerned with ensuring the safety of the Kurds, but also provided further justification for the isolation of Saddam Hussein as part of the policy of containment (Zanger 2002). The U.S. decision to intervene and provide support for autonomous and democratic development was not a decision of moral or ethical selflessness. Rather, it produced favourable outcomes for U.S. strategy and interests in the Middle East. Although state-building

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and development are often framed by narratives of good intentions, selflessness, and moral impetus, intervening states make gains by nurturing alliances with domestic partners, gaining access to new economic markets and resources, and by ensuring beneficial regional stability and influence; as discussed in Chapter 8 in relation to histories of European intervention and interference. Discussed thus far are two aspects of state-building and development that follow from a single assumption about human social and political development and progress. This single assumption holds that human social and political development and progress occur on a linear trajectory with the most powerful states in the international state system being at the forefront of development and progress. From this assumption, two arguments are developed. First, that state-building and development are practices that are constructed on good intentions aimed at ‘helping’ backwards, weaker states and societies. Second, that these assumptions lead to opportunities that allow the most powerful states in the international system to pursue interests and power; shaping the targeted states to their benefit. Regardless of intent, whether it is to help other societies progress and develop, or if state-building and development are tools in the pursuit of power and interests, the focus on the modern state is an heir to historic practices of imperial and colonial governance. The practices of statebuilding and development, as well as imperial governance and colonialism, are formed by the interactions between state-building and development practitioners or imperial and colonial administrators and the populations that are being engaged in programs of social re-engineering. In these interactions, and related to differences in power, emerges a coloniality of knowledge, as discussed above. While Quijano (2000) outlined these dynamics in reference to the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries, state-building and development represent its continuation, albeit under new—seemingly benign—categories that appear detached from imperialism and colonialism. The practices of social re-engineering based on coloniality of knowledge has continuously (re)produced a civilizing project, one that facilitates an ongoing link between Western or European imperialism, colonialism and state-building and development. The civilizing project, or mission, can be described as being conceived of as ‘a “benign” vision of imperialism’, a liberal project, shrouded in moral reasoning, inflected with—implicit and explicit—racist hierarchies. This project, or mission,

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developed with the view that ‘Western rational institutions and norms’ were—and continue to be—the pinnacle of development, and sought to insure a cultural conversion or assimilation of non-European societies into these institutions and norms (Hobson 2012, p. 122). In other words, the civilizing project was centred on a particular set of knowledges and practices that were mobilized to ensure the expansion and replication of European progress, modernity, and civilization. Unlike the logics of imperialism and colonialism, which were justified based on a ‘moral vocation’ that attempted to save brown and black men from the state of nature, a ‘backward hereditary condition’ (Hobson 2012, p. 123), statebuilding, and development forego the use of a direct and explicit racist logic. Instead, state-building and development, in the production of a civilizing mission, engage in an implicit racism, one that ‘locates “difference” through cultural, institutional and environmental criteria rather than genetic properties’ (Hobson 2004, p. 220). This is not to say that explicit and implicit racisms are separate, rather they often overlap and function together; as is evident in the context of European imperialism and colonialism of the nineteenth century. Reflecting imperial and colonial justifications, as well as the moral vocation of the nineteenth-century civilizing project, contemporary practices of state-building and development, maintains that there is a cultural, institutional, or environmental inability to engage with the structures, norms, and institutions of the modern state. This is particularly evident with regard to the typologies of states, with weak, failing, or failed states requiring strategies to alleviate societies from their conditions of underdevelopment (Scott 1998, pp. 4–5). K. Adalbert Hampel critiques the contemporary measurement of state capacity and the production of state typologies as being ahistorical, reproducing narratives that the modern state is analogous to the organic polity, reinforced by global hegemony. Hampel correctly points to the modern state, in terms of its conceptual formulation as well its practical development, being the unique consequences of European political history. Despite its particular origin, it has, nevertheless, been used to measure and test the development, progress, and civilization of other societies and polities (2015, pp. 1632–1638). In a similar vein, Branwen Gruffydd Jones argues that the language of state weakness and failure in the post-colonial world conjures notions of ‘a general lack of capacity to develop, to rule or to be peaceful’ (2013, p. 49). By categorizing states into typologies, a hierarchy is created that reproduces the language of colonial and imperial governance, echoing

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historic discourses and divisions that ascertained regions in the global south as backwards, uncivilized, and fanatical. The language of state weakness and failure resonates with the colonial civilizing missions that attempted large-scale assimilation of the global peripheries within the dominant norms of governance in the European state system. The categories employed throughout the nineteenth century in the global south were not justified by the quantification and scientific measurement of the social world, but were still organized into a hierarchy that used the West as the benchmark of development, progress, and civilization. Furthermore, the categories, labels, and characterizations that are used in state-building, development, imperialism, and colonialism are, and were, deployed to justify various kinds of interventions. Although the language of colonial and imperial engagements of the civilizing project were not as sophisticated as the language used in contemporary statebuilding and development practices, the binaries, hierarchies, and logics have been similar. In addition to similar logical foundations, the practicality of imperial and colonial civilizing projects, despite temporal and categorical difference from development and state-building projects were also quite similar. Here, imperial and colonial civilizing projects as well as development and state-building can be viewed through instrumentalist and strategic purposes. Of particular concern has been external recognition, legitimacy, and the facilitation of economic and geopolitical access. The aim, then, has been to create environments amenable to the rational and civilized societies, politics, and the economies of the West (Saouli 2012, p. 13; Wallerstein et al. 1987; Sunar 1987, pp. 63–87). To create environments amenable to the West, institutional engineering was emphasized following interventions in states categorized as weak, failing, or failed, or in polities that were considered uncivilized, unmodern, or fanatical. The focus on institutional engineering during imperial and colonial modernization, although developed to achieve particular interests of the imperial and colonial powers, was justified based on early scientific ideas of human progress. The aim in undertaking these projects, as with state-building and development, was to reorder society into organized formations that mirrored the ordering and organization of societies in the imperial and colonial states, providing future ease of access and engagement. Although the method of measurement in developing the categories employed to engage in state-building and development differ from those used throughout colonial and imperial governance, the

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desire to help states achieve modernity and progress, whether this was done with good intentions or to pursue interests and power, created a set of paternalistic international relations (Scott 1998, pp. 4–5; Hefner 1998). The assumption that state-building and development are practices that help states and societies, primarily in the global south, to become developed is based on good intentions, however, it is a worldview that privileges Western forms of development as being empirically better. Furthermore, such strategies fail to account for exploitive political and economic relations that have facilitated, if not created, the conditions for sustained underdevelopment (Gunder-Frank 1966; DeGannes Scott 1995). In taking these histories into serious consideration, it is possible to trace political and economic exploitation into discussions of sustained underdevelopment, state weakness, and failure and critique the inherent assumption of universalism across social and political formations (Callinicos and Rosenberg 2008; Ashman 2009). Here, Eisenstadt’s basic premise that ‘different types of political systems develop and function under specific social conditions, and the continuity of any political system is also related to such specific conditions’ (1993, p. 3) can be further interrogated in relation to state-building and development. Sen defends the point of universality by arguing that while difference may be paramount between the West and the East, the North and the South, parallels exist. In providing examples, he notes similarities between Western political ideas and Asian political thought, such as Confucianism (Sen 1999, pp. 233–234). Although parallels between the West and non-West can be emphasized to transcend disparate temporalities and geographies, there is a problem with conflating Western concepts with Eastern philosophy to assume universality. As argued by Muhammad Asad, One should always remember that when the European or American speaks of “democracy,” “liberalism,” “socialism,” “theocracy,” “parliamentary government,” and so forth, he uses these terms within the context of Western historical experience.

It is this historical experience which gives these terms their particular and unique meanings and usage in Western and Eastern contexts (Asad 1980, pp. 18, 19–23). Not only does drawing parallels threaten the erasure of the contextual reality in which these non-Western texts were

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written, but it further assumes that Western philosophy and political concepts are unsurpassed by other philosophical traditions (GermondDuret 2016). By holding Western philosophy and political concepts as the standard, the development of parallels between Western and nonWestern concepts requires intellectual acrobatics that ignore contextual and linguistic meaning and connotation. The assumption of universality of modern statehood, where universality is produced in relation to concepts and definitions, practices, and logics of order and organization follows from the arguments made by Sen. This logic of universalism, as argued by Brett Bowden (2004), translates into practices that attempt to produce uniformity. As such, there is a disregard for social and political difference in the name of development and progress. This is not only a critique of contemporary state-building and development, but also the modernization and civilizing projects of nineteenth-century imperialism and colonialism. With regard to the latter, as a means to accede to modernity, modernization was perceived as linear and path-dependent, a condition that could be replicated by the civilizing project. Modernization therefore offered a ‘comprehensive solution – applicable worldwide, based on universal agreement’. Although it could be applied worldwide, Menon argued that this comprehensive solution was not universally applied. Instead, only societies and polities that were of particular strategic interest were engaged in the modernizing project (Menon 2016, p. 171). The modernizing, or civilizing, projects, were attempts to reorder, reconstitute, and civilize the other, creating harm in two areas (Linklater 2002, p. 15). The modernizing, or civilizing, projects, as well as statebuilding and development attempt to engage states that are deemed unmodern by reconstituting those processes through modernization reforms (Fortna 2013, p. 1). First, harm is produced in the form of social, political, and economic alienation that develops from swift institutional and structural transitions. By altering the social, political, and economic political institutions and structures individuals are unable to access customary structures and institutions, and become alienated and disenfranchised. Although the intent is often noble, the projects are primarily concerned with Western conceptions of progress; emphasizing institutional capacity and the prevalent categories used at any given period of time (Rotberg 2004; Rice and Patrick 2008; Menon 2016, p. 10). Ashraf Ghani and Clare Lockhart demonstrate this problem with the case of Nepal:

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A civil society leader in Nepal recounted how the aid system reinvents itself with new methods and languages, and the Nepali leaders spend their time learning those languages to meet the criteria of the moment. But as soon as they have mastered them and rewritten their documents, the approach changes, and the cycle begins all over again: poverty reduction, sustainable development, millennium development goals, capacity building. (Ghani and Lockhart 2009, pp. 107–108)

The effort put into learning these new categories, redeveloping goals, altering the raison d’être of the organization, changes the language of development and the end goals of modernization, creating systemic alienation until the language is learned, developed, mobilized. This constrains the total amount of resources as well as creating institutional and structural outputs that are unnavigable for individuals and communities that have not learned the language, creating social and political dislocation, dissatisfaction, and alienation. Second, harm is produced in the process of state-building, which necessitates the use of force. Force, in this context, exists as threat and use, resulting in coercion (Foucault 1995; Kertzer 1988, pp. 1–3; Belge 2013, p. 17). Even in cases where state-building and development are primarily focused on economic capacity, economic aid, or local development projects, the prescription of solutions often requires the presence of a security apparatus that seek the pacification of individuals and communities. Paul Miller describes the use of force to facilitate state-building as indispensable, having a great amount of impact on the potential success of the project. The threat and use of force in state-building is to defend civilian personnel responsible for institution and capacity building and to limit the actions of domestic spoilers (Miller 2013, pp. 4, 117–174). Describing instances of counterinsurgency interventions and occupations with the aim to facilitate the ‘right’ kind of politics, Patricia Owens argues that those involved in the deployment of force seek to control populations. By asserting power over populations, intervening states attempt to re-engineer society through practices of domestic governance and institution building. She continues that such practices are a distinctive type of governance, deployed through armed social work (Owens 2015, pp. 9– 10; Galula 1964, pp. 62–63; Sitaraman 2012, pp. 36–37). Here, armed social work requires new social logics of engagement, bearing similarity to colonial governance in its use of force as a tool to re-order (Owens 2015, pp. 9–10; Galula 1964, pp. 62–63).

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Civilization and the State: Tying Development and State-Building to Imperialism and Colonialism The similarities between the logics and practices of colonial and imperial governance with state-building and development reveal important dynamics of statehood in the global south. These dynamics include the paternalistic relationship that the West has maintained with the global south; the assertion that there is a singular way to be modern or to engage with modernity; the belief that institutions and structures of centralized government will help in the development of order and rationality of society; the employment of the threat and use of force to pacify populations and assert dominance; and the belief that engagement, intervention, and capacity building is a moral vocation. Noting these similarities, William Easterly (2006) argues that state-building and development are constitutive of a form of postmodern imperialism, and characterizes it as the continuation of the previous colonial era. The continuity between colonialism and contemporary interventions was a result of, according to Easterly, practices of colonialism that impaired economic and political development; breeding conditions that motivated the ‘new White Man’s Burden to clean up the mess left behind by the old White Man’s Burden’ (Easterly 2006, p. 239). Noting the relationship between state-building and development and imperialism and colonialism, there is evidence that the post-colonial state in the global south is subject to a similar set of conditions in the international state system as it had been during periods of nineteenth-century imperial and colonial governance. Where state-building and development have had a substantial impact on the contemporary function of the post-colonial state, the knowledges and practices of imperialism and colonialism have had a substantial impact on the making of the modern state in the global south. With regard to imperialism and colonialism, however, the consequence of imperial and colonial knowledges and practices in the global south have been a different set of attributes and characteristics from the modern state in the West. This difference has required further intervention and interference by engaging in contemporary state-building and development practices. Rather than argue that this difference represents incapacity or deficiency, the post-colonial state requires examination as the result of a standard of civilization.

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The post-colonial state, as a result of and continuously subjected to a standard of civilization, is the outcome of a general and universal conceptual understanding of modern statehood that is measured on a linear scale. This linear scale, a measurement of progress and development, as discussed above, did not conclude with imperial and colonial engagements of the nineteenth century. Instead, the standard of civilization, the linear scales of progress and development were maintained and repackaged into a new language of state-building and development based on social scientific measurements. Specifically, these measurements focus on institutional capacity and sovereignty, resulting in discussions of strong states, weak states, and failed states (Jones 2008, 2013). What emerges in typifying states in this manner, is the maintenance of a standard or benchmark that emphasizes the need to engage in a global reproduction of ‘strong’ and ‘developed’ states. By holding the ‘strong state’, typically the state in the West, as the pinnacle of development, it becomes the set benchmark or standard for ‘weaker’, ‘underdeveloped’—and often post-colonial states. By placing emphasis on the state in the West as the model to be copied elsewhere, the characteristics and the knowledges and practices of statehood are assumed to be applicable globally. This allows for, not only typologies of statehood to emerge, but an abstracted social scientific measurement and classification of the state to be produced. This abstraction, although discussed as being universal, imposes uniformity. By measuring statehood and placing states in hierarchies, a number of problems emerge regarding the manner in which states and—by extension—societies are categorized and characterized. The hierarchization of states lends itself to assumptions about which states require development—being underdeveloped, or which states are incapable of development—being considered undevelopable. These hierarchies also inform knowledge concerning which states, polities, societies, and geographies are considered safe and law-abiding, in opposition to those that are deemed violent, corrupt, and unruly. These ascribed characteristics, whether they are concerned with politics or the economy, position states and societies in relation to an ‘ideal type’ that relies on assumptions of universality and the belief that there is a right way and a wrong way to govern; that capacity and institutions can be measured in a quantifiable manner without concern for social, political, and economic histories; and that states can be fixed by engaging in state-building (inclusive of institution building) and development, without much concern for the consequences of socio-political reorganization by external force.

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As Owens (2015) notes, by positioning the state as an object that can be ‘fixed’, state-building and development creates an abstraction based on an assumed universalism. In agreement with Owens, this abstraction is problematic, as it emerges from a notion that progress occurs in a linear fashion with a singular outcome. This foregrounds a universalist objectivity with regard to the state, premised on the notion that social, political, and economic progress occurs in stages, with the most advanced, often Western states, being at the pinnacle of development. However, this universalism disregards difference in social and political knowledges and practices by placing those differences into hierarchies where the moral imperative to ‘civilize’, to lead the hierarchically ‘underdeveloped’ or ‘uncivilized’ society into advanced stages of ‘development’ or ‘civilization’ is an attempt to produce uniformity. This assumption of universalism and its consequences are rooted in the global transformations of the nineteenth century (Buzan and Lawson 2015; Stearns 2007, pp. 21–27). The global transformation of the nineteenth century, according to Barry Buzan and George Lawson, ‘generated four basic, but linked, types of changes’, including: ‘industrialization and the extension of market to a global scale’, ‘processes of rational state-formation’, the prominence of new ideologies (liberalism, nationalism, socialism, and ‘scientific’ racism), and a core-periphery global order (2015, pp. 3–4). These four transformations were contained within and directed by the development of European modern states. Because of the importance of the modern state in relation to these global transformations, modern statehood in the nineteenth century was the central evidence of development and progress. It was associated with rationality,6 order, governance, and allowed for centralized economic productivity. Indeed, the modern state in Europe in the nineteenth century facilitated global European expansion and domination. Subsequently, in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, modern statehood continued to be benchmarked—although by more ‘scientific’ means. This allowed governments, international organizations, and non-governmental organizations determine capacity and capability, development and progress; building on previously held assumptions, albeit by employing new conceptual frameworks. 6 Rationality refers to the ability to make decisions based on scientific reason, to sufficiently disentangle the mind from wider obstacles created by barriers such as religion, kinship, or political favouritism (MacFarlane 1992, p. 123).

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By historicizing modern statehood in the context of the nineteenthcentury global transformations, the modern state, as it is discussed in political science and international relations, owes its conceptual origins to the unique history of European state formation. Consequently, while these disciplines often disassociate the modern state from its historical, geographic, and temporal origins, it is nevertheless important to consider how histories of modern state formation have influenced ideas of statehood going forward. Whether the origin of the modern state is discussed through the histories of conflict and war, elite politics, religion, or technological and intellectual progress, the modern state conceived of in the Weberian framework is a social enterprise rooted in pre-modern European history. By understanding the relationship between history and conceptual development, it is possible to understand how the modern state became increasingly central to the organization and governance of society, and its central role regarding ideas of development and progress. Notably, attempts to measure development and progress by assessing, measuring, and testing states, is not a contemporary development of international politics. Benchmarking progress and development by examining statehood and political organization emerged in the nineteenth century, justifying the establishment of the core-periphery global order (Broome and Quirk 2015; Buzan and Lawson 2015). Although these dynamics are not novel, by considering their historical emergence, it is possible to examine the emergence of the modern state in the global south as a result of a standard of civilization, one that has continued into the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The classical standard of civilization, discussed in relation to the global transformations of the nineteenth century, was a comparative measurement of progress and development, a tool that was deployed to discipline uncivilized bodies, societies, and polities. This standard emerged from a comparison of development and progress, one which assumed a linear scale, using the most progressed and developed states as benchmarks. By deploying a standard of civilization, interference, oppression, and violence was justified as a necessary practice of the civilizing project. The standard of civilization that was mobilized in the nineteenth century was framed by the discourse of the ‘white man’s burden’, and while this discourse is no longer considered legitimate, contemporary categories of progress and development are maintained by the language of development studies (Fidler 2001; Gong 1984). Still, however, it is of importance that the context of this history is understood, not only to critically engage

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and discuss how state-building and development represent its unfinished project, but to contextualize histories of imperial and colonial led state formation, and critique the categories and concepts used with the aim of using more accurate categories and concepts.

The Argument: The Modern State as a Standard of Civilization This book explores how the modern state, as a standard of civilization, was historically produced in the global south, and specifically in Lebanon and Syria. In doing so, it considers how the exogenously produced knowledges and practices regarding statehood were layered, or assembled, onto pre-existing knowledges and practices, with the aim to replicate the former and eradicate the latter. Here, the modern state, symbolic of civilized engagement, was central to the ‘civilizing project’. This book further argues that the concept of civilization and the benchmarking of civilization was embedded in the discourses, structures, and practices of explicit and implicit racism (Hobson 2004, pp. 219–242). By understanding the racist starting point of the civilizing project, tied to modern statehood, what becomes evident is how practices of modernization, state-making, and the emergence of the post-colonial state and subsequent global relations continue to be embedded in racist structures of civilizational hierarchies. Racial hierarchies were mobilized in the explanations for why polities in the global south had not progressed or reached civilizational development in comparison to European societies and states. This helped European states, and of particular focus throughout this book—France and Britain, determine the kind of civilizing program that was to be applied and the kinds of knowledges and practices that were to be transferred to the uncivilized societies, in this case the Ottoman Empire, the Syrian provinces, and Lebanon and Syria. Because the Ottoman Empire had not been classified as a final-tier civilization in the civilizational league tables (Hobson 2004, pp. 225; Anghie 2002), it was believed that the kind of civilizing project required was not of direct colonial control and governance. As such, the Ottoman Empire was autonomous, but not recognized as an independent state with access to international law. In this subordinated position, the Ottoman Empire was advised—often under coercive or economic pressure—on the terms of modernity and modernization. Only by acceding to these terms, or benchmarks that were exogenously created, could

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the Empire be recognized as a full and equal member to the group of ‘civilized nations’, with recourse to international law. This book explores the multifaceted application and consequences of modern statehood as a standard of civilization. Although the European powers—Britain, France, and Russia in the case of this book—are examined as the arbiters of civilization in relation to the Ottoman Empire, their programs of modernization were assembled onto existing social, political, and economic dynamics, having unexpected and ongoing consequences (Sassen and Ong 2014). Argued in this book, the process of early-to-mid nineteenth-century modernization programs, particularly with regard to institutional and structural transformations, evoked sentiments of dissatisfaction and alienation from local populations in the Syrian provinces. Feelings of alienation were exploited by the European powers and justified by moral duty of protecting civilizational kin. Here, and explored throughout the book, racial hierarchies were redeployed at a local level, where religion became a racial signifier of development and civilization. As such, it was often argued that certain religious groups were inherently more civilized than others, leading to a process of racialization that attributed civilizational characteristics, assumed to be biological, to the different religious groups. Following from these developments, it is argued that race became an embedded characteristic of the modern state—not only in the hierarchization of states globally, but in the structures of the states; evident, for example, in the development of modern nationalisms. That is not to say that the Ottoman Empire and the populations of the Syrian provinces did not exhibit agency, but that agency became confined to the creeping structures established by foreign powers. Indeed, where agency and resistance were exhibited, they were exogenously perceived as the result of a civilizational failure that required further ‘fixing’. Here, failure was either caused by resistance or the consequence of assembled knowledges and practices that blended the ‘pre-modern’ and ‘modern’, ‘non-European’ and ‘European’ (Tibi 1971; Jones 2013; Lamarck 1914), producing ‘scars’, ‘imperfections’, or ‘defects’, written on the body-politic of the Lebanese and Syrian states. Following from this argument, Sandra Halperin and Ronen Palan state that the institutions and logics of past polities do not entirely disappear, instead, their mark is left on the ‘structures and processes and on the institutions, cultures, politics and legal systems of the peoples who inhabit [these] territories’ (2015, p. 1).

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In relation to Halperin and Palan’s argument, by revisiting and emphasizing the histories of imperial and colonial engagements, exploring the knowledges and practices of these engagements, it is possible to historicize the ‘scars’, ‘imperfections’, or ‘defects’ that continue to be of concern for contemporary state typologies. Furthermore, by historicizing the modern state in the post-colonial world as a product of a standard of civilization, it is possible to conceptualize and define the post-colonial state as a separate entity from European, or Western, modern states. This allows for a better understanding of how coloniality has impacted the development of the modern state in the post-colonial world. Of primary focus in this book, is the examination of the displacement and erasure of important social and political organizing principles including ideas and practices of tolerance; the transformations regarding the relationship between territory, identity, and governance; the changing nature of resistance through imperial and colonial modernization; and the impact of global governance. The book interrogates the histories of the modern state and considers how the Lebanese and Syrian states were assembled in relation to nineteenth-century international transformations,7 European expansion into the global south, imperial modernization projects directed by the Sultan and the Sublime Porte of the Ottoman Empire, and French colonial governance. By exploring the histories and interactions between the international and the local, the legacies of which have impacted post-colonial statehood and created difference in conceptualization and practice, the book argues that the post-colonial state in the global south was a product of a standard of civilization, a project of state-building that led to an assemblage, which ultimately impacted the knowledge and practice of the post-colonial modern state, domestically and internationally. Influenced by debates in international historical sociological, postcolonial, anti-colonial, and decolonial scholarship, the arguments made in this book emerge from a re-engagement of the global political and sociological histories of statehood. The book draws from secondary source histories on the Ottoman Empire, Lebanon, and Syria. It also makes extensive use of archival documents, including government dispatches, newspapers, and recorded first-hand accounts from the British National 7 Jennifer Mitzen (2013), Barry Buzan and George Lawson (2015), John Hobson (2004), and Andrew Linklater (2016b) note that the nineteenth century was a period of global transformation that gave way to contemporary international relations and politics.

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Archives, the French Diplomatic Archives, the French National Archives, the Lebanese National Archives, and the archives at the Université SaintJoseph in Beirut. It triangulates these histories, by engaging in historical analysis, to develop a better understanding of French and British perceptions of the Ottoman Empire, the Syrian provinces and the communities therein, as well as the responses from these communities. By triangulating these accounts and histories, the notion of historical ‘facts’ is carefully rejected by understanding history as being the product of a story which represents the situated knowledge and action of the individual or group who is narrating. For this reason, the research attempts to accord historical accounts to interests, power relationships, and goals (Rowlinson 2004; Mahoney and Rueschemeyer 2003). In doing so, it uses content analysis, and discourse analysis. Content analysis is used to reveal underlying meanings and ideas in the narration of historical accounts in the primary source documents (Krippendorff 2004, pp. 11–12). At times, this research employs a discourse analysis, particularly when meanings and ideas require contextualization with regard to power. Using discourse analysis, this research also draws on language as source of power that influences, reinforces, and legitimates the worldviews, actions, and positions of the actors involved (Bryman 2004, pp. 528–540).

Chapter Breakdown Building on the discussion of statehood as a the standard of civilization, the following chapters explore the various ways that the state in Lebanon and Syria were developed from a civilizing project that emphasized the replication of the modern state in Europe; first by means of Ottoman reforms and modernization and, second, in relation to the French Mandate of Lebanon and Syria. These chapters also explore how the application of the standard of civilization, its associated knowledges and practices, became institutionalized within the structures of the state and state–society relations. Chapter 2 frames the argument that is presented here. It first discusses some of the existing scholarship on state formation and statehood in the Middle East and North Africa. It then considers the relationship between the history of state formation in Europe and the conceptualization of modern statehood in political science, international relations, and development studies. Chapter 2 argues that the state, as it is defined, framed, and conceptualized in universal terms, exists as a standard of civilization.

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It further contends that this conceptualization emerges from a particular European history, a history that provides the reference point for the nineteenth-century standard of civilization and contemporary practices of development and state-building. By considering the conceptual development of the state as being historically unique, it is possible to question the application of a supposed universal framework of modern statehood to the global south, and specifically, the post-colonial state in the Middle East. Chapter 3 explores the application of the principle of equality in lieu of the customary principle of tolerance. Where equality was seen as necessary in relation to the modern state, particularly with regard to state–society relations and the development of citizenship; tolerance was perceived, by the European powers, as a customary foundation of governance that inhibited the central authority of the state. The inability to apply reforms concerning the principle of equality in a manner that was considered acceptable was perceived as a marker of difference and evidence of the Ottoman Empire’s ‘self-incurred immaturity’. This evidence was further supported by the failure of sectarian communities to adjust to their altered social–political relations and, ultimately, with each other. This chapter further notes the domestic consequences of the relevant reforms, particularly in relation to the application of equality and its effect on religious communal relations. Chapter 4 examines how the standard of civilization and, specifically, the failure of the Ottoman Empire to produce the appropriate outcomes from the civilizing process facilitated and justified the racialization of religious groups. The European powers, mainly France, argued that the underdevelopment of the Ottoman Empire was a result of Muslim barbarism and fanaticism, an inherent trait that suppressed the development and natural civilized status of Christian communities. Through this process of racialization that attached social characteristics as a biological, or inherent, condition related to creed, Muslims were characterized as barbaric, fanatical, and underdeveloped, while Christian communities were considered the ‘civilizational cousins’ to the European powers; justifying European interference and interventions on their behalf. In this context, France justified their close political and economic relations with Christian, and particularly Catholic, communities. Similarly, Russia had formed relations and alliances with the Christian Orthodox communities. The development of racial hierarchies based on assumptions of ethnosectarianism contributed to the development of political contestation related to European alliances with, primarily, Christian communities. The

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notion of racial difference further became embedded in the development of a distinct Lebanese national conscience, particularly with the notion of Phoenician history; facilitating justifications of separateness based on a historical civilizational difference. With the process of racialization placing emphasis on identity markers and the pressure placed on the Ottoman Empire to engage in modernization reforms in the nineteenth century, there was a changing dynamic between territory, identity, and governance. In the first instance, discussed in Chapter 5, the territorialization of Mount Lebanon split authority and governance between the Maronite and Druze communities. This altered intercommunal relations by dividing the populations and systems of governance erasing practices of shared governance in Mount Lebanon. In addition to the transforming relations between territory, identity, and governance in Mount Lebanon, having particular consequences for the development of a national conception of Greater Lebanon, more explicit reforms were also developed; including the Land Code of 1858. This reform was an attempt to modernize land tenure throughout the Ottoman Empire, bringing the Empire into closer alignment with European states, and facilitating the development of governance through territorial organization. Although this reform was developed to facilitate order and governance, to territorialize the population through formal ownership, it also skewed domestic relations by providing political and economic elites the opportunity to extend their influence into new geographies. Pressure from European states also necessitated Ottoman imperial expansion by formalizing control over the sedentary and nomadic tribes. This was done to ensure that control over these territories would be maintained by the Sublime Porte, and that resource extraction from these territories and populations could be secured. Increased European interference and intervention in the Ottoman Empire led to growing sentiments of alienation and dissatisfaction among the populations in the Syrian provinces. This was particularly due to the enforcement of the principle of equality, the process of racialization, sectarian alliance formation, and the application of modernization reforms (Makdisi 2002, p. 771; Ayubi 1995, pp. 21–23). Discussed in Chapter 6 is how this discontent led to violent forms of resistance; particularly among the Muslim communities in the nineteenth century, and later with regard to the French mandate. While violence as a form of resistance was used in various contexts to resist European encroachments and the transforming political and economic realities between religious

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communities, it failed to procure the desired ends of those engaged in violence. Covered in this chapter are the dynamics and the results of the Aleppo Uprising of 1850, the Damascus Massacre of 1860, Faisal’s Revolt, and the Druze Revolt of 1925. The failures of violent engagement to dislodge European interference led to further European, and in particular, French interventions, resulting in increased dissatisfaction. Further interventions in the Syrian provinces were justified by violent engagement, which was considered to be the evidence of a Muslim inability to engage in civilization. Resistance, however, is complex, and was not solely observable in relation to violence. Discussed in Chapter 7, nationalism, as part of the nineteenth-century global transformations, became increasingly prominent in the Ottoman Empire as a form of resistance. In the first instance, the Young Ottomans were engaged in a political strategy that sought to merge customary identity markers with aspects of modernity, including the establishment of state institutions. Constructing their movement in relation to European norms of civilized engagement and statehood, they mobilized Islamic identity markers as a point of difference. By engaging with, and acquiescing to, European standards or benchmarks, the Young Ottomans attempted to resist continued European interference and interventions by engaging in the discourses, norms, and structures of modernity. Although the Young Ottomans failed to successfully resist continued European interference and intervention, they managed to make social and political inroads. In particular, they were foundational for the development of the Young Turk movement and the Syrian and Arab nationalists. However, while the Young Turks, and Syrian and Arab nationalists were attempting to resist European interference, they were also positioned against each other, often relying on the racial characterizations to resist each other’s demands. These nationalist movements were not only mobilizing political programs, but also ethnic identity markers with the aim of making legitimate claims to statehood. Despite attempts to engage in what was perceived as civilized progress, the national movements were continuously denied autonomy. The standard of civilization, as it was applied to the Ottoman Empire and, subsequently, to the French mandates of Lebanon and Syria, produced a set of material and immaterial benchmarks. As such, the populations were required to accede to a set of socio-political norms as well as apply modernization reforms that replicated the institutions and structures of statehood in Europe. However, and as discussed in Chapter 8, the

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standard of civilization became intertwined with the interests of European states. Because the civilizing project and modernization reforms, being the products of a standard of civilization, could not be divorced from political and economic interests, the standard that was required of the Ottoman Empire, Lebanon, and Syria continued to shift. The result was the continued subordination of the Ottoman Empire and the Syrian provinces, the continuation of the civilizing project, and—as such—the continued application of imperial interference and intervention. This is evident throughout the Tanzimat period as well as the French mandate period. By arguing that the state in Lebanon and Syria, and—more broadly— the post-colonial state, is the result of a standard of civilization, it begin a critical reassessment and reconceptualization of statehood. The concluding chapter of this book, Chapter 9, provides an engaged discussion on the importance of taking history seriously in political science and international relations. In doing so, and as argued in the conclusion, it is possible to understand how global structures resulting in the production of the state and classifications of statehood were developed as a result of the global transformations of the nineteenth century. By tethering contemporary global dynamics concerning statehood to these histories, it becomes evident that, despite intentions, coloniality is reproduced.

Works Cited Anghie, Antony. 2002. Colonialism and the Birth of International Institutions: Sovereignty, Economy, and the Mandate System of the League of Nations. New York University Journal of International Law and Politics 34: 513–633. Asad, Muhammad. 1980. The Principles of State and Government in Islam. Kuala Lumpur: Islamic Book Trust. Ashman, Sam. 2009. Capitalism, Uneven and Combined Development and the Transhistoric. Cambridge Review of International Affairs 22 (1): 29–46. Ayubi, Nazih N. 1995. Overstating the Arab State: Politics and Society in the Middle East. London: I.B. Tauris. Belge, Ceren. 2013. Seeing the State: Kinship Networks and Kurdish Resistance in Early Republican Turkey. In The Everyday Life of the State: A State in Society Approach, ed. Adam White, 14–29. Seattle: University of Washington Press. Bellamy, Alex J. 2008. The Responsibility to Protect and the Problem of Military Intervention. International Affairs 84 (4): 615–639.

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Bowden, Brett. 2004. In the Name of Progress and Peace: The ‘Standard of Civilization’ and the Universalizing Project. Alternatives: Global, Local, Political 49 (1): 43–68. Broome, André, and Joel Quirk. 2015. Governing the World at a Distance: The Practice of Global Benchmarking. Review of International Studies 41 (5): 819–841. Bryman, Alan. 2004. Social Research Methods. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Buzan, Barry. 2014. The ‘Standard of Civilization’ as an English School Concept. Millennium: Journal of International Studies 42 (3): 576–594. Buzan, Barry, and George Lawson. 2015. The Global Transformation: History, Modernity and the Making of International Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Callinicos, Alex, and Justin Rosenberg. 2008. Uneven and Combined Development: The Social-Relational Substratum of ‘the International’? An Exchange of Letters, Review of International Affairs 21 (1): 77–112. Clapham, Christopher. 1998. Degrees of Statehood. Review of International Studies 24 (2): 143–157. de Carvalho, Benjamin, Halvard Leira, and John M. Hobson. 2011. The Big Bangs of IR: The Myths That Your Teachers Still Tell You About 1648 and 1919. Millennium Journal of International Studies 39 (3): 735–758. DeGannes Scott, Bernice. 1995. Arrested Development: The Economic Legacy of European Expansion and Colonialism in the Caribbean. The Western Journal of Black Studies 19 (3): 196–201. Donnelly, Jack. 1998. Human Rights: A New Standard of Civilization? International Affairs 74 (1): 1–24. Doyle, Michael. 1996. Kant, Liberal Legacies and Foreign Affairs. In Debating the Democratic Peace, ed. Michael E. Brown, Sean M. Lynn-Jones, and Steven E. Miller. Cambridge: MIT Press. Dryzek, John S. 2006. Deliberative Global Politics: Discourse and Democracy in a Divided World. Cambridge: Polity. Easterly, William. 2006. The White Man’s Burden. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Eisenstadt, S.N. 1993. The Political Systems of Empires. London: Transaction Publishers. Fanon, Frantz. 2001. The Wretched of the Earth, trans. Constance Farrington. London: Penguin Classics. Fidler, David P. 2001. The Return of the Standard of Civilization. Chicago Journal of International Law 2 (1): 137–157. Fortna, Benjamin. 2013. The Ottoman Empire and After: From a State of ‘Nations’ to ‘Nation States’. In State-Nationalisms in the Ottoman Empire, Greece and Turkey: Orthodox and Muslims, 1830–1945, ed. Benjamin Fortna,

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Stefanos Katsikas, Dimitris Kamouzis, and Paraskevas Konortas, 1–13. New York: Routledge. Foucault, Michel. 1995. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York: Vintage Books. Galula, David. 1964. Counter-Insurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice. London: Praeger. Germond-Duret, Celine. 2016. Tradition and Modernity: An Obsolete Dichotomy? Binary Thinking, Indigenous Peoples and Normalisation, Third World Quarterly 37 (9): 1537–1558. Ghani, Ashraf, and Clare Lockhart. 2009. Fixing Failed States: A Framework for Rebuilding a Fractured World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gong, Gerrit W. 1984. The Standard of Civilization in International Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Grant, Thomas D. 1999. Defining Statehood: The Montevideo Convention and Its Discontents. Columbia Journal of International Law 37 (2): 403–458. Gunder-Frank, Andre. 1966. The Development of Underdevelopment. Monthly Review 18 (4): 17–31. Halperin, Sandra, and Ronen Palan. 2015. Introduction: Legacies of Empire. In Legacies of Empire: Imperial Roots of the Global Contemporary Order, ed. Sandra Halperin and Ronen Palan, 1–25. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hampel, Karl Adalbert. 2015. The Dark(er) Side of ‘State Failure’: State Formation and Socio-Political Variation. Third World Quarterly 36 (9): 1629–1648. Hefner, Robert. 1998. Multiple Modernities: Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism in a Globalizing Age. Annual Review of Anthropology 27 (1): 83–104. Hobson, John M. 2004. The Eastern Origins of Western Civilization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hobson, John M. 2012. The Eurocentric Conception of World Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hooper, Charlotte. 2001. Manly states: Masculinities, International Relations, and Gender Politics. New York: Columbia University Press. Jones, Branwen Gruffydd. 2008. Introduction: International Relations, Eurocentrism, and Imperialism. In Decolonizing International Relations, ed. Branwen Gruffydd Jones, 1–22. Plymouth: Rowman & Littlefield. Jones, Branwen Gruffydd. 2013. ‘Good Governance’ and ‘State Failure’: Genealogies of Imperial Discourse. Cambridge Review of International Affairs 26 (1): 49–70. Kertzer, David I. 1988. Ritual, Politics, and Power. New Haven: Yale University Press. Krippendorff, Klaus. 2004. Content Analysis: An Introduction to its Methodology. London: Sage Publications.

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Lamarck, Jean Baptiste. 1914. Zoological Philosophy: An Exposition with Regard to the Natural History of Animals, trans. Hugh Elliot. London: Macmillan. Lazzeri, Christian. 1995. Introduction. In L’intérêt des princes et des États de la chrétienté, ed. Henri de Rohan. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Levander, Caroline, and Walter Mignolo. 2011. Introduction: The Global South and World Dis/order. The Global South 5 (1): 1–11. Linklater, Andrew. 2002. Towards a Critical Historical Sociology of Transnational Harm. In Historical Sociology of International Relations, ed. Stephen Hobden and John Hobson, 162–180. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Linklater, Andrew. 2016a. The ‘Standard of Civilisation’ in World Politics. Social Character, Historical Processes 5 (2). Linklater, Andrew. 2016b. Violence and Civilization in the Western States-Systems. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. MacFarlane, Alan. 1992. Ernest Gellner and the Escape to Modernity. In Transition to Modernity, ed. John A. Hall and I.C. Jarvie, 121–136. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mahoney, James, and Dietrich Rueschemeyer. 2003. Comparative Historical Analysis in the Social Sciences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Makdisi, Ussama. 2002. Ottoman Orientalism. The American Historical Review 107 (3): 768–796. Menon, Rajan. 2016. The Conceit of Humanitarian Intervention. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Miller, Paul D. 2013. Armed State Building: Confronting State Failure, 1898– 2012. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Mitzen, Jennifer. 2013. Power in Concert: The Nineteenth-Century Origins of Global Governance. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Mohanty, Chandra Talpade. 1984. Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses. Boundary 2 12 (3): 333–358. Morgenthau, Hans J. 2005. Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace. Boston: McGraw Hill. Muppidi, Himadeep. 2004. Colonial and Postcolonial Global Governance. In Power in Global Governance, ed. Michael Barnett and Raymond Duvall, 273– 293. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Owens, Patricia. 2015. Economy of Force: Counterinsurgency and the Historic Rise of the Social. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Patrick, Stewart. 2006. Weak States and Global Threats: Fact or Fiction? The Washington Quarterly 29 (2): 27–53. Patten, Alan. 1999. Hegel’s Idea of Freedom. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Quijano, Aníbal. 2000. Coloniality of Power: Eurocentrism and Latin America. Nepantla: Views from South 1 (3): 533–580. Rice, Susan E., and Stewart Patrick. 2008. Index of State Weakness in the Developing World. Washington: Brookings Institution.

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Rosenberg, Justin. 2010. Basic Problems in the Theory of Uneven and Combined Development: Part II—Unevenness and Political Multiplicity. Cambridge Review of International Affairs 23 (1): 165–189. Rotberg, Robert I. 2004. The Failure and Collapse of Nation States: Breakdown, Prevention, and Repair. In When States Fail: Causes and Consequences, ed. Robert I. Rotberg, 1–50. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Rowlinson, Michael. 2004. Historical Analysis of Company Documents. In Essential Guide to Qualitative Methods in Organizational Research, ed. Catherine Cassell and Gilian Symon, 301–312. London: Sage Publications. Said, Edward. 1978. Orientalism: Western Conceptions of the Orient. New York: Pantheon. Saouli, Adham. 2012. The Arab State: Dilemmas of Late Formation. New York: Routledge. Sassen, Saskia, and Aihwa Ong. 2014. Assemblage Thinking and International Relations. In Reassembling International Theory: Assemblage Thinking and International Relations, ed. Michelle Acuto and Simon Curtis, 17–24. New York: Palgrave. Scott, James C. 1998. Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. New Haven: Yale University Press. Sen, Amartya. 1999. Development as Freedom. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sitaraman, Ganesh. 2012. The Counterinsurgent’s Constitution: Law in the Age of Small Wars. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Stearns, Peter. 2007. The Industrial Revolution in World History. Boulder: Westview Press. ˙ Sunar, Ilkay. 1987. State and Economy in the Ottoman Empire. In The Ottoman ˙ ˙ Empire and the World-Economy, ed. Huri Islamo˘ glu-Inan, 63–87. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tibi, Bassam. 1971. Arab Nationalism: A Critical Enquiry, ed. and trans. by Marion Farouk-Sluglett and Peter Sluglet. London: Macmillan Press. Tucker, Karen. 2018. Unraveling Coloniality in International Relations: Knowledge, Relationality, and Strategies for Engagement. International Political Sociology 12 (3): 215–232. van de Haar, Edwin. 2009. Liberalism and International Relations Theory. In Classical Liberalism and International Relations Theory, ed. Edwin van de Haar. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Wallerstein, Immanuel. 2007. World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Wallerstein, Immanuel, Hale Decdeli, and Resat Kasaba. 1987. The Incorporation of the Ottoman Empire into the World-Economy. In The ˙ ˙ Ottoman Empire and the World-Economy, ed. Huri Islamo˘ glu-Inan, 88–100. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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CHAPTER 2

The Standards of Civilization and the Production of Statehood

The global transformations of the nineteenth century, a result of the Enlightenment and industrialization, led to an expansion of European influence and hegemony. Central to this expansion was the formation of the modern state (Vu 2010), facilitated by central governmental organization, allowing for better control of the economy and military, enabling European global influence. Based on these developments and the related immaterial and material advances of statehood, the European modern state became the evidence of human social and political progress. This provided justifications for practices of domination over polities considered less progressed, customary, traditional, or backwards. The modern state, as a standard of civilization, became the rational ordering principle, replacing forms of household governance that were considered traditional (Owens 2015; Engels 2010; Thomas 2001; Mansel 2010). Its production in the global south was viewed as necessary in order to be considered a recognized actor, able to engage in the frameworks of international law. Although the modern state in Europe has provided order and organization, transforming global politics from the late eighteenth century onwards, it was not a result of conscious efforts. Yet, its conceptualization, despite developing from happenstance histories, is often discussed as ordinary and prevailing; a normative framing of politics that exists de facto, and a natural or organic means to organize society. By situating the © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 A. Delatolla, Civilization and the Making of the State in Lebanon and Syria, Middle East Today, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57690-5_2

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modern state, and its specific conceptualization emergent from European histories of state formation, as a fact of nature or an organic development of civilization, statehood has become a constant standard applied globally throughout history. This chapter discusses some of the scholarship on state formation in the Middle East before historicizing the European modern state by exploring discussions concerning state formation. By exploring the dynamics of state formation in Europe, it is possible to draw connections between these histories and the conceptualization of statehood. This chapter then considers how these conceptualizations, tied to specific and unique histories, form the basis for the production and deployment of benchmarks associated with statehood. From this discussion, it is then possible to engage in the overarching critique of statehood, in its dominant framing, as universal. The assumptions that the modern state, as it is conceptualized in political science and international relations, is universal, provides the foundation to apply it as a standard of civilization. Here, the notion that failure to engage in knowledges and practices of statehood that mimic the state in Europe is a result of socio-political, civilizational, and cultural deficiencies, requiring interference and intervention, institution building, and continued development is further explored. Referencing the discussion in the introduction, this chapter continues to build the argument that the state is produced as a standard of civilization, noting the relationship this standard has with the post-colonial state.

Theories and Histories of State Formation in the Middle East The histories of state formation in the Middle East and North Africa tend to refer to the emergence of independent and sovereign states in relation to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the developments of the First World War (Halliday 2005, pp. 76, 87). For example, Adham Saouli (2012, pp. 36–39) considers how the relative weakness of the Ottoman Empire in relation to the European modern state system contributed to the state formation process. Similarly, Fred Halliday (2005, p. 86) points to the period of 1918–1939 as being crucial to internal developments of the state in the region. While these histories are important, they need to be critically contextualized. First, by beginning the story of state formation in the Middle East during this period, we become trapped by a Eurocentric timeline that coincides with an international liberal

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politic that is assumed to be universal. Second, by locating the intellectual starting point of state formation in relation to Ottoman decline and European strength, assumptions of comparative weakness on a linear scale of development and progress are reproduced.1 By questioning the temporal process of modern state formation, tracing it to the global transformations of the early nineteenth century and in the context of these comparisons—particularly with regard to assumptions of ‘weakness’, it is possible to reframe the Ottoman modernization period as structurally and institutionally important for the development of modern states as being embedded in coloniality. Whereby the Mandate project of the early twentieth century can be framed as a continuation colonialism that reapplied the civilizing project (Anghie 2002, 2006). That is not to say that Halliday (2005), Saouli (2012), Mohammed Ayoob (1996), and Raymond Hinnebusch (2003, 2010), have not dealt with the historical dynamics of the Ottoman Empire and consequences of empire and colonialism, but that their temporal and contextual focus and engagement with the ‘state’, as a concept, is different from the framing of this book. While Halliday (2005, pp. 86–90) focused on a generalist account of state formation that placed national and institutional developments in the interwar years as essential, Saouli (2012, pp. 9– 23) examined the state as a process that emerged from the social field. Specifically, Saouli examines cycles of conflict, resistance, and domination that have foregrounded the social constitution of the state as it relates to material structure, cultural structure, political structure, and institutions. Ayoob (1996, pp. 67–86), on the other hand, discusses the process of state formation as developing, in parallel to modernization, in stages, and being encumbered by contemporary political and technological contexts. Similarly, and in reference to the scholarship on democratization, Hinnebusch (2010, pp. 201–214) has examined the historical sociological process of state formation in relation to regime type, tracing the political histories of authority structures and contextualizing them within the context of existing social structures and international positions. This builds on his previous scholarship, where Hinnebusch (2003, pp. 73–91) considers the consequences of imperial state-building efforts, but discusses this history in relation to four identifiable stages, beginning in 1920 and ending in the early 2000s. 1 Karen Barkey (2008) discusses the scholarship on the Ottoman Empire’s demise, refuting the ‘decline narrative’ as Eurocentric.

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Divergent from the above-mentioned studies, the starting point of this book challenges the notion that the position that the Ottoman Empire was of ‘weakness’. It critiques this position as one that emerges from a European position that engaged in comparison under the assumption that development and progress is linear and path-dependent. Here, weakness was a characteristic that only existed in comparison to European ‘strength’. By engaging in such comparisons, civilizational hierarchies have been reproduced, continuing to privilege a framing of European exceptionalism and Ottoman barbarism and fanaticism. Indeed, ‘weakness’ was not inherent to the Ottoman Empire, but was a constructed comparative feature that had practical ramifications, where the Ottoman Empire was viewed as ‘less civilized’ and unable to engage with European states in an equal manner. As such, the Ottoman Empire was increasingly becoming subject to an expansive European state system, one that it had not been granted full membership to as a sovereign entity. With regard to this system, the Ottoman Empire was not free from interference and intervention and was treated as a subordinate power (Barkey 2008). Notably, this position was upheld by coercive practices and racist ideological orderings of the world (Linklater 2016; Buzan and Lawson 2015; Hobson 2004; 2012; Vitalis 2015; Mitzen 2013). The subordinate position of the Ottoman Empire in relation to European states reflected the dynamic of nineteenth-century modern expansion: to bring societies out of the darkness through the development of a rational ordering of society, by the governance of public affairs, and the ‘exit from self-incurred immaturity’ (Immanuel Kant quoted in Deligiorgi 2002, p. 154). While considerations of the relational position of the Ottoman Empire are made central in this book, another point of diversion from the argument presented here is Halliday’s focus on the acceleration of internal state-making from 1918 to 1939. Although Halliday (2005, p. 90) discusses the impact of colonialism and its embedded effects on the Middle East, what Saouli (2012, pp. 36–39) examines as path-dependent ‘historical structuralism’, there is little discussion of how specific colonial practices translated into statehood, impacting the state formation process. For example, although Saouli remarks that ‘the Middle Eastern state was born in an international structure not of its own choosing’ (2012, p. 37), he further states that ‘in Lebanon, the state was established on the basis of power distribution among the country’s sectarian communities’ and ‘became socially ingrained structures that determined and shaped the politics of that country’. While neither of these statements are false, the

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prevalence of sectarianism as ‘socially ingrained’, or overriding ‘any other socio-economic forms of protest’ (2012, p. 25), is the partial result of sectarian institutionalization and its historical relationship with racist hierarchies that had social, political, and economic consequences, discussed in Chapters 3 and 4. It therefore becomes important to investigate the logics of sectarianism in relation to the practices that enabled their institutionalization within the state, especially in the context of the interwar period that coincides with the Mandate project of the League of Nations. The interwar period is often discussed as the focal point to understand the state formation process, with some exceptions—including Saouli’s discussion of Saudi Arabia (2012, pp. 70–76). However, by focusing on the interwar period, longer histories of modernity are ignored. Mohammed Ayoob, for example, notes that ‘“third world” statemakers […] cannot afford the luxury of prolonging the traumatic and costly experience of state-making over hundreds of years à la Western Europe’ (1996, p. 72). Here, and in relation to the argument presented throughout this book, there are two issues occurring simultaneously. First, while Ayoob finds fault in comparing the process of state formation in Western Europe with that of the global south, or ‘third world’, he reinforces a particular conceptualization of what the state is and is not. This, inadvertently, strengthens a specific conceptual framing of statehood, which reflects the particular knowledges and practices of modern statehood in Europe; upholding this framework as the standard to be achieved. Second, there is an ahistorical abstraction that is occurring. This ahistoricity implies that the Middle East region had not undergone ‘hundreds of years’ of ‘traumatic and costly experience of state-making’ (Ayoob 1996, p. 72). The historiography of the region does, in fact, tell us otherwise; that the making (and unmaking) of polities had occurred, it was costly and, indeed, traumatic. However, following from Eisenstadt’s (1993, p. 3) argument about different types of political systems developing from different social conditions, it can be argued that while conflict resulting in structural and institutional governance did not parallel that of the modern state in the Europe, modern statehood in the Middle East emerged from a combination, or assemblage, of pre-existing structures, logics, and institutions and those that are closely tethered to notions of modernity and the modern state. Here, it is not so much that the Middle East is absent of histories of the ‘traumatic and costly experience of state-making’ but that the social, political, and economic knowledges

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and practices were different, as discussed in Chapter 3. In relation to this argument, this book traces some of the aspects of modernity and the knowledges and practices of modern statehood as it affected the outcomes of statehood in Lebanon and Syria. Examining the relationship between and assembled nature of premodern and modern knowledges and practices of social, political, and economic engagement, Bassam Tibi (1990) considers how histories of tribalism have interacted with and were transformed by ‘the externally imposed new pattern of [the] nation-state’ (Tibi 1990, p. 147). This imposed pattern of statehood, Tibi argues, ‘mobilized two kinds of forces: a unifying nationalism and divisive tribalism’, with the former being ‘the “imported” idea of the nation-state’ and the latter, an historical precedent—although exacerbated by colonial powers, its networks remained prevalent and adapted to the nation-state. Here, Tibi references Philip Khoury (1987) who considers how the post-colonial state in Syria was seized by ‘Alawite tribes’; where tribalistic Alawite patron–client relations were established on and within a ‘weak’ state structure (Tibi 1990, p. 148). Yet, as discussed by Khoury, the ‘weak’ state structure is the result of a particular history that cuts through customary Ottoman structures and institutions (1987, p. 13); Ottoman modernization; French, British, and Russian interference; the French Mandate; and the domestic responses to each of these aspects. While the argument in this book does not focus on tribalism as a customary set of knowledges and practices that were foundational, from which the nation-state was assembled onto, it does build on Tibi’s view that the nation-state, or modern state, was a pattern, a set of knowledges and practices, that were imposed on pre-existing structures (1990, p. 147). This dynamic is referenced by Sati’ al-Husri, a prominent Arab nationalist, born in the late nineteenth century in Sana’a, Yemen to an Aleppine family. While al-Husri discussed the state in a manner that reflected a European conceptualization of the nation-state, his writings were not simply a product of colonial indoctrination or knowledge reproduction, but a reflection of his intellectual and material environment. Al-Husri’s worldview was established as a form of resistance to the oppressive experience of modernity, his writings propagated ideas of unity among the Arabs while arguing for sovereign rights based on a great

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civilizational history to justify the end of European interference (Khalidi 1991; Kenny 1963).2 Although al-Husri desired the establishment of an Arab state, he argued that the formation of a modern state system through the European Mandate was a ‘Pandora’s Box’ that would divide the Arab nation and leave it ‘[…] subject to all the evils of the world’ (Tibi 1971, p. 116; Mansfield 2013, pp. 1–71). Al-Husri’s opposition was not only based on the threat of physical division, but the threat of centralized bureaucratic governance on a nation that could be subdivided in multiple ways, threatening the possibility of exclusion, and severing the multiple centres of authority that provided sources of political authority and legitimacy to different customary groups and networks. Similar to al-Husri’s rejection of European interference and the creation of modern states in the Arab territories, Nazih Ayubi argued that the structures and institutions of the modern state alienated the Arab populations, particularly those situated in the lower economic classes. The modern centralized institutions of the state dislocated a considerable proportion of society by failing to reflect the political, economic, and social customs of the population (Ayubi 1995, pp. 21–23). For this reason, this book examines and traces, from the beginning of the Ottoman reform period in the early nineteenth century, the modern state-making process. While parallels between the function of modern states and historic polities can be made, including, for example, Egypt, Persia, Mesopotamia, in making these parallels there is an assumption that polities are closely linked together by an ongoing system of governance and society framed by the concept of modern statehood. However, as argued here, this assumption is ahistorical. While these parallels highlight the relationship between society and the dynasty as incredibly important to the continuation of a polity (Khaldun 1967, pp. 263–295), society, was—and is—not an organization independent of its larger contexts. As such, society intersects with religious, political, economic, military, and cultural spheres to produce difference in relation to relations and structures of governance (Baali 1988, p. 31). These intersecting aspects, like with any society, produced various social groups and networks, or what is referred to as ‘asabiyyah’. The latter, often translated as ‘social solidarity’ or ‘group feeling’ (Khaldun 1967, pp. 263–295, 25; Baali 1988, pp. 43–44). While it 2 Frantz Fanon (2001) also discusses how these knowledges are turned against colonial powers.

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can be argued that this parallels Joel Migdal’s approach to statehood, to argue that they produce the statehood as it is understood in contemporary definitions and discussions, is problematic. Migdal argues that the state is a field of power marked by the use and threat of violence [it is] shaped by 1) the image of a coherent, controlling organization in a territory, which is a representation of the people bounded by that territory, and 2) the actual practices of its multiple parts. (2001, pp. 15–16)

However, as argued by Muhammad Asad (1980, pp. 18–23), there is a particular historical experience of modern statehood, which gives the concept its unique and particular meaning and usage. Migdal’s discussion of statehood is fixed in a context of domestic legal governance that relies on institutional and structural formality, modern international law, sovereignty, and recognition. Where the ‘asabiyyah’, according to Leila Fawaz, was a communalism based on ‘family, clan, village, or city quarter’ it ordered society and provided a source of authority, it ‘dominated one’s worldview rather than larger social or political affiliations’, and its maintenance in the greater political context was necessary for leadership (2014, p. 9). Its importance and informality was, and continues to be, considered distinctly unmodern. While similarities and parallels are superficially apparent between premodern polities and modern states, the latter became tied to notions of sovereignty, recognition, and consent, emergent from a specific and particular history of European state formation. For this reason, as previously stated, it is important to contextualize the conceptual development and mobilization of the state and statehood as distinctly modern, encompassing the elements of modernity, including race, nationalism, rationality, progress, and development—specific knowledges bound in specific practices. As argued in this book, it is therefore necessary to ‘know’ the modern state in the Middle East by understanding the logics and practices of imperial and colonial engagements. As such, it is not about deconstructing the dichotomy between the West and East, the Occident and the Orient, but recognizing modern statehood as a civilizing project that transformed societies and polities into assembled formations that continuously need to be ‘fixed’ in relation to the conceptual framing of the modern state.

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European State Formation: Historicizing the Conceptual Foundations Modern Statehood The modern state, as discussed throughout this section, is, in many ways, a unique political entity. The way that the modern state is conceptualized, defined, and practiced substantiates the state as a primary actor, one that is generalizable and universal.3 However, the framework of statehood— how it is conceptualized, defined, and practiced—follows from a tradition embedded in European history. While the state has been transmitted globally by means of imperialism and colonialism, it remains subject to a Western framework. The assumption that the state is universal and that the state in the West is the most progressed and developed has underscored the dominance of Western frameworks of political science and international relations, and specifically with regard to policies concerned with state-building and development. However, the origins of modern European states are unique, as are the origins of the post-colonial state. Discussed in this section is the history, development, and universalizing of the modern state. This section considers the debates on how to define the state (Engels 2010; Bourdieu 2012; Vincent 1987; Lomas 2014), the role of the state in society (Leenders 2012; Rubenstein 2015; Holsti 1996), and its role in the international state system (Sen 1999; Menon 2016; Wimmer 2012). The assumptions that are perpetuated and reproduced in the ongoing debates on the modern state, posit that the modern state is the central actor in international relations and political science. The theoretical inquiries on the state, from the various tenets of realism, liberalism, Marxism, and—at times—post-colonialism are based on the assumption that the state is central; a universal structure that organizes the means of production, monopolizes the use of force, and is capable of participating in the international state system (Weber 1946; Waltz 1979; Mearsheimer 2001; Bull 1977; Hobson 2000; Bhabha 1994; Bhambra 2007; Said 1978). From these assertions, the state is analysed as a product of, and shaped by, both the international and domestic environments. With regard to the former, the state functions and pursues certain decisions due to the environment of systemic anarchy, as argued by realists, or with regard to its position in international society, according to English School 3 This is particularly evident in neo-realist theoretical frameworks of international relations (see Waltz 1979, 1990, 2001).

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scholars (Waltz 1979; Mearsheimer 2001; Bull 1977). On the other hand, the state is also discussed as a product of a domestic society, where groups—tribal, religious, ethnic, linguistic, political, and economic—form alliances and come into conflict to produce governance that directs state decision-making (Saouli 2012, p. 13; Migdal 2001). As such, the modern state exists as the domestic organizing mechanism of society, politics, and the economy. The state as the domestic organizing mechanism relies on a number of aspects ranging from institutions, economic controls, state–society relations, cultural production, and identity. While it is argued here that the state emerged from a unique European history, the varied and interlinked aspects that facilitate social, political, and economic organization are different within each state. Despite the different institutions and structures of organization, the premise of statehood in the international context maintains one common assumption: that each individual modern state maintains similar-enough characteristics (Hobson 2000). In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, a polity was only recognized as a state by other states in the international system if the polity was able to engage in a form of domestic governance akin to the European state. This test was continuously justified by a set of assumptions related to the mythologizing of the Peace of Westphalia (1648). According to Henry Snow, the Peace of Westphalia formed a community of ‘the civilized world […] composed of a body of states wholly independent and only morally bound by such agreements as they might choose to make, for such time as they might choose to keep them’ (1912, p. 891). This myth of statehood, reinforced the notion that the European state was the pinnacle of civilization. As the most developed and advanced global polity, the modern state in Europe was the model for the underdeveloped and less advanced polities to achieve. Only when an exogenous polity was considered able to join ‘the civilized world’ would they be granted recognition as a state, able to engage in international law. In addition to reinforcing the idea that the European state represented civilizational advancement, a condition that was required of other polities to reproduce, the myth concerning the Peace of Westphalia established a community of nations and emphasized the authority and independence of leaders in Europe. The combination of community and independence, as stated by Sebastian Schmidt, ‘were strange bedfellows’ (2011, p. 607). The independence of the European state was bound to, and restricted by, a set of communal agreements. Here, the independence of the modern

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state was subject to and dependent on others; a tacit agreement between a community. From this understanding of independence, mutually recognized independence, and bound to assumptions of civilization, the Treaty of Westphalia—it is argued—laid the groundwork for the principle of sovereignty as a cornerstone of modern statehood. Despite emphasis placed on this history in political science and international relations as being the origins of sovereignty and modern statehood, it is not accurate. Although an important moment in history, its relationship to sovereignty and modern statehood is not evident. The myth quickly disintegrates when considering the details and histories of the Treaties of Münster and Osnabrück, which did not entail an agreement of state recognition or sovereignty (Croxton 1999; Osiander 2001). Rather, Westphalia can be more accurately described as a functional narrative that facilitated ideas of European advancement, development, progress, and comradery. Rather than considering the modern state as having its origins in the resulting peace between Protestant states and the Holy Roman Empire, Charles Tilly focused on war as an organizing and ordering factor. According to Tilly, war-making necessitated the development of taxation to pay for a standing army that was centrally controlled. The necessity of a standing army, as argued by Tilly, was crucial to ensure governance and control over existing territories and populations, as well as engage in possible expansion (Coles 1957, p. 340). The development of institutionalized resource extraction and redistribution facilitated the development of the state as territorially delineated, ordering and organizing the population within the given territory, and provided means to structural development and government (Tilly 1992; Kiser and Linton 2001). Here, the realities of conflict in early modern Europe led to innovations related to statehood, laying the institutional and structural foundations for further development into the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Other scholars, including Hendrik Spruyt and Philip S. Gorski consider the relationship between the modern state and socio-cultural aspects. Using the case of pre-1400 France, Spruyt emphasizes the role of French Capetian Kings (987–1328), who along with the burghers and acquiescence of nobility, favoured authority structures built around territorial boundaries and ownership. Feudal elites and the clergy, however, preferred authority governed by personal ties and lineage. According to Spruyt, competition between the two groups was sufficient for centralization to occur; fostering unique national identities that helped in the

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establishment of the modern state (Spruyt 1994, pp. 31, 95). Although Spruyt considers the role of the clergy, who sought to fulfil a specific set of political interests, Philip S. Gorski argues that it was not the interests of religious men, but the importance of a Protestant value system that maintained a robust and comprehensive hierarchy which led to the institutional development of the state. Focusing on Calvinism in the seventeenth century Holland, Gorski argues that religion had a significant role in how Dutch capitalism and society was structured, impacting the development and efficiency of state structures (Gorski 2003). Yet the degree to which Spruyt and Gorski’s arguments can be generalized is debatable. This is not to say that what is described by Spruyt and Gorski did not have an effect on the development of the modern state in France and Netherlands. Instead, Tilly’s explanation points to a larger, regional, phenomenon that was occurring, impacting the development of a political-culture that was based on modern statehood (Goddard 2002; Abed 1995; Tessler 2002). While it is necessary to understand how unique local socio-cultural elements effected individual modern states as a means to understand the political cultures of those states, the modern state as a concept needs to be understood within a wider historicization of Europe, as Tilly does. The modern state, and by extension, the European state system— a precursor to the international state system4 —was unique to European history, becoming globalized in the nineteenth century. From the historical experience of European state formation as a global exception, a particular set of knowledges and practices concerning modern statehood, domestically and internationally were produced (Branch 2012; Tilly 1992). Indeed, an association between civility, civilization, rationality, and progress developed in relation to the modern state. As such, it was not only the institutions and structures of statehood—centralized governance, taxation, constitutional rights, to name a few—that were required in order for recognition, but for the polities in question to meet the immaterial, subjective, standards of civility, civilization, rationality, and progress associated with society and culture. The history of these benchmarks and standards related to modern statehood emerged from the European Enlightenment and subsequent 4 The European state system refers to the emergence of legal order that had developed between European states during the nineteenth century. This order produced a series of rights between European states that excluded regions exogenous to Europe (see Buzan and Lawson 2015).

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industrialization. The Enlightenment, characterized as the transition from a religious to a scientific understanding and explanation of social phenomenon, provided the universalist underpinnings to conceptualize modern statehood (Bridge and Bullen 1980). These foundations asserted that the modern state was an objective and methodical entity. It was not a development of ‘chance’, but a social scientific development attainable by any human society. By framing the state in this manner, it is considered to be a structure that is flexible enough to adapt to the cultural environment in which it exists but rigid enough to produce a centralized form of politics and economics. This is reflected in contemporary discussions of modern statehood that are often characterized by the assertion of a government’s ability to organize and order society as the sovereign. More specifically, the popular Weberian definition of statehood reinforces this assumption regarding the state. Weber asserts that the state is ‘[…] a human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of legitimate use of physical force within a given territory’ (Weber 1946, p. 77). Here, the provision of centralized administrative organization over a population and delineated territory is a standard and objective way to govern, regardless of divergent social histories and cultures (Coles 1957, p. 340). Weber’s definition, and the general discussions that follow from it, strip statehood of national, social, political, and economic differences. It fails to account for the unique European sociological history of modern statehood and the international historical sociological role that statehood played in the international state system (Engels 2010; Bourdieu 2012; Vincent 1987; Lomas 2014; Leenders 2012; Rubenstein 2015; Holsti 1996; Sen 1999; Menon 2016; Wimmer 2012). It treats the state as a standardized universal object and abstracts difference to produce theoretical and epistemological assumptions to facilitate an understanding of domestic and international politics. The modern state, however, is not solely the abstraction of consolidated authority over territory and a population. Its existence is dependent on three interwoven aspects: sovereignty, recognition, and consent. According to John Ruggie, the modern state is dependent on a framework of international law that separates the state from other systems of governance. International law emphasizes the unique quality of states with the principle of territorial sovereignty (Ruggie 1993, pp. 148–151), which defines the autonomous right of a governing body to engage in and exercise final authority within delineated boundaries. Within these boundaries, the governing body has a limited reach, yet still maintains

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sole authority over everything within its specified territory (Biersteker and Weber 1996; Durkheim 1996, pp. 32–33). Ultimately, it is the recognition of these rights of internal authority by other actors in the international state system that provide governments with the ability to discipline, pacify, and control their populations unimpeded under the premise of non-interference. Only by engaging in the mutual recognition of sovereignty, do states in the international system then acquire sovereignty as a cornerstone of statehood (Ruggie 1993). The recognition of another’s sovereignty within the international state system relies on consent, whether this is provided by active support or passive acceptance. Consent is required from international and domestic actors and plays a crucial role in recognition at both levels (White 2013, p. 4). Within the context of the international state system, recognition of statehood refers to the acknowledgement of a territorially bound region with a government. Consent, in addition to recognition, is the acceptance of the state to exist territorially and/or governmentally. When consent ceases to exist, the state is subject to challenges. This can emerge from other states or global non-state actors. In the case of the former, the United States, under President George W. Bush, ceased consenting to Saddam Hussein’s rule and the Iraqi Ba’ath party’s government. The termination of whatever tacit consent was left following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait facilitated the U.S. invasion of Iraq and subsequent de-Ba’athification, occupation, and social re-engineering (Glaser 2010, pp. 292–293). With regard to global non-state actors, the withdrawal of consent can develop from below. An aspect of the foundational ideology of Da’esh, for example, was the destruction of Levantine states— including Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon—to establish itself as territorially and governmentally sovereign. Despite Da’esh’s transformation of territorial boundaries by means of conflict, the international community did not consent to this vision of transformation. As such, Da’esh failed to alter pre-accepted territorial delineations (Gerges 2016). A large part of Da’esh’s failure to permanently alter the territoriality and governance of the state in the Levant, was its lack of international consent. In contrast, changes to the borders of European states, and the consent provided to these changes, have been, largely and with few exceptions, facilitated by assumptions of rational governance and agreements considered inherent to a Euro- or Western-centric rule-based order. When international recognition and consent are provided the government further gains its legal status and authority through a process of

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internal recognition and consent from civil and political society. The domestic negotiations that take place between government and civil and political society is otherwise termed as ‘state–society relations’ (Linklater 2016, pp. 269–270). Theorized with regard to the modern state in Europe, democratic systems are often argued to provide the necessary link between the government and society, giving society the ability to tell the government what they want; ultimately consenting to a social, political, and economic program (Migdal 2001). These negotiations, however, do not exist solely at the ballot box via democratic processes, but also in the ability of the state to use force and civil and political society to mobilize against the state. The mobilization against the state can be described as acts of internal dissent that can be considered active, whereas acquiescance can be viewed as consent. While internal consent, as argued by Antonio Gramsci and Pierre Bourdieu, is required for a government to administer authority within the delineated territory (Bourdieu 2012; Gramsci 1999, pp. 542–550, 784), consent from the population does not have to take active forms, but can be passive. According to Bourdieu, passive consent, granted by most of the population, is necessary for the continued existence of the state (2012, pp. 13–22). With consent, whether it is active or passive, the government gains its legitimacy and right to govern (Hegtvedt and Johnson 2009, pp. 376–399; Chappuis and Hanggi 2009, p. 33), facilitating the international recognition of the state and government. Essential to internal consent, whether it is active or passive, are the close associations between government and society. This is highlighted by Max Weber and Friedrich Engels, who argue that the disintegration of household authority, caused by industrialization and the rise of capitalist enterprise, facilitated the development of social welfare closely associated with the modern state in Europe. Engels’ argument places emphasis on the fragmentation of the household as the social, political, and economic agent. He argues that this led to the rise of the individual as the economic unit in society. Without the protection of the household, the individual became vulnerable to the realities of modernity, including the exploitation of labour. This vulnerability led to the eventual increased role of government in the daily affairs and life processes of individuals, areas where the household had previously been the central organizing factor (Weber 2013, p. 375; Engels 2010). With the disintegration of the family as a network that managed the economies of its individual members, Patricia Owens notes that the state

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subsequently undertook the role of the household. Although the development of this relationship was not without episodes of violent contest and rebellion, the emergence of the welfare state, whether it was democratic or undemocratic, reflects, not only the importance of the state’s role in the management of the life processes of its individual members, but the management, ordering, and care for those who are otherwise unable to function as independent economic actors (Owens 2015). This relationship between state and society, is further bridged with the construction of national identities and historic myths of origin that refer to a societies’ exceptionalism, purpose, and the construction of other nations in opposition (Baldwin 1990; Kuhnle and Sander 2010; Jessop 1982; Offe and Ronge 1982, pp. 249–250; Mann 2012, p. 45). As discussed, the modern state, as a concept, is located in histories of European social and political development, where these histories have also been theorized in relation to domestic and global politics (Strayer 1970). By conceptualizing the state as the organizing principle of society, politics, and the economy, one that is objective and methodical, produced and established by a system of institutions, administrations, and laws, lacking emotional, cultural, or historical influences, the state becomes an object that can be measured, fixed, and (re)built. This is most evident in contemporary state-building and development projects that seek to establish and reinforce acceptable and necessary institutions of statehood, to fix states that are failed, failing, or weak. Here, engagement in a set of practices based on the assumption that the modern state is the dominant structure responsible for ordering society into new, modern, and effective forms reproduce a notion that difference from the accepted standard lends itself to unwelcome practices of illegitimate force, corruption, and governmental failure. On the other hand, by reordering political and economic rituals in ways that reflect the modern state in the West, development and state-building projects reinforce the notion that there is a particular organizational rationality of statehood. This notion is embedded in the conceptualization of the modern state, it informs practices of modern statehood, including state-building and development projects, and foregoes the importance of historical sociological development. From this position, it is possible to assert difference from the postcolonial state. Difference emerges, not only from historicizing statehood, but also in how states are discussed and conceptualized. Similar to the historical sociological foundations that inform conceptualizations of modern statehood, to understand difference and to reconceptualize the

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post-colonial state as separate to the modern state, it is necessary to engage in a historical sociological study. This requires a two-pronged approach. On the one hand, consideration for pre-colonial domestic social, political, and economic practices and logics in a particular region, and on the other hand, knowledge of Western ideals of governance and how they were applied. By examining and analysing the interaction between the two, it is apparent that an assembled set of logics and practices became institutionalized; structuring and constraining the emerging state. Modern statehood, as it was conceived of, in relation to the histories of European state formation, became a standard that was applied globally and viewed as an international ‘good’.

Post-colonial Statehood: The Result of a Standard of Civilization This section considers how the modern state in Europe, as discussed above, was exported as a standard of civilization. By examining the imperial and colonial relations between modern Europe and the global south, the logics of the civilizing project become apparent. Included in a discussion of these logics is also a discussion of the justifications that were mobilized throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries that depended on ‘scientific racism’ and the maintenance of a Christian moral order. This section first discusses the standards of civilization, its historical development and application, before discussing its relationship with the modern state. It continues by dissecting the underlying logics of the standard of civilization and its application in the encounters to the global south. The standards of civilization, emergent following the Enlightenment and industrialization in Europe, was a consequence of self-perceived superiority related to social, political, and economic transformations in Europe. These transformations were used as a comparison against societies and polities of the global south. These comparisons occurred with the expansion of European and American commerce and political influence. Here, David Fidler, describes the origins of the standards of civilization as developing in the nineteenth century from ‘the collision between Western civilization and non-Western civilization’ (2001, p. 140). This collision, leading to the establishment of civilizational hierarchies, enforced reform, and modernization of the non-West to integrate norms, laws, and institutions that were emergent in the West. From

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this ‘collision’ and the measured lack of social, political, and economic development apparent in the non-West, the ‘civilizing project’ and its associated standards of progress, discussed below, were developed. In relation to the hierarchies that were produced in the collision between the West and non-West, the application of the ‘civilizing project’ was facilitated by the development of economic and military hegemony of European states.5 Polities in the non-West were placed under imperial and colonial rule and subjected to social re-engineering. The consequences, as outlined in this book were widespread, impacting social norms, and political and economic development. This form of social re-engineering required the re-creation of institutions and structures that paralleled the political, economic, legal, and moral values of Western states, and often to the benefit of Western states. The failure to develop and integrate to the standard required by European states justified the continued exclusion of the non-West from enjoying the benefits of international norms of sovereignty, autonomy, and independence (Fidler 2001, p. 140). These exclusions facilitated the reproduction of international hierarchies, creating structures of inequality that became embedded in global politics. The assertion of these hierarchies and the production of structural inequalities were justified by the logics of the Enlightenment. In the first instance, the development of a standard of civilization, entangled in early modern (secular Christian-)European logics that embraced a scientific understanding of the social world, allowed for the systematic exclusion of polities in the global south from an emergent state system. Exclusion from the European state system provided the European powers with the ability to exploit polities in the global south, and, as Gerrit Gong argued, helped the European states navigate the practical and philosophical problems that emerged with European expansion (Gong 1984; Fidler 2001, pp. 140–141). Specifically, dominant European states argued that the modernization of the global south was a ‘moral vocation’ with the aim of saving humanity. Failure of the global south to meet the standards established by engaging in comparisons of development required further interference and intervention that led to continuous structural inequalities; reproducing justifications for European imperial and colonial interference and interventions. 5 While the modern state emerged from a European history, its export to the Americas and Eurasia with settler-colonialism facilitated the creation of the ‘divided world’: the West and the non-West, the global north and the global south (Cooper 1996).

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The civilizing project, as a moral vocation, sought to uphold the ideas and ideals of modern statehood produced in Europe. This, as discussed throughout the book, included governmental centralization, institutionalization, codification of norms, and nation-building. Inherent to this standard of civilization, however, was not only the institutional organization and configuration that framed governance, but also the ability of society to replicate ideas, norms, and values that were enshrined—at least discursively if not always practically and institutionally—in the modern European state. These various facets of statehood were considered to be a part of the civilizing process, their amalgamation was inherent to the state, and thus necessary for modern statehood. By replicating the modern state in Europe, in an attempt to accede to the standards that were applied, political communities in the global south would be recognized as sovereign, able to assert autonomy under international law, and be free from external interference and intervention. However, the state as a standard of civilization, as it was applied to polities in the non-West, was not static. Instead, the standard fluctuated with European developments and interests, resulting in a moving target of Western ideas, norms, and institutions regarding progress and development. This made accession to a ‘civilized’ standard difficult, if not impossible, for political communities in the global south to engage on a global scale in an equal manner. As argued throughout this book, the modern state (and its associated parts), as evidence of social, political, and economic advancement, became a standard for political communities outside of Europe to develop to be recognized as civilized, developed, and progressed. Failure to meet these standards, to be considered civilized, developed, and progressed, limited the recognized rights of a polity; including sovereignty. Central to the standard of civilization were the ordering principles of a society by a government. By developing government institutions that mimicked those of European states, it was believed that polities and societies could become ordered and rational. The development of institutions would improve societies, but only if societies were ‘guided by a more realistic understanding of the universal or recurrent features of human existence’ (Linklater 2016, p. 271). In other words, based on Enlightenment ideas, emphasis was placed on a scientific method of categorizing and characterizing societies that considered institutions as central to rationality and civility. As such, institutions provided the foundations for rational frameworks and laws to govern society (Grell and

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Porter 2000; Kurki 2015, p. 789). It was assumed that modern institutions provided the ability to rationalize and order societies, and societies in the global south had to pivot towards a Western notion of rationality and reason, foregoing traditional or customary knowledges and practices in their acceptance of European institutional, structural, and normative development. Here, institutions and societies, became co-implicated in the external formulations and measurements of civilization and civility. European and, more broadly, Western interventions in the non-West, or global south, focused on social engineering and institution building, which were essential to strategies of the civilizing project. Under the auspices of modern institutional governance, the civilizing project could, as understood in a positivist manner, remove society from the realm of pure chance and facilitate social, political, and economic progress (Hume 1875, pp. 174–189; Buzan 2014, p. 578). Only by reproducing the institutions, structures, and ideas developed in Western states could polities in the global south accede to the established standard and assert sovereignty. Yet, the ever-shifting standard of civilization and benchmark of statehood, created a near-impossible task for polities in the global south. The difficulty in attaining this benchmark was made worse by the power dynamics created in these north–south relations. The submission of the global south to a set of rules for international engagement established by European powers gave the latter opportunities to exploit the global south, politically and economically. Crucially, however, societies in the global south sought the means to combat or respond to European hegemony, engaging in a long history of anti-imperial and anti-colonial resistance. The protests, resistance, and revolts against the continued exploitation of their societies by European colonial and imperial administrations, led these administrations to further justify their presence as part of a ‘moral vocation’ (Hobson 2004; Weber 2013). Here, European administrators argued that only total submission to European governance and governmentality could be viewed as evidence of civility. The justification rested on the notion that these benchmarks and standards existed as an essential part of a universalizing moral project. Institutions and structures that were deemed to instill order and provide progress became essential tools, according to radical Enlightenment thinkers, to disseminate equality, introduce authority, and eventually allow the masses to become emancipated from their backward, traditional, uncivilized and irrational knowledges and practices (Hampson 1968, p. 154). Within the context of imperial and colonial relations, these

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tools were used as an ‘expression of scientific laws rather than an accident of power politics’ (Donnelly 1998, p. 6). The aim was to pacify the uncivilized, emancipate and liberate the global south from the confines of their despotic leaderships and religious fanaticism, in order to develop a social, political, and economic culture that the imperial and colonial powers could navigate with ease. The standard of civilization, as a ‘collision between Western and nonWestern civilization’, was not solely in reference to differences in social, political, and economic institutions, it was also shaped by entangled, and at times, conflicting socio-political worldviews. This included norms and values that were foundational to European modernity including rationality, order, and efficiency, but also those that were rooted in a Christian–European worldview (Hobson 2004, pp. 1–2, 25). While late eighteenth century and nineteenth-century European administrations emphasized a scientific explanation of social phenomena, informed by the intellectual developments of the Enlightenment, religion continued to play a role in the ordering process (Krimsti 2014). The interactions between the European powers and the global peripheries prior to the influence of modernity was one of hierarchy and subordination, justified through the privation of a Christian God in the global peripheries, leading European powers to reason that the darkness of man was caused by the lack of light (God) and was akin to the darkness of evil. With the rejection of a Christian worldview in favour of a modern scientific understanding of the world, what had been once justified by a religious understanding of good and evil, was replaced with ideas that the ability to be modern and civilized was a biological condition of the individual; determined by ethno-sectarian and racial difference informed by Darwinian models of evolution (Kuru 2009, pp. 6–38; Norris and Inglehart 2004, p. 8; Inglehart 1997; Inkeles and Smith 1976; Vincent 1982, p. 662; Kopelson 2014; MacKenzie 1988, p. 36). When the standard of civilization was not acceded to, or attained, whether because of a transformation in European standards or the inability of indigenous leaders to engage their communities within the newly established institutions and structures, it was argued that these polities suffered from an inherent, sometimes biological, deficiency. With this understanding of the social world that emphasized scientific laws, failure to become civilized was explained by ‘social Darwinism’ and ‘scientific racism’. These explanations provided an ‘objective’ and ‘scientific’ foundation to the belief that Western society was inherently superior,

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justifying the mobilization of civilizational hierarchies (Donnelly 1998, p. 6). Because of their more civilized status, the West, in the role of the teacher, sought to educate and elevate the status of the populations in the global south. That being said, there was a debate about whether ‘educating’ the less civilized was a fruitless task, given the inherent and biological deficiencies. Nevertheless, the civilizing project was an engaged policy rationalized by its ‘moral vocation’, which relied on a worldview that ‘man’ was not created equal. John M. Hobson (2004) discusses, at length, the impact of civilizational hierarchies that informed and justified racist worldviews and exploitative policies during imperial and colonial encounters. Hobson highlights how civility, progress, and capability were tethered to race, climate, religion, political legitimacy, and ultimately a civilizational quality. The white European, from cold and wet lands, for example, was defined as ‘normal’, being able to assert themselves as a ‘master-race’, paternal and masculine in character, with the right to sovereignty. In contrast, the yellow oriental, from arid and tropical lands in Asia—inclusive of the Ottoman Empire—had fallen to paganism, were despotic, irrational, adolescent, and feminine in character. Evident here is the continued insistence that polities in the global south were not to be trusted, their rules and social norms were not to be respected, and their lack of civility akin to that in the West intersected with sectarian and racial biological worldviews (Delatolla and Yao 2019). As such they were not able to assert sovereign rights and were subject to indirect imperial rule (Hobson 2004, pp. 223–227). In the context of the ‘Orient’, overcoming these civilizational deficiencies required modernization that was tied to institution and statebuilding. The success of institution and state-building, measured against an ideal type of statehood, established a benchmark denoting which societies could come to acquire legal recognition and personality under international public law (Fidler 2001, pp. 140–141; Gong 1984). This included recognition as a modern state in the international state system by guaranteeing basic rights for foreign nationals; establishing an organized political bureaucracy and the maintenance of a monopoly of force; developing a Western-style system of domestic law with codified laws; providing equal administration of justice throughout all territories; maintaining the ability to engage in international relations through diplomatic institutions and resources; accepting the constraints of public international law; and ultimately conforming to Western customs and norms

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(Fidler 2001, p. 141). More importantly, the measurement of civilized engagement was particularly centred on the ability ‘to undertake binding commitments under international law and whether [the polity] was able and willing to protect adequately the life, liberty, and property of foreigners ’ (Fidler 2001, p. 147). With regards to the protection of foreigners, John Westlake points to civilization as being the ability of governments to govern white men and because polities in the global south could not provide governance to the appropriate standard, foreign nationals who were resident in the global south were governed under separate legal systems administered through their national consuls (Westlake 1914, pp. 143–145; Donnelly 1998, p. 4; Fidler 2001, p. 143). Inscribed in this standard was the idea that it appealed to a set of universal moral values, attainable by every polity to accede to modernity and thus the European state system (Donnelly 1984; Graham et al. 2011). By becoming a member of the European state system, sovereignty would be recognized by the European powers. This was a key motivation for the Ottoman modernization project, given that the alternative was continued interference and intervention. Imperial modernization of the Ottoman Empire and subsequent colonization of the Syrian provinces, sought to diminish the difference between polities categorized as civilized and those that were categorized as barbarian (Donnelly 1998, pp. 9– 10; Kingsbury 1999, pp. 66, 90; Fidler 2001, p. 147). According to Barry Buzan, this is one reason why the Ottomans, the Egyptians, and the Japanese—among others—embraced modernizing projects during the long nineteenth century. Modernizing projects included the implementation of legal, administrative, and fiscal reforms that were tied to the promise, in theory if rather less so in practice, of equality among states within the international state system (Buzan 2014, pp. 578–579). The subordinate position of polities in the global south was a result of the European experience of modernity that provided European states with a coordinated system of exclusion that was reinforced by economic and military power, transforming domestic politics and society in the global south. As Charles Tripp explains, this ‘was the dark side of industrial and technological progress […] the ways in which internal social bonds were being undermined, weakening the cohesion of society’ (2006, p. 21).

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The Civilizing Project and European Colonialism in the Middle East The argument that the state represented, and continues to represent, a standard of civilization—one that is imposed, measured, and framed within an epistemological framework inflected with implicit and explicit racial hierarchies, violence, and a Euro- or Western-centrism that upholds the state in the West as the symbol of advancement and modernity, is theoretically and empirically embedded in the scholarship on imperialism and colonialism in the Middle East and North Africa. This scholarship, while vast, points to the social, political, and economic erasures, displacements, replacements, and reorganization that characterizes imperial and colonial governance in relation to a civilizing project. Below is a short discussion, highlighting examples of the civilizing project in relation to European colonialism in the Middle East. In Egypt in the nineteenth century, the British attempted to condition society through restrictive force, and to discipline the domestic environment into a particular set of institutions. Timothy Mitchell argues that discipline and control were not necessarily exceptional, but what differed was the organization of the domestic environment into rational and hierarchal components whose actions and activities could be controlled and delineated in particular ways, for a particular purpose, and whose bodies could be counted in a quantifiable manner (1988, pp. 34–48). Although the British were actively pursuing a project to modernize the Egyptian state and society, they also had strategic and economic interests that they sought to fulfill and attain. This modernization project, regardless of purpose, had a detrimental impact on the relationship between authority and the domestic environment (Makdisi 2002, p. 771). Dislocation between authority and the domestic environment was caused by the implementation of modern knowledges and practices through restrictive force without any point of reference to pre-existing social dynamics, which were being disrupted and reorganized. Similarly, discussing the Ottoman Empire of the late nineteenth century, Benjamin Fortna states that ‘the changing international situation, national identification and organization presented formidable challenges to the Ottoman system of communal relations’. The modernization of the Ottoman Empire was one of institutional, social, economic, and political change, altering the customs to which imperial authority and the domestic environment were governed (Fortna 2013, p. 1). Where the European powers viewed the Ottoman Empire as politically, socially,

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and economically backwards, the Ottoman authorities, equally, sought to reform towards a European framework of modernity. On this, Ussama Makdisi argues that ‘as such, Ottoman modernization […] was as much a project of power within the empire as it was an act of resistance to Western imperialism’ (2002, p. 772). The Empire had to protect itself by adopting modern European norms in order to accede to the European state system as a full and sovereign member, and in doing so, it had to assert its power over its territories in an effort to prevent European encroachment. Modernization thus required the displacement of accepted knowledges and practices in favour of European notions of science and progress, underscoring the ability to measure the natural and social world. In order to contain and extinguish resistance, the British and the French employed strategies of cultural erasure and replacement, using symbols and signs, reordering the physical environment—as had been done in Egypt, and by rewarding allies while employing force to discipline and order society into acceptable modernized frameworks of statehood. Iain Jackson (2016), examining the British occupation of Iraq from the First World War and the Mandate period, discusses—at length—how the reorganization of the physical environment was integral to British interests of creating an ordered and pacified society, whose nationhood and state would be created in the image of Britain. The re-creation of the British image in foreign lands occurred through the deployment of projects centred on identity and function; using names of places familiar to the British psyche, such as Piccadilly Circus, Old Kent Road, among others, and the construction of universities, palaces, museums to help develop new historical narratives of Iraq. Function on the other hand, was characterized by the creation of railways, strategic military zones, and widened roads which helped to politically pacify the population by allowing the deployment of force. Although, the roads and railways would later be employed in a rebellion against the British. While the British attempted to recreate the image of British society through identity and function, the French in Syria employed strategies that had been established in other colonies, particularly in Algeria. French colonization of Algeria, lasting from 1830 until 1962, was, like British colonization, multifaceted, however, the French administration in Algeria attempted to reconstruct its history. The reconstruction of Algerian history was further paired with the reordering of the social and physical environment as an attempt to replicate French order and society in the colony (Betts 1960; Prochaska 1990, pp. 1–28). Similarly, in Syria, French

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colonial strategy included a reconstruction of history, and building new towns, beginning in 1920, first in Palmyra and then in al-Qamishli. Daniel Neep argues that the creation of these towns conformed to Foucault’s description of disciplinary space; a method to make individuals visible, to expose and control movement of the populations. The French forces asserted that the strategy had a ‘positive influence on the Syrian residents of the town [Palmyra]’, which was attributed to the French forces leading by example and the use of coercion (Neep 2012, pp. 142–148). While the aim was to pacify the population and assert dominance, the use of coercion was also employed to reorder society into spaces that were easy to manage. Doing so altered the relationship between society and physical space, changing the very foundations of household governance, in its micro and macro levels. Other strategies employed by colonial powers, such as Britain and France, throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries included the sponsorship of local groups, which created domestic agents of colonial engagement (Easterly 2006, p. 243; Iliffe 1995, p. 198). This was considered a normal process in colonial governance, however, it contradicted the intent of the modernization project, which was one of a civilizing process. This contradiction exists in the status promotion of specific customary groups and networks, validating their existence, customary knowledges and practices, and insulating them from other groups. Concurrently, the colonial powers were enforcing centralized institutions of governance to replace the ‘informal’ practices of customary groups and networks, reserving positions of authority in ‘formal’ and centralized institutions for their allies (Agbor et al. 2010). By elevating the status of specific customary groups and networks and by enforcing the authority of centralized institutions, the British and the French created new areas of conflict between communities within society, and between the society and governance. Despite the negative impact of imperial and colonial modernization, the European powers persisted, employing the logic, as Ernest Gellner contends, that the condition of modernity was better than that of traditional society. This manner of thinking privileged a European modernity that came with the promise of rational thought, scientific progress, and the superiority of the West through ‘an enormous infrastructure, not merely of political order, but educationally, culturally, in terms of communication and so forth’ (Gellner 1979, p. 288). As Toby Dodge states, in relation to the British modernization and occupation of Iraq, colonial

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engagement sought ‘to legitimate itself in terms of the betterment of the population’ (2003, p. XXV); creating a common thread, not just with regard to practices of force and occupation, but with the discursive and intellectual reasoning that colonial intent paralleled that of contemporary state-building and development. Here, the state is, historically and contemporarily, the focus of civilizational development. While the global peripheries challenged Western dominance, the states in the non-West ‘did not reject the constitutive principles of [Western] society, such as the ideas of sovereignty and non-intervention’ (Linklater 2016, p. 228), and many newly independent states attempted to reassert these principles. As such, the state as a standard of civilization functioned in three interconnected ways. First it was deployed in policy, particularly in relation to modernization reforms. Second, it was mobilized as a political tool to determine what community and polity was worthy of inclusion in the European state system. Third it facilitated the ongoing subordination of societies and polities in the global south by continuously reasserting a lack of progress and development.

Conclusion The state, as the primary domestic organizing mechanism and international actor, emerged from particular and unique histories of state formation in early modern Europe. While it is assumed that states, globally, are similar-enough, when considering how these histories are used to conceptualize the state, it is evident that fundamental differences exist in the initial state formation process, provoking different kinds of state– society relations, creating an issue of conceptual framing. With regard to the issue of state–society relations, Tilly, for example, argues that the state in Europe emerged from conflict and war. He refers to the fact that, by means of conflict engagement, polities were required to centralize, engage in new forms of administration and bureaucratization to maintain a military, extract resources from society, and ultimately govern and defend territories and populations. While this can be generalized to explain state formation elsewhere, other variables—including external interventions—can alter the process described by Tilly. Other scholars, however, emphasize different histories. Spruyt, highlights the importance of territorial governance over governance produced through lineages and personal ties. Gorski, on the other hand, discusses the role of culture— and in this case, religion—as the foundation for order and development.

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Both of these explanations rely on the unique development of society, one that was not encumbered by foreign interference established by hierarchies of domination. Bringing these three discussions of state formation together, it can be argued, as Engels and Owens argue, that the modern state in the West represents a scaled-up version of household governance. As a scaled-up version of household governance, the state and state– society relations are embedded in institutions, structures, and norms that mimic traditional European forms of the household; helping to frame the conceptualization of the modern state. In doing so, the modern state, with regard to this conceptualization, becomes a standard, and a measurement or a test of statehood. This standard, with its specific dynamics of administration, bureaucratization, territorialization, and culture has been tethered to assumptions of rationality, civility, progress, and development. The failure to mimic or reproduce these dynamics as they had been produced in Europe, in the nineteenth century, was considered a failure of governance related to the civilizational progress of a society. However, these standards emerged from a particular history related to the dynamics of state formation in Europe. Indeed, when considering the history of the state, it is often located in the European development and the interEuropean practices of diplomacy that afforded external recognition and consent, leading to legitimate sovereign claims. By understanding these histories as unique or particular, it becomes evident that the modern state does not merely exist as a natural fact. Rather, it was produced within the regional, political, and economic contexts of early modern Europe. The mutual recognition among European states allowed for continued development and expansion; placing European social and political order and organization above all others. From this position, the modern state in Europe became an important international actor, able to influence and dominate over other polities globally. By means of influence by imperialism and colonialism, the modern state became the standard that was applied globally. Building on this premise that the modern state has been, and is, a standard of civilization, it is possible to question the foundations of scholarly analysis of modern statehood in the post-colonial world, global south, and—more specifically—the Middle East. Notably, however, the application of statehood in a global context differed from region to region, while some polities and societies were subject to extreme forms of control by means of colonialism, others acted under variations of imperial governance. Nevertheless, it was only by successfully undergoing the civilizing

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process that polities and societies outside of Europe were to be considered civilized. It was assumed that by engaging in modernization reforms, to replicate the modern state in Europe, polities would be able to surpass their natural barriers to civilized engagement. The reformed and modernized polities would become recognized by other states in the system, be able to acquire external and internal consent, and therefore make legitimate claims of sovereignty.

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CHAPTER 3

Equality as a Standard of Civilization: The Opposition Towards Ottoman Tolerance

The interactions between European states and the Ottoman Empire in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries did not rouse a relationship based on equality, despite an increased emphasis on equality as a principle of domestic governance related to modern statehood. Unable to compete militarily or economically, the perceived failures of the Empire were explained as the result of civilizational immaturity or deficiencies; a key aspect of the Ottoman Empire’s inability to meet a standard of civilization established by European powers. Because of these perceived failures of the Ottoman Empire, European hegemony was justified on perceptions of intellectual, technological, and social superiority. This was not only apparent by comparing the developments of the European modern state with the political structure of the Ottoman Empire, which produced hierarchies that made international inequalities overt and explicit. It was also apparent in the ability of European states to engage in various forms of coercion or violence, justified by a uniform understanding of how international hierarchies allowed some societies to have more rights than others. In relation to the Ottoman Empire, the use of coercion was deployed to facilitate the civilizing process under the guidance of European powers. Under these transforming global conditions, the civilizing project was developed under the justification that the Ottoman Empire

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would become a civilized, or at least, a semi-civilized state, with the help from those at the pinnacle of development and progress. To become a civilized state within the European state system, emphasis was placed on the requirement to mimic European social, economic, and political structures by engaging in institutional and normative development. This created a set of standards based on European knowledges and practices of governance, including institutional modernization, political centralization, and normative diffusion regarding social and political equality. The standard, or benchmark, of civilization that was produced often contrasted and created tensions with accepted knowledges and practices developed within the Ottoman Empire in relation to its particular demographic. Although Britain, France, and Russia sought the application of equality among the diverse populations of the Ottoman Empire, nineteenthcentury conceptions of equality did not treat all people as equal. Equality, as it was practiced in the nineteenth century, for example, maintained differences between men and women, and, in relation to the argument developed in this book, it was further framed by racist worldviews. These views privileged the white, male, Christian, European citizen, and as such equality was based on a particular set of experiences and histories in relation to European development.1 Crucially, the premise of equality did not attempt to flatten global racial or religious civilizational hierarchies, yet equality in domestic governance was perceived as a cornerstone of modernity; becoming embedded in notions of statehood and liberal political thought. For example, the concept of political civic equality, as it was defined in relation to the state, was a central aspect of the French Revolution (1789–1799) and was used to challenge the hierarchical structures that privileged the French monarchy and nobility. Equality, as it was mobilized during this period in France was seen as a tool to reconstitute and reconstruct the state (Sewell 2014; Clark 2007). As such, the notion of civic equality eventually became central to the modern state, reverberating throughout Europe, and part of the civilizing project of the global south. As the principle of civic equality diffused across Europe, informing political thought that challenged existing socio-economic class structures, 1 Europe became a political entity through the construction of the ‘other’, this is evident with regards to the group of ‘civilized nations’ or great powers that were able to exert power and assert international rights due to mutual recognition, excluding other polities as ‘uncvilized’ (Anghie 2002, p. 514).

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it also became a pillar in the demands made on the Ottoman Sultanate and Sublime Porte. European powers, specifically France, Britain, and Russia—at different times throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries—encouraged and demanded the institutionalization of the principle of equality in the Ottoman Empire. While the notion of equality had penetrated political thought in relation to modern statehood and the standards of civilization, it did not have the same importance in the context of global politics; failing to transform established hierarchical global relations beyond those of European states (Buzan and Lawson 2015, p. 173). This chapter explores the role of equality in the formation and application of the modern state as a standard of civilization. It considers how equality was mobilized as a foundational concept of modernity and statehood in the interactions with the Ottoman Empire; the latter having developed a practice of tolerance in imperial governance. In doing so, it further analyses the contention between the concept of equality as modern and that of tolerance as traditional. In exploring how equality was applied as a standard of civilization, and its displacement of the Ottoman principle of tolerance, this chapter then focuses on the Hatt-ı Serif ¸ (1839), briefly discusses the Hatt-ı Hümayun (1856), and the consequences of equality with regard to these reforms.

Equality and Tolerance: Foundations of Governance in Europe and the Ottoman Empire This section first discusses equality and then tolerance as political and organizing principles, with the former being imperative to the civilizing project and modernization of the Ottoman Empire and the latter being perceived as a traditional form of governance. Equality in Western political philosophy and theory is often discussed as a cornerstone of Western European civilization. In conceiving of equality as a political good, it is possible to discuss political, social, economic, and legal equality. This great social and political advancement is argued to be part of a European tradition, either as a Christian value, as argued by John Hobson (2004, p. 165), or emergent in early Western philosophy (Clifford 2008). However, the philosophical exercise of attempting to separate and define these categories is not the purpose of this section or chapter. Rather, equality as it is defined here is a political concept that informs sociopolitical practice with the aim of facilitating engagement in politics and

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society, by providing protections and access to resources without discrimination (Nagel 2012, pp. 106–112; Arneson 2009). In other words, the principle of equality is to give fair and even access to all entitled populations. Arguably, the issue of legal entitlement raises important foundational problems regarding the very basic principle of equality, its development, and its global application as part of a standard of civilization. By limiting access to institutions and resources based on constraints of entitlement, hierarchies are produced that contradict equality. Despite the liberal foundations of equality, the caveat of legal entitlement to equal protections and access can produce various kinds of exclusions. Depending on who is and is not considered a legal entity, exclusions can develop due to race, religion, nationality, gender, and language; impacting the ability to access justice, own property, and live securely without threat. For example, the application of equality, as it emerged in France, did not extend beyond the white-male citizen in its initial implementation in the nineteenth century.2 Rather, equality during this period, in Europe, was premised on the socio-political inequality emergent from economic class divisions. Still, as the concept took hold, reconstituting the internal functions and institutions of the state in Europe, equality became embedded as a symbol of progress and development. In its global application, and in particular, in relation to the Ottoman Empire, the principle of equality was a requirement in order to be admitted to the group of ‘civilized nations’, and its application in the Empire was related to governance and relations between religious communities. Specifically, through its application, equality was meant to even out the religious socio-political divisions within the institutions and structures of the Sublime Porte. By enforcing equality as a principle, the European powers were trying to ensure that Christians, in particular, would have equal access to the centralizing institutions and structures of governance of the Ottoman Empire. However, the application of equality in Europe was the result of the degradation of a previous political system, whereas, in the case of the Ottoman Empire, the context of the political system during the nineteenth century did not provoke a similar kind of socio-political upheaval. In the case of Europe, where upheaval was evident, it was against a unique set of class structures that facilitated legal-political exploitation (Blanning 2 The racial elements of interactions between European states and the Ottoman Empire are discussed further in Chapter 4.

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1998). This marks an important difference, as the concept of equality in a legal-political sense emerged from contention within a specific institutional and structural system (Buonarroti 1836) that was not relevant to the Ottoman Empire. Although equality was considered central to the modern state and the advancements of modernity, there were important historic events in nineteenth-century Europe that tell of Europe’s own inability to properly engage with and apply equality as it was being demanded of by the Sublime Porte. This includes, but is not limited to, the Dreyfus Affair (1894–1906), which stirred anti-Semitic sentiment in France (Arendt 1942). Although it was considered necessary that the Ottoman Empire apply the principle of equality in a manner that was sufficient and expected of the European powers, European expansion and hegemony in the nineteenth century depended on the establishment of global hierarchies that led to sustained global inequalities. Based on the idea that the modern state—as the governing and ordering system of society, the economy, and politics—was the pinnacle of human civilizational advancement, polities in the global south—lacking the institutions, structures, and norms considered foundational for modern statehood—were perceived as traditional and unmodern, backwards and in need of help. France, Britain, and Russia, with regard to the Ottoman Empire, justified the subordination of the Empire by arguing that they were engaged in the moral vocation of the civilizing project. This did not only include the many facets of state-building, as covered in this book, but also the establishment of the principle of equality. Despite attempts to engage and enshrine the principle of equality within various Ottoman modernization reforms, including the two constitutional periods (1876 and 1908), the Ottoman Empire was considered to have continuously failed to apply the principle in a manner that met the standard maintained by European states. This meant that the Empire continued to be framed as uncivilized. Notably, the position regarding the application of equality as a legal-political measure, was in itself contaminated with bias. Specifically, the French and British administrators in the Ottoman Empire referred to Muslim governance as oppressive and fanatical. They approached the Empire with the preconception that Muslim governance contributed to fanaticism and lack of civility; one that hindered rational governance and politics. The framing of Muslims as a subordinate civilization, one that was inherently fanatical, occurred within racist civilizational hierarchies that were mobilized

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throughout the nineteenth century to justify empire and colonialism. Specifically, and in relation to the principle of equality, the British and French administrators criticized the legal inability of non-Muslim religious communities to engage in high-level politics within the Sublime Porte and the continuation of a social hierarchy that privileged Muslims. However, by focusing on the formal institutions and customary structures of the Empire, particularly those in the Syrian provinces, French and British imperial administrators took a narrow view of Ottoman politics and society, understanding the Ottoman Empire from the position that it was a state in the making that had not fully evolved, rather than viewing the Empire as being framed by a different set of knowledges and practices. Because of the Ottoman Empire’s supposed failures, it was perceived to be in need of fixing or saving from its ‘self-incurred immaturity’, ultimately justifying a paternalistic relationship (Immanuel Kant quoted in Deligiorgi 2002, p. 154). At the same time, the continued failure of the Ottoman Empire to implement institutional equality in a manner that was satisfactory to the European powers justified the maintenance of international inequalities, to the benefit of the European powers. The principle of equality, regardless of its European, Western, or Christian origins, justified the subordination of the Ottoman Empire to European powers. Ironically, at the same time, it was deployed to justify efforts to ‘liberate’ the European provinces of the Ottoman Empire and the Christian populations from the perceived oppression of the Muslim Sultanate. The belief that human development and social progress occurred in a linear fashion, reflecting a racial pattern of evolution, facilitated the creation of entrenched hierarchies. Combined with the refusal to understand philosophical, political, and social traditions of the non-West as being produced under different conditions rather than a sign of failed development and progress, led to a continual displacement, misrepresentation, and misunderstanding of the ‘other’. This established a pattern of comparison that continuously subordinated the non-West to the progressive and advanced West (Said 1978). The example considered in this chapter, in relation to equality, is the displacement of tolerance as a governing principle. Equality was not constitutive of the Ottoman Empire’s development and customary form of governance, and as such, European powers held that the state of governance was illiberal, despotic, and barbaric. Yet, the Ottoman Empire had a developed and functional practice of governance that provided an alternative based on the principle

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of tolerance. The practice of governance, between the central Ottoman administration and the provinces of the Empire, as well as with regard to local communities, was unlike the centralized configuration of the European state and relied on a system and norms of tolerance. Tolerance, a principle in Islamic political philosophy, was crucial to the Empire’s expansion, governance, and continuity. Rather than dismissing the Islamic identity of imperial rule in the sixteenth century, Islamic jurisprudence was used to navigate the heterodox character of the expanding Ottoman Empire. According to Karen Barkey, ‘toleration refers to the relations among different religious (and ethnic) communities and secular authorities, and is the outcome of networked, negotiated, and pragmatic forms of rule’ (Barkey 2008, p. 110; Khoury 2006, pp. 152–155). Negotiated and pragmatic rule allowed for the development of a decentralized system, where imperial Islamic order—following the sixteenth century—was separate from the management of local and individual affairs. For example, non-Muslims (ahl al-dhimma), according to Muhammed ibn al-Hassan al-Shaybani, an eighth-century Muslim jurist, were required to be protected within the territories governed by Muslim authority. Such protections came at the cost of a head tax (jizya) that permitted non-Muslims to maintain a livelihood, free of persecution, within the framework of the polity (Kelsay 1993, pp. 66–70; al-Hassan al-Shaybani 1966). In the broader social and political context, the organization of the Ottoman Empire reflected a negotiated settlement that was both practical and necessary. The initial expansion of the Ottoman Empire led to an increasingly cultural, religious, and ethnically diverse population, creating ‘mobile markers of difference’ (Barkey 2008, p. 41) and integrating populations through ‘fictional genealogies [which] gave outsiders equal status’ without necessitating homogeneity.3 Here, the difference between equality and tolerance becomes particularly clear. Where equality, as it was conceived of in Europe in the nineteenth century, was limited to individuals with a static set of identity markers—white, male, landowning— tolerance provided access to institutions and resources without requiring specific and particular identity markers.

3 Antony Black (2001) states that ‘the early Ottomans appear to have ruled their territories partly on the basis of tribal and nomadic ideas; fictional genealogies gave outsiders equal status’, p. 199.

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With regard to tolerance, the management of diversity was brokered through the Sultanate, by establishing relations with the various communities within the geographic confines of the Sultan’s authority (Barkey 2008, pp. 45–46). The framework of governance and authority in which the Sublime Porte operated was ‘a hub-and-spoke network structure of which [the Ottomans] became the center’, the result of ‘building relations across otherwise separate and competing groups and communities’ (Barkey 2008, p. 29). By harnessing the principle of tolerance to navigate imperial expansion and governance, the Ottoman Empire also allowed for a ‘heterodox understanding of Islam’, where tradition and sacred space between Muslims, Christians, and Jews became increasingly blurred (Lewis 1984, pp. 107–154). As such, the Sublime Porte did not negotiate or impose a strict Ottoman identity prior to the nineteenth-century reforms. Instead, identity was the product of relative autonomy in communal management and governance. While the Sublime Porte maintained authority by brokering relations with and between groups, governance and social order was managed at a local level, relying on notables (ayan),4 Governor Generals, and district Governors. By localizing authority, the Ottomans were able to allow varying degrees of autonomy in the provinces that provided flexibility with regard to provincial arrangements. This was particularly apparent in the governance of frontier regions (Barkey 2008, p. 91). For example, in maintaining authority on the borderlands, the Ottoman Empire provided flexible arrangements that allowed for greater autonomy in governance. In the case of Diyarbekir, during the sixteenth century, the loyalty of Kurdish tribes was assured through provisions of relative autonomy. The agreements regarding governance facilitated the Kurdish obstruction of the rebellious Kizilbash tribes in northern and southeastern Central Anatolia, the latter having drawn support from Safavid Persia against the Ottoman Empire (Ágoston 2003, p. 20). The case of Diyarbekir, particularly during the period of Ottoman Expansion until the seventeenth century, was, however, exceptional. In other areas

4 Ayan ve Esraf , was a term used for members of families who had served the state in a military or religious capacity. Many of these notables rose to prominence in the eighteenth century and their families inherited their socio-economic and political positions and remained wealthy landlords through the practice of tax-farming in the nineteenth century (Mardin 1969, pp. 267–268).

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of the Ottoman Empire, including the Syrian provinces, the Ottoman Empire exerted control, constraining the kind of autonomy that had been enjoyed by the Kurds of Diyarbekir. The Syrian population, for example, was subject to taxation, and military force. Additionally, local rivalries were effectively politicized by the Sublime Porte and used to quell dissent, providing the Sublime Porte with a form of policing and internal security. Nevertheless, in many of the Arab provinces, variant forms of condominium agreements were developed between the central Ottoman administration and local power wielders (Ágoston 2003, pp. 22–27). In addition to the local dimensions of tolerance, in part due to various forms of civil-legal autonomy, the Ottoman system of governance provided a kind of political tolerance between the central hub and the joining spokes, facilitating the development of the heterogeneous character of the Empire.

Equality as a Standard of Civilization The expansion of the European state system into the global peripheries from the late eighteenth century necessitated a set of political institutions, structures, and norms for non-European polities in order to become equal actors in a global system. Highlighted in this section is how the concept of equality was developed as a standard of civilization that led to socio-political re-engineering of the Ottoman Empire. However, as discussed, the principle of tolerance had been central to the expansion and development of the Ottoman Empire. While the two principles were not inherently contradictory, the European powers held that equality was fundamental to modern governance. Tolerance, on the other hand, was embedded in customary, unmodern, traditional forms of governance. Indeed, tolerance was embedded in the historical development of the Empire, providing a decentralized form of authority that allowed for expansion and growth (Karpat 1975, p. 293). This form of authority, based on the principle of tolerance, led to practices of negotiation between the central Ottoman administration and the provinces, as well as between and within diverse ethnic and religious communities. Tolerance and negotiation were justified by interpretations of Islamic jurisprudence that allowed for the continuation of religious rule, while maintaining religious heterogeneity. The differences between the form of governance in the European state system and the Ottoman Empire, were present, but not conflicting, particularly as there is evidence of similar

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negotiated settlements in European history. This includes various forms of condominium agreements and bilateral treaties, including the treaties that mark the Peace of Westphalia (1648) concluding the Thirty Years War (Croxton 1999; Osiander 2001). Regardless, the agreements and settlements that existed between European states were premised on the notion of being able to engage on the same platform, treating each signatory as equal. Equal treatment between European parties can be viewed within the context, and as a consequence of, similar patterns of development regarding the industrialization and the Enlightenment. Industrialization provided the technological and economic capability and necessity for Europe’s expansion into the global south, whereas the Enlightenment facilitated the development of an intellectual framework and justification for expansion. The industrialization and the Enlightenment were both cornerstones in guiding, not only European global hegemony, but also the project to save the global south from its ‘self-incurred immaturity’. The position that the European state was advanced and the Ottoman Empire was ‘immature’ placed the Empire on a linear continuum with the modern state in Europe. To be considered equal to European states, the Ottoman Empire—as well as other polities in the global south—had to accede to a set of European benchmarks that exemplified their abandonment of irrational, disordered, and pre-modern forms of governance, authority, and life. As such, the Sublime Porte, throughout the nineteenth century, promulgated a number of reforms, many being developed under pressure from the European powers. These reforms included provisions of centralized governance that sought to facilitate the application of equality before the law. However, the modernization reforms dislocated society from the accepted customary forms of governance, providing opportunities for the European powers to interfere and intervene in domestic matters pursuant to European interests. Discussed in this section, are the dynamics of equality as a standard of civilization. It considers how equality became foundational to the Ottoman reform program before discussing the Hatt-ı Serif ¸ (1839) reform and the consequences of policies based on the notion of equality. Prior to the modernization reforms, including the Hatt-ı Serif ¸ and Hatt-ı Hümayun, the Egyptian occupation of the Syrian provinces (1831–1841) attempted to institute a form of governance that reflected the prevalent norms established in Europe. Normative alignment with Europe, including on the principle of equality, provided Muhammad Ali

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and Ibrahim Pasha an advantageous relationship with France. This normative alignment allowed the French to justify their alliance with Egypt by arguing that Muhammad Ali and Ibrahim Pasha had produced a legitimate civilizational standard. Henry Guys, the French Consul in Aleppo, defended the Franco–Egyptian relationship based on these grounds, stating that the Egyptian army is superior, particularly in relation to the Ottoman forces. Guys described the Ottoman administration as ‘bad’ and maintained by the ‘tyranny of the Pashas’, from whom Ottoman subjects were seeking refuge by travelling to Egyptian occupied Aleppo.5 Although normative alignment was used to outwardly justify the French– Egyptian alliance during this period, the French had colonial interests in Algeria that could be attained by accommodating Egyptian rule in the Syrian provinces.6 Additionally, the French actively ignored the injustices committed by the Egyptian forces against sectors of Syrian society, defending Ibrahim Pasha’s coercive administration of the Syrian provinces due to the application of equality.7 For Muslim inhabitants in the Syrian provinces, the principle of equality as it was applied during the Egyptian occupation diminished their once elevated political, economic, and social status, while the Christian communities enjoyed their new elevated status. The result was the emergence of an inadvertent animosity directed at the Christian communities by many Muslim communities. This was bolstered by the actions of Ibrahim Pasha who openly and severely punished Muslims who were unhappy with the shift in the status quo; resulting in social conflict, violence, and retribution. Following the occupation of the Syrian provinces, the chief official of the Russian Orthodox Church, Porfirii Uspenskii, described several incidents relating to elevated intercommunal tensions ensuing the application of equal status by Ibrahim Pasha (Hopwood 2014, p. 114).8 In one example, after Ibrahim Pasha’s

5 166PO/D1/46, CADN, October 21, 1840, no. 51. From Henry Guys in Aleppo to Comte de Pontois in Istanbul. 6 FO/78/410, TNA, January 23, 1840. From N.W. Ulerry in Damascus to John

Bidwell in London. 7 166PO/D1/46, CADN, October 21, 1840, no. 51. From Henry Guys in Aleppo to Comte de Pontois in Istanbul. 8 British General Consul John William Perry Farren describes, with admiration, the logics of the new social order under Egyptian forces, yet he is aware of its violence and brutality. FO/78/243, TNA, February 7, 1834.

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reforms were decreed, a prominent Christian Orthodox family decided to celebrate a wedding. No longer feeling that it was necessary to keep the celebration muted, the family left the windows of their house open. Annoyed by, what was perceived as a flaunting of their new status, a group of Muslims entered the house, ‘[…] scattered the guests and set fire to the house’ (Hopwood 2014, p. 144). From Uspenskii’s reflections on the state of society in the Syrian provinces under Egyptian occupation, it is apparent that changes to the existing social order had a negative impact. The redistribution of status through the premise of equality between ecclesial communities may have removed legal and political barriers, but in doing so provided a pathway to entrench divisions based on sectarian identities. On the one hand, Christian communities were emboldened by the reforms. On the other hand, due to the perceived loss of socio-political status, Muslim communities were concerned that the changes meant the nature of the Empire was transforming. This transformation to the accepted social order created a rupture in the relationship between the polity and society, giving Ibrahim Pasha weak support from the population and creating the desire from many to return to the authority of the Sublime Porte (Ismail 1976, pp. 25–26). In a dispatch dated January 26, 1840, from the French consul, Comte de Ratti-Menton, in Damascus, intercommunal tensions were discussed at length. The consul wrote that the promise of equality under the law created a schism in the social fabric. He described how the Muslims viewed equality as an offence to their socio-economic status caused by the admission of individuals to the civil administration, despite their religious beliefs. According to the Muslim populations cited in the dispatch, this dislodged their prominence, pulling the Christian minority into institutions of the Empire, negating Christian relative autonomy, and threatening the Islamic identity of the Ottoman Empire.9 Although there was a desire, particularly among the political elite within the Sublime Porte, to implement the reforms and thus develop in the manner of governance that was benchmarked by European governments and administrations, the populations had fought against these reforms. This was evident when similar style reforms were implemented by the Egyptian

9 166PO/D20/2, CADN, January 26, 1840, no. 9. From Comte de [Ulysse] RattiMenton in Damascus to M. de Pontois in Istanbul.

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administration during the occupation, leading to the population’s desire to be governed by customary Ottoman practices (Reilly 2002, p. 126). While the modernization reforms sought to rectify the perceived inequalities of religious minorities in the Ottoman Empire, the avoidance of modernization reforms and returning to customary practices of politics within the Ottoman Empire can be viewed as beneficial for Muslim and non-Muslim communities. For the Muslim populations of the Syrian provinces, returning to Ottoman authority meant returning to a system that provided Muslim socio-economic prominence within the institutions and structures of the Empire. On the other hand, for the non-Muslim minorities, customary practices meant that they would once again have autonomy within these structures, particularly over civillegal issues. While there may have been a desire for some to return to customary forms of governance, the European powers that had helped the Ottoman Empire regain the Syrian provinces sought to help implement reforms. Additionally, the reforms were used to counter the French administration’s justification for helping the Egyptian government maintain its occupation of the Syrian provinces (Douwes 2000, p. 61). The reforms neither provided a return to customary rule nor did they perfectly reflect a form of governance modelled after the emerging modern state in Europe. While the concept of equality, tied to citizenship and a centralized system of governance with codified laws was introduced, its meaning and practice in the Ottoman Empire was not embedded in the sociological foundations that made it crucial to governance in the European state. During the Second Egyptian–Ottoman War (1839–1841), which was fought to conclude the Egyptian occupation in the Syrian provinces (1831–1841), Britain, Prussia, Austria, and Russia came together to help the Ottoman Empire.10 Aid to the Ottoman Empire was perceived to have provided the European powers, ‘with the exception of France’, who had sided with the Egyptians—Muhammad Ali and his son, Ibrahim Pasha—the ‘right to advise the Sultan in Syrian affairs, because […] 10 European aid to the Ottoman Empire can be explained by regional geo-strategic interests (as discussed in Chapter 8), including British access to Mesopotamia and Persia and Russian access to the Turkish Straits. Additionally, it is possible to argue that aid was provided to the Ottoman Empire with the aim of facilitating further political and economic concessions, using the Anglo-Ottoman commercial treaty of Balta Liman (1838) as a precedent (Convention of Commerce, Balta Liman, August 16, 1838; Findley 1989, p. 28).

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they had helped him recover [the] province’ (Šedivý 2010, p. 99). The right to advise the Sultan was put into practice and was evident with the promulgation of the Hatt-ı Serif ¸ on November 3, 1839. For the Ottoman Empire, the direction from the European states offered the potential benefit of joining the group of civilized nations, which outstripped the costs of acceding to the club. However, this journey to becoming civilized necessitated continued interference and intervention, as well as norm and value dissemination that, at times, was in contention with the knowledges and practices of imperial governance. Nevertheless, as an equal partner, the Ottoman Empire would have been able to enjoy the rights of sovereignty and access to international law.11

The Tanzimat Reforms: The Failure of Equality During the Second Egyptian–Ottoman War (1839–1841), the Hatt-ı Serif ¸ was promulgated by the Ottoman Empire in order to facilitate the receipt of material and political support from the European powers, including Britain, to help recover the Syrian provinces (Mardin 2000, p. 162; Findley 1989, pp. 30–31). The Hatt-ı Serif ¸ ‘had as its goal the establishment of a social order such that modern rights of citizenship would be guaranteed, inferior government would be eliminated and both Muslim and non-Muslim subjects would enjoy the same personal rights’ (Beydilli 2001, p. 92; Findley 1989, p. 31; Davison 1954, p. 847). The European states required that the Ottoman Empire modernize in a fashion that reflected the socio-legal context of modern statehood. However, the Ottoman Empire could not properly apply the conditions demanded by the European powers or that had been set out in the Hatt-ı Serif ¸ without radically transforming the legal and political boundaries that the populations were accustomed to. Following through on the reform and the promise of equality, the Sublime Porte centralized state institutions, including those of taxation and military conscription. By centralizing institutions and removing exclusions regarding taxation and military conscription the Sublime Porte was attempting to engage all subjects equally, removing exemptions for 11 While it can be argued that Sultan Abdulmecid I (July 1, 1839–June 25, 1861) was solely responsible for the reform, building on the legacy of his father, Mahmud II, the promulgation and the administration of the reform was considered a necessary step to becoming perceived as civilized.

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religious minorities. Viewed as foundational to the modern nation-state in Europe (Tilly 1992, pp. 96–122; Smith 1998; Schwarz 2012), the new policies did not provoke state–society relations that paralleled those in European states. For example, such provisions did not facilitate the establishment of an overarching national identity as it had in European states. Nor did centralized taxation and military conscription promote loyalty among the religious minority communities to the Sublime Porte in the Syrian provinces. Instead, the centralized system displaced a customary form of governance of autonomous personal law circumscribed by minority religious communities that further created political, economic, and social distance between these religious communities and the inner workings of the Empire. In particular, Muslim communities perceived it as their right to be embedded in the institutions of the Empire, demarcating their belonging within a polity contending with an expanding European state system that was premised on a racial-religious civilizational paradigm. Beyond the impact of imperial reforms that altered communal sociopolitical relations, the reforms had an effect on governance structures, changing the daily political engagements with politics. As such, the premise of centralized and equal access alienated a large portion of the population, displacing their position within and with the Empire. In the Syrian provinces, the establishment of the administrative councils under submission of the provincial Governor removed the ability of communal leaders to negotiate autonomously with the Governors (Thompson 1993, p. 458). This was done, not only to provide a sense of order in governance, but to facilitate equal access to political institutions. Centralization in this way meant weakening the political capabilities of land-owning notables and changing the power dynamics between the Sublime Porte and local notables and peasantry (Johnson 2001, p. 89). This exercise in centralization and bureaucratization opened new areas of oppression, corruption, intimidation, and bribery. According to Colonel Charles Henry Churchill, a British army officer and diplomat, writing in a letter to Colonel Rose on August 23, 1841, Nedjib Pasha, the Governor of Damascus, allowed a system of anarchy to develop by ignoring the systematic persecution of Christian and Jewish communities by Muslims. No longer able to engage in a meaningful way with notables that would have had a sympathetic ear, the administrative councils, under the Nedjib Pasha’s direction, now governed the affairs of the Christian and Jewish communities, but did not advocate on their behalf. These

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diplomatic dispatches lay the blame for a lack of concern for Christian and Jewish communities on Nedjib Pasha’s apparent religious fanaticism, which was celebrated by notable Muslims as a vanguard against European hostility (Paton 1844, p. 154).12 The impact of equality and associated institutional developments was seismic, creating schisms within the social fabric of the Syrian provinces by altering access to power and often validating European racist perceptions. To implement these changes, the Ottoman Empire was forced to renegotiate its existence as a Muslim empire; a Muslim empire that was centred on a specific interpretation of Shari’a Law, which was incompatible with European notions of equality but privileged practices of tolerance (al-Hassan al-Shaybani 1966, pp. 57–62). Indeed, the Empire did not have the kind of secular judicial system that could support these provisions as the imperial judiciary itself was wedded to the adjudication of Shari’a law, giving preference to Muslim subjects (Findley 1989, p. 31; Davison 1954, p. 847). Additionally, the organization of communities within the Ottoman Empire relied on the heads of religious communities to adjudicate on personal legal matters.13 With the promulgation of the Hatt-ı Serif, ¸ this system was slowly dismantled, enforcing a centralized system of rights for all imperial subjects. The sense of alienation that subsequently developed from modernization of the Ottoman Empire created a great amount of tension between Muslim and non-Muslim communities. Such reforms, however, were established to replicate the social and political conditions apparent in modern Europe. In the first instance, the establishment of modern rights of citizenship and the ‘elimination of inferior government’ can be understood as a pledge to engage in institution and, ultimately, modern state-building. Second, the promise that ‘Muslim and non-Muslim subjects would enjoy the same personal 12 The European powers, particularly Britain, were not on good terms with Nedjid Pasha. He was viewed as embodying corruption and oppression, resulting in the cessation of tax payments by the population residing in Mount Lebanon. Fourier (1841, p. 390); FO/226/72, TNA, May 31, 1841, no. 2, June 10, 1841, no. 4, Colonel Churchill on the State of the Country, Damascus. 13 The millet system recognized the autonomy of religious minorities and provided the leadership of religious minorities the right to adjudicate on personal law. It can be described as a pre-modern method of managing a multi-religious societies, either in relation to social norms or the division of labour, see Mayer (1997), Sachedina (2001), and Issawi (2014, pp. 160–162).

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rights’ required an immense amount of social re-engineering (Beydilli 2001, p. 92; Findley 1989, p. 31; Davison 1954, p. 847). Regardless of the labour required, the European powers believed that modern civilization was an attainable condition and that government reforms could reconstitute society into an ordered framework that replicated European society. However, as the reforms were implemented, it was becoming evident that alienation caused by social and political re-engineering was leading to widespread anger and dissatisfaction. Attempting to appeal to disenfranchised powerful notables, the Sublime Porte reintroduced the class called the ‘baratakli’, which had been abolished under Egyptian occupation. This privileged class was comprised of Muslims, Christians, and Jews, who were exempt from all taxation.14 This exemption included taxes that were levied on consumable goods, which had been raised from 1 to 9%; a 10% tax rate on property15 ; and 20% on ‘the necessaries of life’. The ‘baratakli’ were also exempt from the annual head tax levied on Christians and Jews. This tax, at the time, was further divided based on class: the upper classes were to pay 60piastres, the middle classes were to pay 30piastres, and the lower classes, 15piastres. The Sublime Porte’s attempt to appeal to the notable classes by eliminating taxation was conducted in an effort to subdue dissatisfaction and feelings of alienation of the notable classes, who were viewed as having authority over the peasant classes. However, despite the attempt to appease notable classes, believing that the peasant classes would follow, the attempt failed to produce the desired results. The taxation regime under the Ottoman Empire had created so

14 ‘There existed a class of privileged persons, called ‘Baratakli’, which comprised individuals amongst the Turks, Christians, and Jews alike. This class was exempt from all taxation. Ibrahim Pasha abolished it. The present Turkish government has restored it’. FO/226/72, TNA, May 31, 1841, no. 2, Colonel Churchill on the State of the Country, Damascus. 15 The British Consul in Beirut, M. Moore, wrote on August 3, 1841, that the duty

of 9% is a burden on domestic Syrian trade while the Russians and Neapolitan (citizens of Naples) subjects are trading at advantageous rates. Additionally, there is a general fear that Syria has only produced a small amount of grain, meaning that the region will be forced to import grain from other territories and the imports will be subject to the higher tax rate. Parliamentary Papers 1842, vol. 20, pp. 261–296.

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much discontent that the feeling of the general population in Damascus was that they were better off under Ibrahim Pasha.16 Feelings of alienation and discontent caused by administrative changes under the scope of equality could not be quelled by privileging an upper class of communal leaders. The population maintained that they were unable to cope with tax increases, which increased feelings of social and political disenfranchisement caused by administrative modernization. To rectify these feelings among the Muslim communities, large numbers of Christians were dismissed from public employment, particularly from positions, such as writers and clerks, that were customarily retained for Christians. The positions, according to Colonel Churchill, were being filled by Muslims who had managed to bribe their way into office, or who gained prominence within society by propagating ideological ‘fanaticism’.17 In addition to the removal of Christian employees from positions within the administration, Christian councilors from the Mejlis (Governors) Council were also removed when authority returned to the Sublime Porte. Under Ibrahim Pasha, during the Egyptian occupation of the Syrian provinces, seven of the twelve members of the council were Christians and all were replaced by Muslims following the reassertion of Ottoman control. To make matters worse, Christians approaching the council to make a formal complaint or to submit a petition were told to wear a black turban; an antedated symbol of those who held the Christian faith, meant to embarrass them by reminding them of their place in the Muslim Ottoman social hierarchy.18 While the provisions of equality at the heart of modernization reforms created feelings of alienation and discontent, the attempts made by the Sublime Porte to balance out these feelings, particularly to assure the Muslim communities, deepened the communal schisms. The evident apathy of the Sublime Porte regarding the livelihoods of the Christian communities created opportunities for European interference and interventions. Viewing the Sublime Porte as failing to ensure that equality among the communities was being put into practice, the European powers sought 16 FO/226/72, TNA, May 31, 1841, no. 2, Colonel Churchill on the State of the Country, Damascus. 17 FO/226/72, TNA, May 31, 1841, no. 2, Colonel Churchill on the State of the Country, Damascus. 18 FO/226/72, TNA, May 31, 1841, no. 2, Colonel Churchill on the State of the Country, Damascus.

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to engage with their preferred, often religious and specifically, Christian, communities directly. By aligning themselves with these communities, offering economic and political support, the European powers were able to argue that the safety and well-being of these communities were in danger, justifying European interference. The social and political schisms that developed, and the advantages that were afforded to the Muslim populations, created opportunities for the European powers to establish their position among the religious minorities of the Ottoman Empire. According to Churchill, ‘the general feeling, both amongst the Jews and Christians […] was that England will interfere to protect them, and the country in general, against the oppression of the Turks [Muslims]’. Seeking to avoid Muslim violence against religious minorities, the French and the British became increasingly involved in the political and economic well-being and physical protection of religious minorities. It was during this period that the French consul in Damascus declared France to be the official protector of the Christians in the Syrian provinces (Hakim 2013, p. 41).19 This alignment between European powers—specifically France and Russia—and the Christian communities, but also the British relations with the Druze, enhanced the perceived threat to Muslim communities regarding their position within the Ottoman Empire.20 The failure of the Sultanate and Sublime Porte to apply and govern on the basis of equality was perceived to be a result of civilizational incapacity. Still, the principle of equality was considered foundational to the Ottoman Empire’s accession into the nineteenth-century European state system, making appearances in Ottoman reforms and European diplomatic dispatches concerning the Empire. The inclusion of equality in the Hatt-ı Hümayun of 1856, for example, served a dual purpose. First as a means to protect the Empire and second to serve the interests of European states. The Ottoman Empire, following the war, was in a state of destitution and had little other option than to accept the

19 FO/226/72, TNA, May 31, 1841, no. 2, June 10, 1841, no. 4, Colonel Churchill on the State of the Country, Damascus; FO/78/498, TNA, February 23, 1842, no. 20, from Richard Wood in Damascus to the Earl of Aberdeen, Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. 20 FO/226/72, TNA, August 29, 1841, Colonel Churchill on the State of the Country, Damascus.

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provisions and adopt the decree.21 Described as a result ‘of the solicitude of the powers’,22 the reform decree was engineered by the British Ambassador, Sir Stratford Canning, known at this point as Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, with the consent of the French Ambassador, Édouard Thouvenel, and the Austrian Internuncio, Anton Freiherr Baron Prokesch von Osten (Baron Prokesch). Crucially, the European dignitaries wanted to secure their relationship with the Ottoman Empire and pre-empt the set of Russian demands, following their victory, that were to be made at the Congress of Paris in 1856. The reform was steeped in the global politics of the Crimean War (1853–1856), the outcome of which threatened, not only the territorial integrity of the Ottoman Empire (Schmitt 1919), but British, French, and Austrian interests. On the one hand, the reform signaled to the Russian government that civilizational and social reengineering was under way; making any claims on protecting a minority community, the Orthodox Christians in particular, unwarranted. On the other hand, it served the interests of the other European states, including Britain, France, and Austria to help stymie any Russian advantage. Although the Hatt-ı Hümayun had similar principles to those that were proclaimed in the Hatt-ı Serif ¸ (Devereux 1963, p. 24), the Hattı Hümayun pushed the boundaries further. It granted more rights to Christian communities, allowing Christians to give testimony in criminal courts and provided the foundation for the development of secular police courts. Moreover, the reform decree eliminated the death penalty for apostasy and outlawed the use of deprecatory epithets based on religion, language, or race by Ottoman officials and subjects. This was meant to appease the demands of the European powers in the provision of full equality, but it was also accompanied by the abolition of civil powers enjoyed by the Christian leadership within the Ottoman Empire. In place of decentralized and networked systems of governance that had existed in the Ottoman Empire, new official representative governing councils were created at the communal and provincial levels of government. This 21 166PO/D1/54, CADN, August 7, 1858, no. 15, from M. Bentivoglio in Aleppo to M. de Thouvenel in Istanbul. 22 In the Andrassy Note, Count Andrassy states that the Hatt-ı Hümayun ‘is one of the

results of the solicitudes of the Powers’ Hertslet vol. 4 (1875, p. 2421) (no. 456); The text of the Hatt-ı Hümayun can be found in Hertslet vol. 2 (1875, pp. 1243–1249) (no. 263); In the writings of Viscount Strangford (1869, p. 131), it is noted ‘we [Britain] have a right to look for some public expression of gratitude from Russia for putting into her hands so powerful a solvent of Turkish dominion as the Hatt-ı Hümayun’.

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allowed for all Ottoman subjects, without distinction, to participate in the administrative offices of the Empire as well as be subject to military service (Davison 1963, p. 93). The principle of equality, despite, bringing forward new rights for religious minority communities, and specifically the Christian communities, in the Ottoman Empire, also brought these communities under further control of the Sublime Porte while displacing the previous privileged position of Muslims. The principle of equality, implemented as a modernizing policy, created widespread sentiment of dissatisfaction and alienation. With regard to religious minorities, equality as it was promulgated in these decrees eliminated crucial aspects of civil autonomy and brought them closer to the central governing apparatus. For Muslim communities, sentiment was expressed about feelings of displacement. This created political anxieties that heightened notions of difference among religious minorities and Muslims.

Conclusion The provision of equality was considered a principle embedded in European modernity, a cornerstone of social development, and held as evidence of European socio-political advancement. It was used as a benchmark to gauge the development of the Ottoman Empire, whereby its application was a determining factor of whether the Empire could be considered civilized and admitted to the group of ‘civilized nations’. While equality had been enshrined in Ottoman modernization reforms, its application led to an assembled set of practices. Evident from discussions in this chapter, the application of equality in the Syrian provinces shifted the established decentralized and ‘informal’ relations between the Sublime Porte, the Sultanate, and the population, creating a schism in established social and political norms and, consequently, feelings of dissatisfaction and alienation among the population. Although it can be viewed as a liberal principle, one that is generally accepted in relation to modern state constitutions, the application of equality in this manner was foreign, profoundly altering how various groups related to each other and with the Empire. The principle of equality and the administrative changes required of the Ottoman Empire to meet the standard established by modern European states, or the group of ‘civilized nations’, not only created feelings of alienation but also created tensions between the sectarian communities. In the first instance, the changes to taxation and military

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conscription drew in Christian communities while creating sentiments of alienation among Muslims, the latter believing that their privileged position within the Empire was being displaced. Additionally, the development of administrative councils that weakened the position of local notables, created feelings of dissatisfaction within the privileged classes that remained close to peasant classes. As such, the disruption caused by the reforms alienated and displaced populations in relation to the Sublime Porte throughout the Syrian provinces, across religious communities, and across class boundaries. Despite attempts to quell dissatisfaction, by—at times—reverting to particular customary practices, creating an ill-fitting assembled set of practices, or by privileging the Muslim population, these efforts proved to be trivial and, in some cases, made matters worse. This was particularly apparent in attempt to privilege Muslim communities within the institutions of governance, while deprivileging the Christians. This created further sentiments of alienation, opening possibilities for increased European interference. In addition to interference regarding the modernization reforms, the European powers—specifically France, Britain, and Russia—had begun expanding their relations with various disaffected communities. Deepened relations between European powers and religious communities were justified by the unequal treatment the latter was facing with regard to Ottoman governance. This confirmed prejudicial views of the Ottoman Empire as being backwards and governed by ‘fanaticism’ and was evidence of the Empire’s civilizational deficiencies. Unable to fully engage with the principle of equality, as a standard that had been established by the European powers, the Ottoman Empire continued to be subordinated within the developing European state system. The issue of equality in relation to governance was particularly abstract with regard to Ottoman governance and the application of equality as a standard of civilization. Its use in the context of governance was an attempt to engage in a form of modernity that would have allowed the Empire to be considered civilized and recognized within the framework of international law. European states, however, seized on opportunities to further influence Ottoman governance and society by maintaining that the standard of equality in its political application had not been met. The continued failure of the Ottoman Empire to engage and apply the principle of equality in a manner that was acceptable by European states justified global racial-civilizational hierarchies; validating claims that the

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Empire had not yet—or was even incapable, as a Muslim polity, to develop and progress as European states had. Despite the failures to apply equality in a manner that was acceptable to European powers and the increased agitation of the populations, the principle of equality became embedded in the institutions and structures of the Ottoman Empire. Arguably, due to the manner that it was applied and practiced, and the global and domestic tensions that were produced in its application, the principle of equality applied in the Ottoman Empire created a different set of engagements. These engagements, whether to do with nascent nationalist movements or the state-building project of the Mandate system in the early twentieth century, continuously led to conclusions that the population exhibited a civilizational deficiency.

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CHAPTER 4

Race, Religion, and Civilization in Programs of Governance and Modernization

The global transformations of the nineteenth century, characterized by the expansion of European imperial and colonial governance, included a particular set of social and economic relations that attempted to reorganize domestic socio-political orders. This reorganization of socio-political orders and relations, based on the development of global hierarchies that measured difference on a scale of European progress and development, placed polities in the global south in a subordinated position in relation to European states. The socio-political reorganization that occurred was in relation to the set of European principles, as discussed in Chapter 3 with the principle of equality, developed from ideas of civilizational superiority that led to increased social tensions within subordinated polities. Specifically, as discussed in Chapter 3, the failure to engage with equality was considered a failure or civilizational deficiency. Despite efforts to engage in state-building reforms that attempted to reproduce or replicate the modern European state, continued difference regarding the outcomes of the civilizing project in the Ottoman Empire was attributed to the civilizational quality, marked by failure or deficiency. The argument that there was an inherent civilizational failure or deficiency was facilitated by a racist foundation of knowledge that tethered race to biological development, enabling a set of global relations based on ‘scientific racism’. It was believed that the intellectual and material © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 A. Delatolla, Civilization and the Making of the State in Lebanon and Syria, Middle East Today, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57690-5_4

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advancements evident in European society were related to a biological superiority over other, non-European, societies. The use of science to explain socio-political difference relied on measurements of civilization that were tied to assumed biological difference. Here ‘scientific racism’ facilitated the ordering of the global political system, traversing the domestic to the international, and having enduring consequences (Hobson 2004, pp. 219–226). This chapter considers how racist worldviews mobilized the civilizing projects of the nineteenth century, having domestic implications and embedding racial identities in structures and institutions of governance. In the case of the Ottoman Empire and the Syrian provinces, this chapter traces the international and domestic dynamics that facilitated the production of racial identities. It examines the impact of modernization reforms, the consequences of these reforms—particularly in the development of social schisms based on existing identities which were then racialized through the attribution of characteristics believed to be inherent to those communities. This included the assumption that Muslim communities were more susceptible to barbarism and fanaticism while Christian communities were of a more civilized nature; justifying local-global alliance formations. Although these alliances were developed for political gain, they reproduced racial-civilizational hierarchies. It further discusses the impact of these racial-civilizational developments within the domestic context on modern national identities. By relying on the belief that race, and in the context of the Syrian provinces of the Ottoman Empire, religion, was a determining factor in a society’s ability to become civilized, the Ottoman Empire was perceived to be, by the European powers, in a permanent state of disorder. The racializing of religion in the Ottoman Empire, and more specifically, the Syrian provinces, had consequences for how the state came together. This was evident in terms of identity formation, systems and structures of governance, and ongoing global political relations.

Historic Intersections of Civilization, Race, and Religion The use of race in the context of a standard of civilization was necessary in two ways: first, racial hierarchies were used to help measure civilizational attainment. This provided a supposed scientific measurement that guided and justified the civilizing project in the global south. Second, in instances

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where the civilizing project was considered a failure by European powers, either due to continued revolt and rebellion or the inability or unwillingness to modernize institutions and centralize governance, explanations were often related to the racial characteristics of the society within the polity. As such, a link was made between race, underdevelopment, and the lack of civilizational progress. Discussed in this section of the chapter is the history of this relationship, noting how religion—in the case of the Ottoman Empire—became the identifying characteristic that underwent the process of racialization. Although religious groups did not constitute a racial group, as the concept underwent transformations throughout the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries, the notion that religious identity was tied to certain social characteristics, facilitated a process of racialization (Delatolla and Yao 2019). In the nineteenth-century British civilizational league tables, John Hobson highlights how ‘Division Two’, the Barbaric division, was consigned to the Ottoman Empire, China, Siam, and Japan. Here, the ‘racial colour’ was yellow, and the associated ‘human character’ of this civilization was Pagan. Notably, on this table, the religious options were limited to Christian—reserved for the first civilization—and Pagan or Atheistic, reserved for the second and third civilization (Hobson 2004, p. 225). Religious identities, as racialized identities slowly became entrenched in the context of European relations with communities in the Syrian provinces.1 By categorizing the population by means of religious identity and tying these identities to specific characteristics, the difficulty encountered by European administrators in distinguishing the civilizational potential and capacity of the populations ceased.2 Consequent to this process was the modern politicization of sectarian identities, often attributed to the region as a defining characteristic, but also emerging racialized distinctions between Lebanese and Syrian populations in the development of national identities. As was evident in the case of Greece, the notion of civilization and which societies could be included as ‘civilized’ was entangled in a 1 Historically, the definition of race in the nineteenth century was beginning to shift from a taxonomic concept to a biological concept. In the early 1840s it was generally accepted that race was objective, related to culture, material success, and interpersonal relations, and that race was a valid scientific category. 2 166PO/E/269, CADN, August 1, 1880, no. 177, from M. de Torcy in Syria and Palestine to M. de Freycinet, Minister of Foreign Affairs.

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process of racialization. The constructed myth of a linear, ever progressive, Western civilization that placed its origins in ancient Greece, where democracy was developed and Western philosophical traditions emerged, is one example of the co-implicated construction of identity and race. This meant that the Greeks were necessarily included in a racialized construction of the ‘civilized’ world. However, their inability to progress and develop in a manner similar to Britain or France, was explained as the result of Islamic and oriental despotism of the Ottoman Empire, and, particularly, a consequence of Muslim rule (Hobson 2004, p. 227). Accordingly, this difference justified a racial worldview, one that was constructed on measurements and tests of civilizational progress, where failure was explained by assumed biological characteristics. The disparities between European and Ottoman civilization (as well as other polities in the global south) not only facilitated a Euro -centric or -hegemonic order in a transformed global arena by limiting recognized sovereignty to those who were considered ‘civilized’, but justified interference and intervention in ‘uncivilized’ polities. Intervention and interference in the Ottoman Empire, similar to other regions of the global south, during the period of European imperial and colonial expansion, in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, was vindicated by active engagement in a civilizing mission. The aim of the civilizing missions, whether they were of an imperial or a colonial nature, was centred on normative, structural, and institutional developments that sought to parallel the developments that had occurred in European states. These normative, structural, and institutional developments included modernizing reforms, secular governance,3 centralized state institutions, and industrialist-capitalist forms of social reproduction that paralleled the organization of the modern European state. While biology helped explain social, political, and economic progress, or the lack thereof, the civilizing project was viewed as a moral engagement to help impart European progress and, ultimately, save humanity. Still, the failure to civilize, to mimic the normative, structural, and institutional

3 Although secular governance was, in the latter half of the nineteenth century, viewed as

modern and progressive, without attachment to any singular religious worldview, Richard Mohr argued that secular governance is, at its basis, Christian. Here, Mohr outlines the theological context that gave way to secularism in Western Europe and subsequently analyses legal principles often attributed to secular engagement. See: Mohr 2011, pp. 34– 51.

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aspects of European statehood was caused by, according to European colonial and imperial administrations, natural and biological deficiencies associated with racial characteristics. As such, further interference and intervention was justified; subordinating the uncivilized. Here, Edward Said states ‘Islam was militant hostility to European Christianity’ where Islam, not as a religion, but as a ‘civilization’ itself was ‘poised against a Christian and European way of life’ (1978, p. 91). Particularly in the Ottoman Empire, and specifically in relation to the Syrian provinces, the process of racializing the populations did not rely on physical characteristics or attributes. The traditional racial distinctions based on physical features and classifications were difficult to ascertain in the Syrian provinces. Scholars writing on race during this period argued that Arab regions contained ‘an astonishing diversity of aspect in the population; independently, to all appearance, of the great mixture of races’ (Pickering 1848, p. 10; The Sessional Papers, vol. XIII, pp. 102–105, no. 66, and 106–108, no. 68). Similarly, this ‘great mixture’ was expressed by the French military captain, M. de Torcy who noted that ‘it is difficult to distinguish between race, as much of the primitive population has bred with the Arabs and even the uniqueness of the Turks has nearly disappeared in Syria’.4 Although the Ottoman Empire was classified as part of the ‘barbaric’ world, in relation to their ‘yellow’ colouring, Islamic faith, and the temperament of the population as being melancholic and/or rigid (Hobson 2004, p. 225), European administrations had difficulty classifying the populations in the Syrian provinces. The inability to distinguish race in Syria forced the European administrations, particularly Britain and France, to seek other means to explain characterizations of the populations as inferior in order to facilitate imperial governance and realize European interests.5 In the case of the Syrian provinces, where physical racial identifiers were difficult to distinguish, religion became central to the process of racialization (Delatolla and Yao 2019). The ability to be modern and civilized was seen as a biological condition related to the race of a community. However, the characterizations closely associated between demeanor, ability, and race were also used to describe and characterize 4 166PO/E/269, CADN, August 1, 1880, no. 177, From M. de Torcy in Syria and Palestine to M. de Freycinet, Minister of Foreign Affairs. 5 See Chapter 8 on the use of a standard of civilization as a tool for the realization of interests.

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ethno-sectarian identities (Kuru 2009, pp. 6–38; Norris and Inglehart 2004, p. 8; Inglehart 1997; Inkeles and Smith 1976). The relationship between religion and civilization was not a novel response to the inability of British and French administrations to discern race in the Ottoman Empire. Rather, it had historical roots in intra-European religious conflict, including and particularly with regard to conflicts between Catholics and Protestants. While the racialization of religious identities, and thus the emphasis placed on religious identities, may seem antithetical to a ‘modern’ scientific understanding of the social world, the transformations related to the Enlightenment did not erase the foundational primacy of Christianity (Kuru 2009, pp. 6–38; Norris and Inglehart 2004, p. 8). Rather, Christianity became entangled with explanations of social order, development, and reproduction even as secularity was becoming increasingly popular (Mohr 2011). Notably, support for Greek independence emerged in relation to the racialization of a Christian identity. The racial characterization of Christian Greek in contrast to Muslim Ottoman society, is exemplary of European positionality with regard to the Ottoman Empire; effecting the application of a standard of civilization and European decision-making in relation to the Sublime Porte. Beginning in the seventeenth century, following the Enlightenment, the notion of Greece as central to the origin story of Western civilization became popular in Europe, particularly as the notion of civilization had begun to develop (Quijano 2000, p. 552; Bowden 2004). As such, support for Greek independence amassed, inviting the attention of France, Britain, and Russia, who sided with the Greeks in their 1821 putsch against the Sublime Porte. European support for Greek independence relied on this origin story and the propagation of Enlightenment ideas which had a resounding impact on ‘middle class Balkan Orthodox Christians, who were either ethnic Greeks, or largely acculturated into the Greek ethnie, or under heavy Grecophone influences’ (Roudometof 1998, pp. 11–14). This origin story placed Greece at the beginning of Western civilization noting it as the birthplace of philosophy and democracy. Support for Greek independence, marked the beginning of the nineteenth-century European interventions in Ottoman affairs, was justified as support for an enlightened civilization, one that had been shrouded in darkness under Turkish and Muslim rule, but could enter political modernity with ease following their release from the oppressive fanatical authority of the Sublime Porte (St. Clair 2008; Dakin 1973).

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In the context of European interference and intervention in the Ottoman Empire, three intertwined and intersecting aspects are apparent: civilization, race, and religion. An argument can be made that notions of civilization were not only tied to the logics of the Enlightenment but were also the product of scientific and industrial developments (Roudometof 1998, pp. 11–14). It can also be stated that race and religion were embedded in the concept of civilization, both of which being markers of difference between European progress and the global south’s perceived backwardness (Quijano 2000; Delatolla and Yao 2019; Hobson 2004). European expansion was facilitated by the construction of a distinct Western civilization in contrast to racial and cultural other (Said 1978, pp. 57, 91), separate to those elsewhere; despite the importance of the Enlightenment and the industrialization, which played large roles in the development of European power and transforming the international in the nineteenth century. Here, Western civilization was a product of comparative development and underdevelopment with other polities and societies, prioritizing modern knowledge and degrading traditional knowledge. As such, it was believed that Christian populations maintained a comparative advantage, in opposition to negatively racialized and non-Christian, given that progressed and developed European states were predominantly Christian. The correlation between European states and Christian populations with modernity helped provide the foundation to the racialization of religious identities (Van der Veer 1998; Braudel 1982; Tripp 2006, pp. 15–16; Hobsbawm 1990, 1995). For example, following the occupation of the Syrian provinces by Muhammad Ali and Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt, British General Consul John William Perry Farren, wrote that the city of Damascus contains a population that has been largely impenetrable to European ideas. In this letter to Viscount Palmerston, on February 7, 1834, Farren argues that it is in Britain’s interests to break down by the moral influence of its national power this besotted opposition to the just and natural relations of states, and be the first to open this field of commercial enterprise to European commerce, and to establish on a respected basis in these parts the rights of Christian civilisation.6

6 FO/78/243, TNA, February 7, 1834, from J.W. Farren, in Damascus to Lord Palmerston, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.

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In this quote, Farren tethered the civilizing project, inclusive of order and organization by means of statehood and the establishment of economic relations between Damascus and Europe, to the establishment of ‘rights of Christian civilization’. This included, but was not limited to, Protestant revivalism in nineteenth-century Britain. As Max Weber details, the notion that engagement in worldly production—to do with economic and social production and reproduction—was a moral duty, necessary to fulfil duties to god (Weber 2013). Where the absence of a Christian God was evident, particularly in the European peripheries, it was not only reasoned that the darkness of man was caused by the lack of light (God) and was akin to the darkness of evil, but that Christianity, and specifically Protestantism contained a moral order and work ethic that was inherently absent from other religious teachings (Gorski 2003; Weber 2013; Delatolla and Yao 2019). In addition to worldviews underpinned by Protestant revivalism, racial characterizations were used in the classification of ethno-sectarian groups to explain the unwillingness or the inability to abandon customary knowledges and practices and undertake modern, ‘civilized’, forms of social, political, and economic engagement. In developing ethno-sectarian classifications, France and Russia—primarily, but also Britain, developed alliances with local sectarian groups. The French administrations’ decision to form an alliance with Muhammad Ali and Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt, although strategically developed to expand French influence across North Africa, was justified by the treatment of the Christian populations by the Egyptians. Although equal measure in governance between Christians and Muslims did not develop, Christians gained prominent positions during the Egyptian occupation. Colonel Churchill wrote, on May 31, 1841 that the Christians under Ibrahim Pasha were represented by seven out of the twelve members of the administrative council in Damascus. In contrast to the elevation of Christians in new administrative positions, was the prevalent use of force against the Muslim population.7 Noting the consequences of the socio-political transformations, Porfirii Uspenskii, the chief official of the Russian Orthodox Church sent to Syria by Russia, described several incidents highlighting how the premise of

7 FO/226/72, TNA, May 31, 1841, no. 2, June 10, 1841, no. 4, Colonel Churchill on the State of the Country, Damascus; 166PO/D1/46, CADN, October 21, 1840, no. 51, from Henry Guys in Aleppo to Comte de Pontois in Istanbul.

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equal status negatively altered communal relations. For Muslim inhabitants in the Syrian provinces, who were unhappy with the shift in the status quo, equality diminished their once elevated political, economic, and social status. This inadvertently created animosity directed at the Christian communities and led to the severe collective punishment of Muslims by Ibrahim Pasha (Hopwood 2014, pp. 141–144). While the European positions regarding the Egyptian occupation of the Ottoman Syrian provinces can be discussed as an example where racial characterizations did not apply, given the Muslim leaderships of both Egypt and the Ottoman Empire, racial characterizations were evident in discussions of leadership, social order, and alliance formation. Writing on the gradual decline of the Ottoman Empire, Consul D. Sandison, tethers racial characterizations to civilizational qualities: In many districts of Constantinople all classes are comfortable and thriving. Order and obedience have replaced among the Turks their hereditary habits of turbulence in the capital and provinces. The old Janissary party appears to be perfectly insignificant, nor was its destruction ever any subject of national regret. The mass of the people has become accustomed to the Sultan’s military reforms and to perceive in the various innovations introduced.8

Amplifying a hierarchical racial worldview, Sandison highlights the Turks’ surprising transformation from ‘hereditary habits of turbulence’ to order and obedience. This, arguably, was in contestation with French justifications for supporting Muhammad Ali and Ibrahim Pasha. These alliances, despite being formed in relation to specific geopolitical and imperial interests—as discussed in Chapter 8, were justified within the context racial characterizations that were tied to civilizational markers. The French administration argued that their support for the Egyptian occupation was premised on their ability to establish equality and rational governance (Palmer 1992, p. 112). The stated positions of the British and the French in developing these alliances, relied on notions that the presumed racial limitations had been altered, leading to civilizational advancements.

8 FO/78/252, TNA, January 13, 1835, no. 14, from D. Sandison in Istanbul to Lord Posonby.

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Following the removal of Egyptian forces from the Syrian provinces, alliances premised on religious similarity between the foreign administrators and the population in the Syrian provinces became more prominent and more troublesome for Ottoman governance; impacting social relations between the communities. The French administration, for example, strategically formed relations with the Catholic, and specifically the Maronite, communities in the Syrian provinces, whereas the Russians sought out alliances with the Christian Orthodox communities. The alliance between the French and the Catholics was premised on the notion that Christian civilizations, distinct from a Muslim civilization, spanned from Europe and into Mount Lebanon; sharing similar network formations with regard to nobility structures. Defending the alliance between the French and the Maronite Catholic community, the Archbishop of Laodicea, Nicolas Murad, contrasted the character of Christian civilization with that of the incivility of the Muslim populations (Murad 1844). Rather than disappearing, the ideas that had been prevalent in pre-modern Europe with regard to religion had become assembled onto ideas developed in modernity regarding race, progress, and capability. The combination facilitated the cataloguing of the populations in the Syrian provinces into racist categories (Donnelly 1998, p. 6). The racist categories, although not specifically referencing physical features, used religion as a marker of development and civilization. This was particularly evident after the promulgation of the Hatt-ı Serif ¸ (1839), and during the Second Ottoman–Egyptian War (1839–1841) the French consul in Aleppo wrote that there was growing fanaticism among the Muslim population, giving the example of Homs where 1500 men were ordered by the Sultan to go into battle. The French consul argued in a dispatch to Paris that the Governor of Homs has made use of religious sentiment in expressing support for the Sultan and encouraging men to fight Egyptian forces, noting this as evidence of fanaticism.9 According to the French consul, the willingness to act against supposed rational and civilized governance was a marker of backwardness, the result of a civilizational deficiency. Yet, the use religious identity employed by the Governor of Homs to direct political action was replicated by the French consul who asserted the importance of offering additional protections to the Christian populations. Although the French were employing a parallel narrative 9 166PO/D1/46, CADN, October 12, 1840, no. 57, from Henry Guys in Aleppo to M. de Pontois in Istanbul.

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to that which they were opposing, they had done so on the premise of a moral superiority, evoking distinctions between Islamic fanaticism and Christian rationality. However, during this period and shortly following this despatch, the French administration was forced to backtrack on their support of Muhammad Ali and Ibrahim Pasha, specifically to avoid an embarrassing military defeat. Justifying this change in alliance formation, the French consul in Beirut stated that Muhammed Ali and Ibrahim Pasha are, after all, Muslims, just like the Turks, and it is the Christian populations who should be privileged by France.10 For the French consul, the relationship between the Muslim religion and politics was a relationship that was inherently fanatical and the relationship between France and Egypt was one that was strategic. The former remained true while the latter became outweighed by the costs. Despite advocating secular policies, the French adhered to a civilizational Christian, primarily Catholic, worldview, not dissimilar to the Russians who sought to influence and ally themselves with the Orthodox Christian communities based on civilizational attributes and similarities (Hopwood 2014, p. 144). Previously, this had been an important aspect with regard to Russian support for Greek independence and the subsequent alignment of Russia with the members of the Greek Orthodox Church.11 By arguing that Catholic and Orthodox Christians of the Syrian provinces were the civilizational cousins of France and Russia, respectively, the governments of these European states assumed the right to protect and promote the interests of these communities. The narrative used to justify French and Russian interference, however, was based on notions of scientific racism, arguing that the belief in a Christian God, whether this was through the lens of Catholicism or Orthodoxy, was evidence of moral and intellectual superiority, and a result of community relations inherited through biological lineage (Clastres 2010, pp. 101– 114). The alliances that were formed facilitated an association between religion, race, and civilization. In doing so, it created new political, economic, and social hierarchies that contributed to the development of

10 92PO/A/24, CADN, June 16, 1840, French Consul in Beirut. 11 FO/195/458, TNA, January 14, 1854, no. 2, from Richard Wood in Damascus to

Stratford de Redcliffe.

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long-lasting societal divisions and schisms. Notably, the racialized religious worldview that facilitated the kinds of socio-political and economic relationships between European states and local communities within the Ottoman Empire and the Syrian provinces impacted how the standard of civilization was applied. The following sections examine and discuss the multiple ways racialized characterizations of religious identification, or ethno-sectarianism, created systems of inclusion and exclusion with regard to who was considered civilized. The use of racial-civilizational characteristics and categories in relation to religious identities were a consequence of European penetration into the Ottoman Empire. The scientific racism, whether implicit or explicit, that had been prevalent in the mid-nineteenth century aided in the classification of societies, determined and justified globallocal alliances, and facilitated the development of a white world order (Ahmed 2007; Vitalis 2015). In the context of the Syrian provinces, the racial-civilizational characteristics and categories helped shape domestic interactions within the Ottoman Empire throughout the nineteenth century and impacted the Empire’s interaction with a European standard of civilization and modernity. The examples below examine the consequences for local, provincial, imperial, and international politics. Discussed in chronological order, the first example discusses the Tanzimat reform known as the Hatt-ı Serif ¸ (1839). This reform can be viewed as a requirement for European help, although debatable, with the exception of France, in retrieving the Syrian provinces from Muhammad Ali and Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt. The following example discusses the case of Mount Lebanon and the development of split authority based on sectarian identification. Subsequently, this chapter discusses the Hatt-ı Hümayun of 1856, the second Tanzimat reform. The Hatt-ı Hümayun was an attempt to modernize in the face of Russian threats to the Empire, having consequences for provincial and local politics. The final example provided in this chapter considers how ethno-sectarianism became institutionalized in the national myth and establishment of Lebanon. The Hatt-ı Serif: ¸ Eradicating Inferior Government The Hatt-ı Serif ¸ (1839) was the first major Tanzimat decree, part of an enduring effort to modernize and reform the Ottoman Empire in the image of European statehood. Sometimes, and controversially, described as a provocation by European powers who maintained influence over the

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Grand Vizier, Mustafa Reshid Pasha, the architect of the decree. The Hatt-ı Serif ¸ was proclaimed during the second Egyptian-Ottoman War and was considered necessary for the Ottoman Empire to be viewed as an equal partner. It was also utilized as a baseline of civilized engagement by European powers, particularly Britain and with the exception of France, to justify support for the Empire’s reclamation of the Syrian provinces (Mardin 2000, p. 162; Findley 1989, pp. 30–31; Šedivý 2010, p. 99). As stated earlier, in Chapter 3, The Hatt-ı Serif ¸ ‘had as its goal the establishment of a social order such that modern rights of citizenship would be guaranteed, and inferior government would be eliminated’ (Beydilli 2001, p. 92; Davison 1954, p. 847; Mardin 2000, p. 162; Findley 1989, pp. 30– 31). The structural and normative modern rights of citizenship were seen as pivotal to the function of the modern state. Having been established in the majority of European states, these rights were constructed in relation to the institutional developments of the modern state, which were considered superior to other forms of governance. However, the conceptual separation between inferior and modern government interacted with racialized characterizations of the global south. As noted in the introduction, this separation produced hierarchies that were inflected with a racist understanding of the world. Moreover, while the reform decree outlined, broadly, structural and institutional centralization, as well as legal and normative rights that brought the Ottoman Empire closer to the modern European state, doubt over the ability to enact the reforms to an acceptable standard persisted. The British consul in Damascus, writing to Lord Viscount Palmerston, wondered what kind of system of governance would become dominant once the Syrian provinces are returned to the Sultan and if it will, in turn, ‘be able to maintain the same standards as is held in Europe’.12 Palmerston’s narrative had not only maintained the division and hierarchization of Europe in relation to the ‘rest’, but also questioned the Sultan’s ability to engage in a civilized form of governance. This narrative was referencing a racial characterization of the Sultan, the Turk, and the Muslim that had been established in an ordering of an international racial-civilizational hierarchy. For instance, within the second tier of a three tier civilizational hierarchy, ‘Orientals’ and Muslims, were described as once having a great civilization. Since their civilizational

12 FO/78/410, TNA, January 18, 1840, from N.W. Ulerry, Damascus to John Bidwell.

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pinnacle, however, they have since fallen, requiring help from the first tier—the European—to become civilized again (Hobson 2004). Ironically, the reforms that were developed to facilitate the provision of rights in the emerging European state system, by making these populations civilized, led to the diminishment of those rights and the confirmation that the Ottoman Empire was not yet ready to be considered sovereign. Following the period of implementation of the reform, it was reported that the exercise in centralization and bureaucratization opened new areas of oppression, corruption, intimidation, and bribery. For example, in a letter from Colonel Charles Henry Churchill, a British army officer and diplomat, the Governor of Damascus, Nedjib Pasha, was described as wilfully ignoring and engaging in the persecution of Christian and Jewish communities.13 Nedjib Pasha’s refusal to protect Christian and Jewish populations was said to have been a result of his religious fanaticism, a problem inherent to Ottoman Turks, and, exceptionally, Muslim subjects. While, Nedjib Pasha’s position regarding the Christian and Jewish populations justified the position taken by the European powers regarding the Empire’s susceptibility towards inferior governance, the explanation for his position was related to a racist position. In addition to racializing Ottoman Turks and Muslim subjects, the Christian and Jewish communities of the Empire were also racialized. In particular, the Christian populations gained an advantage through provisions of equality, as discussed in Chapter 3, and by forming alliances with administrators representing European states. In one particular despatch from 1840, Churchill described that ‘the general feeling, both amongst the Jews and Christians […] was that England will interfere to protect them, and the country in general, against the oppression of the Turks [Muslims]’.14 Despite the British having worked to re-establish

13 The European powers, particularly Britain, were not on good terms with Nedjid Pasha. He was viewed as embodying corruption and oppression, resulting in the cessation of tax payments by the population residing in Mount Lebanon (Fourier 1841, p. 390); FO/226/72, TNA, May 31, 1841, no. 2; June 10, 1841, no. 4, Colonel Churchill on the State of the Country, Damascus. 14 ‘The Jews have more causes for complaint against the Christians than against the

Turks. The prejudices entertained against them by the Christians, continues undiminished and it is believed that violence could erupt at any moment’. FO/226/72, TNA, May 31, 1841, no. 2, June 10, 1841; FO/78/498, TNA, February 23, 1842, no. 20, from Richard Wood in Damascus to the Earl of Aberdeen, Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs; Hakim 2013, p. 41.

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Ottoman control in the Syrian provinces and facilitate the modernization reform of the Hatt-ı Serif, ¸ Churchill effectively positioned England to continue to interfere in imperial-communal relations. This opportunity presented itself due to the institutional and structural changes caused by the modernization reforms, where social schisms between the various religious communities became increasingly entrenched. The worsening sectarian relations were not only amplified by the racial discourses of European administrators, but also international dynamics. The subordination of the Ottoman Empire in relation to the European states and its exclusion from the developing state system further justified racialized perceptions held by European administrators. This was compounded by inter-European competition regarding imperial and colonial expansion, including conflict between the French and Russians. Notably, France and Russia viewed it as their right to protect their respective religious communities, while Britain attempted to counterbalance the French relations with the Catholics and the Russian relations with the Orthodox Christians by aligning themselves with the Druze, in the first instance, and subsequently by attempting to proclaim themselves as a Muslim empire.15 However, unlike the French, the British were ‘careful not to commit [themselves] too far and, moreover, not to encourage separatist elements in the Lebanon’ (Salih 1977, p. 251). With this policy in place, the British made sure that the Druze would continue to prosper under the auspices of a British alliance that provided economic links and the development of educational institutions, on the condition that the Druze were strictly obedient to the Sultan. The Druze, on the other hand, had hoped to enter relations that were analogous to that of the French and the Maronite Catholics in Mount Lebanon (Salih 1977, p. 251). The relations between the French and Maronite Catholics provided the latter with greater political influence over the decisions of the Sublime Porte by tying the Maronite community to the French by that they were ‘civilizational cousins’ (Murad 1844). In particular, it was this narrative that was withheld from the British alliance with the Druze, despite the latter seeking relationship with the British based on a similar premise. 15 Britain’s imperial crown jewel, India, contained ‘nearly 100 million […] Muslims’ and for this reason, the British were sympathetic to the Muslim population in the Syrian provinces. Sir H. Layard in Syria, Morning Post, Thursday October 23, 1879, p. 5, British Library, Newspaper Archives.

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Evident with the case of the Hatt-ı Serif, ¸ global racial hierarchies underpinned modernization reforms implemented to accede to international benchmarks, that were, in turn, racialized. This created and amplified local schisms, facilitating discursive and practical racialization by external parties of local religious communities. It provided the means for European interference and intervention in local affairs within the larger framework of a global standard of civilization by drawing civilizational alliances and undermining Ottoman authority by highlighting their supposed barbarity. By negatively racializing the Turkish and Muslims populations, global racial hierarchies and the characterizations inherent to these hierarchies were confirmed. Mount Lebanon: Racializing Religion The confirmation of these racialized hierarchies and their application to religious identity was particularly evident with regard to Mount Lebanon following the Second Ottoman–Egyptian War (1839–1841) and the Hatt-ı Serif. ¸ As the reinstatement of Ottoman authority, coupled with the modernization reforms, was becoming a reality in Mount Lebanon there was growing uncertainty over how the region would be governed. This uncertainty lent itself to increased intercommunal fighting as the Druze community refused to submit to the Christian leadership of the Chehab dynasty. The reason for this refusal developed when Emir Bashir II, working with the Egyptian occupation and French consuls, converted from Sunni Islam to Maronite Catholicism in order to benefit from the changing social dynamics of the occupation. Following this alignment, and under the authority of Emir Bashir II, issues relating to the transformation of taxation, feudal authority, and military conscription came to a boiling point, resulting in violent sectarian conflict (Al-Aqiqi 1959, pp. 2–3).16 The region became divided, as did the Chehab family, for which Emir Bashir II was a descendent of. Once Ottoman authority was reinstated in Mount Lebanon, Emir Bashir II was sent into exile, further destabilizing the Maronite and, by extension, French position within Mount Lebanon as the Sublime Porte began to favour the Druze. With the ear of the Sublime Porte, the Druze refusal was met with a proposal from a faction of the Druze community for a Turkish Muslim Governor 16 FO/78/410 TNA, June 23, 1840, no. 9, from N.W. Ulerry in Damascus to Lord Palmerston, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.

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to oversee the affairs of Mount Lebanon (Johnson 2001, pp. 90–91; Kisirwani, 1980, p. 697).17 The French administration in the region, seeking to fulfil their role as protectors of the Christian population and to establish their ‘legitimate influence’, procured an agreement with Emir Bashir II while he was in exile.18 In exchange for consular and political support granted by the French to Emir Bashir II, he promised France his allegiance in advancing their ‘mutual interests’; including his return to a position of authority in Mount Lebanon. Additionally, these ‘mutual interests’ comprised the emancipation of the Christian population from the Ottoman Empire and developing an ever deeper allegiance to the French state (Hakim 2013, p. 41).19 The French were effectively strategizing to undermine the authority of the Sublime Porte by building on a shared political identity of Catholicism with the Maronite community, strengthened by identifying the Muslim and the Druze populations as being civilizationally, and therefore racially, inferior. The notion that Muslims and Druze were fundamentally different from the Christian population exploited social, political, and economic imbalances, some that were pre-existing, and others that developed following the implementation of the Hatt-ı Serif. ¸ In the case of Mount Lebanon, the imbalances that became entrenched between the Christian, Muslim, and Druze populations were evident with the development of increased competition over political power and economic resources. Intercommunal competition was heightened by engaging in the discourse that sectarian identities were constitutive of civilizational boundaries. While the Christians, Muslims, and Druze of Mount Lebanon, maintained cultural similarities and shared governance, including the use and management of socio-economic institutions (Doumani 1998), they were enveloped into 17 The Druze were divided over how Mount Lebanon should be governed, while some petitioned for the establishment of a Muslim Turkish Governor, others—of the Jumblatt family—sought decentralized governance, FO/78/498 TNA, January 12, 1842, no. 20, from Richard Wood in Damascus to Charles Bankhead, Her Majesty’s Minister Plenipotentiary. 18 For the Maronite Catholics in Mount Lebanon and, by extension, the French, the exile was a threat to their power in the region. FO/78/498, TNA, January 12, 1842, no. 20, from Richard Wood in Damascus to Charles Bankhead, Her Majesty’s Minister Plenipotentiary. 19 FO/78/498, TNA, February 23, 1842 (no. 20), from Richard Wood in Damascus to the Earl of Aberdeen, Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.

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relations with external actors that increasingly racialized the populations. Here, the racializing of religious communities justified split authority in Mount Lebanon by arguing that the Christians and the Druze represented two different civilizations and races, each requiring their own government. Although interests played a role in developing split authority in Mount Lebanon, racial-civilizational differences facilitated the justification for the policy. Notably, the Christian identity, developed through politicization and a distinct European worldview, was perceived as inherently more civilized. In contrast, the consistent characterization of Muslims—and Druze—as ‘fanatical’ and ‘barbarous’, unable to govern in a civilized manner, inherently violent, and prone to corruption, was foundational in racializing the religious communities in Lebanon and elsewhere in the Syrian provinces (Krimsti 2014). This created hierarchies between the communities, having real political and economic consequences, resulting in increased dissatisfaction and alienation that was propelled by European alliances with specific religious communities. Contributing to ever increasingly sentiments of alienation were, first and foremost, relations between European powers and religious communities that were shrouded in a racialized frame of reference, as well as political and economic policies of modernization and centralization in the Ottoman Empire. Both aspects, associated with transformations of modernization, created social imbalance. Due to the changing patterns of relations between local communities and the Sublime Porte, opportunities for sustained interference and penetration by the European powers remained significant, as noted by Colonel Farren.20 By altering the socio-political relations, communal alliances with the European powers were formed, allowing for European economic expansion, increasingly unfettered access to peripheral colonies, and access to militarily strategic regions. Ultimately, this created the groundwork for incessant sectarianism in the mid-nineteenth century despite ‘a long history of nonsectarian leadership’ in Mount Lebanon among the various religious groups (Makdisi 2000, p. 77). Because of the increased sectarian animosity caused by European interference and penetration and the interests of the various actors involved, governance of Mount Lebanon became a contentious issue among all 20 FO/78/243, TNA, February 7, 1834, from J.W. Farren in Damascus to Lord Palmerston, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.

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parties involved. Initially, and following the request from a portion of the Druze community, the Sublime Porte had sought to install a Turkish Muslim Governor in Mount Lebanon, but following the objections from the British and the French, as well as the Governor of Damascus, Nedjib Pasha, the Sublime Porte changed course. While the British and, particularly, the French had their own interests in mind, Nedjib Pasha viewed the Ottoman plan as possibly having the adverse effect of uniting the Christians and some of the Druze against Ottoman authorities. Instead, Nedjib Pasha encouraged the pacification of Mount Lebanon through the disarmament of the population, a strategy that was also proposed by the Sultan’s Grand Vizier. The British opposed disarmament, viewing it as perilous for the local populations, leaving them susceptible to abuse by Ottoman forces. Given that the French were seeking the appointment of Emir Bashir II, a supporter of the previous Egyptian occupation sent into exile, Nedjib Pasha expressed the need for the Sublime Porte to assert its dominance by ensuring a monopoly of coercion. The British consul in Damascus, Richard Wood, however, proposed the appointment of Emir Said al-Deen (or Emir Saad el-Din), a Muslim prince of the Chehab family and former Governor of Hasbeya. If the proposal concerning the appointment of al-Deen was viewed as unacceptable to the Sublime Porte, Wood had also proposed Emir Amin, the son of Emir Bashir II, as an alternate given that the former actively fought alongside Ottoman forces during the Second Egyptian–Ottoman War (1839–1841).21 However, Wood’s recommendations of appointing a Muslim prince of the Chehab dynasty was ignored by the Sublime Porte, despite being considered as a compromise by all parties involved. Following the deposition of Emir Bashir III,22 on January 15, 1842, Omar Pasha was

21 FO/78/498, TNA, February 23, 1842 (no. 20), from Richard Wood in Damascus

to the Earl of Aberdeen, Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. 22 Following the exile of Bashir II, the Sublime Porte appointed Emir Bashir III, Bashir II’s cousin, who had acted as Bashir II’s opposition on behalf of the Ottoman Empire during the reign of Ibrahim Pasha. The Druze viewed Bashir III as a feeble leader, but also an obstacle to Druze autonomy, one who upheld and defended the authority of the Ottoman Empire. The request by the Druze leaders to have full rights reinstated was denied immediately by Bashir III who subsequently undertook measures to rid Mount Lebanon of the Druze feudal authority that remained. The developments under Bashir III led to fighting between the Maronites and Druze in Deir el-Qamar, spreading to other parts of the mountain soon after. See Johnson (2001, pp. 90–91) and Kisirwani (1980, p. 697).

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appointed as Governor. With the threat of possible revolt, fulfilling the prophesized warnings made by Nedjib Pasha, the Sublime Porte deployed Selim Bey, commissioner to the Sublime Porte, to Mount Lebanon with the task to uncover the desires of the Maronite and Druze communities and to persuade the Maronites into accepting a form of direct rule under the Sublime Porte (Farah 2000, pp. 183–186). Failure to the Maronite community acquiesce resulted in the appointment of a Christian and a Druze Governor under the tutelage of a Turkish Muslim Governor.23 It was believed that the division of authority in the region had the potential to alleviate some of the tension between the Druze and Christian communities and allow the Sublime Porte to, at the very least only nominally, display to the European powers that it could maintain a central form of control over the region by retaining a Muslim Governor to oversee a Druze and a Christian Qaymaqam.24 Split authority of Mount Lebanon by means of the Qaymaqam system, although managed under a single Ottoman Governor, was viewed as a necessity to retain authority and to prevent further rebellious activity by the inhabitants of Mount Lebanon. It also served the purpose of allowing the Sublime Porte to fulfil their promise of local rule while modernizing and centralizing authority, which otherwise, had the adverse effect of placing the Christians and the Druze into conflict over authority. On the other hand, the decision to divide authority in Mount Lebanon also legitimized perceptions of difference, inhibiting inter-sectarian social, political, and economic development; deepening sectarian divisions among the Maronite and the Druze populations. In the context of the prevalent European language of scientific racism, the division of authority between Christian and Druze helped reinforce notions that the two religious communities belonged to separate civilizations and, indeed, separate races. Notably, Stratford Canning in his letter to M. Pisani, on May 27, 1842, wrote ‘two races, in most things separate, divide Mount Lebanon’.25 In the case of split authority, a racial worldview that produced scepticism towards to the Sublime Porte and characterized some as barbarous and fanatical played an important role in shaping alliances and consequently the politics of Mount Lebanon. That is not to

23 The Sessional Papers, vol. XIII, pp. 379–380, no. 130. 24 The Qaymaqam was a District Governor. 25 The Sessional Papers, vol. XIII, pp. 105, 107, 109, 200, 228, 284.

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say that the populations of Mount Lebanon did not act as agents, but were functioning within a structure not of their own making. Religious communities were externally racialized because of assumptions regarding civilizational characterizations and capabilities. These assumptions became entrenched in the political development of the Syrian provinces, as is evident in the case of Mount Lebanon, effecting the relationships between local populations, European powers and the Sublime Porte (Pickering 1848, p. 10).26 However, in the absence of traditional racial attributes, the nineteenth-century logics regarding race were applied to religion in lieu of biological characteristics, providing an effective method to categorize and distinguish the populations.27 This had further political consequences in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in the development of distinct national identities constructed in relation to language and territory. The consequences of this period and the reforms in Mount Lebanon—with regard to governance and identity formation—became crucial to the territorial extraction of Lebanon from Syria. Both, governance and identity were constructed on racialized religious characteristics of civility and civilization, feeding into a Lebanese national consciousness and identity. While justifications for these changes were premised on a civilizational relationship between the French and the Maronite community, it was also produced with regard to the negative racialization of Muslims, the Druze, and the Syrians. Continuing Civilizational Reform: The Hatt-I Humayun 1856 The dynamics that were becoming increasingly apparent regarding racialized religious identities, particularly with regard to domestic governance in the Syrian provinces, were further amplified due to inter-European conflict that had damaging domestic effects on the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Empire was in a position of submission as it tried to recover from economic and political losses that were sustained during the Crimean War (1853–1856) with Russia. Given the damages suffered and the need to rebuild, additional pressure was placed on the Sublime Porte to undertake a new program of structural and institutional reform. This

26 The Sessional Papers, vol. XIII, pp. 102–105, no. 66, and 106–108, no. 68. 27 166PO/E/269, CADN, August 1, 1880, no. 177, Mission of M. de Torcy in Syria

and Palestine, to M. de Freycinet, Minister of Foreign Affairs.

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was done, primarily, in order to exhibit Ottoman capacity to engage in ‘civilized’ politics, providing a platform that the Ottoman Empire could subsequently use as a tool to negotiate the Treaty of Paris (1856). This was done in order to protect the Empire from further losses and Russian gains, which would have a negative consequence for the interests of other European states (Hertslet 1875, vol. 2, pp. 1250–1264 [no. 264]). This reform, the second to be enacted as part of the Tanzimat period, the Hatt-ı Hümayun of 1856, can be described as a defensive reform, developed to limit Russian gains within the Ottoman Empire after the Crimean War. While the purpose of the reform was to maintain the integrity of the Ottoman Empire by limiting Russian claims, it continued to foster sectarian dynamics within the Syrian provinces of the Ottoman Empire that further enabled European exploitation. Primarily, the reform left many Muslims and Christians within the Syrian provinces unsure of their status within the Empire. This was a consequence of continued displacement of Muslim subjects within the institutions and structures of governance and the Christian concern over the laws on military recruitment that called for all subjects, despite race and religion, to serve in the army, reportedly inducing a general and broad sentiment of social anxiety.28 However, the concerns of the Muslim communities regarding the changes outlined in the decree were dismissed by the French Consul in Aleppo, who was focused on the elevated status of the Christian community. The French Consul’s bias in favour of the elevation of the Christian communities was evidenced by a celebration hosted for the prominent Christian families to mark the occasion (Masters 2013, p. 173). In stark contrast to this celebration, Muhammad Sa’id al-Ustawani, member of the Mejlis Council of Damascus, wrote, in response to the declaration of reforms, that ‘all the Muslims were ashen-faced and we asked Him Most High to exalt the faith and give victory to the Muslims. There is no power or force except in God Most High’ (al-Shaykh Muhammad Sa’id al-Ustawani in Masters 2013, p. 173). In the quote, he asks for victory, implying that there was a conflict over the Empire, placing the Muslims against the Christians, the latter being perceived by the former with disdain due to their alliances with the European powers. As such, the conflict being referenced was much broader than transforming domestic 28 166PO/D1/53, CADN, March 10, 1856, no. 46, from M. Geasset, Aleppo to M. de Thouvenel, French Ambassador to Istanbul.

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relations. It was connected to global politics within the context of the European state system; a system that developed and benefitted from global racial-civilizational hierarchies, which were becoming embedded in the domestic affairs of the Syrian provinces. Tensions between Christians and Muslims, the latter viewing the Christians as loyal to France and Russia, heightened following the establishment of the Hatt-ı Hümayun. Additionally, it was becoming increasingly evident that the social fabric of the Ottoman Empire was slowly unravelling, not only because of the growing animosity between Christians and Muslims, but the worsening reputation of officials acting on behalf of the Empire. On April 26, 1856, the French consul in Aleppo, wrote that the city was agitated, the Muslims were arming themselves and there was a general sense of panic among the Christian population and government officials. The consul continued that should a revolution occur, it would be the Christians, Europeans, and the foreign consuls that would be targeted in attacks (Roederer 1917, p. 19).29 Although the Christian populations were being provided protection by the French administration in the Syrian provinces, they were not without fault. The French consul in Aleppo wrote that ‘the Christians in the city have become embedded in scandal and misconduct and they do not hold religion as close as their Muslim neighbours’. The consul described their actions as being ‘conducted with impunity, abusing the protections offered to them by the European powers, and they do little to convey a positive image of Christianity to the Muslim population’.30 The consul subsequently described the situation of the Christians as one that is ‘temporally enduring’,31 but despite these faults, he argued that the Christian religion ‘is the only good and true religion’, and while justice should be served in the correct manner, it was the duty of the Europeans, and the French in particular, to offer protection when Christians became the targets of ‘Turks’.32

29 166PO/D1/53, CADN, April 26, 1856, no. 6, from M. Bentivoglio in Aleppo to M. de Thouvenel, French Ambassador to Istanbul. 30 166PO/D1/53, CADN, June 3, 1856, no. 9, from M. Bentivoglio in Aleppo to M. de Thovenel, French Ambassador to Istanbul. 31 166PO/D1/54, CADN, August 7, 1858, no. 15, from M. Bentivoglio in Aleppo to M. de Thovenel, French Ambassador to Istanbul. 32 166PO/D1/53, CADN, June 3, 1856, no. 9, from M. Bentivoglio in Aleppo to M. de Thovenel, French Ambassador to Istanbul.

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While the French consul in Damascus was celebrating the reform decree, the British consul in Beirut, writing on November 24, 1856, stated that the reform decree that had been issued has had a negative effect on the city of Beirut. The city had become a playground of petty thieves and criminals, who were emboldened by the lack of order.33 Although the British consul did not reiterate the French concern for the potential consequences for Christians, he noted that the state of affairs was deteriorating. Equally, an article published in The Daily News on September 29, 1856 told of an alarming situation where Ottoman troops were ignoring established imperial laws; describing the troops as ‘seedy ruffians’ that are ‘ill-fed and worse paid, under no discipline’, and who hate the people of Syria. Their presence in the city had increased the levels of disorder and corruption, sanctioning existing animosity directed towards Sublime Porte by the Muslim population.34 With Christians being viewed as benefactors of the modernization reforms, coupled with an increased distrust in the Sublime Porte to provide governance and protection among the wider population in the Syrian provinces, new schisms based on aspects of identity between ‘ethnic’ Turks and Syrians were beginning to emerge. Although there was an emerging conception of racial and ethnic difference between Arab and Turk in Syria, French perceptions of identity in the Syrian provinces remained focused on religion. Arguably, this was because the category of ‘Arab’ as a race was insignificant. Commenting on the Arab nationalist sentiment, the French consul in Beirut, M. FouquesDuParc, wrote that he was not convinced, stating ‘that it will probably not amount to a large enough difference’ (Ismail 1976b, vol. 17, pp. 308– 310). For the French, given the lack of racial discernibility between the populations, it was easier to categorize society through religious associations—with the Muslims being representative of the privileged class and the Christians living an existence of servitude. Yet, the Muslims of Syria, unlike the Muslims of Turkey, the former being described as being Muslim only in name, according to M. de Torcy, were not

33 FO/78/1219, TNA, July 2, 1856, October 6, 1856, no. 13; November 24, 1856, no. 58, from M. Moor in Beirut to the Earl of Clarendon. 34 The Daily News, from Beirut, September 29, 1856, published Thursday October 16, 1856, p. 5. Of 8, the British Library, Newspaper Archives.

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attached to Ottoman governance and instead wished to establish an Arab government.35 Following from de Torcy’s comments, the French consul of Beirut, M. Patrimonio, also noted that the population in Syria wished to establish an Arab government. However, he argued that there was a difference between the population in Mount Lebanon, who desired independence more than anywhere else in the Levant, and the rest of Syria. Here, the difference between the populations in Mount Lebanon and the rest of the Syrian provinces came down to religion. According to Patrimonio, ‘who said religion says nation in Syria, and if the religious ties between the communities dissolve, there will, during the final crisis, be disorders and no other national force for the inhabitants to rally around’ (Ismail 1976a, vol. 15, pp. 50–58). Inferred in this statement was a division between Christians in Mount Lebanon, who were not Arab, and the Muslims of Syria, who shared a common, although weak, Arab identity. Racialized Religion and National Consciousness The exogenous racialization of religion in the Syrian provinces had significant domestic consequences for the imperial politics of modernization reforms and domestic social relations between different sectarian groups. It was not only discursive in nature, by labelling communities as civilized, barbarous, and fanatical, it facilitated the development of power imbalances caused by the development sectarian alliances with European powers, centralization, and modernization within the Sublime Porte. Where the sectarian developments were challenged, particularly by mobilizing an Arab identity, the French perception was that an Arab race had little significance. This was in part due to their pursuit of interests in the region, which required the maintenance of Mount Lebanon as a French stronghold. Although there was veracity that the populations in Mount Lebanon viewed themselves as a separate entity from the rest of the Syrian provinces, this was in part due to the demographic composition and the region’s historic political autonomy. This separateness became further subdivided along sectarian configurations due, in part, to the strength of European influence in Mount Lebanon. With regard to the latter, it can be argued that the process of racialization of the Christian, 35 166PO/E/269, CADN, August 1, 1880, no. 177, Mission of M. de Torcy in Syria and Palestine to M. de Freycinet, Minister of Foreign Affairs.

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and specifically the Maronite, communities in Mount Lebanon deepened distinctions between the region and the rest of the Syrian provinces. Having internalized the racial-civilizational narrative based on religious identity, the delegates from Beirut at the Arab Congress in 1913, meeting in Paris, argued for the creation of a Greater Lebanon. Buying into the idea of a Christian civilization as being different and separate from the civilizations surrounding them, the Christian delegates from Beirut had begun to voice their desires for the creation of Greater Lebanon, encompassing Beirut, and under French protection (Sorby 2005, p. 18). Although the French maintained a strong base of support among the Christians, the British consul challenged the notion of French protection by arguing that the Arabs express desire to ‘pass under British rule’.36 Following this despatch, the British consul continued: ‘all the Muslims here were in favour of some form of British Administration being extended […] and that they hoped the [Damascus] Province would be placed under the Egyptian Government’.37 While the French and British fuelled sectarian divisions through their strategic alliances, the schisms that were created translated into separate nationalisms—particularly that of a Greater Lebanon, governed by Christians and protected by France. Subsequently, at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, the desire for independence by the Lebanese delegation was not concerned with sovereignty, but instead, was a plea for autonomy. The Lebanese delegation insisted on a political separation from the Syrians and the Arab nationalists but to maintain French dominance within its territories for physical and political protection. Faisal, however, argued that despite the cleavages that existed due to the various national parties, ‘they are all agreed to perish utterly, rather than witness the division and mutilation of this country [Syria]’.38 For the Lebanese delegation, the protections and prominence provided to the Maronites of Mount Lebanon by the French administration, underpinned by their supposed civilizational similarities, facilitated political and economic power and prosperity. This accompanied

36 FO/195/2453, TNA, May 16, 1913, no. 154, from M. Grey, Foreign Office, in London to Sir G. Lowther, British Ambassador in Istanbul. 37 FO/195/2453, TNA, April 21, 1913, no. 24, from M. Fontana in Aleppo to Sir G. Lowther, British Ambassador in Istanbul. 38 LG/F/59/10/3, UK Parliamentary Archives, May 1919, Letter sent to the British Prime Minister’s Government, from Faisal.

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and justified the narrative that the Christians were of a different racialsectarian civilization than the Muslim communities; who were embroiled in a fanaticism that continuously derailed civilizational progress. This discourse of difference was further exacerbated by the narrative of the Phoenician heritage and ancestry of the Maronite community. The Christians, in contrast to the Muslims, sought to legitimize their claims with regard to the idea of a Greater Lebanon through the use of the historic myth of Phoenicia, a narrative which only became prominent in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (Salibi 2005, pp. 171– 173). The use of the Phoenician identification marker was one that was racialized as evidence of Lebanese Christian proximity to historic Western civilization (Kaufman 2001, 2004). It was therefore used to highlight a primordial racial difference between the Arabs of Mount Lebanon and those of the Syrian interior in an attempt to validate the inclusion of the port cities into the project of a Greater Lebanon. The political undertones of this narrative were used by the Christian communities, specifically the Maronite community, to give credence to their desire of a separate Lebanese state, which would otherwise be unsustainable due to the landlocked status of Mount Lebanon.39

Conclusion Through the spectre of race and racial-civilizational characteristics, it is possible to understand how the reforms of the Tanzimat were developed in relation to global racial hierarchies that privileged a European form of organization, order, and development. Within the racial worldview upheld by France, Britain, and Russia, the ability to engage in the civilizing process was made easier by societies that maintained similar racial-cultural characteristics to the populations in ‘civilized’ Europe. This was particularly evident with regard to the justifications of the Maronite– French relationship that positively racialized Christian communities as predisposed to rationality and negatively racialized Muslim communities and governance as ‘fanatical’. The process of racialization, tangled up in a worldview that tied civilization, development, and progress to supposed inherent characteristics impacted the domestic and national politics of the Syrian provinces.

39 FO/684/1, TNA, January 1923, French Intelligence Summaries.

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In the first instance, the Ottoman Empire, as a political entity was subordinated by European states as an inferior polity, one that had not progressed to a level of modernity or civilization that had been attained in Europe. Due to the Empire’s Muslim governance, the inability to attain the benchmark of European modernity and civilization led to a process of racialization that characterized Muslim communities as barbaric and fanatic, placing the Ottoman Empire within the second civilizational-tier. In a similar way that European states racialized polities in the global south, separating them from the group of ‘civilized nations’ in Europe, the process of racialization of religious communities separated Christians as being superior and more civilized than other religious communities, and particularly Muslims. Evident in the examples discussed in this chapter was a racialization of religion that became foundational for the development of national identities. The racialization of these identities had the effect of categorizing populations as either civilized or uncivilized, developed or underdeveloped, impacting the development of the Ottoman Empire in the nineteenth century and the future development of the states of Lebanon and Syria. The lens of race and civilization used by European administrators underpinned the development of modernization programs required of the Ottoman Empire. This included the Hatt-ı Serif ¸ and the Hatt-ı Hümayun, part of the civilizing project, that was to enable the Ottoman Empire’s accession to the group of ‘civilized nations’. In this manner, the Ottoman Empire was perceived to be deficient and backwards, unable to engage in a form of government that was considered legitimate. As such, the premise of inclusion into the European state system was based on notions of civilization that were heavily tied to supposed racial characteristics. In particular, was the need to eradicate inferior government (Beydilli 2001, p. 92; Findley 1989, p. 31; Davison 1954, p. 847). The perception of the Ottoman Empire as engaged in inferior government was one that was based on perceived racial development of the ‘oriental’ (Said 1978, pp. 201, 209). The Ottoman government was only as advanced as the racial-civilizational community in charge. For this reason, the Sublime Porte was consistently framed in relation to an inherent lean towards despotism. Although an attempt was made to implement reforms, to mimic the European state, in order to accede to the group of ‘civilized nations’, the racial characteristics of the ‘Turk’ and ‘Muslim’ were a consistent barrier.

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Despite the Ottoman efforts to engage in modernity as an equal partner by promulgating reforms, the modernization reforms made to the institutions and structures of governance within the Ottoman Empire created new social schisms as customary forms of governance were replaced. The development of these social schisms and the inability to replicate the European state in a manner considered sufficient to the European powers resulted in increased interference and intervention by these states in the Ottoman Empire, and specifically the Syrian provinces. This was particularly evident with regard to changing relationships with the Sublime Porte, providing opportunities to the European powers, and specifically the French administrators, who emphasized their shared civilizational identity with the Christian communities, and particularly the Maronites. The belief that the French and the Maronites were ‘civilizational cousins’ provided justification for the former’s continued interference in the domestic affairs of the Empire. This was particularly evident in the case of Mount Lebanon, where the policy of split authority was promoted based on the notion that Mount Lebanon was primarily inhabited by two races: Druze and Christians. Split authority in Mount Lebanon, based on racial divisions, was proposed as a means to end conflict and to provide each of the communities with the ability to govern over their own affairs. This had enduring consequences, particularly with the recognition of nation states in the twentieth century in the former Syrian provinces of the Ottoman Empire. The political leadership of the Maronite community had petitioned for the formation of a Greater Lebanese state based on racial and civilizational differences that set them apart from the Syrians of the interior. Additionally, by this time, an Arab identity had developed, but was undermined by this difference with the Maronites of Mount Lebanon arguing that they were descendants of the Phoenicians. This helped demarcate further racial-civilizational difference by creating a separate biological myth of origin from that of the Arabs, whose nationalist representatives argued that the Syrian provinces should not be divided. The discourse of race and civilization became embedded in the political requests of members of the Maronite community, while those who identified as Arab and Muslim were, for the most part, dismissed as not yet having provided evidence of civilized engagement. Evident in this chapter is how European ideas of race and civilization not only hindered the Ottoman Empire from engaging in international law and making claims to sovereignty, but became assembled onto

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existing sectarian and, later, ethnic identities within the Syrian provinces. The development of identity markers tied to racial characteristics were politicized. This impacted the development of the Ottoman Empire throughout the modernization reforms, as well as the political claims made by ethno-religious communities in the Syrian provinces. The result of religion as a racialized construct became embedded in the state as it developed and reproduced in global relations.

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CHAPTER 5

Territory, Identity, and Governance: Creating Order from Disorder

As a consequence of the transforming international system and the application of modernization reforms in the nineteenth century, the social, political, and economic relations within the Syrian provinces also transformed. In particular, the relationship between territory, identity, and governance began to take on characteristics of the modern European nation-state. The modernization reforms applied to facilitate the Ottoman Empire’s accession to the group of ‘civilized nations’ required engagement with the structures of territorialization, including identity construction, and governance. In this context, territoriality and territorial ownership was emphasized as a necessary aspect of modern governance associated with statehood. Concurrently, territorialization and territorial ownership was part and parcel of an expanding capitalist system that provided increased access to resources and labour within an international hierarchical system of exploitation (Buzan and Lawson 2015). Accordingly, the state, as a standard of civilization, did not merely constitute interference and reform with regard to institution building. French, British, and Russian interference and pressure to reform also consisted of an emphasis on territoriality and territorialization. The aim was to provide order to perceived chaos and restructure the Empire to closely follow the political, economic, and social institutions and structures

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 A. Delatolla, Civilization and the Making of the State in Lebanon and Syria, Middle East Today, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57690-5_5

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that had developed in modern Europe; a goal that was made easier by territorial governance. By emphasizing territorialization tied to identity and governance, not only were physical boundaries demarcated, allowing for an ‘ordered’ form of governance practised in Europe as well as imposed in European colonies, but the relationship between physical boundaries and identity could be reinforced through ownership and myths of origin. This was further facilitated by governance that protected those boundaries and used identity as a legitimizing tool, maintaining a narrative of difference between individuals exogenous to imagined territorial borders and identities. At the same time, individuals endogenous to imagined borders had their commonalities emphasized through the use of identifiers; characterized as positive qualities in opposition to exogenous communities. Evident in these dynamics, the construction of national identities tethered to myths of origin, territory, and governance facilitated the development of socio-political movements that were increasingly antagonistic to the Ottoman Empire that reproduced intercommunal divisions. This chapter focuses on the transformations of territory, identity, and governance as part of the civilizing project and, ultimately, the standard of civilization of modern statehood. Specifically, it considers the role territorialization played in respect to the civilizing mission and the establishment the modern states in Lebanon and Syria. This chapter first discusses the existing scholarship on territoriality, identity, and governance, before discussing three empirical examples. It considers the example of split authority in Mount Lebanon as a consequence of a mythologized identity, which tied sectarian communities to territory and the right to govern, as a result of political relations and a modern framing of governance. This chapter then discusses the Land Code of 1858, a policy which transformed the economic and class dynamics of the Ottoman Empire, having important repercussions for domestic governance. In addition to transforming economic and class dynamics, it had a transformative effect on the relation between identity, territory, and governance in the context of Ottoman governance. Building on this second example, the third example discussed in this chapter considers the consequences of the changing relationship between identity, territory, and governance in the Ottoman Empire by means of imperial expansion. This example links modernization to the transformation of the international state system, noting how the perpetuation of a standard of nation-statehood led to Ottoman imperial expansion in the Syrian desert.

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Creating Civilized Boundaries: Territory, Identity, and Governance In considering the relationship between territory, identity, and governance the scholarship on the nation-state and nationalism provides an entry point to engage in empirical analysis. While the modern state, as it is conceived of in relation to this book, is discussed as the sum of a variety of parts emergent from a particular European history—including institutions, bureaucracy, governance, national identities, and society—the nation-state can be conceived in a more particular and specific framework. In the first instance, the nation-state connotes a single national identity that is reproduced, not only in relation to social reproduction or household governance, but by government itself (Safran 1991). While many nations portray themselves as historically rooted in ‘basic social and cultural phenomena like language, religion, territory, and especially kinship’ (primordial), or derived ‘from fundamental ethnic ties, rather than from the processes of modernization’ (perennial), there is an increasing sense that nations, as discussed here, are inherently modern. As such, they originate in ‘discursive networks of communication and of ritualized activities and symbolism in forging national communities’ (Smith 1998, pp. 223–224). With these communities often being bound to a specific geography as a place of origination. When discussing the complexity of the ‘nation’ and ‘nationalism’ Benedict Anderson notes three paradoxes. First, the nation and nationalism is objectively modern, according to historians, and subjectively primordial according to nationalists. Second, a debate exists, highlighting the tensions of the universality of national identities, on the one hand, and the specific and particular forms they take, on the other hand. Third, Anderson points to a ‘political’ power of nationalism that is in contrast with ‘their philosophical poverty and even incoherence’ (Anderson 2010, p. 56). Ultimately, Anderson argues that the nation constitutes an imagined political community, noting that even in the smallest of nations the members do not know all the other members; that it is limited by its finite boundaries that border the boundaries of other nations; it provides a foundation for sovereign claims following the delegitimization of the divinely ordained; and that despite exploitation and inequality, the nation provides a community of comradeship (Anderson 2010, pp. 56–58). The comradery that is felt, based on a common myth of origin, and often invoking a marker of greatness, facilitates governance within a given territory.

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Highlighting the relationship between national identity, territory, and governance, Hendrik Spruyt discusses the development of the French state by examining the role of elite politics. Spruyt argues that elites are central to the proliferation and reinforcement of ideas between competing interest groups that had different preferences for governmental organization and order. Following from Spruyt, a unique national identity was formed as a consequence of competing interests between French Capetian Kings, burghers, and nobility and feudal elites and the clergy (Spruyt 1994, pp. 31, 95). Here, a French national identity tied to governance and defined territories—as they had developed during this period—were not temporally stagnant. This is particularly evident with the historic genealogy of a modern French nation state as traceable to a series of contests, victories, revolutions, and systems of governance. These histories helped shape a modern understanding of statehood and nation, emerging in a dialectic that was put to use by those that governed. Within the European, and more broadly—Western, context, the ethno-linguistic lineages and histories of governance tied to a territory, demarcated by state boundaries, was supported by a sense of historic importance and social truth, a marker of identification. As such, governments, whose legitimate power is bound by territory, play an important role in representing and mobilizing symbolic identity markers and engaging in ritualized performances. For scholars of nationalism, territory has proven to be a crucial element in understanding perennial, primordial, and modern, accounts and explanations of nations and nationalisms. As Anthony D. Smith notes, by focusing on territorial attachments there is evident consensus between the three paradigms (1998, p. 226). The relationship between territory and nationalism is constructed as a symbol of historic rights related to culture, language, religion, and ethnicity. Territory is thus symbolically produced as a place of origination, a natural homeland for a people with specific characteristics, either by historic pre-eminence or by settler histories that construct a place as barren, empty, virgin, or not put to productive use. In the first instance, there is a continuous displacement of the ‘foreigner’ or ‘alien’, the individual—typically representing a group of similar individuals—that is unable or unwilling to assimilate to the culture, language, religion. This foreigner or alien is viewed as disruptive, a burden on the natural and civilized population of that territory. Or, in the case of settlercolonialism, the indigenous community is constructed as backwards, akin to the state of nature, engaged in an existence for which the civilized

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man has moved beyond. This provided the justification necessary for the settler-colonial project, a project that was dependent on the notion of virgin and empty land, ready for the taking. Regardless of the narrative, they both mobilize a national identity to justify territorial governance. The relationship between territory and the nation not only justified a peoples right to a place, but also helped mobilize the ordering principles of modern governance. Within a teleological framework this underpinned a notion of civilization. To be civilized was to be on par with the European nation state, to develop the components of the modern nation-state, this included the development of an imagined community that engaged in a form of legal and discursive mimicry. As such, the organization of the Ottoman Empire posed a significant problem. Its boundaries were elastic, the communities were—to some extent—fluid, with geographic, religious, and linguistic identities overlapping and conflicting in a number of ways. The organization of the Empire, according to European administrators, was chaotic and unnecessarily so. Yet, the land was not empty. According to European administrators of the nineteenth century, great, historic civilizations had emerged in those lands, and evidence of these civilizations were still present with some of the population. Yet, these civilizations required a new set of ordering principles to help them advance into modernity. This was considered necessary in order to rehabilitate these former great civilizations by providing political and economic protections and opportunities. While it is important to consider how communal identities are reproduced through cultural, political, and economic programs related to territorialization, Charles Tilly points to the development of the modern state as essential to the reinforcement of communal identities. This builds on Spruyt’s discussion and analysis, as Tilly not only discusses the relationship between governance and territorialization in early modern Europe, but also its connection to identity construction. Discussing the formation of European states as a product of related processes of coercion and capital, Tilly notes how bureaucratic institutions related to taxation and conscription became demarcated by borders that delineated a governments’ reach (1992). Building on this argument, Tilly notes that through the development of bureaucratic institutions administered over populations within a given territory, individuals become bonded to a common set of knowledges, practices, norms, and procedures. This allows for the production of a communal identity that relies on

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a continuing series of transactions between persons and agents of a given state in which each has enforceable rights and obligations uniquely by virtue of […] the person’s membership in an exclusive category, the native-born plus the naturalized. (Tilly 1995, p. 8)

Noted here, an individual’s communal identity also relies on the relations between ‘persons and agents’, that are both born of the same ‘exclusive category’. This category, the ‘native-born plus the naturalized’ can be summed up as the ‘citizen’. The ‘persons and agents’, despite differences in their roles, share a common foundation of belonging. Here, the legalpolitical recognition of belonging based on territorialization facilitates the reproduction of a common identity that is tied to modern statehood. Notably, the modern state in Europe was produced in a unique historic context where its continuation as a stable political entity has relied on a shared set of assumptions; including acknowledgement of territorial sovereignty and non-interference by other, similar, states. Norbert Elias argued that ‘only when […] tensions between and within states have been mastered can we expect to become more truly civilized’. Here, Elias points to a rule-based system that allows for ‘the high level of functional differentiation and interdependence’, without which, ‘co-existence with each other could not be maintained’ (2000, 446). The similarities between European states were considered civilizational, allowing for a rule-based system to develop, creating an ease in relations that structured behaviour and regulated interstate relations (Elias 1994, pp. 443–456). This is evidenced in European historiography that draws a linear trajectory from ancient Greece to the Peace of Westphalia (1648), the Enlightenment and industrialization, and into liberal global governance. This had facilitated a greater narrative of a common, European, identity based on exceptionalism; one that was embodied in the transformations of the nineteenth century regarding international law and global governance. Making the connections between territory, identity, and governance within the context of historical sociological developments of modern European statehood may appear obvious for the European or settler-colonial citizen of a ‘Western’ state. However, these relationships, which developed as a consequence to an evolving European political and economic context, were negotiated differently elsewhere, including the Ottoman Empire. As discussed in Chapter 3 with regard to the issue of equality and tolerance, the relationship between territory, identity, and governance that had existed in the Ottoman Empire, in the context of the

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Sublime Porte—including local forms of organization, were considered inadequate and thus required reconfiguration. The reconfiguration of territory, identity, and governance in the Ottoman Empire, whether by direct or indirect European interference and pressure, was legitimized on a set assumptions held by the administrations of European powers. As argued by Frantz Fanon, these assumptions were based on a European invention of the ‘native’, without which the ‘native’ as a category would have been unknown. As such, it is the settler who knows the ‘native’ well, able to establish and articulate the many ways that the ‘native’ has failed (Fanon 2001). The invention of, and knowing, the native was an essential part of the civilizing project, the establishment of the modern state, and—as covered in this chapter—the mythologizing of an identity marker tied to territory and a right to govern. By inventing the native, the reconfiguration of territorial governance attached to national identities was facilitated. Here, territorial governance facilitated hierarchized observation, permitting surveillance and control, and the tethering of identities to territory created a means of categorical identification to further facilitate control (Neep 2012, pp. 142–148; Foucault 1995, pp. 170–177). Without the invention of the ‘native’, the imperial and colonial administrations could not justify their violent programs of socio-political reconfiguration. These programs consisted of ‘modernization’ reforms, as discussed in previous chapters, and below with regard to the 1858 Land Code. It also entailed alterations made to sectarian governance, as discussed in this chapter with the case of split authority in Mount Lebanon, and the expansion of a global imperialist system which necessitated a similar form of expansion within the Ottoman Empire by the Sublime Porte. This internal expansion encompassed the sedenterization of Ottoman peripheries under the logics of the territory, identity, and governance. The three examples, discussed below, elucidate how the relationship between territory, identity, and governance was transformed within the context of the civilizing project, modernization and centralization, and the global transformation.

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Split Authority in Mount Lebanon: Territorialization and the Division of Greater Syria The establishment of a system of split authority in Mount Lebanon formalized the reconfiguration of the relationship between territory, identity, and governance in this region. Although the reconfiguration of this relationship had begun on a broader basis, impacting the entirety of the Ottoman Empire with the developments outlined in the Tanzimat , the establishment of split authority in Mount Lebanon was an explicit and localized example of this reconfiguration. Here, split authority reorganized and institutionalized socio-political relations in a manner that reflected the developing nation-state in Europe: a population with an identity, confined to a territory, and a government to represent, organize, and order, that territory and population while reproducing identity markers. In particular, the Maronite identity was mobilized to transform the socio-political order based on an intertwined notion of race and civilization. Emphasized in this section is the role of identity in shaping governance and, later, territorial claims as justifications for statehood. This section, explores the development of split authority from a historical perspective, tracing it back to the Egyptian occupation of the Syrian provinces. With regard to the civilizing project and modernity, the necessary transformations regarding governance would only be achieved under the correct racial-civilizational conditions. As such, the existing fault lines between the Maronite and Druze communities, considered racialcivilizational by the French and British representatives, were exploited by alliance formations, leading to an externally agreed arrangement of split authority in Mount Lebanon. The French, for example, believed that the Maronite community was a civilized community that had stagnated due to the oppression and fanaticism of Muslim rule. As such, the Maronites became central to the racial-civilizational worldview and an important aspect of the civilizing project. By providing the Maronite community with political privilege and economic access, the Maronites moved from feudal authority to an authority premised on European alliances that facilitated private ownership and political aggrandizement. These alliances exploited the existing fault lines in Mount Lebanon, evidenced from the Second Ottoman–Egyptian War (1839–1841) into the period of renewed Ottoman authority. In the first instance, this included the French alliance with Egyptian forces and the British alliance with the Ottoman Empire.

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Notably, the French and Egyptian forces sought to elevate, or at least protect, the Christian populations in the Syrian provinces. In this context, the French had a special interest in protecting the Maronite communities, characterizing the Maronites as civilizational cousins, able to progress and be recognized as a civilized nation once emancipated from Muslim rule. Although, the Maronite community’s assumed right to govern based on the mythologizing of their history continued to provide them with dispensations that were not awarded to the Druze, split authority effectively formalized the reorganization of socio-political order, displacing customary forms of governance by tying sectarian identities to governance and governance to territory. The political context which led to split authority in Mount Lebanon had developed during the Second Ottoman–Egyptian War, and changed the dynamics of how power would be distributed following the conclusion of the conflict. The Maronites, having been allied with the French, who were allied with the Egyptian forces led by Muhammad Ali and his son, Ibrahim Pasha, had benefited from the Egyptian occupation. The shifting dynamics caused by this series of alliances created new political and economic opportunities. As such, Emir Bashir II, of the Chehab family, converted from Sunni Islam to Maronite Catholicism to gain from the transforming socio-political dynamics. During this period, however, Emir Bashir II’s governance was engulfed in conflict, not only caused by the ongoing war between the Egyptians and the Ottoman Empire, but also because of his policies of taxation, feudal authority, and military conscription in support of the Egyptian occupation (al-Aqiqi 1959, pp. 2–3).1 Although Mount Lebanon was known for political divisions, often taking form in class conflict or family loyalty (Cook 1976), the transforming political environment of the Ottoman Empire and, specifically, Mount Lebanon caused by the consequences of these alliances enlarged the fault lines, creating new conflicts related to sectarian schisms. Emir Bashir II’s position to formally support the Egyptian occupation led to a rebellion in Mount Lebanon against Egyptian forces by the Druze and Muslim communities, supported by, primarily, the British, although short-lived, it created a rupture in the Chehab family. Emir Bashir II’s son, Emir Khalil, openly supported the rebellion, positioning himself in opposition to his father and on the side of the side of Ottoman 1 FO/78/410, TNA, June 23, 1840, no. 9, from N.W. Ulerry in Damascus to Lord Palmerston, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.

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forces.2 Highlighted here is the foundation from which split authority was manifesting. The context of European interference and the Egyptian occupation was straining the distribution of power between religious communities in Mount Lebanon, resulting in a politicization of religious identities, and a dissolution of customary family loyalty that contributed to sentiments of dissatisfaction and alienation. The domestic political landscape was shifting with increased European interference, altering the intercommunal relations, and previous methods of conflict management. This was effectively laying the ground work for further interference and intervention to reorganize and reorder the political environment of Mount Lebanon, reflecting the model of European statehood. While the Ottoman Empire tried to retain power over Mount Lebanon by sending Emir Bashir II into exile following the restoration of Ottoman authority in the Syrian provinces, authority over Mount Lebanon required the explicit support from the population and European powers—a condition that was not met. For the Maronite Catholics in Mount Lebanon and, by extension, the French administration, the exile was a threat to their political interests. This was further evidenced immediately following the war as the Sublime Porte favoured the Druze community for their loyalty. Additionally, the Druze had made it clear that they would refuse to submit under the authority of any Christian member of the Chehab dynasty, thus ruling out Emir Bashir II’s leadership. This refusal, however, played into the interests of the Sublime Porte to install a Turkish Muslim Governor in Mount Lebanon. This was a deeply unpopular policy with the Maronite populations and the French administration. In the first place, the Maronites had been promised the right to govern through the Chehab family. Second, the exile was considered a blow to the French administration, effectively removing a French confidant and ally.3 By ignoring the first condition and threatening French interests, internal and external pressures placed on the Sublime Porte increased. However it was not only the Christian populations and the French administration who were unsatisfied with the proposition of a Turkish Muslim Governor in Mount Lebanon, it had not been a favourable 2 FO/78/410, TNA, June 23, 1840, no. 9, from N.W. Ulerry in Damascus to Lord Palmerston, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. The rebellion provoked divisions in other notable families, including the Druze Sha’ab family. 3 FO/78/498, TNA, January 12, 1842, no. 20, from Richard Wood in Damascus to Charles Bankhead, Her Majesty’s Minister Plenipotentiary.

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policy with a large portion of the Druze political class, albeit for different reasons. The Jumblatt family was particularly opposed to this policy, fearing that their own position and the position of other notable Druze families could be displaced, resulting in further losses of privilege (Johnson 2001, p. 90). Yet, the position of the Druze was constrained. On the one hand, there was a need to remain in favour with the Sublime Porte, especially in relation to the threat of French and—by extension—Maronite interests, but there was also the dawning reality that decentralized governance from the Sublime Porte was no longer a viable option. With Maronite and Druze disappointment regarding the administration and governance of Mount Lebanon, followed by the appointment of Governor Emir Bashir III, a feeble leader who was unable to contain and negotiate discontent and conflict, fighting between the two communities erupted in Deir el-Qamar (Johnson 2001, pp. 90– 91; Kisirwani, 1980, p. 697). This conflict further facilitated a sense of difference between the Maronite populations and the Druze, not only for their oppositional political positions, but also for their apparent civilizational characteristics. Evident here was an increasing division between the Maronite and the Druze populations, centred on religious identity markers that were tied to civilizational characteristics. In addition to the increased sectarian-based divisions that were being produced, the Ottoman Empire was becoming a less palatable power broker in the region. The segmentation of the Maronites and Druze as different civilizations, as discussed in Chapter 4, and a sense of distrust in the Ottoman governance, prompted a small portion of the population to develop a new strategy for governance, centring on the division of Mount Lebanon into feudal districts administered by notable families acting as Governors. Unsurprisingly, this request was dismissed by Ottoman authorities,4 as well as the British consul, Richard Wood, who did not like the proposition of divided rule. Wood argued that the division of authority would create further conflict caused by trying to separate mixed districts with land claims and feudal rights in certain areas.5 Additionally, Stratford Canning believed that traditional rule needed to be supported in Mount

4 FO/78/498, TNA, January 12, 1842, no. 20, from Richard Wood in Damascus to Charles Bankhead, Her Majesty’s Minister Plenipotentiary. 5 The Sessional Papers, vol. XIII, pp. 379–380, no. 130.

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Lebanon while arguing that the commitments that were extracted from the Sublime Porte in return for British participation in the war against the Egyptian occupation (1839–1841) had to be privileged (Farah 2000, p. 186). Needless to say, Stratford Canning’s position that traditional rule be maintained along with the commitments of the Hatt-ı Serif ¸ (1839) was contradictory. On the one hand, his position against split authority and the modernization of governance in Mount Lebanon can be viewed as a position against French hegemony in the region. On the other hand, the Ottoman Empire’s modernization along the terms of the Hatt-ı Serif ¸ was required in order to limit French and Russian interference while maintaining a beneficial relationship with the Sublime Porte. Still, it was generally recognized that the current state of affairs in Mount Lebanon was untenable. Building on the proposal put forward by some members of the population; and as a way to ensure that the Ottoman Empire retained official control—lest Mount Lebanon fall to the hands of a single European power, or worse become contested by the European powers, a new proposal was issued. Representatives from Britain, France, Russia, Prussia, Austria, and the Sublime Porte came together on May 27, 1842 to discuss the issues of governance in Mount Lebanon. The participants in the meeting agreed, in principle, on a partition plan, granting the Druze and Christians the right to authority through a split Qaymaqamship under the supervision of an Ottoman Governor, the Mushir of Beirut, Assad Pasha.6 While the European powers developed the solution, they left the planning to the Sublime Porte, the latter accepting the conditions on September 7, 1842. Crucially, however, the Sublime Porte needed the unanimous consent of the European powers to implement the plans for split authority in Mount Lebanon, as well as any significant change to the administration of the region thereafter (Farah 2000, p. 220). The conditions imposed on the Ottoman Empire effectively removed any real power the Sublime Porte had over the region. The constraints that were placed on the Sublime Porte regarding the necessity to gain unanimous consent from the European powers and the inability to assert independent control over Mount Lebanon reflected a diminution of Ottoman power, providing increased European interference and control. By dividing governance between the Druze and Maronites, each with 6 The equivalent of a Field Marshall, or counsellor, a Mushir would also be given the title of Pasha. The Sessional Papers, vol. XIII, pp. 77–78, no. 58.

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a respective Qaymaqam, under a single Ottoman Governor, minimal Ottoman authority was to be retained. While objections could be made, particularly with regard to the limitations of Ottoman authority and the potential threat a lack of authority had on the pacific environment, it was assumed that sectarian rifts over governance could be avoided due to separate, but equal, representation via the respective Qaymaqams. The division of authority was further justified, despite its disruptions to customary forms of governance, by providing local rule while modernizing and centralizing authority (Firro 1992, pp. 92–94; Hazran 2014, p. 21; al-Aqiqi 1959, pp. 7–8). With the new system of governance accepted, European imperial interference in Mount Lebanon became formalized, Ottoman authority diminished even further, and with it the relationship between territory, identity, and governance transformed over time. The transformation of governance in Mount Lebanon, formally separating the interdependent socio-economic relations that had existed between different sectarian groups, mapped onto nascent notions of nation-statehood that, as stated prior, tied the right of statehood to identity. In other words, identity based on civilizational difference was tied to governance that was geographically delineated. The quickening pace of administrative modernization in the context of the Egyptian occupation and the subsequent return to the Sublime Porte led to a breakdown in feudal interests and relations. Notably, it was these previous feudal interests and relations that had been central to maintaining a fairly pacific environment due to common interests in maintaining their political status among the populations. However, with split authority, there was a dissolution of these customary power brokers in relation to the emergence of formal state structures and institutions. The division of Mount Lebanon made the constructed racialized differences between the Maronite and the Druze communities explicit, having a negative impact on communal relations—particularly in the mixed districts. The political division between the Maronite and Druze communities was made worse by economic factors and changes in the structures of domestic social order. The latter was subject to the instability of decreasing power and wealth of the traditional nobility and the rise of a new merchant class made up of middlemen and bankers, bolstered by increased trade with the European powers (Hakim 2013, p. 50). The political and economic transformations occurring produced glaring inequalities at a time of political transformation and instability. In

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particular, this was caused by the alliance between the French and the Maronites, one that was deemed civilizational and necessary, whereas the British and Druze relations had not been formulated in a similar manner. The uneven distribution of power and wealth caused by the differing relations was leading to a developing conflict. The European powers believed that the violence they were witnessing in Mount Lebanon would erupt into a full-scale conflict and insisted that the Sublime Porte intervene to suppress the violence. The Sublime Porte responded by sending the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Shakib Effendi, to Mount Lebanon to report back on the unfolding conflict and to find a resolution (Hakim 2013, pp. 51–52; Antonius 1939, pp. 38–41). After bearing witness to the violence, Shakib Effendi decided that the only effective means to pacify the population included the deployment of Ottoman troops in Mount Lebanon and the reassertion of the Hatt-ı Serif ¸ which was retitled as the ‘Tanzimat of Shakib Effendi’ or Shakib Effendi Règlement (1843), becoming the Organic Law for Lebanon (Firro 1992, pp. 101–102). The Shakib Effendi Règlement reintroduced provisions of the Hatt-ı Serif, ¸ but differed in the iteration of authority structures. The law included the reassertion of the Qaymaqam system, the development of a mejlis council for each Qaymaqam, which would be composed by a Qaymaqam, a judge, and an advisor from each religious community (Maronite, Druze, Greek Orthodox, Sunni Muslim, and Greek Catholic), and the two Qaymaqams were to submit to the authority of the Governor of Saida (Firro 1992, pp. 101–102). In principle, the division of authority was meant to end intercommunal conflict and violence by giving the Druze and the Maronite communities political rights over the territories in which they formed majorities. In practice, the division of authority and the development of the councils, which sought to uphold and centralize local authority within a system of modern governance, led to further conflict over judicial and fiscal prerogatives within the councils; this was caused by ill-defined judicial and fiscal rights. Although Ottoman officials attempted to set boundaries to quell the disquiet caused by a lack of legal clarity, new contradictions in the application of the law and governance were produced with regard to those attempts (Hakim 2013, pp. 51–52). With the establishment of a new form of governance and administration, the previous networks that facilitated governance, the economy, and

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social relations were reorganized in a manner that put emphasis on identity as an aspect tethered to territory and governance. What emerged was an increase sense of distrust, and contentious and tenuous intercommunal relations. Whereby favouritism expressed by the French administration created systematic inequalities between the Maronite and the Druze communities that not only underpinned intercommunal tensions, but also brought these populations into the heart of imperial competition. Additionally, the racialization of the Druze and Maronite communities by the European powers further justified the application of split authority and the territorialization of these communities.7 A consequence of the tangled relationship between territory, identity, and governance in relation to European imperial competition was the development of Maronite claims to a Greater Lebanon based on the myth of a Phoenician origin. Although this narrative became prominent in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (Salibi 2005, pp. 171–173), its purpose was to highlight racial difference between the Arabs of Mount Lebanon and those of the Syrian interior; a great historic Christian civilization as different to the invading bands of Muslims and Druze. The mythologization of a Phoenician civilization that connected the Christian, and specifically the Maronite communities to this territory did not only function to separate the latter from the Muslim and the Druze, but worked to secure Christian governance over territory that had, according to the myth, historically been theirs. This positioned the Christian communities as the rightful owners over the port cities, having been managed by Phoenician explorers and traders, who were displaced by invading marauders. From this myth, the Christian community, backed by the French administration, made a plea for governance over a territory based on identity.8 While the proposition of split authority was first met with hesitancy, it was subsequently used to satisfy European administrators, providing them—particularly the French administration—with unique authority in developing governance in the region, it also deepened a sense of sectarian ownership over territory and a right of the Maronite population to govern within Mount Lebanon. These sectarian divisions were mobilized by a racial-civilizational discourse and specifically linked the Maronites to the

7 The Sessional Papers, vol. XIII, pp. 105, 107, 109, 200, 228, 284. 8 FO/684/1, TNA, January 1923, ‘La Situation en Syrie et au Liban’.

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French, but also to the territory; facilitating the establishment of a myth that underpinned their right to govern. The interweaving of politics and identity, although important in fuelling future developments with regard to the separation of Greater Lebanon from Syria, was supported by the politics of modernization related to (nation-)state governance. The Land Code of 1858 While the case of split authority in Mount Lebanon exemplifies the importance of identity in relation to governance and territory, the promulgation of the Land Code of 1858 is an indication of territorial ownership as a means of organization. By using the modern state in Europe as a standard of civilization for which the Ottoman Empire had to attain, the latter was required to modernize in a fashion that administratively mimicked the former. This included, as discussed in relation to development of split authority in Mount Lebanon, tying territory, identity, and governance. In the example discussed above, interference, European state interests, and inter-European competition provided the foundations for identity to become central to governance based on territorial organization. However, modernization reforms related to the development of the modern (nation-) state were also perceived as necessary to civilize the Ottoman Empire, bringing it into closer alignment with the European state. Alignment with the European state system was not only considered necessary by France, Britain, and Russia in relation to the civilizing project, but also by the Ottoman Empire. The latter’s reason for engaging in reforms was to meet the benchmarks required to be recognized as a sovereign and legal actor in a transforming international system and to remove itself from a position of subordination. Discussed in this section is the Land Code of 1858, a modernization policy placed emphasis on territorial ownership, leading to physical, political, and economic displacement. The Land Code of 1858 was an Ottoman reform to facilitate governance, taxation, and private property ownership. The aim of the reform was to simplify and organize the development of a new set of relations regarding property ownership and governance. The Land Code, according to E. Attila Aytekin, ‘[…] recognised private property on land, significantly enlarged liberties of landholders, pushed inheritance rules further towards gender equality, and included some clauses that favored landed interests’ (2009, p. 936). It also prevented the ‘conversion of state-owned land […] into freehold property […], and then into

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waqfs 9 ’ (Davison 1963, pp. 99–100). Specifically, the Ottoman Land Code reinforced the importance of the landowning individual under the law. This laid a foundation to challenge communal and complex networks of ownership. According to Roderic H. Davison, this modernization reform did not have a basis in French law, nor was it an effort to introduce Western principles of governance. Rather, Davison argues that it was ‘a classification and regularization of the customary forms of tenure of land’ and in particular, state land, given that the laws had become ‘outmoded since the demise of the fief system’ (Davison 1963, pp. 99–100). While Davison’s statement is not incorrect, the customs of land ownership were, indeed, outdated, creating confusion over ownership, particularly with regard to previous modernization reforms in the Ottoman Empire, a critique of this position should also be considered. This critique engages directly with the problem that measurement of social and political ‘progress’ continued to be Eurocentric. From a state-centric point of view, the Land Code could be seen as part of the centralizing and modernization project. This did not only bring the Ottoman Empire into closer alignment with practices of property ownership in the modern European state, but also provided new opportunities in relation to a transforming international economy that impacted domestic politics. By establishing a stronger legal foundation for property ownership, the Land Code of 1858 allowed for a greater shift towards international trade encouraged by a growing development of cash crops. This benefitted merchants but also paved the way for greater social, political, and economic influence of land owning families who replaced, and at times merged with, the ‘ulama – or religious scholars and practitioners – and the members of the military’ (Issawi 1988, pp. 23–24). Although the Land Code formalized ownership, setting out specific laws and regulations concerning land ownership, purchase, sale, transfer, tenancy, and mortgaging—specifically with regard to agricultural land (Mundy and Smith 2007, p. 48), according to Aytekin the Land Code replicated many of the existing blurred boundaries of public and private possession and ownership (2009, p. 947). While the Land Code was promulgated to dismantle a system where one individual could own multiple lands, amounting to entire villages, its haphazard application meant that this was never fully fulfilled. It also failed to account for

9 A charitable foundation established through private enterprise.

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land that was collectively owned; meaning that many ‘failed to gain legal recognition or protection of their rights’ (Davison 1963, pp. 99–100). The recorded problems associated with the Land Code were, in part, the result of absentee landlords, as well as the failure of the peasant classes to register the lands that they had been cultivating, leading to a continuation of labour as sharecroppers but not land owners (Issawi 1988, p. 24). As argued by Moshe Ma’oz, many of the peasants that could register the properties they had been cultivating, under the provisions of the Land Code, refused in fear of becoming susceptible to higher rates of taxation or conscription. Instead, they registered these lands in the names of the ‘chiefs or powerful urban notables’, surrendering the freehold ownership (1968, p. 162). This led to continuity in class dynamics through land ownership by formalizing tenure among an elite class and maintaining the status of laborers. Additionally, wealthy notables were known to accept, as payment for debts, land holdings from peasants that registered their lands under the Land Code; further skewering territorial wealth in the hands of large landowning families (Kark 2017). The modernization and codification of land ownership in the Ottoman Empire resulted in a diminishment of land rights by the peasant classes, despite a clear attempt to provide labourers with the ability to gain ownership. At the same time the chiefs, powerful urban notables, and wealthy landowning families took advantage of this change, acquiring new lands and expanding their influence. This altered the political environment, not only in the expansion of wealth and influence among an already well-off class, but through solidification of influence in new regions through the tenure of land by these classes. In a dispatch from Beirut, a member of the British administration reported that the capitalists of Beirut had provided loans to individuals in Mount Lebanon to buy property. However, with increased rates of taxation, a decline in crop yields, and a decrease of silk prices in 1875, the populations in Mount Lebanon found it increasingly difficult to pay their creditors. The economic conditions in Mount Lebanon also led to a decrease in property values, which were used as security against the debts. Inability to pay creditors in Beirut led to the sale of property in an attempt to pay off debts. However, the resulting purchases led to the monopolization of property by local notables and the acquisition of land by the capitalists of Beirut.10 The transfer of land 10 FO/226/182, TNA, Beirut, November 24, 1875, ‘British Dromedary Post Between Damascus and Baghdad’.

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to pay debt occurred despite an explicit provision stating that a debtor could not accept money from the sale of private land to pay off debts (Mundy and Smith 2007, p. 46). While the Land Code was meant to facilitate and streamline the organization and ownership of property, allocate asset wealth to labourers where landlords were absent, and provide order to administrative governance, it had the adverse effect of—at times—centralizing political and economic power with an existing privileged and influential class. The maintenance of this class developed as land tenures were acquired by means of registration but also in acquiring new resources, in geographies that had otherwise been mostly foreign to the privileged and influential classes. The acquisition of these territories further increased the economic and political influence of an upper class, formalizing their position within the development of the state. The Land Code, as discussed, sought to provide codified legal measures that could facilitate a degree of state centralization and modernization in relation to land tenure. More importantly, it formalized, although unintentionally, a particular relationship between capital, politics, society, and territory. It provided an example of how, following a European legal tradition and attempting to assert their place within modernity, with the aim of limiting European interference, the reform and modernization transformed local dynamics of governance. In particular, its development put class inequalities in a legal framework, increasing the scope and effect of these inequalities. In relation to the development of the state, there were three evident consequences. In the first instance, it formalized stronger social, economic, and political hegemony of the notable classes—impacting political decisions and outcomes. This had significant consequences for future political issues that necessitated popular support. Second, the tethering of territory to capitalist development facilitated exchanges of land tenure to individuals from other regions, altering the customary socio-political dynamics (Reilly 1992). Third, and as discussed in the following section, the Land Code was used to constrain and alter the conduct of nomadic tribes through processes of Ottoman expansion and sedenterization (Khoury 1982). As such, nomadic tribal lands were not formally registered and thus remained the property of the state, the lands could subsequently be settled and registered with the state.

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Settling the Desert The pressures of being forced into the European state system, subjected to the interests of European powers, and to capitalist expansion as a periphery to the European core, required the Ottoman Empire to replicate the institutions, structures, and practices of modern statehood. This included the development of the Ottoman Empire’s own periphery. While the Ottoman Empire had sustained large territorial losses, its survival was dependent on imperial expansion into tribal areas of the Syrian Desert and Mesopotamia. Although this placed additional strain on the Sublime Porte, due to the required military costs, it provided the Sublime Porte with the benefit of facilitating government control over populations by creating new areas of economic production that could positively impact the collection of taxes. By settling these areas, the Sublime Porte would also assert territorial control, exhibiting to the European powers that it was able to govern as a modern polity worthy of inclusion into the state system. Additionally, it would reduce state expenses incurred by the activities of nomadic tribes, who had pilfered and pillaged villages and private territories in their surrounding environments. By bringing the nomadic and sedentary tribes under the submission of the Ottoman Empire, the Sublime Porte sought to gain new agricultural areas in Mesopotamia via the Syrian Desert. The Ottoman Empire sought to expand control over sedentary tribes located in the Empire’s peripheries and develop programmes of sedenterization and territorialization of nomadic tribes. This was part of a wider project to build administrative infrastructure and increase the reach of the Sublime Porte into the countryside (Findley 1980, pp. 181–182). Tasked with expanding Ottoman governance, Sureya Pasha, the Governor General of the province of Aleppo, accompanied by Omar Pasha, the Military Commander, and escorted by a regular army, departed from Aleppo on September 30, 1864.11 The British consul remarked that the Sublime Porte would find it beneficial to establish troops in the towns 11 This is reiterated on October 11, 1864 in the dispatch FO/195/806 (TNA, no. 43) sent to M. Stuart, from M. Rogers, Damascus, and September 30, 1864 FO/226/163 (TNA). The sedentary tribes are a known agricultural people, many of them living on the banks of the Euphrates under the authority of the nomadic tribes, who, in exchange for security, are given portions of their crops and flocks as payment. As described by the British consul, they are ‘under the direct government of their own Sheikhs, they require no other sovereignty than that of the different Bedouin chiefs, under whose protection

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in which the sedentary tribes inhabit, including al-Qaryatain, Palmyra, Deir ez-Zor, Mudan, Sura, Raqqah, Qal’at Ja’bar, in doing so, a military cordon would emerge, extending from Damascus in the West to Deir ezZor in the East and from these two points northwards to Aleppo. With such a cordon in place, the Bedouin tribes would be forced southwards, back into the Nejd, giving the Sublime Porte access to vital resources while limiting the capabilities of the tribes.12 Although the British had put together a strategy, they did not share it with the Sublime Porte. Instead, the Sublime Porte sought to engage in a series of agreements with the Bedouin tribes to facilitate access and governance. Agreements and concessions between the Sublime Porte and the tribes were eventually made with regard to the uncultivated territories, and villages began to emerge. Soon after Ottoman expansion into the region, the city of Deir was founded, the population swelled to 20,000 inhabitants, and a civil government was established under the administration of the Governor of Aleppo.13 The Ottoman Empire, being subject to European imperial interests and demands, was forced to expand its own imperial dominance into territories and over populations that had previously enjoyed autonomy. Indeed, As the European state system expanded and the Ottoman Empire became subject to the standard of civilization which included economic and political expansion, it was forced to adopt knowledges and practices of the European state. In a similar fashion, the Ottoman Empire, expanded direct control into the tribal areas of the Syrian Desert and through Mesopotamia, forcing the populations in this area to partake in the structures of governance established by the Sublime Porte. Although the Ottoman Empire existed on the premise of imperial expansion, it had, until that point, engaged in a form of expansion that was based on a different set of principles, as covered in Chapter 2, and particularly the principle of tolerance, discussed in Chapter 3. Arguably, the principle of tolerance extended beyond religious governance as personal governance, but in relation to the administrative system and rule they live, independent of the Turkish government and practically ignoring its existence’. 12 FO/226/163, TNA, September 30, 1864, from M. de Heidenstam, acting consul in Aleppo to Henry Bulwer. 13 166PO/D1/72, CADN, October 26, 1880, no. 98, from M. Destrée in Aleppo to M. Tissot, French Ambassador in Istanbul.

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of the Ottoman Empire. Which, despite modernization reforms, maintained a foundation of a hub-and-spoke type of network that allowed for various degrees of local administrative autonomy. This was in contrast to the logics of statehood, upheld by the European powers, that enforced centralization and equalization of administration that was applied in relation to sedentary and nomadic tribes. The new imperial modern state dynamics of Ottoman expansion, were deployed again in 1912 when the Sublime Porte sought to sedentarize other nomadic tribes. As a matter of urgency, the Sultan stated that the Minister of Interior would be sending missions to the Syrian provinces, to rectify issues of territorial contestation and to assign lands to nomadic tribes, with the aim to make the latter sedentary.14 The sedenterization of nomadic tribes in the Syrian provinces by the Sublime Porte provided another opportunity for the government to transform the security and economy of the Syrian provinces. Similar to the previous attempts of sedentarizing nomadic tribes, there was also the benefit of asserting control, not only economically by establishing new sources for taxation, but coercively as well. Specifically, by sedentarizing the nomadic tribes, it made it easier for the Sublime Porte to maintain a monopoly on the use of force. Through this process, and in relation to the Land Code, there was an attempt to assert centralized control over the territories and populations within the Ottoman Empire. This undertaking was not only an attempt to ward off European interference and intervention in areas that were deemed unruly, nor was it solely for the purpose of taxation and discouraging pilfering and pillaging by tribes, rather it can be viewed as enforced normative assimilation. By providing nomadic tribes with land to cultivate, facilitating personal and communal economic growth, the newly settled individuals were brought into the structures of the state. Beyond their chiefs and sheikhs, the kind of institutional and structural relations that subsequently developed following territorialization created a new layer of identity associated with the empire. This did not necessarily mean that the populations adopted an Ottoman national identity, rather, their communities were figured into a system of household governance, producing a relational identity. Through this relational process, control

14 166PO/E/132, CADN, April 19, 1912, no. 227, from M. Bompard, French Ambassador in Istanbul, ‘Discours du Thrône’.

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could be asserted by the Sublime Porte, but the newly settled communities could also make legitimate demands for social, economic, and political rights and freedoms. This was in contrast with their previous status, being exogenous to governing institutions and structures and unable to make legitimate claims. The sedenterization of nomadic tribes continued into the period of Syrian independence. Following the establishment of the Syrian government and the recognition of Syria as an independent state by Iraq, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, efforts were made by the governments to establish complete control within their respective borders. In Syria, plans were developed to sedentarize and disarm the nomadic and semi-nomadic tribes, engaging in the logics of modern governance that necessitated territorialization that had been used by the Sublime Porte and later during the French Mandate.15 This was a logic of rational organization and statehood that was tied to a centralized government intended on pacifying and civilizing the populations; to retain centralized control and develop established relations with the aim of state-building.

Conclusion Discussed in this chapter, the relationship between territory, identity, and governance, was an important cornerstone of modern statehood. This chapter referred to political developments and reforms that emphasized this relationship, particularly the establishment of split authority in Mount Lebanon, the Land Code of 1858, and Ottoman attempts to expand influence over sedentary and nomadic tribes by means of territorialization and governance. The establishment of split authority in Mount Lebanon was developed in relation to the mobilization of racial-civilizational difference between the Christian populations, particularly the Maronite Catholics, and the Druze. This was justified under the pretence that different racialcivilizational communities warranted their own government organized within territorially delineated boundaries. This, however, deepened the racial-civilizational dynamics by separating the communities and limiting interactions in shared governance. Still, the development of split authority in Mount Lebanon foregrounded the establishment of Lebanon as an

15 FO/226/262, TNA, July 6, 1944, sent to M. Belgrave, from Deir-ez-Zor.

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independent modern state. First, by creating relative autonomy from the structures of governance in the Ottoman Empire and second by intensifying the privileged relationship between the Maronites and the French. The use of racial-civilizational markers of identity as a prerequisite for separate governance over a particular territory reinforced the relationship between territory, identity, and governance. Where the development of split authority in Mount Lebanon can be seen as a pivotal moment in the development of a formalized relationship between territory, identity, and governance, the Land Code of 1858 emphasized territorial ownership. This was different from the case of Mount Lebanon, which was primarily focused on aspects of identity as a means to reconfigure governance over territory. Although there was an effort to create an equitable law for land ownership that still mimicked land ownership in European states, the Land Code impacted labourers and the peasant classes negatively. The Land Code formalized a diminishment of land rights among these classes and provided opportunities for the political and economic elites to acquire new territories and expand their influence. This had subsequent effects on socio-political dynamics, altering the relations between the different classes and introducing new political and economic elites into communities. Importantly, it facilitated the territorial organization of governance by means of ownership and taxation. While the Land Code contributed to the transformations in political relations and organization with regard to territorial ownership and taxation, it also created the foundation for expansion of Ottoman influence. With the Land Code in place and in combination with external pressures, the Ottoman Empire sought to bring sedentary and nomadic tribes under the control of the Sublime Porte in an attempt to accede to the standard of governance required. Notably, the Ottoman Empire became effectively engaged in an extension of the civilizing project. It can be argued that the relationship between territory, identity, and governance that was developed and reinforced in these examples, whether explicit or implicit, was of importance to the rational state-building project. By tying these aspects together, claims of statehood that paralleled the logics of the modern state in Europe could be made. As such, it was evident that the transforming identity markers, the modernization reforms, and the impetus to expand governance and reorder otherwise disordered elements of Empire was fulfilling a standard of civilization with regard to statehood.

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Works Cited al-Aqiqi, Antun Dahir. 1959. Lebanon in the Last Years of Feudalism, 1840–1868, trans. Malcolm Kerr. Beirut: American University of Beirut Press. Anderson, Benedict. 2010. The Nation and the Origins of National Consciousness. In The Ethnicity Reader, ed. Montserrat Guiberneau and John Rex. Cambridge: Polity Press. Antonius, George. 1939. The Arab Awakening: The Story of the Arab National Movement. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company. Aytekin, E.Attila. 2009. Agrarian Relations, Property and Law: An Analysis of the Land Code of 1858 in the Ottoman Empire. Middle Eastern Studies 45 (6): 935–951. Buzan, Barry, and George Lawson. 2015. The Global Transformation: History, Modernity and the Making of International Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cook, M.A. 1976. A History of the Ottoman Empire to 1730. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Davison, Roderic H. 1963. Reform in the Ottoman Empire, 1856–1876. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Elias, Norbert. 1994. The Civilizing Process: The History of Manners and State Formation and Civilization, trans. Edmund Jephcott. Oxford: Blackwell. Elias, Norbert. 2000. The Civilizing Project: Sociogenetic and Psychogenetic Investigations, trans. Edmund Jephcott, ed. Eric Dunning, Johan Goudsblom, and Stephen Mennell. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Fanon, Frantz. 2001. The Wretched of the Earth, trans. Constance Farrington. London: Penguin Classics. Farah, Caesar E. 2000. The Politics of Interventionism in Ottoman Lebanon, 1830–1861. London: I.B. Tauris. Findley, Carter Vaughn. 1980. Bureaucratic Reform in the Ottoman Empire: The Sublime Porte, 1789–1922. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Firro, Kais. 1992. A History of the Druzes, vol. 1. Netherlands: E.J. Brill. Foucault, Michel. 1995. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, trans. Alan Sheridan. New York: Vintage Books. Hakim, Carol. 2013. The Origins of the Lebanese National Idea, 1840–1920. Berkeley: University of California Press. Hazran, Yusri. 2014. The Druze Community and the Lebanese State: Between Confrontation and Reconciliation. New York: Routledge. Issawi, Charles. 1988. The Fertile Crescent 1800–1914: A Documentary Economic History. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Johnson, Michael. 2001. All Honourable Men: The Social Origins of War in Lebanon. London: IB Tauris. Kark, Ruth. 2017. Consequences of the Ottoman Land Law: Agrarian and Privatization Processes in Palestine, 1858–1918. In Societies, Social Inequalities and

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Marginalization: Marginal Regions in the 21st Century, ed. Ragubir Chand, Etienne Nel, and Stanko Pelc. New York: Springer. Kisirwani, Maroun. 1980. Foreign Interference and Religious Animosity in Lebanon. Journal of Contemporary History 15 (4): 685–700. Khoury, Philip S. 1982. The Tribal Sheikh, French Tribal Policy, and the Nationalist Movement in Syria between Two World Wars. Middle Eastern Studies 18 (2): 180–193. Ma’oz, Moshe. 1968. Ottoman Reform in Syria and Palestine, 1840–1861: The Impact of the Tanzimat on Politics and Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Mundy, Martha, and Richard Saumarez Smith. 2007. Governing Property, Making the Modern State: Law, Administration and Production in Ottoman Syria. London: I.B. Tauris. Neep, Daniel. 2012. Occupying Syria Under the French Mandate: Insurgency, Space and State Formation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Reilly, James A. 1992. Property, Status, and Class in Ottoman Damascus: Case Studies from the Nineteenth Century. Journal of the American Oriental Society 112 (1): 9–21. Safran, William. 1991. State, Nation, National Identity, and Citizenship: France as a Test Case. International Political Science Review 12 (3): 219–238. Salibi, Kamal. 2005. A House of Many Mansions: The History of Lebanon Reconsidered. London: IB Tauris. Smith, Anthony D. 1998. Nationalism and Modernism: A Critical Survey of Recent Theories of Nations and Nationalism. London: Routledge. Spruyt, Hendrik. 1994. The Sovereign State and Its Competitors: An Analysis of Systems Change. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Tilly, Charles. 1992. Coercion, Capital and European States: AD 990–1992. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Tilly, Charles. 1995. Citizenship, Identity and Social History. International Review of Social History 40 (3): 1–17.

CHAPTER 6

Violent Resistance: Interactions with Modernity and European Interference

By the mid-nineteenth century the Syrian provinces had undergone a long list of changes in the form of legal, governmental, and economic centralization and modernization. In addition to transforming the political context of the Empire, the reforms repositioned various religious and territorial communities within the Ottoman Empire, resulting in social and political alienation, as mentioned in previous chapters. For the Christian communities, alienation from customary forms of governance, facilitated alliances with the French and Russian administrations in the Ottoman Empire. The Muslim communities, on the other hand, had little recourse and the sentiments of alienation were made worse by the deepening relations between Catholic communities and French imperial administrators and Orthodox communities and the Russian imperial administrators. Feelings of alienation, with no available remedy due to ongoing modernization reforms and deepening social, political, and economic relations between Christians and Europeans led to violent forms of resistance. This included violent action against communities and individuals perceived to be responsible for the change in political dynamics. Discussed in this chapter are the violent forms of resistance against the application of a standard of civilization that created sentiments of alienation and sociopolitical dislocation. While the end goal of this standard was to produce © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 A. Delatolla, Civilization and the Making of the State in Lebanon and Syria, Middle East Today, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57690-5_6

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a polity akin to the modern state in Europe, it was a heavily racialized process that led to dissatisfaction and alienation. This chapter explores the dynamics and politics of violent resistance, locating resistance as an outcome of modernization and the civilizing project. This chapter first discusses the scholarship on violence and violent resistance, focusing on the dynamics explained by Frantz Fanon and Hannah Arendt. It considers these dynamics within the context of the Aleppo Uprising of 1850, the Damascus Massacre of 1860, Faisal’s Revolt commencing in 1919, and the Druze Revolt of 1925. While these events are often discussed as acts of violence in the predominant historiography of the Ottoman Empire, Lebanon, and Syria, they are rarely framed within the context of resistance. The discussion that follows in this chapter examines how violent events, framed as a result of racialbarbarity and religious fanaticism by European administrators, reproduced and entrenched a racial-civilizational narrative, fortifying socio-political dynamics between populations and state-builders. As such, the dynamics of alienation, oppression, and repression became structured into the institutions of statehood, reproducing the violence of imperial and colonial administration in relation to modern statehood.

Violence as Resistance: European Interference and Revolt In the beginning of the chapter ‘On Violence’, Frantz Fanon writes that ‘decolonization is always a violent event’, but as a warning to the reader, he further states that ‘decolonization is quite simply the substitution of one “species” of mankind by another’ (Fanon 2001, p. 1; Roberts 2004; von Holdt 2012). For Fanon, the process of decolonization necessitated violence, because it was through violence that the colonial world was ordered (Fanon 2001). However, as he warns in the second quote, a ‘species’ of mankind is merely replaced by another. The violence that gives way to decolonization does not replace or eradicate the structures and institutions of colonial governance. Instead, the seats of power previously held by colonial administrators are passed to a new ‘species’, one that easily occupies a position that enables the reproduction of colonial violence. This new class, having been close to the colonial administration, either through capital accumulation, institutions of coercion—such as the military or police, or through intellectual imperialism, fills the gaps in structures and institutions that fortified imperial and colonial governments (Fanon 2001).

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Although Fanon states that ‘decolonization is truly the creation of new men’, the ‘creation of new men’ does not provoke a transformative politic that is worth celebrating. The ‘creation of new men’, instead, signifies a transformed set of national boundaries that represents a shift away from the imperial and colonial administration to an administration of indigenous elite; an elite that has been coopted by the economies, politics, and structures of imperial and colonial powers. From this preface, he notes that the structures and institutions of colonialism have seeped into these new men: The intellectual who, for his part, has adopted the abstract, universal values of the colonizer is prepared to fight so that colonist and colonized can live in peace in a new world. But what he does not see, because precisely colonialism and all its modes of thought have seeped into him, is that the colonist is no longer interested in staying on and coexisting once the colonial context has disappeared. (Fanon 2001, p. 9)

Fanon further clarifies that decolonization means ‘nothing less than demolishing the colonist’s sector, burying it deep within the earth or banishing it from the territory’ (Fanon 2001, pp. 2, 6). While Fanon does state that through the anti-colonial struggle the intellectual finds problems with the logics that have been ‘hammered into the colonized’ (Fanon 2001, p. 11), the extent to which this occurred, in context to the decolonized post-colonial state in Lebanon and Syria is, debatably, minimal—as discussed in the following chapter. The inability of the colonized to decolonize the logics, structures, and institutions of imperialism and colonialism is explained by the modern forms of discipline and punishment directed by colonial and imperial administrators. From the beginning of colonial governance, the colonized body was viewed as an aberrance to civility; a body that was wrong, prohibiting it from enjoying the freedoms of the civilized colonists. The restraints imposed on the colonized body, in parallel to the developments of the prison system discussed by Michel Foucault (1995, p. 11), made use of the advancements of modernity to hide the violence of maintaining and upholding civilized society and law. The similarities between the development of the modern prison system, employing physical confinement, torture, and labour exploitation as a means to ‘strike the soul rather than the body’, corresponded to the disciplinary practices of the colonies developed to civilize the population (Mably in Foucault 1995, p. 16).

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While these practices and purposes implemented in European prison systems and colonial governance can be tethered together, the crimes committed begetting European penal interventions and the reasons for disciplining colonized bodies differed. The legal impetus to punish and discipline in Europe was proclaimed to limit the possibilities of those bodies and souls committing future crimes. On the other hand, the punishment and disciplining of colonized bodies was directly related to their failures of civilized engagement, which, as discussed in Chapter 3, was based on racist categories and logics that continuously subordinated societies, putting them at a civilizational disadvantage. In turn, this necessitated modernization, and the civilizing project. The civilizing project, an attempt to give rise to the social, was the project of public housekeeping that gave order to chaos by means of modern statehood (Arendt 1998, p. 45). The violence of the modernization and the civilizing project was based on a similar coercive aspect to that of the police officer in the metropole (Ginsberg 2013). Both the police officer and the colonial soldier maintained a ‘social role’ to ‘fight war in the “the social ‘milieu’’” (Owens 2015; AlimahomedWilson and Williams 2016). The colonial soldier was therefore required to engage in pacification through armed social work and social reengineering. Outlined by Patricia Owens, social reengineering often took form through ‘massacres, forced removals and re-concentration, selective distribution of basic supplies, the co-optation of local enforcers, and opening new markets’ (Owens 2015, p. 279). This was done in order to create domesticated spaces, facilitating the pacification of populations, and to bring these populations into civilization. Notably the imperial administrators maintained power over the populations of the Syrian provinces, compelling and coercing the Ottoman Empire into administrative and bureaucratic modernization that gave way to social reengineering. The violent response from subordinated societies, cultivated by colonial powers and resulting from policies of coercive pacification, according to Hanna Arendt, was a direct challenge to colonial administrators and instrumental (Arendt 1972, pp. 239–240; Finlay 2009, pp. 26–45). Discussed by Fanon, violence as a political instrument of decolonization is important for the process of liberation. Fanon notes that without the total destruction of the colonial world, the structures and institutions remain intact, providing pathways for colonial power to be reproduced, regenerating violence against the population, but also resistance (Fanon 2001; Frazer and Hutchings 2008, p. 98). To a certain degree, Arendt

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appears to agree with Fanon, arguing that violence can be justified in cases where extreme injustice exists and in an attempt to provide space for politics. Yet, Arendt argues that violence is conceptually absent from politics (Arendt 1972, pp. 134, 150–151; Frazer and Hutchings 2008, pp. 102, 106). However, the examples discussed below reveal that violence is not absent from politics, conceptually or practically; nor is politics absent from violence. Rather, violence is embedded in politics, as politics is embedded in violence, and if we are to understand politics in the production of power, we must understand the multiple ways violence is enacted. Similarly, according to Fanon, there is no such absence of violence in politics, rather the power of politics is constitutive of violence. Building from Fanon’s position, and examining a number of case studies from the Syrian provinces of the Ottoman Empire, what is evident is the multiple ways in which violent resistance was used to combat colonial interference and intervention and attack the ‘masters’ of (civilized) politics. From these examples, with the failure to overthrow alienating and oppressive political structures, the violence of resistance became the justification for further oppression. An oppression that was justified by the logics that engagement in violent resistance had been carried out by the ‘savage’ or ‘barbarian’ (Scheipers 2015, p. 39). From these dynamics, however, a problem emerges: the failure to destroy systems of alienation and oppression may exponentially entrench injustices. This is particularly evident in cases where violence, as a tool, fails to overturn oppressive systems. Yet, violence in certain contexts is necessary, and as Arendt notes, the non-violent resistance of Gandhi would not have been possible within the contexts of the French or Russian empires (Arendt 1972). The risk that populations take in engaging in violent resistance when circumstances necessitate its use does not only exist in relation to the livelihoods of these populations, but exists in the context of increasingly fortified structures of alienation and oppression. In the wake of violent resistance in the Syrian provinces, the racialized characterizations imposed by European imperial administrators were, according to them, confirmed. For the populations in the Syrian provinces, particularly the Muslim and Druze populations, their resistance to creeping alienation and oppression was confirmation of their supposed predisposition to barbarity and fanaticism. According to European imperial administrators, they were unable to engage in civilized society, seeking destruction and disorder instead. Yet, it was these racialized, alienating, and oppressive ‘modes

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of knowledge’ that the Syrian populations were resisting. As argued by Henrique Tavares Furtado, ‘resistance […] plays a fundamental role in countering the violent effects of both western modes of knowledge and western forms of domination/exploitation’. Following from the cautionary statements of Fanon and Arendt, resistance, can reproduce the ‘violence it intends to prevent’ (Furtado 2015, pp. 72–73). The act of violent resistance, although necessary to breakdown the structures of imperialism and colonialism, can also justify and provide legitimacy to increased measures of oppression, armed social work, and social reengineering—ultimately vindicating the application of a standard of civilization. The French administration in the Syrian provinces, similar to the British and Russians, viewed these acts of resistance as unfounded. When violent manifestations did occur, it was perceived to be caused by a natural inclination towards fanaticism and barbarism. However, resistance to oppressive structures was not always considered through a negative specter. Indeed, the French Revolution was, for the most part, viewed as a liberating event, one that utilized violent resistance to break the structures of oppression. Aimed at dismantling the ancien regime, the people (Agamben 2000) succeeded in transforming systems of governance, producing an order that was engaged with and advanced the ideas of the Enlightenment. A new, Enlightened civilization was born out of violent resistance, although its meaning and definition of civilization were debated and contested (Muchembled 2012), it provided a standard for others to meet. To help polities in the global south meet this standard of civilization, the civilizing project was developed. The oppressive nature of this project was justified as a painful means for a better future, noting that the natural inclination of the societies in the global south were damaging to humanity, generally, and themselves, more specifically. With this view firmly in place, violent resistance towards the civilizing project, the civilized people, and their allies was evidence of incivility; blind to the injustices created by the project. This continued to position the European administrations as hierarchically superior, engaged in ‘good’ forms for resistance and ‘good’ practices of imperial and colonial governance, reinforcing an existing standard of civilization and the subordination of negatively racialized societies.

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European Modernization, Modernity, and the Emergence of Violent Resistance From 1850 to 1925, a number of violent incidents had, according to European administrators in the Ottoman Empire, vindicated racial characterizations of the uncivilized East held primarily by France and Britain. These incidents, sometimes called uprisings, massacres, or revolts, were not born out of the imaginaries of those engaged in violent activity, rather the violence that had occurred was in relation to the exploitative and oppressive social, political, and economic dynamics. The feelings of alienation that developed from modernization, and the exploitation of these feelings, led to increased sentiment within religious communities that their previous held rights, safety, and security, were being suspended in favour of the rights of others. The relative benefits enjoyed by others, at the time, included additional rights, security, and safety that had been tethered to European interference and intervention in the domestic affairs of the Empire. It can therefore be argued that violence was the manifestation of feelings of alienation and dissatisfaction, occurring as a result of systems of oppression justified by European racial-civilizational hierarchies. The changing political, social, and economic environment caused by European modernization, upheld as a standard of civilization, led to resistance with the aim of overthrowing these systems of oppression. This section explores the relationship between modernization, modernity, and violent resistance. The social dislocation experienced through alienation, was a consequence of the Ottoman Empire being further incorporated into the European state system—although as a second-tier actor. Incorporation of the Empire required a form of mimicry that was inherent to the production of a standard of civilization. However, despite the efforts of the Ottoman Empire to engage with European states as an equal partner, the modernization reforms continued to produce social unrest, the latter becoming a pillar justification for the continued subordination of the Ottoman Empire within the European system. The inability of the Ottoman Empire to engage in modernization to the standards deemed acceptable by the European powers, particularly France, Britain, and Russia, provided justification for the European powers to interfere; further diminishing the ability of the Ottoman Empire to assert sovereignty. Yet, interference and interventions by European actors created social and political disparities among the populations based on various inclusions and exclusions. While

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the standard of civilization and consequent subordination was occurring within the context of global interactions, it was not contained to the interactions between states, empires, and other polities. Evident with regard to the Syrian provinces, global-local relations were also impacted by the standard of civilization. This included the development of alliances between various domestic communities and European states, such as the Maronites and France, the Orthodox Christians and Russia, and the Druze with Britain. With the first Tanzimat reform, the Hatt-ı Serif ¸ (1839) and the conclusion of the Egyptian occupation of the Syrian provinces (1831–1841), the Ottoman Empire had undergone reforms and modernization that were meant to parallel Western-style political and social order. Discontent and dissatisfaction with the Sublime Porte and the Sultanate was growing not only with regard to the Muslim classes that felt increasingly disenfranchised from the structures of the Ottoman Empire, but also religious minorities that were increasingly targeted for their newly developing status in the Empire. The consequent antipathies that developed from the transformations of political and social relations led to deepening relations between the European powers, particularly France, Britain, and Russia, as well as Christian communities. While France, Britain, and Russia provided new protections to allied communities, those protections did not always safeguard the communities from outbursts of targeted violence. Following the assumption that, unlike Christians, the Turks and the Muslim communities of the Ottoman Empire were incapable of engaging in a social order and politics that was considered civilized, the outbreaks violence were explained by racialized characteristics. By upholding this worldview, the European powers deepened their resolve to engage in imperial control and engage in a civilizing project. The Aleppo Uprising, 1850 With the program of modernization, tied to the civilizing project, came instability in relation to the previously existing and generally accepted social order. Instability can be characterized as a sense of disorder with the fracturing of historically developed economic and political norms steeped in social customs. As such, the modernization of institutions and structures of governance led to increased alienation and dissatisfaction among the majority of the population; providing opportunities for the French, the British, and the Russians to interfere and intervene. The

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European powers, pressured the Ottoman Empire to modernize in a manner that mimicked the developments of modern statehood in Europe. They were also allying themselves with populations that were deemed similar-enough, often based on religious identification, to warrant the establishment of a special relationship, effectively undermining Ottoman control. These alliances were premised, primarily, on sectarian identities that were embedded in discourses of civilization and race—as discussed in Chapter 3. The European powers justified these alliances under the premise of protecting minorities who would otherwise face oppression and violence. However, the European powers utilized these alliances in order to pursue economic and political interests, enabling increased alienation between populations and the Sublime Porte by diverting economic and political dependence to the European powers. Additionally, among those who saw little benefit from the modernization reforms and were not provided with the benefits of an European alliance the Ottoman Empire was not functioning in their benefit, creating dissatisfaction with the imperial governance (Devereux 1963, p. 23). These developments had provided the foundation for dissatisfaction to accrue into targeted anger, particularly among those who experienced little benefit. From this anger emerged a form of violent resistance that sought the overthrow of a developing system that decreased the relative privileges of the Muslim population. What is referred to as the Aleppo Uprising took place on the second night of Eid al-Adha, on October 17, 1850. It is often characterized as a sectarian uprising and evidence of a primordial sectarian form of politics in the region. Indeed, the Aleppo Uprising, in its most basic description is sometimes described as an instance of Muslims from Aleppo attacking the Christian population. This, however, is a simplification that emerged from the initial description of events by European administrators that were present in the city. The event surprised European consuls due to the general high level of wealth that was present among the population of the city at the time. Unable to explain the uprising as the result of inequalities, Muslim barbarism was viewed as the cause. It was believed that Aleppo’s economic development and prosperity was necessarily equated with stability (Nilsen 2016). The British consul in Beirut, Joseph Rose, writing to Ambassador Stratford Canning on October 31, 1850, stated his

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astonishment at the events that unfolded in Aleppo. It was Rose’s understanding that high levels of wealth would ease social tensions.1 Violence became a reality despite the high levels of wealth among the population in Aleppo; contradicting his assumptions that social tensions and violence occurred under conditions of economic inequality. While this may true of some cases (Marx 1971), it is also necessary to consider the politics and division of power that can produce grievances. Specifically, this theory did not take into account growing inequalities and disparities caused by interference. Rather than focus on the economic prosperity of the populations in the city, the Aleppo uprising is described by Bruce Masters as a consequence of a fragile political and social order that emerged after the social reforms of the Hatt-ı Serif ¸ (1839). That is not to say that there were no instances of instability and revolt before the reform period began, but the reforms, along with European interference, heightened social and political tensions by altering the organization of the social environment (Masters 1990, pp. 3–5). As described in Chapters 3 and 4, the Hatt-ı Serif ¸ ushered in new policies based on a assumptions of civilizational progress and tied to modern statehood. Inflected in the logic and application of the modernization reform was a racist worldview that altered socio-political relations, creating sentiments of dissatisfaction and alienation; made worse by subsequent European exploitation of these feelings. Similar to reports on social disorder and violence emerging from elsewhere within the Ottoman Empire, including Mount Lebanon, the reports on Aleppo, by the European consuls, largely constructed the uprising as a sectarian issue, highlighting attacks on the Christian population by the ‘fanatical’ Muslims (Krimsti 2014). While the uprising in Aleppo was a Muslim led uprising and it did target the Christian population, it can be further nuanced. As Masters argued, not all Muslims participated in the attacks, or even the uprising. In fact, it was solely the Muslim population of the city’s Eastern quarters that attacked the Christians of the Judayda quarter, largely populated by Uniate Catholics.2 The Muslim population of the city’s Eastern quarter had, for some time, been

1 For a more in-depth discussion on political violence and economic inequality see Morrisson and Snyder (2000), Sen (1997), and Lichbach (1989); FO/226/107, TNA, October 31, 1850, from Joseph Rose in Beirut to Ambassador Stratford Canning. 2 Also known as Melkite Catholics or Greek Catholics.

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underrepresented in local politics while the Uniate Catholics had benefited from European interference, resulting in overrepresentation.3 The overrepresentation of the Uniate Catholic community in Aleppo was, in the eyes of this Muslim community, following a trend that at once diminished the political authority of Muslims while increasing that of the Christians. The violence that occurred can be characterized as an instance of resistance that was drawn out from growing sentiments of alienation. The attacks on an overrepresented community was not only a manifestation of sectarianism, but the wider political context. For those that were engaged in the violence, they were targeting a community that had benefitted from European interference and access in relation to their lack of access and privilege. The consequences of the Aleppo uprising did not rectify political and economic grievances. Instead, it resulted in the confirmation of the Muslim populations as characterized as ‘fanatical’ and uncivilized. The Damascus Massacre, 1860 By 1860, ten years following the Aleppo Uprising and four years following the promulgation of the Hatt-ı Hümayun (1856), the pressures placed on the Ottoman Empire to engage in reforms did not dissipate. The Ottoman Empire continued to be subjected to pressures related to global political developments, specifically between European powers, as well as pressures emerging from European alliances with domestic, and specifically sectarian, communities. While, on the one hand the aim of mounting pressure on the Ottoman Empire was to accept and administer a form of governance comparable to the form of modern governance prevalent in Europe, the reforms necessary were consistently undermined by European activities in the Syrian provinces. In order for the Ottoman Empire to be treated as an equal member of the European state system, with equivalent rights to the European powers, the Sublime Porte was required to ensure that the reforms decreed by the Sultan were being fully administered. At the same time, the European powers, motivated by colonial and imperial interests, were engaged in inter-European competition over rights and access to the Ottoman Empire; resulting in the further exploitation of existing chasms 3 Several Christian churches were burned to the ground and there were reported deaths, all Christians (Masters 1990, pp. 3–5).

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between Ottoman governance and Syrian society. This chasm could not be separated from deepening sectarian animosity, the changing distribution of capital in the social environment—amplified by the economic crisis in the Ottoman Empire following the Crimean War (1853–1856), and the restructuring of political and social governance that altered access to governance, providing opportunities for European interference. These factors had created an environment ripe for conflict over social schisms that had taken on sectarian façades and undermined Ottoman efforts to reform and modernize. Because of European alliances, interference, and interventions with and on behalf of sectarian communities, conflict was not limited to communal fighting across sectarian boundaries. In late March, 1860, the French consul in Aleppo, A. Chattry de la Fosse, wrote to Comte de Lallemand, the acting French Ambassador in Istanbul, about a quiet anxiety among the Christians in Djelloum, the Christian Quarter of Aleppo, where the population requested guards; a request that was echoed by various Muslim notables in Aleppo who openly worried about the safety of the populations in the city.4 Two months later, in May 1860, the French consul in Damascus wrote to the French Ambassador in Istanbul that violence in Mount Lebanon was due to erupt because of the negative relations between the Druze and Christians. The consul, absolving the French for their hand in destabilization, blamed Ahmed Pasha, the Governor of Damascus, for engaging the Druze population in their animosity towards the Maronites. French sentiment against the Governor was made worse by Ahmed Pasha’s alliance with the Druze in the Hauran and the Shi’a communities in Ba’albek and the Beka’a Valley.5 According to the French consuls, Ahmed Pasha’s strategy was to build an alliance that could provide the Druze of Mount Lebanon the ability to take control

4 166PO/D1/56, CADN, March 24, 1860, no. 53, from. Chattry de la Fosse in Aleppo to M. de Lallemand, chargé d’affaires in Istanbul; July 7, 1860, no. 10, from M. Geoffrey in Aleppo to Marquis de Lavalette, French Ambassador in Istanbul. 5 166PO/D20/5, CADN, May 23, 1860, no. 107, from M. Lanusse in Damascus to M. de Lallemand, chargé d’affaires in Istanbul; June 19, 1860, no. 109, from M. Lanusse in Damascus to M. Lavalette, French Ambassador to Istanbul.

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of the mountain by capturing Deir el-Qamar and Zahlé, two Christian strongholds.6 The reported strategy incited the French to become increasingly active in the protection of the Christians, which had the negative consequence of deepening intercommunal religious animosity that had already become entrenched due to the policy of split authority.7 In addition to providing protection and access to capital to the Christians, French interference emboldened the Maronites to fight against their local chiefs and the Sheikhs in the mixed districts of Mount Lebanon, which posed a threat to the Druze. Still, the French consuls dismissed the role of the Maronites in deepening the conflict (Hakim 2013, p. 67). The French alliance with the Maronite population obfuscated power relations between the communities, enhancing the marginalization of the Druze. Although the Druze were aligned with the British at various points, the alliance that had developed was not to the same caliber of the French alliance with the Maronites, and reflected the differences in imperial strategies. As the Maronites were drawn more closely into the French sphere of influence and protection, they were increasingly viewed as traitors, akin to the foreigners from whom they received benefits; including political impunity and access to new economic opportunities. On June 6, 1860, the village of Hasbeya, close to Damascus, was attacked by the Druze who ‘annihilated’ the Chehab family, with the women being carried off to Wadi Ledja (Ledja), a mountainous region inhabited by the Druze. Following these events, the French consul, M. Outrey, restated his belief that Ahmed Pasha was to blame for the violence. The French consul argued that it was Ahmed Pasha’s goal to rid the entire Syrian province of the Christians and their allies.8 Although Ahmed Pasha’s specific goals were unknown, the Druze were attempting to diminish French influence and interference in the Syrian provinces, to assert their power in a vacuous political environment, and therefore threatened French interests. In particular, there was an increased presence of French troops, citizens, diplomats, and missionaries in the Syrian provinces who were actively interfering in domestic political, economic, 6 166PO/D20/5, CADN, May 23, 1860, no. 107, from M. Lanusse in Damascus to M. de Lallemand, chargé d’affaires in Istanbul; June 19, 1860, no. 109, from M. Lanusse in Damascus to M. Lavalette, French Ambassador to Istanbul. 7 See Chapter 5. 8 166PO/D20/5, CADN, June 19, 1860, no. 109, from M. Lanusse in Damascus to

M. Lavalette, French Ambassador to Istanbul.

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and social affairs in favour of the Christians. The French consul, fearing further violence against the Christians and French citizens in the Syrian provinces, wrote to Emir Abd-el-Kader,9 agreeing to arm 1000 Algerians under his authority with the sole purpose of protecting the Christians and the Christian Quarter of Damascus.10 The desire to ensure security in Damascus was not the result of the French consul misconstruing the situation, the Chief Council of Damascus, witnessing the heightened anxiety among the population caused by violent events within the Syrian provinces, also procured a police force to protect the Christian quarter. The group of officers and captains chosen to form the police force were, however, described by a ‘Muslim Turk’ in Damascus as ‘worthless and baser’.11 The British consul in Beirut also did not think highly of Ottoman troops, having previously described them as ‘seedy ruffians’.12 Given the questionable character of the officers that had been recruited to protect the Christians, it is believed that they instigated a few young boys to make crosses and lay them down in the streets of the city, allowing passers-by to walk on the crosses, while the kids yelled insults directed at Christians.13 The authorities in the city, disturbed by the potential provocation, ordered the police to apprehend the boys and force them to sweep the streets of the market as punishment. The sight of the young Muslim boys being punished for their actions against the Christians drew an angry crowd who subsequently freed the boys. The group, still angered by the treatment of Muslim children, and led by Selim Agha al-Mahayni,14 9 Emir Abd-el-Kader was an Algerian religious scholar, released from French imprisonment by Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte after the 1848 French Revolution on the grounds that he would not interfere in Algeria. 10 166PO/D20/5, CADN, June 19, 1860, no. 109, from M. Lanusse in Damascus to M. Lavalette, French Ambassador to Istanbul. 11 FO/226/131, TNA, ‘Account by a Muslim Turk in Damascus’, ‘The Massacre of the Christians there’. 12 The Daily News, from Beirut, September 29, 1856, published Thursday October 16, 1856, p. 5. Of 8, The British Library, Newspaper Archive. 13 FO/226/131, TNA, ‘Account by a Muslim Turk in Damascus’, ‘The Massacre of the Christians there’; 166PO/D1/56, CADN, July 20, 1860, no. 11, from M. Geoffrey in Aleppo sent to M. de Lavalette, French Ambassador in Istanbul. 14 FO/226/131, TNA, ‘Account by a Muslim Turk in Damascus’, ‘The Massacre of the Christians there’; 166PO/D1/56, CADN, July 20, 1860, no. 11, from M. Geoffrey in Aleppo sent to M. de Lavalette, French Ambassador in Istanbul.

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an officer of the irregular security force (Fawaz 1994, p. 85), entered the Christian Quarter of Damascus and began attacking and pillaging the Quarter. During the pillaging and destruction, it is reported that the mob grew larger, with others, including the Druze, security forces, and Arab tribes, joining in. The police force was quickly overpowered, unable to stop the violence and force the rioters to withdraw from the area. Although incapable of bringing the violence to a conclusion due to his belated arrival, Emir Abd-el-Kadr managed to save about 11,000 Christians.15 The plundering and burning of the Quarter continued for a number of days until the area was completely destitute, with many of its inhabitants being killed, tortured, enslaved, or forced to convert to Islam (Roederer 1917, p. 19).16 Following the Damascus Massacre of 1860, the French continued to blame Ahmed Pasha, arguing that he had been the mastermind behind the entire event with the support of the armies of notable Muslim Damascene families. The French believed that the strategy included populations throughout the Syrian Provinces, including Mount Lebanon, and that these populations had become convinced that the French and Russians, in their quest to protect the Christians, wanted to exterminate the Druze and Muslims in Mount Lebanon.17 The other hypothesis, according to the French consul, considered violence as a tool that was used to combat unwanted European interference. Viewing the Christians as aligned with the European powers, Ottoman officials sought to agitate the Muslim population in order to regain control and rid the region of growing French, British, and Russian influence.18 In both explanations peddled by the French administration, the agency of the people involved is removed, failing to contextualize the events, in favour of political targets.

15 This was according to the French consul in Damascus. 166PO/D20/5, CADN, July 28, 1860, no. 112, from M. Outrey in Damascus to M. de Lavalette, French Ambassador in Istanbul. 16 FO/226/131, TNA, ‘Account by a Muslim Turk in Damascus’, ‘The Massacre of the Christians there’; 166PO/D20/5, CADN, July 17, 1860, from M. Lanusse, Damascus to M. Lavalette, French Ambassador in Istanbul; July 28, 1860, no. 112, from M. Outrey in Damascus to M. de Lavalette, French Ambassador in Istanbul. 17 166PO/D20/5, CADN, July 28, 1860, no. 112, from M. Outrey in Damascus to M. de Lavalette, French Ambassador in Istanbul. 18 166PO/D20/5, CADN, July 28, 1860, no. 112, from M. Outrey in Damascus to M. de Lavalette, French Ambassador in Istanbul.

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By contextualizing the Damascus Massacre, as well as previous instances of violence, it is apparent that the promotion of the principles equality and rational state-building, the French administration in the Syrian provinces enflamed domestic insecurities. The sharp change in social, political, and economic access as a consequence of equal status led to the sentiment among the Muslim community that their status had been diminished. Creating increased agitation directed against those that were perceived as benefitting from European intervention and interference, particularly the Christian communities. Animosity directed against the Christian communities that were viewed as benefiting from preferential treatment by European powers was only intensified by European narratives of Muslim fanaticism as justification for intervention and interference. This animosity, coupled with the perceived threat of an Ottoman–Druze alliance that sought the eradication the Christian populations exacerbated European racialized characterizations of nonChristians in the Ottoman Empire (Delatolla and Yao 2019; Hobson 2004). These characterizations justified interference and intervention with the Sublime Porte but also within local communities. Interference and intervention within local communities, established on racialized characteristics of Muslim fanaticism and Christian civilization facilitated the development of alliances between European administrators and Christian communities and leadership. Assertions by European administrations in the Syrian provinces that the violence was a result of a civilizational flaw confirmed these views and provided the evidence that Christians required saving from the confines of Oriental despots. Despite the best efforts of the Sublime Porte to limit the possibility of violence, the divisions between the Muslim, Druze, and Christian communities remained present due to the changing economic conditions and political dynamics. In response to the Sublime Porte’s failure to constrain potential violence, the Austrian, Prussian, British, French, and Russian governments decided among themselves to allow France to lead a military occupation in Syria with 12,000 European troops, with 6000 being French, over a six-month period (Hakim 2013, p. 71; Roederer 1917, p. 19). Given the state of the Empire, the Sublime Porte was overpowered and was forced to submit to a further European intervention. The Sublime Porte, however, did extract a compromise that restrained and limited European troops to Mount Lebanon (Hakim 2013, p. 71). As discussed above, the failure of violence to remove the source of social and political alienation, could result in the entrenchment of these structures.

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Notably, the failure of violence to displace or remove European interference and influence in the Syrian provinces and the Ottoman Empire, led to its reassertion. Additionally, the establishment of European troops in Ottoman territory was evidence of the Sublime Porte’s loss of power in the expanding European state system; making it even easier for European interests to be achieved. The occupation of Mount Lebanon provided the European states, specifically France, with the ability to further spread their influence and achieve their interests. This was made easier by the relationship that had developed between the Maronites, primarily located in Mount Lebanon, and the French. Additionally, many Christians from Damascus, following the violence, had migrated to Achrafiye, a suburb of Beirut on the foothills of Mount Lebanon.19 The French-led occupation was guided by the idea that colonization could provide enlightenment, by dominating, pacifying, and educating the populations, it would be possible to replicate ideas of order, morality, governance, and a French high culture (Connor 1994, p. 41). However, the occupation of Mount Lebanon deepened the French relationship with the Christians, which helped increase Christian economic and political mobility, having a wider impact throughout the Syrian provinces. Indeed, there were reports from Aleppo that the Christian communities had remained positive regarding their safety and future, while Muslims, on the other hand, were left feeling intimidated.20 The consequence of French military occupation was their extended influence on local dynamics and the Sublime Porte, as well as the social and political reorganization of Mount Lebanon that expedited the development of sectarian schisms. While the effects on domestic dynamics were unfavourable, the consequences facilitated the pursuit of interests in the region (Hakim 2013, p. 71).21 The French occupation of Mount 19 The Consul also writes that many of the Christian inhabitants had fled to Beirut with many more settling in Achrafiye—a Christian enclave that was important in the formation of the state of Lebanon, the 1975–1990 Lebanese Civil War, and the demographic of Beirut afterwards. 166PO/D20/5, CADN, August 9, 1860, no. 116, from M. Outrey in Damascus to M. Lavalette, French Ambassador in Istanbul. 20 166PO/D1/56, CADN, October 2, 1860, no. 11, from A. Chattry de la Fosse in Aleppo to M de Lavalette, French Ambassador in Istanbul. 21 The French rhetoric and the reorganization of the established social order, led to increased resistance by the Muslims, who saw their rights and powers being stripped away. House of Commons Debate, UK Parliament, May 10, 1861, vol. 162, Syria and Turkey, cc1870–1894, in Hansard, UK Parliamentary Archives.

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Lebanon initially reorganized the local political administration through appointments, and subsequently by replacing the Qaymaqam system with the Mutassarifate. This system placed a Christian from outside Mount Lebanon in the position of leadership with the title of Mutassarif. The leader would then be advised by an Administrative Assembly, represented equally by the different sects in the region. These changes took effect in 1861, upheld by the constitutional arrangement known as the ‘Réglement Organique’ (the Organic/Natural Law of Mount Lebanon) (Gordon 1983, p. 18; Zürcher 2016, p. 55). Effectively, the French dissolved Druze autonomy over their own affairs and placed power in the hands of a foreign Christian; amplifying the feeling of Christian domination in the form of foreign power. To ensure that the reforms that had been developed were being properly administered and that peace was maintained, the French extended military occupation for three months.22 While Fanon asserted that the process of decolonization was violent and did not necessarily result in a revolutionary change in systems of governance, the resistance towards European interference and domestic influence did not lead to decolonization. Rather, it led to further European control in an effort to pacify the Muslim—and Druze—populations and increase the privilege and access of Christians. The result was a form of active state-building, informed by a racist worldview, that became embedded in the political structures and institutions of statehood. Specifically, in the case of Mount Lebanon, the premise of Christian governance and sectarian representation remained foundational to the emergence of the Lebanese Republic in the twentieth century. The Mandate System and Faisal’s Revolt Following the collapse of the Young Turk government, led by Enver Pasha, on October 31, 1918 and the subsequent collapse of the Sublime Porte, the British had established control over Syria and Mesopotamia (Iraq) and the French, in the Syrian littoral and throughout Lebanon by military administration. To prevent the possibility of public anger, the French and British put together a joint declaration on November 8, 1918, assuring the populations in the Arab provinces that the establishment of military administrations was provisional and that the French and British 22 The Policy of France, Belfast Morning News, January 2, 1861, p. 4 of 8, the British Library, Newspaper Archives.

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administrations would consider the desires of the populations in developing the governments.23 Specifically, the Anglo-French Declaration of November 8, 1918 began with the promise of ‘liberation of the peoples so long oppressed by the Turks, and the establishment of national governments and administrations deriving their authority from the initiative and free choice of the native populations’.24 The declaration continued by stating that assistance to these new governments and administrations in the liberated territories would be provided by France and Britain, with the promise to then recognize the governments as soon as they are effectively established. So far from desiring to impose specific institutions upon the populations of these regions, their sole object is to ensure by their support and effective assistance, that the governments and administrations adopted by these regions of their own free will shall be exercised in the normal way.25

Based on a foundation of ethical humanitarianism, and paralleling the twelfth point of U.S. President Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points,26 the post-Ottoman French and British state-building projects were conceived. However, once in practice, the projects became mired in the pursuit of European interests, often disregarding or exploiting the populations (Potter 1922). By the end of the Paris Peace Conference, on November 1, 1919, the British had begun their evacuation from Syria; allowing for French soldiers to be deployed in their place.27 Following the evacuation, the

23 F/205/3/7, ‘The Syrian Question’, UK Parliamentary Archives. 24 F/205/2/5, November 9, 1918, ‘Anglo-French Declaration’, UK Parliamentary

Archives. 25 F/205/2/5, November 9, 1918, ‘Anglo-French Declaration’, UK Parliamentary Archives. 26 Liberated territories ‘should be assured an undoubted security of life and an absolutely unmolested opportunity of autonomous development’, Woodrow Wilson (1918). 27 This was a result of the Sykes-Picot Agreement, of May 16, 1916 when the French

and British agreed to zones of influence throughout the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire and agreeing between themselves the near unlimited privileges over resources and populations. F/205/1, May 16, 1916, ‘Sykes-Picot Agreement’, UK Parliamentary Archives. For information on the Arab Revolt and the Sykes-Picot Agreement see Rogan (2015, pp. 275–309).

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British communicated to Faisal I bin Hussein bin Ali al-Hashimi (Faisal)28 and the French administration that they had officially abdicated their responsibility in the areas now under French control.29 In response to the British communication, Faisal sent a letter of protest, stating that the arrangement agreed on by the French and the British was ‘detrimental to the rights of the Arabs and in direct opposition to what they expected from the British and French governments in particular, and from the civilized world in general’.30 The implementation of the agreement was in opposition to, not only British assurances made to the Hashemite family, but to the promise made by Woodrow Wilson of ‘unmolested opportunity of autonomous development’ (Woodrow Wilson 1918, no. XII), which was believed to have ushered in a new era of international politics. While Wilson’s Fourteen Points and the establishment of an institutionalized system of global governance characterized as ‘universal, open, and cosmopolitan’ (Anghie 2002, pp. 513–514) re-established the standard of civilization through a new liberal discourse to frame the practices of global politics, the dynamics of those practices remained unchanged from periods before. The deployment of French troops into Syria culminated in a coercive occupation with the initial aim of disarming the Muslim populations, while ignoring the aggressive activities of the Christians. Following the establishment of French occupation forces, the Christians reportedly felt emboldened, and in one instance, in the interior of Syria (the Eastern Zone) near Zahlé, they entered a Mosque, insulted the Qur’an, and fired a gun at the Muslim Governor. In a letter to the British government, Faisal stated that the Arabs were unsettled by the ‘pressure used by the French officials to prevent the people from showing their desire for an Arab government’, and that the French were imposing their will by force,

28 The third son of Hussein bin Ali, the Grand Sherif of Mecca, Faisal promoted PanArabism with the goal of creating an Arab state, including modern Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Palestine. 29 F/205/3/16, September 13, 1919 (Communicated to Foreign Office, September 18), ‘Aide-mémoire in regard to the Occupation of Syria, Palestine, and Mesopotamia pending the decision in regard to Mandate’, UK Parliamentary Archives. 30 F/205/3/17, September 24, 1919 (Communicated to the Foreign Office September 24), ‘His Highness Emir Faisal to the Prime Minister of Great Britain’, UK Parliamentary Archives.

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exploiting ‘the sectional [sectarian] passions which are unhappily so easily aroused in my country’.31 The use of sectarian divisions in the Syrian provinces to establish control went beyond the schism between Christians and Muslims. Faisal accused the French of enflaming tensions between the Druze and the Shi’a in Djebel Amil, the Maronites and the Druze in Mount Lebanon, the Circassians and Arabs in Hola, the Ismailis the Alawites in Banias, and the Alawites and the Sunni Muslims in Latakia. In addition to enflaming sectarian tensions, Faisal accused the French of reproducing civilizational allegiances between the French government and the Maronites, in order to undermine the Arab Nationalists. However, it is noted that the populations were not completely complicit with French provocations and had also acted in retribution against French officers. In response to these activities, the French carried out punitive actions: attacking, burning down, or shelling villages, seizing crops, and driving off cattle and other livestock.32 In an effort to resist French violence, the Lebanese Administrative Council, which had been the representational organization for Mount Lebanon at the Paris Peace Conference, passed a resolution asking for independence without French assistance with the aim of forming a political agreement with the government in Damascus. The resolution surprised the French, who had come to rely on legitimacy from the Lebanese population to justify their actions in Syria, and who had previously asked for autonomy with French protections. To silence their critics, the French quickly arrested and exiled the council members on charges of treason before the resolution could be delivered to the other European members of the Peace Conference (Hakim 2013, p. 255).33 The resolution that was passed by the Lebanese Council was subsequently followed by a similar declaration in Damascus on March 8, 1920. The declaration, accepted by communal representatives, proclaimed independence for Syria with Faisal as the King. The representatives argued ‘that if the allies were sincere, they would recognize this decision of the popular will, which was only putting their promises into execution, 31 F/205/4/7, November 19 to July, 1920, ‘Note to H.B.M.’s Government on the Arab Question, Memo. On events in Syria’, UK Parliamentary Archives. 32 F/205/4/7, November 19 to July, 1920, ‘Note to H.B.M.’s Government on the Arab Question, Memo. On events in Syria’, UK Parliamentary Archives. 33 F/205/4/7, November 19 to July, 1920, ‘Note to H.B.M.’s Government on the Arab Question, Memo. On events in Syria’, UK Parliamentary Archives.

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and the Turks, at the same time, would be proved liars’. With regard to the latter, the Turks had been arguing that Britain and France were not concerned with delivering Arab independence, rather the French desired the fulfilment of their imperialist interests in the region (Hokayem 2012, pp. 127–134 (no. 92, 93, 94, 95, 96)).34 Summarizing the state of affairs and the developments regarding ‘the Arab Question’ and echoing the Turkish government, the British indicated that ‘it was clear the French were pursuing a purely colonial, imperialist policy’.35 Although the British Foreign Office had recognized the Syrian declaration of independence, the British government had not, and the Treaty of Sèvres, completed in San Remo on April 18 and April 26, formalized the French Mandate for Syria (greater Syria, including Lebanon) and the British Mandate for Mesopotamia and Palestine to the British.36 The Treaty of Sèvres provided the legal justification for the French to use force against Syrian rebels who had been expressing their dissatisfaction with the peace settlement and French occupation. Addressing the use of force by the French administration, Faisal wrote to the British administration that ‘the French artillery and airplane explosives are promiscuously and without pity destroying the villages and tearing to pieces the defenseless inhabitants. More than 21,000 are already left homeless and are dispersed everywhere’. In addition to the use force in order to pacify the population into submission, the French occupation forces blocked the ports, forcing the Syrian economy to a standstill.37 The French administration in Syria had effectively established a siege, veiled by humanitarian intent with the aim of establishing a modern state that could accede the standard required of ‘civilized nations’. Within this framework, force was perceived as necessary to pacify the populations, giving justification to the members of the League of Nations to ignore French activity in Syria.

34 F/205/4/7, November 19 to July, 1920, ‘Note to H.B.M.’s Government on the Arab Question, Memo. On events in Syria’, UK Parliamentary Archives. 35 F/205/4/7, November 19 to July, 1920, ‘Note to H.B.M.’s Government on the

Arab Question, Memo. On events in Syria’, UK Parliamentary Archives. 36 F/205/2/1, ‘Timeline of events as related to Syria’, p. 14, UK Parliamentary Archives. 37 During this period, on April 23, 1920, Mustafa Kemal was elected to govern Turkey, provoking a civil war that ended in August 1920. F/59/10/11, June 1, 1920, ‘Letter to Lloyd George from Feisal’, UK Parliamentary Archives.

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Following the declaration of Syrian independence on March 8, 1920, resistance to the French occupation, including the establishment of a government in Damascus led by Faisal, was short-lived. The French administration, highlighting the legitimacy of the French Mandate due to its legal standing, put forward conditions for Faisal, including the cessation of rebellious activities, the necessity of establishing a military with obligatory conscription, Syrian banknotes being accepted in the form of commercial exchange but not as the official state currency, and the acceptance of the mandate (Hokayem 2012, pp. 462–464 [no. 341]). Gouraud, unable to come to an agreement with Faisal on French terms, argued that the government of Damascus was unjustified in their pursuits, they had employed gangs, while the French have sought to establish order and freedom, not a colonial administration. Gouraud further argued that the government in Damascus had used every attempt to block French strategy, using military force to fight French troops and placing restrictions on the movement of goods, particularly grains, that have had a negative economic impact on the population (Hokayem 2012, pp. 479–486, 501–503 [no. 356, 373]; Hurewitz 1979, 180–182). While the French and the Arabs had been engaged in violent tactics as instrumental in achieving their interests, the legitimacy of French colonial pacification was not only legally justified through the Treaty of Sèvres, but also normatively in relation to the goals of the Mandate State System, President Wilson’s 14 Points, and the Anglo-French Declaration of 1918 (Betts 1960). This provided the foundation for the French to appeal to the civilizational character of their violence against the barbarity of Arab violence, a racialized trope that served to reinforce imperial governance. The discursive division drawn between the French occupation forces and the Faisal’s resistance implicitly reproduced the civilizational dynamics of the previous century in two ways. In the first place, the violent acts of the French were characterized as necessary in Arab pacification to engage in a continuation of the civilizing project. Second, and in relation to the first point, the positioning of the Arab population as being in need of ‘civilizing’ reproduced the racial-civilizational order of the nineteenth century. By characterizing Faisal’s resistance as unjust, uncivilized, and barbaric, it was possible to frame the negative consequences it was having on the population without consideration for the political dynamics and French occupation that had led violent resistance. Indeed, the French administration in Syria, led by Gouraud, was politically isolating Faisal and

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his government by focusing on the illegitimacy of the latter, particularly regarding the impact resistance was having on the population. By politically isolating Faisal and reengaging in civilizational discourses, the French were also reinforcing the notion that civilized statehood could only take form by means of active European engagement, leadership, and mimicry. As such, an appeal was made to the liberal-international social milieu that had developed; highlighting the supposed legitimacy of legalized violence conducted by state militaries sanctioned by international law in opposition to Faisal’s ‘Arab gang’. The binary of this narrative appealed to a longstanding standard of civilization centred on legitimate statehood, with the power to determine legitimacy in the hands of the French. French Colonial Pacification: The Druze Revolt 1925 Following the establishment of the French administration in Lebanon and Syria, Maurice Sarrail, the new High Commissioner, replacing General Weygand in June 1924, described as an avid atheist (Khoury 1987, p. 148) and appointed following the victory of the anticlerical party in France, believed that for too long the French had pandered to the Maronite minority when they should have been allied with the Muslim majority. Seeing that his predecessors had given too much power to a minority, Sarrail rejected the advances made by the Christian communities, ultimately blocking the election of a Catholic general, Emile Eddé,38 as Governor of Lebanon by the Lebanese Representative Council, and appointed a French Governor in his place. The Lebanese nationalists quickly became furious with Sarrail’s intervention in Lebanon, and Sarrail, to appease them, offered direct elections. However, Édouard Herriot, the Prime Minister of France, rejected the plan, and Sarrail was forced to backtrack, unable to deliver on his promise (Barr 2011, pp. 124–125; de Wailly 2010, pp. 191–196). Although Sarrail rejected the supremacy of the Maronite community in Lebanon and attempted to undertake a secularist approach to govern by means of the Mandate, he maintained the primacy of French interests over Lebanese independence. The central strategy for the French administration in Lebanon and Syria was the pacification of the population and the assertion of authority

38 Although Emile Eddé supported French policies in Lebanon, he believed in a territorial reduction of Lebanon by excluding Tripoli, Akkar, and Baalbeck (Zamir 1978).

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over the territories that had been legally attributed to the French administration. In an attempt to assert authority over the Druze in Djebel Druze, Sarrail desired to make a statement reflecting French strength in the region and pursued retribution for attacks that occurred under the governorship of General Gouraud. During the period under Gouraud, the Druze of Djebel Druze had come into conflict with the French administration, who were trying to coerce the population into submission, and on June 23, 1921, Gouraud’s caravan was attacked. Following a period of quiet, Gouraud had learned that Sultan al-Atrash had been harbouring one of the perpetrators of the attack, and in 1922, Gouraud arrested the perpetrator and sent him to Damascus. On the way to Damascus, however, the caravan carrying the perpetrator was ambushed by Sultan al-Atrash and his men, resulting in the death of a French officer. In the fight that followed Sultan al-Atrash’s ambush, the perpetrator had been set free (Barr 2011, pp. 119–123). In an attempt to administer justice for the French administration, Sarrail ordered the four main Druze leaders in Djebel Druze to meet in Damascus. Three of the leaders accepted the invitation and upon arrival in Damascus, were arrested. Sultan al-Atrash was the sole leader to refuse, having seen his father succumb to the same ploy, resulting in his father’s death (Barr 2011, pp. 123–125). In response to Sarrail’s plot, in late July 1925, al-Atrash rallied his tribal and peasant troops and began an onslaught and uprising against the French (Barr 2011, pp. 131–142; Chalcraft 2016, pp. 226–228). Although Sarrail had made two strategic mistakes in his short period in office, first with the obstruction of Emile Eddé’s appointment as Governor and then with his subsequent upset of the Djebel Druze, it was not until a change of government in France in April 1925 that Sarrail was replaced by Henri de Jouvenel in November 1925. The change in the French administration, backed by a new government in France, led to increased French control through the use of force, beginning with Damascus and spreading outwards once the capital city was back under French authority (Barr 2011, pp. 131–142; Chalcraft 2016, pp. 226–228). Despite increased use of force by the French administration, the Druze continued the rebellion against French authority, repression, and violence, and soon after the rebellion started it acquired the support of the Arab nationalists. However, the Druze and the Arab nationalists were quickly losing access to vital resources, and neither Britain nor the League of Nations had agreed to support their cause (Barr 2011, pp. 131–142;

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Chalcraft 2016, pp. 226–228). By July 1926, de Jouvenel was replaced by Henri Ponsot, and with much of Syria back under French control, the new High Commissioner strategized the implementation of an Organic Law for Syria (Hourani 1946, pp. 187–189), helping to conclude the rebellion on July 26, 1927 (Longrigg 1958, pp. 168–169; Hourani 1946, p. 191; Barr 2011, pp. 141–142). While the rebels in Syria were unable to achieve their goal, they did manage to alter French administration following the conclusion of the rebellion. In February 1928, M. Ponsot issued a general amnesty to the Druze and the Arab nationalists and called for elections of a Constituent Assembly which was held in April that same year (Hourani 1946, p. 191). The general amnesty and the creation of a Constituent Assembly was an attempt to pacify the rebellious populations by conceding on a new form of representational governance. However, it required that the population accept a specific form of governance and order that could be sustainably managed by the French administration. Although it is not surprising that the French administration resulted to the use of force against acts of violent resistance against their authority, the French administration also used governance and governmental regulation as a tool to assert authority in a legitimate manner. The use of violence to terminate acts of resistance coupled with legal formalities that reasserted the legitimate position of centralized and controlled governance were increasingly becoming embedded in the emerging structures of the state and state-society relations. Although the rebellion had failed to procure the desired autonomy and independence of the nationalists and the Druze, failure was not caused by a lack of willpower, but an absence of capital and political support. In combatting the rebellion, the French had also suffered economically, and began to view the mandate as too expensive to maintain, threatening to abandon Syria to the British. The threat was a successful ploy to ensure continued British support of the French. Following the threat, the British began to clear out rebel strongholds in the Jordanian desert region. Despite the conclusion of the rebellion, the French reputation, at the time, had been damaged within Lebanon and Syria, as well as internationally (Longrigg 1958, pp. 168–169; Hourani 1946, p. 191; Barr 2011, pp. 141–142). Regardless, the result of the revolt was a Frenchled government of Syrian elites that were responsive to reforms, with the caveat that reforms would not hamper French interests, and in particular, those which attempted to secure the French position in Syria. These reforms were developed to placate the populations while altering the structures and institutions of statehood in favour of French.

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Conclusion The failure of violent resistance to force the withdrawal of European powers, and the consequences of this failure, led to increased and entrenched foreign engagement and control. The use of violence during the Aleppo Uprising of 1850 and the Damascus Massacre of 1860, as an attempt to remove foreign influence and the benefactors of this influence, confirmed—for the European administrators—the racialized perceptions of the Muslim populations as being motivated by barbarism and fanaticism. This validation of racialized perceptions increased the resolve of the French administration to protect the Christians communities of the Ottoman Empire, deepening French involvement in the civilizing project and social reengineering. In the case of the Damascus Massacre of 1860, and with intercommunal tensions high, the French government established a military presence in Mount Lebanon. Similarly, these aspects were reproduced during and following Faisal’s revolt against the French Mandate and later with the Druze Revolt in 1825. The failure of violent resistance to decolonize led to increased French interference and governance, often with the support of other European states. This included an increased presence of French soldiers in the Syrian provinces as well as a replacement of French administrators with allied indigenous elites. The replacement of French administrators with allied indigenous elites, the new ‘species’ of men, as Fanon stated, did not occur in the process of decolonization, characterized by the violent overthrow of imperial administrators, but the failure of the overthrow. The miscarriage of violent decolonization provided further impetus for the French administration to alter the institutions and structures of politics in their favour. At nearly every juncture of violence discussed in this chapter, including the Aleppo Uprising of 1850, the Damascus Massacre of 1860, Faisal’s Revolt of 1919, and the Druze Revolt in 1825, the French administration in the Syrian provinces became more entrenched with the view that the populations in revolt were uncivilized. The determining context of French withdrawal from Lebanon and Syria was the increasing economic costs of maintaining an occupying force, preferring to shift powers to indigenous elites that would be sympathetic to the maintenance of French interests. The substitution of one species for another, occurred within the legal and political frameworks established throughout the civilizing project of rational state-building; creating structural privilege for the indigenous elites who filled the seats of government.

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In the case of the Syrian provinces of the Ottoman Empire and, subsequently, Lebanon and Syria, the civilizing project of rational state-building required occupation by imperial administrators and soldiers; playing an important social role to ‘fight war in the “the social ‘milieu”’ by social re-engineering (Owens 2015; Alimahomed-Wilson and Williams 2016). This included coercive pacification of populations considered uncivilized or barbarous, and, in the case of Lebanon and Syria, justified by the protection and privileging of the Christian, and specifically the Maronite, community. In doing so, the French administration was engaged, not only in coercion, but the reconstitution of religious intercommunal relations. In particular, the deprivation of the Muslim communities and the favouritism enjoyed by the Christians, led to the latter being targeted within the context of violent resistance and validated their status as referent objects by European administrators. This civilizational worldview had important ramifications for the establishment of the Lebanon and Syria as separate states and the projection of Muslims in the region being viewed as violent and antithetical to Christian-European civilization.

Works Cited Agamben, Giorgio. 2000. Means Without End: Notes on Politics, trans. Cesare Cassarino and Vincenzo Binetti. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Alimahomed-Wilson, Jake, and Dana Williams. 2016. State Violence, Social Control, and Resistance. Journal of Social Justice 6: 1–15. Anghie, Antony. 2002. Colonialism and the Birth of International Institutions: Sovereignty, Economy, and the Mandate System of the League of Nations. Journal of International Law and Politics 34 (513): 512–633. Arendt, Hannah. 1972. Crises of the Republic: Lying in Politics; Civil Disobedience; on Violence; Thoughts on Politics and Revolution. New York: Harvest Books. Arendt, Hannah. 1998. The Perplexities of the Rights of Man. Headline Series 318: 88–102. Barr, James. 2011. A Line in the Sand: Britain, France and the Struggle That Shaped the Middle East. London: Simon and Schuster. Betts, Raymond. 1960. Assimilation and Association in French Colonial Theory, 1890–1914. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Chalcraft, John. 2016. Popular Politics and the Making of the Modern Middle East. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Connor, Walker. 1994. A Nation Is a Nation, Is a State, Is an Ethnic Group, Is a…. In Nationalism, ed. John Hutchinson and Anthony D. Smith, 36–46. Oxford: Oxford University Press. de Wailly, Henri. 2010. Liban, Syrie – Le Mandat 1919–1940. Paris: Perrin. Delatolla, Andrew, and Joanne Yao. 2019. Racializing Religion: Constructing Colonial Identities in the Syrian Provinces in the Nineteenth Century. International Studies Review 21 (4): 640–661. Devereux, Robert. 1963. The First Ottoman Constitutional Period: A Study of the Midhat Constitution and Parliament. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press. Fanon, Frantz. 2001. The Wretched of the Earth, trans. Constance Farrington. London: Penguin Classics. Fawaz, Leila Tarazi. 1994. An Occasion for War: Civil Conflict in Lebanon and Damascus in 1860. London: IB Tauris. Finlay, Christopher J. 2009. Hannah Arendt’s Critique of Violence. Thesis Eleven 97: 26–45. Foucault, Michel. 1995. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York: Vintage Books. Frazer, Elizabeth, and Kimberly Hutchings. 2008. On Politics and Violence: Arendt Contra Fanon. Contemporary Political Theory 7 (1): 90–108. Furtado, Henrique Tavares. 2015. Against State Terror: Lessons on Memory, Counterterrorism and Resistance from the Global South. Critical Studies on Terrorism 8 (1): 72–89. Ginsberg, Benjamin. 2013. The Value of Violence. New York: Prometheus Books. Gordon, David C. 1983. The Republic of Lebanon: Nation in Jeopardy. London: Routledge. Hakim, Carol. 2013. The Origins of the Lebanese National Idea, 1840–1920. Berkeley: University of California Press. Hobson, John M. 2004. The Eastern Origins of Western Civilization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hokayem, Antoine. 2012. Documents Diplomatiques Francais Relatifs à l’Histoire du Liban et de la Syria à l’Époque du Mandat: 1914–1946, Tome 2, Les Bouleversements de l’Année 1920 au Proche-Orient: Le Sort des Territoires Ottomans Occupés. Paris: L’Harmattan. Hourani, Albert. 1946. Syria and Lebanon, a Political Essay. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hurewitz, J.C. 1979. Middle East and North Africa in World Politics: A Documentary Record. New Haven: Yale University Press. Khoury, Philip S. 1987. Syria and the French Mandate: The Politics of Arab Nationalism, 1920–1945. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Krimsti, Feras. 2014. Die Unruhen von 1850 in Aleppo. Gewalt im urbanen Raum. Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag.

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Lichbach, Mark Irving. 1989. An Evaluation of “Does Economic Inequality Breed Political Conflict?”. World Politics 41 (4): 431–470. Longrigg, Stephen Hemsley. 1958. Syria and Lebanon Under French Mandate. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Marx, Karl. 1971. Karl Marx: Economy, Class and Social Revolution. London: Tutor Books. Masters, Bruce. 1990. The 1850 Events in Aleppo: An Aftershock of Syria’s Incorporation into the Capitalist World System. International Journal of Middle East Studies 22 (1): 3–20. Morrisson, Christian, and Wayne Snyder. 2000. The Income Inequality of France in Historical Perspective. European Review of Economic History 4: 59–83. Muchembled, Robert. 2012. A History of Violence: From the End of the Middle Ages to the Present. Cambridge: Polity. Nilsen, Alf Gunvald. 2016. Power, Resistance and Development in the Global South: Notes Towards a Critical Research Agenda. International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society 29 (3): 269–287. Owens, Patricia. 2015. Economy of Force: Counterinsurgency and the Historic Rise of the Social. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Potter, Pitman B. 1922. Origin of the System of Mandates Under the League of Nations. The American Political Science Review 16 (4): 563–583. Roberts, Neil. 2004. Fanon, Sartre, Violence, and Freedom. Sartre Studies International 10 (2): 139–160. Roederer, Paul. 1917. Les Grands Problèmes Coloniaux: La Syrie et la France. Paris: Berger-Levrault. Rogan, Eugene. 2015. The Fall of the Ottomans: The Great War in the Middle East, 1914–1920. London: Penguin. Scheipers, Sibylle. 2015. Unlawful Combatants: A Genealogy of the Irregular Fighter. Oxford: Oxford University Pres. Sen, Amartya. 1997. On Economic Inequality. Oxford: Oxford University Press. von Holdt, Karl. 2012. The Violence of Order, Orders of Violence: Between Fanon and Bourdieu. Current Sociology 61 (2): 112–131. Woodrow Wilson, Thomas. 1918. President Woodrow Wilson’s 14 Points (1918). OurDocuments.Gov: https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=false& doc=62#. Accessed June 2, 2017. Zamir, Meir. 1978. Emile Eddé and the Territorial Integrity of Lebanon. Middle Eastern Studies 14 (2): 232–235. Zürcher, Erik J. 2016. Turkey: A Modern History. London: IB Tauris.

CHAPTER 7

Nationalism as Resistance: Acquiescing to European Identifiers

Although there had been resistance to European modernization, notably in targeted instances of violence—as discussed in Chapter 6, there was also acquiescence within the Ottoman Empire, among various political groups, to some of the ideas attached to modernity. The combination of modernization reforms related to rational state-building and European racial hierarchies that created domestic racial-civilizational schisms facilitated the development of new nationalisms and national resistance. This had a far reaching impact, including a separate identification in Mount Lebanon that provided the impetus and foundation to demand for a distinct Lebanese nation-state, the emergence of Turkish nationalism, and its Arab nationalist counterpart. The development of nationalist movements used the language and discourse of European modernity to fight for emancipation and make claims of autonomy. Specifically, the development of national identities and politics provided communities with the ability to make legitimate claims to their engagement in modernity, displaying, to the European administrators and governments, a newly attained level of civilization. These national identities and the politics that they were engaged in were actively borrowing from the narratives of European powers. Here, the

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norms regarding the relationship between identity, territory, and governance, were, at times, reconfigured into forms of resistance that were aimed at European interference and/or the Ottoman Empire. By exploring the development of nationalisms as a form of resistance in the Syrian provinces throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, this chapter highlights how nationalisms were developed, first, as a means to be recognized as different and separate, and second, to resist existing conditions, including European interference. This builds on the existing scholarship on nationalism that highlights how national identities are formulated, in part, through the opposition of other identities (Brubaker 2009, pp. 30–33). What is apparent in the discussion below, covering the cases of the Young Ottomans, Arab and Syrian Nationalism, and the Young Turks, is that the formation of these national identities were actively engaged in the discourses of modernity, attempting to legitimately occupy the evolving political context, adopting hierarchies of civilization, and reproducing racialized characterizations of the subordinated or opposing ‘other’. However, the development of nationalisms as a form of modern and civilized resistance, continued to be considered, by European administrators, as inadequately engaged in the logics and practices of modernity. Highlighted in this chapter are the nascent nationalisms that had contributed to mobilization against foreign interference and interventions throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As the intellectual development of ‘imagined communities’ took form, first with a distinctly imperial Ottoman nationalism, and subsequently with the emergence of ethnic nationalisms—including Turkish, Arab, and Syrian, communities mobilized against perceived centres of oppression (Dawisha 2003; Krämer 2013; Kenny 1963). This chapter engages in analysis of the Young Ottomans, Young Turks, Arab Nationalism, and Syrian Nationalism as a way to gain validity in making political claims, develop discourses of resistance, and formulating myths of origin as legitimating forces. Argued throughout this chapter, the attempt to assert legitimate demands for political autonomy and independence nationalisms were utilized, acquiescing to European structures of ‘civilized’ identity formation and structures of ‘civilized’ statehood. However, due to the preconceived and prejudicial notions resulting in processes of racialization and characterizing these communities as uncivilized, these nationalisms were considered insufficient. This chapter engages with the development of civil resistance that mimicked the language, programs, and dynamics

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of European ‘civilized’ politics, including the emergence of Arab Nationalism, Syrian Nationalism, the Young Ottomans, the Young Turks, and the political developments under the reign of Sultan Abdul Hamid II.

Nationalism, Resistance, and Response This section explores the various ways that nationalism was employed as a tool of resistance and the subsequent responses to nationalist developments. It builds on the previous discussions of identity formation, particularly those on race (Chapter 4) and territory and governance (Chapter 5), by contextualizing the development of these nationalist movements. Indeed, as discussed in the cases below, many of these early nationalist movements developed within an educated class. This follows from Ernest Gellner’s hypothesis that literacy was crucial to the development of nationalist movements (1983, pp. 8–11). Similarly, Benedict Anderson argues that it is the expanse and wide dissemination of print capitalism that facilitated national development. He states ‘print capitalism created languages of power’ allowed for the convergence of people ‘created the possibility of a new form of imagined community’ (Anderson 1983, pp. 48–49). Indeed, with print capitalism and a wide dissemination of language that engaged in various forms of inclusion and exclusion, national sentiment could develop and endure. While modern technology and capitalism helped to diminish dislocation caused by time and space, and facilitated the creation of communities that shared identifiers spread over larger territories, Eric J Hobsbawm argues that ‘there is nothing like being an imperial people to make a population conscious of its collective existence as such’ (1990, p. 38). Discussing the relationship between colonialism and nationalist formation in Africa, Anderson notes that nationalism is not only a tool of resistance, but occurs within colonial practices. Here, colonial powers seek to establish an elite class of individuals, who are taught and nurtured in colonial schools, as part of the civilizing project. The local populations are educated to facilitate a continuation of colonial relations, reproducing what Aníbal Quijano refers to as part of a the coloniality of knowledge/power matrix (Anderson 1983, pp. 48–49; Quijano 2000, pp. 549–550). The following section first explores the foundations established by the Young Ottomans before discussing the developments of Turkish nationalism, by means of the Young Turk movement, and Arab and

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Syrian nationalism. The emergent nationalisms discussed in this section borrowed from the logics and discourses apparent and enshrined in the modern European nation state. These nationalisms maintained a common thread that assembled European logics and discourses of nationalism with markers of identity to assert difference. In doing so, these nationalist movements attempted to establish themselves as legitimate forerunners of statehood, worthy of being considered ‘civilized nations’. In addition to establishing these populations as legitimate political groups, these nationalisms were used to coalesce otherwise diverse communities under a single ethno-national narrative in response to the political context of the period. The Young Ottomans Providing the foundations for the development of successive nationalist and political movements in the Ottoman Empire, the Young Ottomans attempted to reformulate customary and cultural markers of identity and politics within the context of modernity. In doing so, there was an attempt to gain legitimacy with the European powers by means of a political agenda that was actively engaged in the language of modernity. Discussed in relation to the Young Ottomans is the intellectual, political, and national foundations that the Young Ottomans provided for future nationalist political movements. While the Young Ottomans can be viewed as an early anti-imperialist movement attempting to build a communal sense of belonging, their agenda was politically driven. The movement faced a number of obstacles, this included European objections, but also that membership of the Young Ottomans was from an elite strata of society. The Young Ottomans had developed the intellectual and political foundations of their movement in the wake of increased contact between European revolutionaries, particularly following the 1848 French Revolution. The Young Ottomans, established by Midhat Pasha, Ziya Bey, Namik Kemal, and Mustafa Fayzel Pasha—grandson to Muhammed Ali, and Simon Deutsch, a socialist and banker exiled from Austria residing in the Ottoman Empire, have been described as ‘a loosely organized group of liberal, westernized intellectuals who wanted to introduce constitutional government to the Ottoman Empire in order to save it from inevitable dissolution’ (Miller 2010, pp. 384–385). Being from an educated and economically established class of individuals, members of the Young Ottomans, often part of the Ottoman bureaucratic class, not

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only borrowed liberal Western ideas, but merged them with Islamic and Eastern markers of identity present in the Ottoman Empire.1 Although from a particular class and stratum of society, the members of the Young Ottoman movement were from politically diverse backgrounds, with many having been sent into exile in Paris and London in the early 1860s by high ranking supporters of the Tanzimat movement, while other members were employed by the Sublime Porte as translators (Mardin 2000, pp. 10–48; Miller 2010, p. 385). The leadership of the movement was effectively straddling the constructed ‘civilized’ norms upheld by the French and British while attempting to maintain legitimacy and authenticity for local appeal. While the Young Ottomans had an important impact on the social and political context of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, their direct influence within the institutions of the Ottoman Empire was limited. Nevertheless, their political ideas helped the Sublime Porte navigate increased European pressure to modernize and had far reaching effects, not only on future movements, but also, indirectly, on Ottoman policy. The Young Ottomans focused their efforts on establishing a national representative body, the elimination of foreign interference in the domestic affairs of the Ottoman Empire, and solutions to reform projects while maintaining a distinct Ottoman and Islamic identity. This reflected how exiled members became accustomed to the political framework of Europe, while the translators had the privilege of gaining experience abroad and becoming familiar with the political discourse and political systems of Western Europe. Their ideological position, to modernize while maintaining Ottoman and Islamic markers of identity and culture, however, continued to produce scepticism among Europeans, and was one aspect that led to their being discredited (Mardin 2000, pp. 10–48; Miller 2010, p. 385). In particular, the Young Ottomans aimed to incorporate some of the fundamental norms of rational governance that were constitutive of nineteenth century European ideas of modernity. In doing so, there was discussion in Europe of how the Ottoman Empire could become part of the ‘civilized’ world. Despite some European perceptions that Ottoman subjects had undertaken a civilizing process, and were on their way to becoming ‘civilized’, the French consul in Aleppo stated that 1 FO/195/806, TNA, May 7, 1867, no. 28, from M, Rogers in Damascus to M. Lyons.

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[…] this is a romantic view based on [European] experience with [Istanbul] and the young Pashas, who we see in Paris and who speak French, who wear modern clothes, and who swell their brilliant phrases with large words, which are empty in meaning.2

According to the French consul, the Young Ottomans presented themselves as modern, but could not escape their inherent deficiencies, pointing to a high degree of corruption, which he described as unjust, oppressive and reinforcing systemic poverty.3 However, the position that was taken by the French consul was simplistic, reproducing a racist position that the inherent, biological, condition of these individuals was one of barbarism, fanaticism and despotism. By questioning the ability of the Young Ottomans to engage with modernity, the French consul rebuked arguments for non-interference and non-intervention in the internal affairs of the Empire. Having been influenced by European norms of governance, the Young Ottomans were not opposed to the reform program. Being advocates of large-scale reforms, they largely supported the foundations of the Hatt-ı Serif ¸ (1839) and the Hatt-ı Hümayun (1856), but critiqued the promulgation of the Tanzimat reforms as examples of European interference and power within the domestic affairs of the Ottoman Empire. As noted in the publication of their official statutes on August 30, 1867 and followed by the publication of two new newspapers in Paris and in London, the Hurriyet (Freedom) and the Muhbir (Reporter) (Mardin 2000, pp. 10–48; Miller 2010, p. 385), the reforms that the Young Ottomans wanted to implement were largely concerned with transforming the bureaucratic institutions of the Empire. In the first instance, they sought to push forward policy that would create a representative system based on a constitution; including institutional and governmental centralization (Davison 1963, pp. 93–94; Findley 1980, pp. 143, 169). The propositions put forward by the Young Ottomans, despite being based on Western European knowledges of rational governance and social order, were not regimented or developed by the European powers; and similar to how the European experience of modernity was constructed 2 166PO/D1/54, CADN, August 7, 1858, no. 15, from M. Bentivoglio in Aleppo to M. de Thouvenel, the French Ambassador in Istanbul. 3 166PO/D1/54, CADN, August 7, 1858, no. 15, from M. Bentivoglio in Aleppo to M. de Thouvenel, the French Ambassador in Istanbul.

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on knowledges of European Christianity, the Young Ottomans desired to incorporate modern governance with customary Ottoman and Islamic norms and identity. By appropriating the knowledges of European modern governance, and opposing the Christian foundation in which it existed, the Young Ottomans resisted the coloniality of the European state system while making use of its structures in order to be viewed as legitimate (Bhabha 1994, p. 9). They sought to rectify the administrative problems of the Sublime Porte through the creation of institutions that would allow for popular representation and provisions of equality. Yet, they desired to keep the Ottoman Empire distinctly Ottoman in character, drawing on traditional institutions for legitimacy and the characterization of the Empire as distinctly Islamic. In doing so, they hoped to pacify the population by validating an Islamic identity, cultural traditions, and conventions of the Ottoman Empire while acceding to the benchmark of European modernity through institutional engineering and the establishment of a codified constitution. However, the Young Ottoman’s attempt to resist European interference and intervention by modernizing the Empire, in order to be able to engage in the transforming international state system as an equal member, led to domestic resistance. The desire to establish parliamentary representation and supreme law, codified in a constitution, posed a threat to traditionalists within the Sublime Porte and members of the Ulema, who believed that Islam formed the basis of law and only the Sultan, through his interpretation of Islam, could promulgate and enforce imperial law (Mardin 2000, pp. 199–202). As such, the ideology of the Young Ottomans also posed a threat to the institution of the Sultanate, which would be restricted by the establishment of the constitution (Davison 1963, pp. 93–94; Findley 1980, pp. 143, 169). The traditionalists, wanting to preserve the customary practices of the Empire, which were understood as being founded on interpretations of Islam, also wanted to maintain the concentration of power under the Sultan. Although the Empire had previously been engaged in reforms to modernize within a Western conception of modernity from as early as the late eighteenth century, the role and relationship between Islam and the Sultan was never threatened, despite administrative bureaucratization, centralization of authority, and policies based on the provision of communal equality.

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The ideas espoused by the Young Ottomans were, in some instances, eventually put into practice by members working within the administration. In 1868, the Supreme Council of Judicial Ordinances was split in two, forming the Council of Judicial Ordinances and a Council of State. These new bodies were then subordinated to the Council of Ministers. This transition incorporated representational transformations by establishing the right for all millets of the Ottoman Empire to be represented in the central law-making bodies.4 However, the changes to the Supreme Council of Judicial Ordinances did not go far enough for some, despite instances of local resistance to these reforms. Namik Kemal complained that ‘as long as members of the law-drafting body were not elected, changes would remain superficial’ (Mardin 2000, p. 46), a sentiment was echoed in the Muhbir. However, Kemal’s position was controversial, and Mustafa Fayzel Pasha, a member of the Young Ottomans and grandson to Muhammed Ali, expressed displeasure with the report by the Muhbir, stating that the attack lacked diplomacy (Mardin 2000, p. 47), representing a schism in the movement. The growing ideological divisions within the Young Ottomans were further impacted by a series of events in the late 1860s and early 1870s which altered the political environment that the Young Ottomans were operating in. In the first instance, there were domestic economic constraints and, second, there were international political developments that had a direct impact on the Ottoman Empire. First, during this period, the Ottoman Empire was experiencing ‘increased corruption, oppression, and misgovernment throughout the land’, made worse by the growing unrest caused by the extravagant spending of the palace (Devereux 1963, pp. 24–25). Financial mismanagement within the confines of government was worsened by the burden of imperial debts to the European powers. As such, higher rates of taxation were imposed on the populations, increasing personal debt within society, this coincided with a devalued currency, and administrative corruption (Pamuk 1999, p. 214). Coupled with increased political pressure exerted by the European powers, the situation in the Sublime Porte had become desperate.5 The Young Ottomans could not 4 The principle that all millets will be represented in the central law making body was confirmed in the 1876 Constitution (Davison 1963, pp. 93–94; Findley 1980, pp. 143, 169). 5 FO/226/172, TNA, December 19, 1871, no. 71, ‘Attempt to Annex Lebanon Territory and Tripoli’.

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produce a clear and coherent political formula or agenda to manage these developments. Second, the Franco-Prussian War (the War of 1870) had forced the French government to recede in the Syrian provinces, impacting French influence in the Ottoman Empire. During the period of receding French power, the Russians were keen to make gains by expanding their imperial influence. Russian attempts to increase influence in the Ottoman Empire, however, were met with internal opposition, particularly from Midhat Pasha. Appointed as Grand Vizier on July 31, 1872, Midhat Pasha had been a member of the growing reform movement within the Sublime Porte and was praised by the Young Ottomans. He had previously served as Administrative Governor for Niš, which was later joined to the Danube Province, where he then served a Provincial Governor, and prior to becoming Grand Vizier, Midhat Pasha had served as Governor to Baghdad. Unfortunately, Midhat Pasha’s appointment as Grand Vizier ended a few months later on October 18, 1872, but was soon appointed to the post of Minister of Justice. Although it is believed that his removal was in relation to ongoing conflict with palace officials over the Sultanates financial and economic management of the territories of the Ottoman Empire, the Russians were actively working against him; viewing Midhat Pasha as a threat to Russian desired influence in the Danubian Principalities and the Balkans (Davison 1986, p. 164).6 The threat that Midhat Pasha posed to the European powers was evidenced, not only in his policies against external interference, but also his capability to make legitimate changes, transforming an ever-weakened Empire, caused by its incorporation into the European state system, into one of strength. In an effort to stymie European interference, Midhat Pasha had proposed constitutional and political reforms that would have mimicked the newly formed German Empire (1871). Although Midhat Pasha was dismissed from his position as Grand Vizier at the time that these reforms were proposed, they had staying power. Halil Sherif Pasha, the Ottoman Foreign Minister, continued to suggest reforms on this basis following Midhat Pasha’s exit. This proposal was opposed by Russia but supported by Britain and Austria (Davison 1986, p. 165). Following his dismissal as Grand Vizier, and as Minister of Justice, Midhat Pasha continued to propose the promulgation of a constitution that established the principle 6 [Midhat Pasha, the new Grand Vizier over whom all the…] The Spectator; October 26, 1872; 45, 2313, The British Library, Newspaper Archives.

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of citizenship, regardless of religious distinction, and based on universal personal law, giving each individual a legal identity recognized by the government. Midhat Pasha argued that this was the only option available to reclaim autonomy and defend against European encroachment.7 Despite his warnings, his proposals were dismissed by the administration, leading to his resignation in December 1875 (Devereux 1963, p. 31). While Midhat Pasha’s bigger plans for transformation were never fully developed, there were some reforms that were instituted. These reforms mimicked the newly reformed German Empire. Regardless of the possible outcomes following the development of a full reform package as Midhat Pasha had envisaged, the Sublime Porte would have continued to be subject to its European debt. By the early 1870s the Sublime Porte owed more than 200million pounds sterling to European lenders; exacerbated by overspending in the palace, and the need to quiet growing social unrest. Viewing the economic situation in the Ottoman Empire as untenable, lending by European financial markets to the Sublime Porte was terminated, forcing the Ottoman Empire to declare a moratorium on its payments. By October 1875, the Ottoman Empire was in a state of financial collapse that continued until 1897 (Pamuk 1999, p. 214; Devereux 1963, pp. 25, 237–239; Blaisdell 1929; Pamuk 2009).8 While the Young Ottomans had made inroads in producing a nationalpolitical agenda that would have brought the structure of the Empire closer to that of the modern nation-state in Europe, resulting in a legitimate position to resist European interference, their ability to engage in effective change was impacted by the domestic and international political contexts in which they were operating (Hanio˘glu 2008, pp. 103–104). With regard to the domestic context, the Young Ottomans remained an elite movement with little relevance to domestic communities beyond the political reforms that were being implemented. Internationally, however, the movement had to contend with inter-European rivalries and European interference in the domestic affairs of the Empire. The combination

7 Midhat Pasha, Namik Kemal and Ziya Bey (later Pasha), as well as other high-ranking Ottoman administrators, generals, members of the religious establishment, and Sultan Abdul Hamid II, all had a hand in writing the constitution. However, they were not all in favour of the promulgation of the constitution (Stavrianos 1963; Findley 1980, p. 225). 8 166PO/D18/3, CADN, Note sur la situation commerciale de la place de Constantinople émanant de M. Gibon, premier député de la nation française.

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of these factors led to the slow demise of the Young Ottoman movement, having fallen into political obscurity soon after their emergence. Yet, their program of administrative modernization and nation building provided a foundation for other groups to engage with. Discussed below is how the Young Turks attempted to build on the foundations developed by the Young Ottomans, leading to the development of a separate Arab and Syrian nationalist movement. The Young Turks, Arab, and Syrian Nationalists In the later part of the nineteenth century, the newly forming Turkish, Arab, and Syrian nationalist movements, unlike the Young Ottomans, did not only attempt to assert autonomy from European interventions and interference but also targeted the governing institutions of the Ottoman Empire and each other. The Young Turks, the Arab Nationalists, and the Syrian Nationalists were effectively engaged in the formation of territorially bounded cultural and ethnic identities tied to different strategies of political emancipation. Because of their engagement in the development of national identities bound to particular, overlapping, and competing territorialization, European foreign interference and intervention was not the only site of oppression that they contended with. The various nationalist movements not only viewed European states as sources of power that required resisting to assert autonomy and independence, but viewed each other as threats, as well. In addition to managing interference from external parties, the global political situation was affecting the domestic context that the nationalist groups were operating under. Following Sultan Abdul Hamid II’s conclusion of the first Ottoman constitutional period on February 14, 1878, and fearing possible repercussions due to the criticisms targeting the Sultan, many of the Young Ottomans went into exile (Deringil 1991, p. 346). The exiled Young Ottomans, however, persisted, even abroad, with some of these figures becoming important to the development and future of the Young Turk movement—and by extension, the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) (Devereux 1963, p. 15; Mardin 1962, p. 171).9 The conclusion of the first constitutional period was a threat to the political and national program of the CUP. Sultan Abdul Hamid II had 9 Such figures include Samipasazade Sezai, the future editor of Sura-ui Ummet, Ismail Kemal Bey, and Murad Bey.

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become sceptical of the premise of modernization and Europeanization, having grown tired of the consequences of continued exploitation and relative economic and territorial losses. Given his reaction to modernization and Europeanization and in relation to the CUP’s position, Sultan Abdul Hamid II ordered an inquest that included the surveillance of the movement with the aim to develop a strategy to combat their influence. The inquest, led by the Governor of the Damascus Province, Nazim Pasha, specifically targeted the Young Turks.10 Additionally, because of this scepticism towards modernization, rather than engaging in liberal reforms in an effort to align the Ottoman Empire with the structural and institutional framework of the European nationstate, the Sultan undertook bureaucratic reforms to facilitate governance with emphasis on authority and social pacification. The consequence of these reforms resulted in alienation between the institutions of the Sublime Porte and populations in the Syrian provinces. Corresponding with growing separatist nationalist movements, threats of a developing crisis over fair political access began to develop among the populations. As such, requests for the restoration of the constitution, initiated by the Young Turks, began to expand in the Syrian provinces (Chalcraft 2016, p. 169). As Sultan Abdul Hamid II centralized his power over the Ottoman Empire, the Young Turks viewed his position as a growing threat. The Young Turks had become ensconced in the discourses of modernity, and assembled ideas that were central to modernity—including that of ethnonationalism—onto customary knowledges and practices. In particular, the Young Turks were increasingly, over time, identifying and highlighting the Turkish character of the Empire, the prominence and importance of a Turkish identity, leading to policies of Turkification (Ülker 2005, pp. 613–617). Unlike their predecessors, the Young Ottomans, the Young Turks were ‘products of the, modern secular, military, or civilian professional schools’ (Ergil 1975, p. 26). The Young Turks, borrowing ideas from their European mentors, including scientific rationality and the rejection of religious guidance (Chalcraft 2016, p. 169), they maintained and propagated a worldview that reflected elitist theories of the late nineteenth century, prioritizing the role of elites in politics (Hanio˘glu 2001, p. 3; Mosca 1939). Drawing from the premise of elitist theories of politics, 10 166PO/D20/19 July 23, 1897, CADN, no. 54, from Barré de Lancy in Damascus to M. Cambon, French Ambassador in Istanbul.

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and in an attempt to maintain relevance with the socio-political foundations of customary communities, they developed alliances with notable families from various geographies of the Ottoman Empire to attain and maintain a parliamentary majority (Zürcher 2016, p. 95). This provided the Young Turks with the ability to engage with notions of rational governance, separate from religious influence, and founded on national myths in order to accede to a standard of civilization established by European powers. They were able to combine modern politics with customary networks, maintaining influence with local power brokers by forming alliances with notable families but advocating for modern state institutions and structures. Mobilization against the Sultan by the Young Turks and their increased discourse of ethno-nationalism to produce modern markers of identity was also favoured by populations in the Syrian provinces. The centralization of governance under Sultan Abdul Hamid II, the poor economic conditions, a general lack of accountability for Governors, and the growing dislocation between political administration and society caused by modernization and European interference was producing widespread discontent in the Syrian provinces. This accumulation of factors led to the denunciation of the Sublime Porte, support for the Young Turks, and, in contention with the Young Turks, the nascent development of Syrian-turned-Arab nationalist sentiment. It can be argued that Syrian nationalism developed as a form of resistance against the domination of a perceived foreign administration in Istanbul, under which the Syrian populations were ‘enslaved’ (Shamir 1974, p. 116).11 Evident with the emergence of Syrian nationalism was opposition to a Turkish nationalism, the Turk being the source of Syrian stagnation in relation to progress and development; an argument that had been made by the French with regard to the immobilized progress of the Christian population. Posters reflecting this sentiment were placed throughout the city of Damascus in 1878, disparaging the conduct of Ottoman authorities and calling for the emancipation of the Syrian people from their ‘enslavement’ by the foreign administration (Sommer 2015, p.281).12 Other posters, placed throughout Damascus, emphasized the 11 Other posters denouncing the Sublime Porte as a foreign power appeared throughout 1880 in Beirut, Damascus, and other Syrian towns. 12 166PO/D20/10, CADN, July 30, 1878, no. 16, from M. Rousseau in Damascus to M. Fournier, French Ambassador in Istanbul.

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role that France played in producing a conducive environment for the conditions that led to dissatisfaction with the Sublime Porte.13 These posters accused the administration of the Ottoman Empire of transgressing by leading the Syrian populations to ‘abandon the religion of Mohammed for that of France and the disbelievers’.14 The threat of dissent in the Syrian provinces was of great importance to the Sublime Porte, especially following the publication and public display of posters placed throughout Damascus. In an effort to limit opposition, the Governor of Damascus, Cevdet Pasha, was removed from his post and replaced with Midhat Pasha.15 As such, Midhat Pasha inherited a situation of general disorder. He had to contend, not only with growing dissatisfaction directed at the Sublime Porte, but a revolt in the Hauran— where the Druze had come into conflict with Sunni Muslims, and conflict between Christians and Shi’a in Hounin.16 Increasing anxiety and fear within the Syrian provinces was also caused by rumours that European states were strategizing the occupation of the Syrian provinces, especially as the political and economic environment continued to deteriorate (Salih 1977, pp. 252–253). Trying to limit and contain the growing environment of instability, as well as restrict European justifications for a potential occupation of the Syrian provinces, Midhat Pasha undertook a conciliatory approach and began to meet with various communal leaders, influential notables, and members of the intelligentsia. In one instance, Midhat Pasha, despite his restricted political powers, began secret negotiations with the Druze in the Hauran, asking for 20,000 men, and in return, Midhat Pasha

13 166PO/D20/10, CADN, July 30, 1878, no. 16, from M. Rousseau in Damascus to M. Fournier, French Ambassador in Istanbul. 14 It is unclear who is responsible for the posters, however, it would have to be a well-educated individual or group of individuals, given that literacy rates in the Ottoman Empire among Muslim men in 1912 was only about 25%; 166PO/D20/10, CADN, July 30, 1878, no. 16, from M. Rousseau in Damascus to M. Fournier, French Ambassador in Istanbul. 15 166PO/D20/10, CADN, October 26, 1879, from M. Gilbert in Damascus to M. Fournier, French Ambassador to Istanbul. 16 The conflict is ongoing, though it seems to cease once the British Ambassador, Henry Layard, makes official visits in the areas, once he departs the attacks recommence. 166PO/D20/10, CADN, October 26, 1879, from M. Gilbert in Damascus to M. Fournier, French Ambassador to Istanbul; 92PO/A/120, CADN, January 6, 1879, from M. Dierighelly in Saida to M. Peritié, French Consulate General in Syria, in Beirut,.

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promised a percentage of the profits from a proposed tax on meat. The tax was anticipated to generate half a million francs per year from Damascus alone.17 In the context of Syrian discontent, Midhat Pasha was attempting to pacify the populations within the delineated and restrictive political legal framework that was established by the Sultan. Midhat Pasha’s efforts to quell discontent in the Syrian provinces necessitated direct engagement with rebellious populations and leaders. Because of these interactions, the French Consul, M. Rousseau, believed that Midhat Pasha had embraced the ideas of this leadership, including ideas of a separate national identity being mobilized to resist Ottoman and European domination. Following an investigation, the French consul, concluded that many of the discussions had been focused on the Syrian provinces becoming autonomous from European interference and independent from the Ottoman Empire. Although Midhat Pasha had previously objected to European interference, the conclusion of Rousseau’s investigation was misconstrued by ascertaining that Midhat Pasha’s entertainment of these discussions reflected his intentions to establish a small independent Syrian state with the goal of becoming Prince or King of Syria.18 According to the French administration in the Syrian provinces of the Ottoman Empire, Midhat Pasha was exploiting developing nationalist sentiment to further his political career. He was invoking feelings of separatism from, and resistance against, Ottoman and European hegemony. This threatened the pursuit of French interests in the Syrian provinces, drawing a response from the French consul in Damascus, verbally attacking Midhat Pasha. Attempting to delegitimize Midhat Pasha, the French consul, M. Rousseau, stated that he had become fanatical, abandoning his ideals of liberty, equality, and citizenship. The French consul argued that there had been a shift in Midhat Pasha’s rhetoric, that ‘Midhat Pasha had vehemently criticized the effects of Christian empowerment’, and argued ‘that the Ottoman Empire would have been better

17 166PO/D20/10, CADN, April 23, 1879, from M. Rousseau in Damascus to M. Fournier, French Ambassador to Istanbul. 18 166PO/D20/10, CADN, April 23, 1879, from M. Rousseau in Damascus to M. Fournier, French Ambassador to Istanbul.

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off to keep the Christians ignorant, using the Christians as tools to fulfil strategies against the European powers’.19 Despite Midhat Pasha being described as an ‘Ottoman patriot’ in earlier reports, the French administration had come to realize that the fervour of nationalism was threatening their interests. Due to his personal political convictions, it was more likely that Midhat Pasha sought to incorporate an already developing Syrian national sentiment into the structures of the Ottoman Empire (Saliba 1978, pp. 320–322; Shamir 1974, pp. 117–118, 122–125). He was contending with a deprived, angry, and often overlooked area of society, which had made public declarations of the Sublime Porte’s turn away from Islam and submission to the European powers20 ; a sentiment that was exacerbated by increased social and political alienation caused by modernization and external interference. It was therefore doubtful that Midhat Pasha was responsible for the posters condemning the Sublime Porte, or that he even supported the narrative that had been used. Additionally, the accusations by the French consul that Midhat Pasha’s use of the sentiments expressed in the posters was evidence of his desire to become a Prince or King of Syria was also unfounded. Rather, Midhat Pasha was attempting to persuade Sultan Abdul Hamid II to undertake a plan of decentralized governance to help reconcile the growing nationalist sentiment (Shamir 1974, p. 126). The Sultan’s strategy, however, differed from that of Midhat Pasha’s. Instead of engaging in decentralization to allow elites in the Syrian provinces the ability to govern, limiting feelings of alienation and appeasing nationalist sentiment, Sultan Abdul Hamid II’s strategy was to centralize authority and promote an Islamic identity.21 This only further contributed to sentiments of alienation in the Syrian provinces, leading to the development of a secret societies formed by influential and notable individuals. This included societies and groups titled the ‘Secret Society of

19 166PO/D20/10, CADN, April 23, 1879, from M. Rousseau in Damascus to M. Fournier, French Ambassador to Istanbul. 20 Midhat Pasha was also contending with a population that had been impacted by the economic downturn, a labour shortage caused by conscription and emigration, and violent attacks by Bedouin and Arab Tribes. 166PO/D20/10, CADN, July 16, 1879, no. 15, from M. Gilbert in Damascus to M. Fournier, French Ambassador in Istanbul. 21 Although there is a lot of scholarship on the use of Islam by Sultan Abdul Hamid II as a means to gain support, it is also noted that the provincializing of Syria led to a distinct Arab-Syrian identity (Keddie 1966; Abu-Manneh 1979, pp. 143–146).

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Beirut’ and the ‘Arab National Movement’, which were actively engaged in the propagation of Syrian autonomy and independence.22 The development of these movements proved to be problematic for the Sublime Porte and for the European parties invested in the Ottoman Empire, particularly the French and the British. These movements posed two problems for the French and the British, first in relation to their interests, and second the movements contested European theories of civilization related to race and religion. With regard to the latter, it could no longer be maintained that civilization was an inherent and natural fact related to racialized religious preconditions or a result of human development and biology (Delatolla and Yao 2019). For example, it was not necessarily surprising that these movements had developed, but according to the French consul, M. Gilbert, the fact that Christians had been involved in their founding and development, appealing to a large population that included a diversity of religious groups, was the most troubling. Additionally, the movement, beginning in Damascus and Beirut, spread beyond the borders of these cities, with Bedouins and individuals from across Syria proudly declaring their membership.23 The progression of the Arab nationalist movement was also a concern for Sir Henry Layard, the British Ambassador to Istanbul. After being made aware of these developments within the Syrian provinces, Layard met with Midhat Pasha, who revealed that the society had been propagating ideas of establishing an Arab Kingdom, inclusive of the provinces of Damascus, Aleppo, and Baghdad. The Arab Kingdom would be ruled by an Arab Sultan, potentially Abd-el-Kader, and maintain relations with the Ottoman Empire in a similar fashion to the relationship between the Ottoman Empire and Egypt.24 The arguments for a separate Arab Kingdom stemmed from a position that increasingly viewed the governance of the Ottoman Empire as illegitimate. For some, it was this lack of legitimacy on the claims to the Caliphate. In October 1880, the French administration warned that there was growing discussion in Arabic language newspapers published outside of the Ottoman Empire that stressed the illegitimacy of the descendants of 22 Initially formed in 1875 at the Syrian Protestant College in Beirut (Antonius 1939, p. 79; Tauber 1993, p. 19). 23 166PO/D20/10, CADN, August 15, 1879, no. 19, from M. Gilbert in Damascus to M. Fournier, French Ambassador in Istanbul. 24 92PO/A/120, CADN, October 9, 1879, no. 19, ‘Direction Politique, Beirut’.

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Osman, who, according to the authors, had no right to the Caliphate. The French consul stated that ‘the day that the mass populations no longer buy into this [the Caliphate], the higher the chance of insurrection that could trail from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean’.25 In order to preserve the ability to pursue French interests and avoid large-scale insurrection across the region, the French administration warned the Sultan of impending disorder. For others, the illegitimacy of Ottoman governance was emerging from increasing oppression, related to the Sultan’s centralization as well as the discourses of the Young Turk movement. Still, these warnings were ignored by Sultan Abdul Hamid II, fearing a loss of autonomy over the Syrian provinces. The Sultan’s refusal to govern in a decentralized manner, provided a stronger base for anti-Ottoman rhetoric in the Syrian provinces, which became increasingly acrimonious and divisive. On December 31, 1880, the French consul reported of a notice on the walls in the city of Tripoli: Compatriots, you know the insolence of the Turks, their tyranny, and unsociable character; you know that you are dominated by elite men of this race, you are liable to their oppressive yoke and must walk the line for your existence and your property. They have confiscated your rights, destroyed your honor and the respect owed to your beliefs (holy books). They have created regulations that condemn your noble language to oblivion and they employ all the means to disunite and weaken your forces. They take the fruits of your labour […] and they have taken all avenues of progress, they insult you, you serve them, and they treat you like slaves, like you are not men. But in your defense, remember that you have been the masters, that you have produced illustrious men in all the branches of knowledge and human activity, that you have brought back the schools, populated the country, have made vast conquests, and it is on the base of your language that the Caliphate was established and that the Turks have since taken. (Ismail 1976a, vol. 14, pp. 275–276)

The language used in the posted notice directed dissatisfaction towards the Turks, as opposed to the Sublime Porte, reflecting the ethnonationalist politics and ideology of the Young Turks and the reactionary nationalism developing in Syria. This division was also based on the assumption that a racial impulse, or the natural state of the Turks, was a 25 166PO/D1/72 October 26, 1880 (no. 98) from M. Destrée in Aleppo to M. Tissot, French Ambassador in Istanbul.

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predisposition to rule through tyranny, to dominate, and to take historic and cultural symbols, in order to rule with legitimacy. What was occurring in the deployment of these accusations was the nascent production of ethno-nationalism, the use of history and culture in an effort to forge a popular and common identity for political means (Özkırımlı 2010, pp. 72–137). It also signified a reproduction of racist-civilizational hierarchies and differences, a product of European expansion and civilizing missions, that were developing as a base to claims of statehood. As a means to separate themselves from the Turks, the populations in the Syrian provinces were using the cultural characteristics prevalent in the Syrian provinces to ask for independence ‘in common with our Lebanese brothers’, the use of Arabic as an official language, freedom of thought and the press, and ‘employment of our soldiers in the sole service of the [Syrian] nation’ (Ismail 1976a, vol. 14, pp. 275–276). The development of nationalist sentiment was employing liberal and modern European ideas and concepts and redeveloping the populations’ sociopolitical relations between identity, territory, and governance. In other words, the Arab identity had become a source of resistance, a marker of distinction from Turkish identity and governance, and was deployed as a legitimizing force to engage in recognition.26 The need to resist Turkish nationalism, particularly of the of type propagated by the Young Turks, and develop a national identity and politics separate to that of the Young Turks had emerged in relation to the program Turkification and the militarization of the Young Turk movement. Increased civil engagement by the Young Turk movement in addition to their militarization provided the necessary scope and pressure to threaten the position of the Sultan. On July 3, 1908, following revolutionary engagement, the Sultan was forced to concede to the demands of the Young Turks. On July 23, 1908, he agreed to reinstate the parliament and the 1876 constitution (Ahmad 1968, p. 20; McMeekin 2015, pp. 68–87). However, the Sultan’s concession early in the revolutionary movement is argued to have ‘robbed the revolution of its raison d’être’ (Ahmad 1968, p. 21; Chalcraft 2016, p. 172), given that ‘their common goal was opposition to Hamidian absolutism’ (Ergil 1975, p. 26), and the removal of his executive power. What followed was a ‘delicate balance

26 Anthony D. Smith (2005) discusses the importance of nationalist movements and demands for autonomy and independence based on divergent ethno-cultural principles.

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between the Palace, the Liberals, and the CUP’ that gave way to political factionalism with the liberals propagating ideas of constitutionalism, science, progress, and social Darwinism; the CUP acting as vanguards to the revolution; and the Sultan who attempted to backtrack from the liberal promises that were made immediately following the reestablishment of a parliamentary regime (Chalcraft 2016, pp. 172–173; Ahmad 1968, p. 22). Following the promulgation of the second Ottoman Constitution in early August 1908, the French consul in Latakia, M. Geoffrey, noted that ‘the consular agents in the Syrian provinces still do not know what to make of the July 1908 revolution’. Rumours concerning the concessions made by the Sultan, particularly that of the constitution, emphasized the idea of liberty, and ‘have created a belief amongst the poorest classes that they can now act on their passions’. On the other hand, the wealthiest classes believed that ‘they have the right to humiliate all functionaries who do not please them’. Despite these antagonistic attitudes, the consul reported that there had been no instances of violence and Muslims and Christians were celebrating in peace (Ismail 1976b, vol. 18, pp. 65–66). This was echoed by Stanford Shaw, who stated that ‘happy mobs of Turks, Arabs, Jews, Greeks, Serbs, Bulgars, Armenians, and Europeans embraced in the streets and made eternal vows of brotherhood for the common good’ (Shaw and Shaw 1977, p. 273; Zürcher 2016, p. 93). In Beirut, it was reported that the population largely supported the rapid changes that were being implemented, however, there had been trouble in Tripoli, a conservative Muslim city, where the population viewed the liberal regime as a further abandonment of Islam. Yet, the promise of a constitution generally produced an enthusiastic response (Ismail 1976b, vol. 18, pp. 62–64). The establishment of a constitution and parliamentary representation provided the Syrian provinces with greater potential opportunity for decentralization and autonomy over provincial and local affairs, as had been desired with the emergence of the Syrian nationalist movement. The reinstatement of constitutional governance was supported by the Syrian nationalists within the Syrian provinces, but also those who had been sent into exile. Commenting on the reopening of parliament in Istanbul and the promulgation of the new constitution, the Comité Central Syrien (CCS), based in Paris, and founded by Rachid Moutran, Choukri Ghanem, and Georges Samné, released a statement on the developments within the Ottoman Empire through their President, Rachid

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Moutran. In line with their goal to guard against the return of absolutism, the statement thanked Sultan Abdul Hamid II, and urged those responsible, including the Sultan, to grant Syria the right to self-govern.27 Although the CCS was operating in Paris, in exile, it was an important and critical movement in the development of an Arab nationalism that later expanded beyond the borders of Syria. Due to censorship within the Ottoman Empire during the reign of Abdul Hamid II, only those in exile, with the help of the European powers, could deliver such critiques (Boyar 2006; Khalidi 1991). Although Moutran supported the establishment of a constitutional regime, he did so under the premise that it would facilitate selfgovernance for the Arabs. He argued that the Syrian provinces had been subject to an absolutist regime for too long, and the implementation of a constitution and the creation of a liberal regime composed of populations that hold different national identities would ‘naturally lead to the disintegration of the Empire’.28 By arguing that the Empire would eventually collapse, particularly due to the emergence of numerous and various national identities, Moutran also sent a word of caution to the Syrian population, stating that it was necessary for them to establish the institutions and structures of statehood, to prepare for the possibility that the constitution could fail to provide a viable basis for politics. He justified this by arguing that in the scenario that the Ottoman Empire did not collapse, ‘Syria will stay standing with its self-government and an internal organization that is strong enough to help the Empire in case of danger, and to defend against the encroachments of central power’. He continued that if the Ottoman Empire did collapse, that the Syrian provinces would otherwise be prepared.29 Although the CCS supported the establishment of a constitution and parliament in the Ottoman Empire, they were foremost concerned with Syrian autonomy, and possibly secession, framed by the idea of an Arab identity separate from the Turks. However, as noted by Moutran, it was not enough to forge a common identity among Arab speakers without the political program and institutional development.

27 The CCS also founded and maintained the newspaper Nahdat al-Arab from Paris. 166PO/E/272, CADN, December 25, 1908, ‘Comité Central Syrien’; Bouziri 1990, p. 122. 28 166PO/E/272, CADN, December 25, 1908, ‘Comité Central Syrien’. 29 166PO/E/272, CADN, December 25, 1908, ‘Comité Central Syrien’.

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The members of the CCS, who were in exile in Paris, were deeply influenced by their environment, informed by French ideas of nationhood in the early nineteenth century, which were tied to an enlightened morality (Özkırımlı 2010, pp. 25–30; Smith 1998). The CCS propagated a national identity that was territorially delineated by the idea of greater Syria but based on an Arab identity that was constructed on a cultural distinction, separated from other cultural forms prevalent in the Ottoman Empire, and was a ‘nationalism that [was aimed at] a moral regeneration of the community’ (Connor 1994, p. 41). In propagating these ideas, the aim of the CCS was to inject the political institutions with a cultural foundation that could reflect Syrian and Arab identity markers in order to build ‘autonomous state institutions’ (Connor 1994, p. 41). While the Arab nationalists were supporting the reforms brought forward by the CUP, they remained focused on their goal of autonomy. With the CUP having gained momentum in the Syrian provinces, the Arab nationalists targeted the CUP as Turkish, attacking their nationalcivilizational traits. As such, the Arab nationalists began to promote the view that the Turks had a natural urge to dominate other ‘races’. From Paris, Moutran wrote of a Turkish biological inability to ‘persist in the voice of equality and of true tolerance necessary to the development of the legitimate aspirations of the other nationalities of the Empire’.30 Using the same argument used to justify European interference in the Ottoman Empire, Moutran promoted a separate Arab national identity, stating that Turkish domination had led to disorganization, where Arab organization could help ensure the Empire’s survival. Within this ideological framework, the CCS argued that under an Arab organization, it was possible to abandon the need for European interference, support, and maintenance. As such, Moutran stated that Syria ‘wakes from a slumber […] the duration [of] suffering sanctified the obtaining of rights to develop a better future’ and to reject domination of European power should the Empire collapse.31 Moutran commended the developments that had taken place with the CUP, particularly with regard to the establishment of a constitution and parliament, but he was doubtful that this form of Turkish domination would be any different from previous forms, believing that the

30 166PO/E/272, CADN, December 25, 1908, ‘Comité Central Syrien’. 31 166PO/E/272, CADN, December 25, 1908, ‘Comité Central Syrien’.

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Turks maintained a natural urge to dominate. In this manner, Moutran argued for the immediate creation of modern state institutions in the Syrian provinces that would be recognized by the European powers at the inevitable moment when Turkish domination over Syria ends. The articles that were published by Moutran reflected the ideas of rational order, progress, and scientific ethno-racial categorization of peoples. These ideas and the formulation of an ethno-racial identity that was biological conditioned and had consequences for the socio-political environment were prevalent in European politics. Evident here, European ideas regarding the boundaries of modern civilization, culminating in nationhood and statehood state had become adopted by leading political figures within the communities of the Ottoman Empire. The Young Turks’ relationship with power gave credence to Moutran’s belief that they sought to dominate. As the Young Turks came to the helm of government institutions, they began implementing policies of Turkification that included linguistic assimilation. The Turkish language was to be used in schools and administration, while other policies associated with the Young Turks included the denial of ‘political representation on a religious-communal basis’, the ‘denunciation of decentralization’, and a general ‘inflexible attitude towards’ social and political rights of religious minorities (Kayali 1997, pp. 82–96). These policies proved to be a source of oppression in the context of the Syrian provinces. In the first instance, the policy of linguistic assimilation sought to displace the Arabic language as the predominant language in the Syrian provinces. Given that the nature of the Arabic language was foundation for the emergence of an Arab identity, it was clear that the Young Turks were attempting to curb further separatist nationalist sentiment. This was coupled with policies against decentralization. In addition to the oppressive nature of these policies, there was a clear attempt to fracture existing systems of elite politics in the Syrian provinces and limit the ability of religious minorities to make claims against the Sublime Porte. With regard to Mount Lebanon, a region that had been provided increased autonomy over the last three decades, the CUP sought to regain authority over Mount Lebanon by forcing Ottoman legislative power on Mount Lebanon. The CUP reversed the privileged protection of Mount Lebanon that had been granted by the European powers.32 This was 32 166PO/E/273, CADN, December 23, 1909, no. 225, from M Fouques-Duparc in Beirut to M. Bompard, French Ambassador in Istanbul; Hakim (2013, pp. 206–207).

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consistent with their opposition to decentralization and the provision of special status, even to religious minorities. The CUP argued that European protections were no longer necessary with the emergence of a secular and liberal regime and by assimilating the population into a Turkish identity a sustainable and stable modern state would emerge.33 The conviction of the CUP that their government was based on ‘liberal’ and ‘modern’ principles motivated their pursuit to create stability and regain areas that had been lost to European interference. The CUP, specifically the Young Turks, had acquiesced to a European framework of liberal and modern governance, one that was embedded in imperial and colonial domination over unruly populations. Their resistance to European interference, building on the logics of civilized engagement in relation to nationhood and statehood, adopted policies of oppression that produced new forms of resistance. The effect was, as stated by Frantz Fanon in relation to the French colonization of Algeria, ‘a species of men replaced by another species of men’ (2001, p. 1). Resistance to the policies of the CUP and Young Turks emerged in Syria and Mount Lebanon in the development of nationalist and separatist programs. From the widespread development of nationalist and separatist programs, groups emerged in Syria and Mount Lebanon that sought protections from Europe against the Young Turks. These groups included the Lebanese Alliance (Alliance Libanaise) and the Lebanese Committee (Comité Libanais ), as well as the ‘Arab Fraternity’ (la Fraternité Arabe or Arab Brotherhood). Unlike the Arab Fraternity, who desired the establishment of decentralized administration in Syria and encompassing Mount Lebanon, the Lebanese Alliance and the Lebanese Committee petitioned the French consul in Beirut for the establishment of decentralized administration for Mount Lebanon, under the protection of France, separate from Syria, and with a geographic enlargement of Mount Lebanon to include Beirut and Baalbek.34 The Arab Fraternity was, on the other hand, heterogeneous, composed of Syrian and Lebanese Arabs, Muslims, and Christians, who had been turned away from political life in Istanbul. They requested help from the European powers, with the 33 1SL/1/V/394, UK Parliamentary Archives, December 30, 1930, no. 979, from M. Ponsot in Beirut to the French Minister of Foreign Affairs for the Levant. 34 1SL/1/V/394, UK Parliamentary Archives, December 30, 1930, no. 979, from M. Ponsot in Beirut to the French Minister of Foreign Affairs for the Levant.

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view of liberating Syria, Mesopotamia, and Palestine through a process of administrative decentralization.35 The relationship between the Syrian provinces—including Mount Lebanon—and the Sublime Porte was made worse by the decision of the government to send officers and officials to the Syrian provinces who could only speak Turkish and were ignorant of, and looked down on, the local customs and traditions. More generally, the British consul, M. Devey wrote that the decision to appoint individuals unaccustomed to the language and the traditions of the people deepened antagonistic sentiments between the Arabs and the Turks. The British consul cites hasty or somewhat autocratic behavior on the part of the office holders, or […] their occasionally contemptuous or discourteous manners towards local notables, or […] the over-advanced views of those connected with the ‘Young Turk’ party which are manifesting themselves, in a distinct tendency towards xenophobia [as the reason for the antagonism. He also fears that the] sentiment between Turk and Arab is beginning to permeate downwards to the lower classes; and will soon […] no longer [be] confined to the Ulema, notables, and grandees, and official circles.36

Evident in these developments are the ways that the logics of modernity became embedded in the political development of the Ottoman Empire and the Syrian provinces. The emergence of modern nationalist movements, while indigenous in the manner that they reflected the identity markers of the various populations, mobilized a racist-civilizational hierarchy to justify political domination, autonomy, and independence. The schisms that developed as a consequence, particularly between the Arab and Turkish movements, provided ample opportunity for France and Britain, Germany and Russia, to make inroads in the progress of their political and economic interests; exploiting anti-Turkish sentiment by supporting resistance against Turkish domination.

35 1SL/1/V/394, UK Parliamentary Archives, December 30, 1930, no. 979, from M. Ponsot in Beirut to the French Minister of Foreign Affairs for the Levant. 36 FO/195/2342, TNA, July 12, 1910, no. 28, from M. Devey in Damascus to M. Lowther, British Ambassador in Istanbul.

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Conclusion The development of modern nationalisms in the Ottoman Empire emerged from assembled knowledges including domestic identity markers and the logics of modern nationalism. The Young Ottomans, in particular, actively borrowed from the political logics of European states, attempting to merge customary markers of identity with modern European political institutions and structures. The combination of these two aspects was meant to placate the Sublime Porte and the populations of the Ottoman Empire while also substantiating claims against continued European interference. Although the ideological program of the Young Ottomans did not produce the desired effects of social and political transformations and an end to European interference in the matters of the Empire, they did manage to facilitate the application of some reforms. Additionally, they provided a foundation for nascent nationalisms to emerge under political programs of resistance. However, these programs, like the Young Ottomans, were largely formulated by an elite class of educated and politically engaged individuals. The emergence of Turkish, Syrian, and Arab nationalist formations, unlike the Young Ottomans, were actively engaged in the racialcivilizational logics that had been used to substantiate continued European interference. While these nascent nationalist formations, including the Young Turks (CUP), Arab, and Syrian nationalists sought the removal of European interference, they also worked against each other and the Sublime Porte. Positioning themselves as ‘civilized’ and modern, they negatively racialized their opponents. In part, this was caused by the resistance the Arab and Syrian nationalists posed to the Young Turks and the program of Turkification that the Young Turks were engaged in. Each nationalist group made active use of discourses and narratives of modernity, including that of rational state-building, in order to legitimize resistance against sources of oppression. While these nationalist movements were successful in creating ‘imagined communities’ with political purposes and strategies, they failed to achieve many of these desired goals—including autonomy or independence within the territorial delineations of the imagined community. In part, it can be argued that this was due to their opposition to each other, resistance from the Sublime Porte, as well as European interference. Regardless, the development of these nationalist movements emerged

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from the political mechanisms that had set in motion by modernization and European interference, embodying discourses of civilization as an emancipatory politic.

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Devereux, Robert. 1963. The First Ottoman Constitutional Period: A Study of the Midhat Constitution and Parliament. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press. Ergil, Do˘gu. 1975. A Reassessment: The Young Turks. Their Politics and AntiColonial Struggle, Balkan Studies 16 (2): 26–72. Fanon, Frantz. 2001. The Wretched of the Earth, trans. Constance Farrington. London: Penguin Classics. Findley, Carter Vaughn. 1980. Bureaucratic Reform in the Ottoman Empire: The Sublime Porte, 1789–1922. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Gellner, Ernest. 1983. Nations and Nationalism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Hakim, Carol. 2013. The Origins of the Lebanese National Idea, 1840–1920. Berkeley: University of California Press. Hanio˘glu, M.Sükrü. ¸ 2001. Preparation for a Revolution: The Young Turks, 1902– 1908. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hanio˘glu, M.Sükrü. ¸ 2008. A Brief History of the Late Ottoman Empire. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Hobsbawm, E.J. 1990. Nations and Nationalism Since 1780: Programme, Myth Reality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ismail, Adel. 1976a. Documents Diplomatiques et Consulaires Relatifs a l’Histoire du Liban et des Pays du Proche-Orient du XVII Siècle à Nos Jours, vol. 14. Beyrouth: Éditions des Oeuvres Politiques et Historiques. Ismail, Adel. 1976b. Documents Diplomatiques et Consulaires Relatifs a l’Histoire du Liban et des Pays du Proche-Orient du XVII Siècle à Nos Jours, vol. 18. Beyrouth: Éditions des Oeuvres Politiques et Historiques. Kayali, Hasan. 1997. Arabs and Young Turks: Ottomanism, Arabism, and Islamism in the Ottoman Empire, 1908–1918. Berkeley: University of California Press. Keddie, Nikki R. 1966. The Pan-Islamic Appeal: Afghani and Abdülhamid II. Middle Eastern Studies 3 (1): 46–67. Kenny, L.M. 1963. Sati’ al-Husri’s Views on Arab Nationalism. Middle East Journal 17 (3): 231–256. Khalidi, Rashid. 1991. Arab Nationalisms: Historical Problems in the Literature. The American Historical Review 96 (5): 1363–1373. Krämer, Gudrun. 2013. Modern but Not Secular: Religion, Identity and the Ordre Public in the Arab Middle East. International Sociology 28 (6): 629– 644. Mardin, Serif. ¸ 1962. Libertarian Movements in the Ottoman Empire 1878–1895. The Middle East Journal 16 (2): 169–182. Mardin, Serif. ¸ 2000. The Genesis of Young Ottoman Thought: A Study in the Modernization of Turkish Political Ideas. New York: Syracuse University Press. McMeekin, Sean. 2015. The Ottoman Endgame: War, Revolution, and the Making of the Modern Middle East, 1908–1923. London: Penguin.

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CHAPTER 8

Preventing Autonomy: European Interests and the Application of a Standard of Civilization

The standards of civilization and the consequent civilizing project had an incredible impact on the development of the state in Lebanon and Syria, altering the socio-political relations, transforming institutions and administrations, and changing patterns of identity formation. While the application of a standard of civilization was one that functioned in relation to racial-civilizational hierarchies, it was also a tool to legitimize the pursuit of European interests in the region and was mobilized during periods of heightened inter-European competition. Within the context of global hierarchies that measured civilizational progress and development, the Ottoman Empire was located below European states. The Empire was subject to the rules and will of the most powerful European states in the system at the time; specifically France, Britain, and Russia. These states justified their activities by engaging in comparisons of development and progress, one that used European intellectual and material developments as a benchmark, based on the assumption of linear human development and progress. This facilitated the characterization of the Ottoman Empire, as well as other polities, as uncivilized, barbaric, and fanatic, allowing the European powers to make a moral argument about the civilizing character of imperial and colonial engagements. Because civilization was measured in relation to the progress of the most powerful states in the international state system, © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 A. Delatolla, Civilization and the Making of the State in Lebanon and Syria, Middle East Today, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57690-5_8

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the standard of civilization was not stable. Similarly, due to the changing scope and context of the international state system, the interests of European states were not stagnant either. Although the standard of civilization, in relation to statehood, had been applied with the premise that accession would inevitably lead to autonomy and recognized independence, the shifting benchmark and transforming set of interests meant that autonomy and recognized independence was increasingly difficult to attain, always slightly out of reach, if not actively prevented to preserve European state interests. Throughout the nineteenth century and early twentieth century, the state as a standard of civilization became intertwined with the pursuit of interests and assembled in a manner that was foundational for postcolonial global politics. This chapter considers two interrelated aspects regarding the standards of civilization and European political interests. First, it examines how the political interests of European states and the application of a standard of civilization were intertwined in the nineteenth century. Second, it considers how changing interests in relation to evolving political and economic realities resulted in transformations regarding benchmarks and standards of civilization. Argued in this chapter, the European pursuit of interests in the Syrian provinces were veiled by the application a standard of civilization, one that transformed the political context within the Ottoman Empire, the development of the state in Lebanon and Syria, and altered global political interactions. This chapter first discusses French, British, and Russian interests by locating them in early nineteenth century history of imperial expansion into the Ottoman Empire. It traces these interests from the First Egyptian-Ottoman War (1831–1833) and the Second Egyptian-Ottoman War (1839–1841). In doing so, it becomes evident how the European powers prioritized certain interests over others. Specifically, how the French initially prioritized unfettered access to Algeria; the British sought increased and improved economic access; and Russia sought territorial gains with the aim to emancipate Orthodox Christian communities from Muslim rule. This chapter subsequently discusses the role of the Tanzimat decrees of 1839 and 1856 in relation to European interests. The decrees, being formulated in relation to the standard of civilization, functioned as tools as European interests in the Ottoman Empire led to increased inter-European competition. This chapter further considers how interests shaped politics and policies during the French Mandate, negating

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the stated purpose of the Mandate, and how French interests were thinly veiled by the application of civilizational standards.

European Interests in the Ottoman Empire at the Beginning of the Reform Period Following the Treaty of London in 1830 and the Treaty of Constantinople in 1832 that formalized the Ottoman loss of Greek territories and concluding the efforts of Ottoman and Egyptian resistance of European forces, Egyptian forces under the rule of Muhammed Ali and his son, Ibrahim Pasha, occupied the Syrian provinces (Hertslet 1875a, vol. 1, pp. 769–774). The occupation of the Syrian provinces by Egyptian forces was considered payment for Egyptian losses that were sustained, including the defeat of the Egyptian navy against European powers at Navarino in 1827. Soon after the Egyptian forces began the occupation, the First Egyptian-Ottoman War (1831–1833) was launched. Although this was a war between two polities that were excluded from the group of ‘civilized nations’, the occupation and the result of war altered the geographic, political, and economic ease of access of European powers to the region. It also provided new opportunities for European powers to entrench their interests. For example, while the European powers were crucial to the development of an agreement that demarcated and limited the Egyptian occupation of the Ottoman Empire, the Convention of Kütahya on May 14, 1833, the second war between Ottoman and Egyptian forces was facilitated by material and political support from the European powers. Although support was provided to either the Ottoman or Egyptian governments, justified by the apparent civilizational engagement of the two polities, resources were also provided with the aim to make gains in relation to European interests. Discussed in this section, the interests of the Russian, French, and British in relation to the contests between the Ottoman Empire and Egypt are explored. Specifically, these interests are considered in relation to the standards of civilization, and how the pursuit of these particular interests were justified in relation to characterizations of civilization. In the early nineteenth century, following the occupation of the Syrian provinces by Egyptian forces, Russia pledged support for the Ottoman Empire. Although Russian interests in the Syrian provinces had a strong ecclesiastical focus with regard to Orthodox communities, as discussed

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in Chapter 4, Russian interests were also motivated by political and military strategy. On July 8, 1833, following the Convention of Kütahya, the Russians and the Ottomans signed an additional agreement, the Hünkâr ˙ Iskelesi Agreement, which promised that Russian forces would come to the aid of Sultan Mahmud II should Muhammed Ali of Egypt try to push his occupation further inland. In return, the Turkish Straits would be open to the Russians for an eight-year period but closed to Russian enemies.1 The Russians were particularly interested in gaining direct access from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean, as well as maintaining influence among the Orthodox communities of the Ottoman Empire; communities that were considered and characterized as civilized. Similarly, during the Egyptian occupation of the Syrian provinces, the French aligned themselves with Muhammad Ali and Ibrahim Pasha, opposing the return of Ottoman authority. The French made no secret of the fact that they sought to deepen their interests in Algeria, a result that would be aided by accommodating Egyptian rule in the Syrian provinces (Prochaska 1990, pp. 1–28).2 Support provided to Egyptian forces in order to gain access to North Africa were sustained by discourses that Muhammad Ali and Ibrahim Pasha’s rule over the Syrian provinces was of a more civilized character than that of the Ottoman Empire. On the other hand, the British had aligned themselves with the Ottoman Empire to expand their trade agreements and in order to maintain ease of access to Mesopotamia and Persia (Palmer 1992, p. 112).3 Additionally, according to D. Sandison, a British administrator in the Damascus, Britain’s alignment with the Ottoman Empire during this period was also caused

1 The Hünkâr Iskelesi ˙ Agreement (1833) was followed by the Treaty of Munchengraetz on September 18, 1833. The latter was an agreement signed between Russia, Austria, and Prussia to protect the sovereignty of the monarchy should it be threatened. Following ˙ the eight-year term of the Hünkâr Iskelesi Agreement, a new treaty had been signed in London, The Straits Convention, July 13, 1841, which outlined the legal status of the Straits and significantly reduced Ottoman sovereignty of the waterways (Beydilli 2001, pp. 86–91). 2 FO/78/410, TNA, January 23, 1840, from N.W. Ulerry in Damascus to John Bidwell. 3 FO/78/410, TNA, January 18, 1840, from N.W. Ulerry in Damascus to Lord Palmerston, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs; June 23, 1840 (no. 9), from N.W. Ulerry, Damascus to Lord Palmerston, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.

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by the threat of Russian influence and gains in the Ottoman Empire.4 Here, national interests were of importance in relation to European expansion into the peripheries, particularly when considering economic growth and military strategy. Furthermore, inter-European competition must also be considered as changing the pursuit of national interests. For Britain, the threat of Russian influence and gains in the Ottoman Empire posed a potential problem that could alter the balance of power between European states. The pursuit of these interests, the formation of alliances with either Muhammad Ali or the Ottoman Sultan, Mahmud II, were thinly veiled by the arguments regarding civilization. On the heels of the Convention of Kütahya, British General Consul John William Perry Farren describes the social order in Damascus as militaristic in comparison to previous visits. Writing on February 7, 1834, Farren recounts the richness of the city, its population, and the abundance of economic opportunities. He also tells of a society that had been largely impenetrable to European ideas. In this letter to Viscount Palmerston, Farren argues that it is in Britain’s interests to break down by the moral influence of its national power this besotted opposition to the just and natural relations of states, and be the first to open this field of commercial enterprise to European commerce, and to establish on a respected basis in these parts the rights of Christian civilisation.5

Farren acknowledged that the task to civilize the region and its population will be difficult, but that a superior British moral influence is necessary. Also noted in this statement, Farren, argued that once British influence and the civilizing process becomes embedded, that Britain will benefit, commercially.6 Farren further discussed the problem with Egyptian military rule, noting that the coercive government was not engaged in a civilized form of rule. From this position, Farren continued to justify 4 FO/78/243, TNA, February 7, 1834, from J.W. Farren in Damascus to Lord Palmerston, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs; FO/78/252, TNA, January 13, 1835, no. 14, from D. Sandison in Constantinople to Lord Posonb,. 5 FO/78/243, TNA, February 7, 1834, from J.W. Farren in Damascus to Lord Palmerston, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. 6 Although Farren admires the logics of the new social order under Egyptian forces, he is aware of its violence and brutality. FO/78/243, TNA, February 7, 1834, from J.W. Farren in Damascus to Lord Palmerston, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.

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British alignment with the Ottoman Empire. In contrast, the French viewed the new order implemented by Ibrahim Pasha, despite its militaristic force, as one engaged in equality and rational governance, a form of government that was intent on providing order where disorder existed before (Palmer 1992, p. 112).7 While both the French and the British governments continued to highlight the supposed civilizational character of the Egyptians and the Ottomans as justifications for alliance formation, concern over the possibility of capitulations by the Sublime Porte to the Russians also remained prevalent. Inter-European competition and the possibility of uneven access and strategic gains by one party created a ‘scramble’ that developed into the French alliance with the Egyptians and the British alliance with Mahmud II of the Ottoman Empire. In particular, France was interested in Algeria, believing that the alliance with the Egyptians would provide unfettered access, and the British offered material support to combat the Egyptian occupation in exchange for economic and political concessions. With regard to the latter, the signing of the Anglo-Ottoman commercial treaty of Balta Liman (1838) provided the British with the ability to carve out their special status within the Ottoman Empire by imposing, what was essentially, a free trade agreement, granting Britain the right to obtain privileges granted to other European powers (Findley 1989, p. 28).8 These concessions secured by the British undermined the influence of competing European powers but also opened the floodgates to further political and economic concessions in return for European material and diplomatic support.9 Crucially economic and judicial capitulations made to the European powers by the Ottoman Empire diminished Ottoman sovereignty by providing the Europeans power over affairs occurring in Ottoman territories; helping to secure the Ottoman Empire’s place in the European hierarchy as a subordinate state. The changes that had already

7 FO/78/410, TNA, January 18, 1840, from N.W. Ulerry in Damascus to Lord Palmerston, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs; June 23, 1840, no. 9, from N.W. Ulerry in Damascus to Lord Palmerston, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. 8 Convention of Commerce, Balta Liman, August 16, 1838. 9 The French consul writes that the English are making gains in the city of Aleppo

through engaging with the indigenous population in the formation of trade agreements, 166PO/D1/46, CADN, March 12, 1840, no. 37, from Henry Guys in Aleppo to Duc de Dalmatie, President of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

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taken place during the Egyptian occupation politicized the social cleavages within the social environment, altering the dynamics between the Muslim and non-Muslim communities as well as the relationship between both communities and structures of governance. The three European powers were competitively engaged with each other in order to make gains within the context of the Ottoman Empire. The interests of France, Britain, and Russia were not dissimilar; they all sought some form of geographic advantage in relation to potential economic gains and military strategy. The Russians, for example, were engaged in a fact-finding mission by sending the chief official of the Russian Orthodox Church, Porfirii Uspenskii, to the Ottoman Empire; emphasizing the focus on the Orthodox communities that, according to the Russians, were naturally civilized and required emancipation from political forces that limited their greatness (Hopwood 2014, pp. 133– 134). By sending the chief official of the Russian Orthodox Church, Russia was attempting to limit French and British suspicions, having been forced to retreat from their previous agreement with the Ottoman ˙ Empire, the Hünkâr Iskelesi Agreement. As such, there was a clear need to understand the political context of the occupation as well as the position in which the other European powers had taken. Although Uspenskii noted that the rule of Ibrahim Pasha had provided fair governance of minorities, with equal status granted to nonMuslims, allowed for foreign missionary activity, and permitted European consulates to open in Damascus and Jerusalem, he also noted growing tensions among the different religious communities—particularly between Muslims and Christians (Hopwood 2014, p. 141). The growing tensions between Muslims and Christians, throughout the nineteenth century, resulted in an ever deepening resolve of the Russians to pursue influence in areas populated by Orthodox communities. The Russians argued that the protection of the Orthodox communities was not only necessary, but a right. What followed from this argument, however, often took form in attempted and actual territorial conquests—as was the case following the Russo-Turkish war 1877–1878 (Commins 1990, p. 12; Hertslet 1875c, vol. 4, pp. 2417–2429, 2429–2440, 2441–2443). Evident here, the interests of France, Britain, and Russia—as well as the means undertaken to pursue these interests—were veiled under discourses of civilization, progress, and modernity. Because these interests were not compatible, bringing the three European powers into competition, the characterization of civilization, progress, and modernity, depended on

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the interests of the particular state. Specifically, the dynamics of competition that had developed during the First Egyptian-Ottoman War were not sustainable. Here, the French alliance with the Muhammad Ali and Ibrahim Pasha following their occupation of the Syrian provinces ceded too much of an advantage to France. The French offered their alliance to the Egyptians with the hopes of fulfilling imperial interests in Algeria and disguised it as protecting principles of equality and rational governance.10 As such, during the Second Egyptian-Ottoman War (1839–1841) Britain, Prussia, Austria, and Russia came together to help dislodge the Egyptian occupation of the Syrian provinces, motivated by regional geo-strategic interests—including British access to Mesopotamia and Persia and Russian interest in the Turkish Straits—and aimed to salvage the relationship between Egypt and the Sublime Porte.11 The uneven advantage gained by France in their alignment with Egypt was one of concerns for Britain and Russia, in addition to other, smaller, European powers. This asymmetrical benefit threatened to constrain access to the Syrian provinces, waterways, and North Africa, to other European states, ultimately limiting the ability to engage in their imperial interests. The broad European alignment against Egypt ultimately forced France to take a position of neutrality while Muhammed Ali and Ibrahim Pasha were forcibly removed. The European powers, excluding France, subsequently assumed the ‘right to advise the Sultan in Syrian affairs, because’, with the exception of France, ‘they had helped him recover [the] province’ (Šedivý 2010, p. 99). This provided the European powers, including Britain and Russia, with the ability to ascertain their interests in the Ottoman Empire. They were able to maintain that the Ottoman Empire was not yet ready to engage in autonomous civilized governance, yet under the façade of facilitating a push towards autonomy, they were also able to direct the Empire to undertake reforms that provided opportunities suitable to their own interests.

10 FO/78/410, TNA, January 23, 1840, from N.W. Ulerry in Damascus to John Bidwell, Foreign Office. 11 18PO/A/11, CADN, November 5, 1840, ‘Séance Royale, Discours du Roi’.

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Applying the Standard of Civilization: Methods to Attain Political Interests The Tanzimat: Hatt-ı Serif ¸ (1839) and the Hatt-ı Hümayun (1856) The pressure placed on the Ottoman Empire to engage in specific programs of modernization and reform were framed by a moral prerogative to civilize or the ‘right to advise the Sultan’. These reforms, as discussed in relation to the Hatt-ı Serif ¸ (1839) (Šedivý 2010, p. 99), were developed as a means to ‘help’ or ‘facilitate’ the Ottoman Empire in its accession to the group of ‘civilized nations’. However, the political alliances of the European powers greatly impacted how the French and British perceived the reception of these reforms; having consequences for subsequent political maneuvering. According to the French consul in Damascus, the Hatt-ı Serif ¸ was met with great indifference in the provinces.12 This was in stark contrast to the despatch by the British consul in Damascus, who, on January 18, 1840, wrote that the promulgation of the Hatt-ı Serif ¸ ‘produced considerable sensation among the population, though [it is] very imperfectly understood’.13 By contextualizing the political alliances, it can be argued that the French perceptions were coloured by their association with Muhammed Ali and Ibrahim Pasha, while the British alliance with the Sublime Porte affected their perceptions of the decree’s reception. The announcement of the Hatt-ı Serif ¸ was, according to the British, a prelude to the resumption of Ottoman authority in Syria.14 As such, and in contrast to French reports,15 the British consul in Damascus, writing to John Bidwell at the Foreign Office in London, stated that the

12 166PO/D20/2, CADN, January 8, 1840, no. 7, from Comte de Ratti-Menton in Damascus to M. de Pontois, French Ambassador in Constantinople. 13 FO/78/410, TNA, January 23, 1840, from N.W. Ulerry in Damascus to John Bidwell, Foreign Office. 14 FO/78/410, TNA, January 23, 1840, from N.W. Ulerry in Damascus to John Bidwell, Foreign Office. 15 166PO/D1/46 January 21, 1840, CADN, no. 43, from Henry Guys, Aleppo to M. de Pontois, Special Envoy to Istanbul; 166PO/D20/2 January 8, 1840, CADN, no. 7, from Comte de Ratti-Menton, Damascus to M. de Pontois, French Ambassador in Constantinople.

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population in the Syrian provinces have begun strategizing their extraction from under the Egyptian regime.16 Under these conditions, the British provided material support in combating the Egyptian occupation. This allowed the British to maintain the upper-hand with regard to their geopolitical and economic interests in the region, while also proclaiming a superior moral position regarding the interests of the population, liberty, and civilization. Given that the French had much more to lose should the reforms succeed, on the one hand, and the British should the reforms fail, on the other, there was a necessity to propagate a rhetoric that benefited their positions and interests. Despite the position taken by the French consul in Damascus, the French consul in Beirut questioned the French strategy of maintaining good relations with Muhammad Ali and Ibrahim Pasha. The position taken by the French consul in Beirut was underpinned by the pressure placed on the political alliance with Muhammad Ali and Ibrahim Pasha. The potential success of the reform and its support from the other European powers threatened French standing among the European powers, as well as their interests globally. With regard to the latter, the consul highlighted a contradiction in strategy by asking how he is to fulfil the wishes of King Louis-Philippe I (August 9, 1830–February 24, 1848) in maintaining good relations with Egypt when the populations in the Syrian provinces seek the removal of Egyptian authority. Specifically, the French consul in Beirut relented that he was finding it difficult to construct a rhetoric that the French are the natural allies and protectors of the people, given the desire of the people to return to the authority of the Sublime Porte (Ismail 1976, pp. 25–26). Despite the British alignment with the Ottoman Empire, the selfdeclared ‘right to advise’, and the strategic and economic benefits that the British would benefit from following the return of Ottoman governance in the Syrian provinces, there was uncertainty in how the Empire would be managed following the recuperation of the Syrian provinces. Reflecting on this potential limitation, the British consul in Damascus, writing to Lord Viscount Palmerston, ruminated over the kind of system of governance that would become dominant once the Syrian provinces are returned to the Sultan and if it will, in turn, ‘be able to maintain

16 FO/78/410, TNA, January 23, 1840, from N.W. Ulerry in Damascus to John Bidwell, Foreign Office.

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the same standards as is held in Europe’.17 Evident from Palmerston’s statement in relation to British pressure placed on the Ottoman Empire to engage in reforms, civilized engagement depended on the ability to maintain the standards held in Europe. Failure to meet these standards, according to the British government, would inevitably result in further pressure, interference, and possibly intervention. The pressure placed on the Ottoman Empire to reform, however, was in benefit to the British government; with the latter being able to place economic and political conditions on any political help or economic aid provided. The relations produced with regards to the reform program were centred around power dynamics. Pressure exerted on the Ottoman Empire was produced from a position of power that consisted of providing aid or help in the civilizing process in exchange for ease of access for the European powers. However, it was not in the interests of the British, French, or Russians to give full and equal access to the Ottoman Empire in return. Although the Sultan promulgated the Hatt-ı Serif ¸ reforms, the reforms and their application were not considered sufficient for the European powers. The standard that had been used by the European powers had shifted upwards, justifying the continued submission of the Empire. As such, the Ottoman Empire came under further pressure to modernize. Again, the aim was to develop institutions and a state structure similar to that of the European state. Following the promulgation of the Hatt-ı Serif, ¸ the European social and political context had transformed, resulting in a different operational context for the Ottoman Empire. These transformations included ongoing global tensions resulting from the political upheaval of the 1848 French Revolution and the threat of German unification. These incidents were compounded by the collapse of Hungary, leading to the 1850 refugee crisis and the Ottoman Empire as a place of refuge for embattled revolutionaries (Goldfrank 2013, pp. 68–70). Aggravated by Russian expansion into the Caucasus, the Sublime Porte refused to extradite the refugees back to Russian occupied territory. This refusal led to increased tensions between the Ottoman Empire and Russia, instigating the formation of a European alliance that included the Ottoman Empire. The European alliance brought the French and Russians into conflict over the

17 FO/78/410, TNA, January 23, 1840, from N.W. Ulerry in Damascus to John Bidwell, Foreign Office.

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latter’s expansionist interests within the Ottoman Empire, resulting in the Crimean War of 1853 (Beydilli 2001, p. 93). Given the developing animosity between Russia and the Ottoman Empire, the Ottoman Empire’s strengthened relationship with France, and French hostility towards Russia, the Sublime Porte granted the French privileged rights to the Christian Holy Places (Goldfrank 2013; Rich 1991; Troubetzkoy 1986). The rebuff directed towards the Russians highlighted the use of sectarian identities to make political and economic gains. By arguing that Catholic and Orthodox Christians of the Syrian provinces were the civilizational cousins of France and Russia, respectively, the governments of these European states assumed the right to protect these communities. The provision of rights to France over the Christian Holy Places in the Ottoman Empire, angered the Russians to the extent that they tried to re-establish the dominant status of the Orthodox community by proposing the creation of an ‘eternal alliance’ that would have placed the Ottoman Empire under Russian suzerainty (Beydilli 2001, p. 94). The Tsar, Nicholas I (1825–1855), argued that the Orthodox Christian community had become numerous, a wealthy literate class, and were therefore worthy of increased rights. Because of the changing situation of the Orthodox community, according to Nicholas I, it was Russia’s right to act in their defence and thus reject the French status over the Holy Places, despite the French possessing a firman from the year 1740 that had been issued by Sultan Mahmud I. The firman confirmed the rights and privileges of the Roman Catholic community to the Holy Places in Jerusalem.18 As the conflict between France and Russia became increasingly focused on Ottoman territories, there was a greater risk of increased loyalty of the Christian communities being won over by the French and Russians, diverging from the Sublime Porte.19 18 The firman was a series of capitulations granted to France by Sultan Mahmud I (Slade 1867, pp. 63–74; Goldfrank 2013; Van Dyck 1881, p. 121). 19 The consul wrote back to England describing his interactions with the rebellious populations. He asked ‘them to yield obedience to their legitimate rulers, and to submit peaceably and quietly to the imperial ordinances in order to avoid the total ruin of their homes and country’. The consul further writes that opposition to Turkish Authority is also strong with the Sunnis (Mahometans), Shiites (Mutuwalies), and general population (Rayah), who wish for the British authority in Syria, to which the consul argues is caused by disaffection, FO/78/910, TNA, March 17, 1852, no. 9, from Richard Wood in Damascus to Stratford Canning.

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By the end of 1852, the French announced their seizure of the Christian Holy Places, compelling the Russians to respond with force and argue that the Ottoman Empire had fallen into foreign hands.20 Apparent here was not only imperial geographic competition between European powers, but a growing interest in social and political influence. For the Russians and French, control over the Holy Places provided legitimacy and power with regard to the various Christian communities in the Ottoman Empire. Although the protectorate of the Holy Places in Jerusalem appears politically and influentially limited, the boundaries of the rights and privileges of this role were ill-defined; allowing for the further extension of political power in the region. The decision to extend these rights and privileges to France inadvertently placed the Ottoman Empire in the crosshairs of French and Russian competition, in addition to the existing troubled relationship between Russia and the Ottoman Empire; leading to the Crimean War. Following the War, the Sublime Porte was in a position of submission as it tried to recover from economic and political losses that were sustained. Given the damages suffered, the need to rebuild, and the interests of the European powers, additional pressure was placed on the Sublime Porte to undertake a new program of structural and institutional reform. The European powers approached the project from a seemingly benevolent standpoint, seeking to further rationalize the application of authority in the Empire in an image that sought the replication of the European state. Due to the costs of the Crimean War and debts owed to the European powers, the Sublime Porte had little other option than to

20 The demands being exerted on the Sublime Porte by France came at a time when France was also demanding the release and safe passage of two prisoners being held by the Ottoman Empire. The prisoners, accused of blaspheme, were of French origin and had converted to Islam. They were charged with refusal to participate in Ramadan, which was followed by their seeking protection at the French Embassy where they professed to be of the Christian faith. The Sublime Porte, unwilling to hand over the prisoners on principle that they had broken significant laws and wanting to reinforce the right of authority was challenged by the French who moved their navy to the coast of Tripoli and threatened the Sublime Porte with the bombardment of the city until the prisoners were returned. Fearing the attack, the Ottoman authorities permitted the safe passage of the two prisoners (Slade 1867, pp. 63–74).

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comply with the demands made by the European powers and promulgate a second reform decree, the Hatt-ı Hümayun of 1856.21 The Hatt-ı Hümayun is described as a result ‘of the solicitude of the powers’22 ; engineered by the British Ambassador, Sir Stratford Canning, known at this point as Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, with the consent of the French Ambassador, Edouard Thouvenel and the Austrian Internuncio, Anton Freiherr Baron Prokesch von Osten (Baron Prokesch). Accordingly, these statesmen wanted to secure their relationship with the Ottoman Empire and pre-empt the set of Russian demands to be made at the Congress of Paris, 1856. The reform decree worked to the advantage of the Ottoman Empire and the involved parties, forcing the Russian delegation at the Congress of Paris to accept a peace settlement framed by the provisions outlined by the Hatt-ı Hümayun. While it curbed Russia’s ability to impact the domestic affairs of the Ottoman Empire under the premise that the latter was to reengage in the civilizing process, insured the continuity of the Ottoman Empire and that the status quo between European states would remain. Additionally, it created new opportunities for the European states to interfere (Davison 1963, pp. 51–54). The central purpose of the Hatt-ı Hümayun, aside from modernizing the institutions of the Ottoman Empire, was to function as a position to resist Russian encroachments in negotiating the Treaty of Paris (1856). Referring explicitly to the Hatt-ı Hümayun, the Treaty of Paris, an agreement between the European powers (Great Britain, Austria, France, Prussia, Russia, and Sardinia) and the Ottoman Empire, provided an acknowledgement of the Sultan’s good faith in governing his subjects and stated that the European powers have noted that they maintain no right, ‘under any circumstance, […] to interfere either collectively or individually, in the relations of His Majesty the Sultan with his subjects, nor in the internal administration of his Empire’ (Hertslet 1875b, vol. 2, pp. 1250–1264). The acceptance of this article in the 21 The French Consul in Aleppo writes of the Sultan’s position in the promulgation of the Tanzimat Decree. 166PO/D1/54, CADN, August 7, 1858, no. 15, from M. Bentivoglio in Aleppo to M. de Thouvenel, the French Ambassador in Istanbul. 22 In the Andrassy Note, Count Andrassy states that the Hatt-ı Hümayun ‘is one of

the results of the solicitudes of the Powers’ (Hertslet 1875c, vol. 4, p. 2421); The text of the Hatt-ı Hümayun can be found in Hertslet (1875b, vol. 2, pp. 1243–1249); In the writings of Viscount Strangford (1869, p. 131), it is noted ‘we [Britain] have a right to look for some public expression of gratitude from Russia for putting into her hands so powerful a solvent of Turkish dominion as the Hatt-ı Hümayun’.

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Treaty of Paris was contentious among the European signatories and was diluted from the original proposition of a formal acknowledgement to a noted acknowledgement (Hertslet 1875b, vol. 2, pp. 1250–1264). The legal ramifications of this decision impacted perceptions of sovereignty, as a formal acknowledgement would have established, in law, the sovereign rights of the Ottoman Empire and the illegality of the Empire to be subjected to external political interference; overriding many of the privileges enjoyed by the European powers within the Ottoman Empire and among the Sultan’s subjects. The strength of a noted acknowledgement was such that the principle of sovereignty was legally understood, but could be disregarded. While the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire by Russia was averted, so was the provision of Ottoman autonomy and freedom from political interference and expansionist imperial interests. By guaranteeing a noted recognition of Ottoman sovereignty, the Empire would remain intact; meaning that conflict for control of territory, despite the interests of European states, could be delayed. At the same time, however, the Ottoman Empire was left in a weakened state that provided continued opportunities for economic and political access in the interest of the European parties. The implementation of the Hatt-ı Serif ¸ (1839) and the Hatt-ı Hümayun (1856) produced significant social and institutional changes with the aim to modernize the Sublime Porte in order to reflect the modern state in Europe. These reforms, as well as others, represented civilizational requirements to accede to the European state system and make successful claims of sovereignty and independence within the group of civilized nations. While the Ottoman Empire engaged in the reform movement as a means to accede to the group of civilized nations, these reforms, developed with the help of the European powers, were used in relation to competing European interests. On the one hand, the reforms were produced to signal a shift towards civilized engagement. This signaling prevented the dismemberment and colonization of the Ottoman Empire, impeding any single European power with an uneven advantage. On the other hand, while the Ottoman Empire willingly engaged in the modernization and reform program, this program created new opportunities for European powers to interfere and intervene in the Ottoman Empire. Evident with regard to the Hatt-ı Serif ¸ and the Hattı Hümayun, while French and Russian imperial interests were prevented from being completely fulfilled, the standard of civilization produced a

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political context that continued to provide exploitative opportunities for a growing number of European powers. The French Mandate and Lebanon and Syria Following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the conclusion of the First World War (Aksakal 2011), the League of Nations was established to be a stabilizing and leading force within a transformed global system (Northedge 1986). Based on a set of liberal premises, part of the League’s mandate was to help guide former colonial and imperial peripheries into independence. This guidance towards independence, although positioned as a transformation from Europe’s illiberal past of colonization and imperialism, was the maintenance of the standard of civilization and the civilizing project (Duxbury 2011, pp. 63–83). Additionally, the League of Nations, by means of continuity in the standard of civilization and the civilizing project, facilitated the continuation of the pursuit of interests by its member states. With regard to the former Syrian provinces of the Ottoman Empire, and the French Mandate of Syria and Lebanon, the League of Nations offered little oversight (Anghie 2004, pp. 194–195). This provided the French administration with the ability to administer policies to their benefit, forcing the populations to make political concessions; ultimately delaying independence for Lebanon and Syria by mobilizing the argument that the population was not yet ready to join the international state system. The limited amount of oversight of the French Mandate was, in large part, due to the fact that the states at the helm of the League of Nations were the rule makers; viewing themselves as having achieved a civilizational pinnacle that provided them the moral ability to enforce regulations to achieve order. Without oversight, the French Mandate was forcefully and violently established, resulting in the French administration taking strict control of the political institutions, under the premise that French violence was civilizational and Syrian violence was representative of barbarity. Following the violent occupation of the Syrian interior, the French administration had a free hand in governance, creating a general sense of submission among the populations in Lebanon and Syria. The dynamics that were reproduced in the establishment of the French Mandate, created disillusionment with the League of Nations among the leaders of the Syrian parties, including Loutfi Haffar, a prominent businessman and one of the founders of the National Bloc; Fares al-Khoury,

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a statesman and Syrian nationalist; and Ihsan al-Cherif, a prominent attorney and founder of the People’s Party. In a joint statement, the Syrian party leaders argued that the League of Nations represented the ‘largest theatre in the world’, providing a stage for the ‘comedians […] who come periodically to play their role’ but never actually provide justice.23 With Haffar declaring ‘we have no one to trust except ourselves. The League of Nations is composed of muted puppets by France and England’.24 Commenting on the French Mandate and French governance, Nuri Pasha, an Arab Nationalist and Iraqi politician who had been close to Faisal I bin Hussein bin Ali al-Hashimi (Faisal) and eventually served as Prime Minister of Iraq, in conversation with the British Consul, M. Smart, noted that the Syrians were under the complete subordination of the French, who employed a ‘direct, though veiled, government’. He stated that he could see ‘no sign of any tendency on the part of the French to modify the only method which they have ever practiced in their colonies or mandated territories’.25 The methods employed during the Mandate period not only included the political control that had been used in their colonies, but gained such control through the continuation of strategic alliances. In order to succeed in obtaining political and economic interests in Lebanon and Syria, the French used their alliance with the Maronite community to acquire a stable foothold. Part of this strategy included separating Lebanon from the Syrian interior in order to better control the interior, with the latter being further subdivided during the initial period of the Mandate. Undertaking strategies that had reflected their colonial practices, the French not only governed through proxy by developing strategic alliances, but justified withholding autonomy and independence based on paradigms of civilized engagement and the need to protect allied communities (Mitchell 1988, pp. 34–48). As before, this practice was engaged in the exploitation of communal and ethno-sectarian divisions to maintain control. These communal and ethno-sectarian divisions were essential to the French worldview, becoming policy during the French Mandate period, particularly when Syria was geographically divided into 23 1SL/1/V/394, UK Parliamentary Archives, June 30, 1930, no. 131, ‘A/S du rapport de la France à la sociétè des nations sur la situation en Syrie’. 24 1SL/1/V/394, UK Parliamentary Archives, August 29, 1930, no. 177, ‘A/S de la constitution Syrienne à le commission des mandats’. 25 FO/141/453, TNA, March 19, 1924, no. 55, from M. Smart to M. MacDonald.

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smaller polities reflecting the communal and ethno-sectarian make-up of the population. This included the states of Damascus, Aleppo, Alawites, Djebel Druze, the autonomous Sanjak of Alexandretta, and Lebanon. By dividing the region into smaller political units, it was easier for the French to sustain political and economic power. Regarding the division of territory, in 1922, two years after the General Gouraud’s creation of six separate polities, the state of Damascus, Aleppo, and the Alawite State, were included in a Syrian Confederation. The exclusion of Lebanon, encompassing the port cities of Tripoli, Beirut, and Saida, from the Syrian Confederation created anger among the populations of these cities. They viewed the division of the port cities from Syria as artificial, severing the established customary social, economic, and political networks between the coast and the interior.26 The separation of these cities from the Syrian interior and their exclusion from the Syrian Confederation was viewed as an instance of French despotism that provided the Maronite community with imbalanced political leverage and served French interests rather than the interests of the population. By separating the port cities of Tripoli, Beirut, and Saida and placing them under the tutelage of the Maronites, with whom the French maintained close relations, the French were able to control imports from the Mediterranean and therefore the economy of the Syrian interior. This provided the French administration with strategic control over the economy and politics in the rebellious Syrian interior. It was understood by the French, that whoever controlled the port cities controlled the economy, and therefore possessed power. For this reason, it was unlikely that the French would cede to demands that had been made by the populations in Tripoli, Beirut, and Saida. The populations in the port cities, at the time, had made demands to be part of a Syrian state, rather than be included in a separate Greater Lebanon.27 The inclusion of the port cities in the administration of Lebanon served French interests and provided subsistence to Mount Lebanon as an autonomous region. While the protesting populations in the port cities stated that they were not hostile to the French mandate, probably out of fear of reprisals, they argued that these cities were never geographically or politically considered part of Mount Lebanon prior to the proclamation of the

26 FO/684/1, TNA, January 1923, ‘French Intelligence Summaries’. 27 FO/684/1, TNA, January 1923, ‘French Intelligence Summaries’.

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establishment of Lebanon on September 1, 1920. For the Muslim populations in these cities, their history was one that was unequivocally tied to a Syrian identity, specifically, and an Arab identity, generally (Salibi 2005, pp. 171–173). The Muslims in the port cities perceived their inclusion in Lebanon as unnatural, while the Maronites argued that the unification of the port cities to the Syrian interior would dismember historic Lebanon. The Christians, in contrast to the Muslims, sought to legitimize their claims with regard to a Greater Lebanon through the use of the myth of Phoenicia, a narrative that became prominent in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (Salibi 2005, pp. 171–173). The employment of the narrative of Phoenician history was used to highlight a racialcivilizational difference between the populations of Mount Lebanon and those of the Syrian interior in an attempt to validate the inclusion of the port cities into the project of a Greater Lebanon. Without the port cities, Mount Lebanon would become a landlocked territory subject to the will of the Syrian government.28 This was a problem for the Maronite community, who had enjoyed political and economic privileges and freedoms due to their alliance with the French, and the French who were keen to make use of their alliance with the Maronite community to ensure some form of continued political and economic influence. The alliances that had been formed in the nineteenth century between the Maronite community and the French administration did not only benefit the former. The alliance provided the French with justifications in their social and political interventions, arguing that they were protecting a minority community from the tyranny of the majority. Within the context of the Mandate of Lebanon and Syria, the alliance provided the French with a stable foothold in Lebanon. It was therefore in the interests of the French administration to calm the Maronite community by maintaining that there would be no changes to the frontiers of Lebanon, nor would there be changes to the favourable political status of the Maronite community in Greater Lebanon.29 In contrast, the French administration was finding the maintenance of Syria to be costly. In an effort to manage the rising costs, the French administration had tasked the Federal Council in Aleppo to establish

28 FO/684/1, TNA, January 1923, ‘French Intelligence Summaries’. 29 FO/684/1, TNA, January 1923, ‘French Intelligence Summaries’.

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institutions of public services, while keeping the expenses of the administration low. The Federal Council was also asked to build stronger cohesion between the representatives and the population, in a manner that would aid the state-building project and general security of the Syrian Federation, which would be followed by the creation of a ministry of justice and the codification of law and subsequently by the centralization of the gendarmerie into a federal structure (see ‘French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon’ 1923). Although the Federal Council was being provided with more responsibility, it did not have control over the implementation of policy, nor did the Syrian administration have control over the deployment of military force.30 The position of the French government in relation to the Syrian mandate, specifically, was to ‘hang on to what had been acquired’ without pushing outwards any further. This was particularly due to the French being able to extract few resources from Syria (Khoury 1987, pp. 45–46). In addition to these changes that aimed to facilitate governance over Syria and reduce the costs of the French administration, the French intended to centralize the state in Syria, to abolish the Federation completely; merging the representative councils of Aleppo and Damascus. There was also discussion of separating Alexandretta from Aleppo, to create three separate provinces: Damascus, Aleppo, and Alexandretta.31 The separation of Alexandretta from Aleppo, and the continued autonomy of the Alawite State from the centralized administration of Syria, provided the French with the ability to maintain control over the entire coast, creating ‘a permanent cleavage between the coastal states and the Sunni interior’ with the latter being a region that the French ‘can never hope to gain’. The French were aware that by separating the Christians and the Alawites from Syrian interior, these regions and their populations could be ‘drawn into the orbit of the French, as opposed to Syrian, interests’. In doing so, France remained in control of the coast, from where they could dominate the Syrian interior, strategically but also economically.32

30 FO/684/1, TNA, January 1923, ‘French Intelligence Summaries’. 31 FO/684/1, TNA, July 4, 1924, no. 105, M. Smart in Damascus to British Secretary

of State for Foreign Affairs. 32 FO/684/1, TNA, July 4, 1924, no. 105, M. Smart in Damascus to British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.

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French Governance and Political Representation in Lebanon and Syria With the establishment of the French Mandate of Syria, the French administration, from the beginning, was engaged in coercive pacification, first in the offensive to recapture Damascus from Faisal and then with the pacification of the Druze populations in Djebel Druze. While the French had eventually captured Damascus, pushing Faisal out of power, the Djebel proved to be a much more difficult region to gain control over. From 1921, the French had been contending with a rebellious population in the Djebel, turning into a revolt in 1925, and concluding with a general amnesty. Although the rebellion had failed to procure autonomy and independence that the Arab nationalists and the Druze populations desired, failure was not caused by a lack of willpower, but an absence of capital (Longrigg 1958, pp. 168–169; Hourani 1946, p. 191; Barr 2011, pp. 141–142). However, coercion and the need to sustain the French presence in Syria was related to three distinct French interests in Lebanon and Syria, as argued by Daniel Neep. First, as the protector of the Catholic communities in the region, France viewed it as a right to intervene in political affairs. Second, due to French economic investments, including in public works, the Lebanese silk industry, the extraction of agricultural products from southern Syria, and the tobacco industry, created a need to secure French capital. Third, there was a strategic element to controlling the Eastern Mediterranean and hindering the development of the Arab nationalism movement that could affect French colonialization of North Africa. The threat of Arab nationalism was perceived, by the French as a means for the British to displace French influence in the region (Neep 2012, pp. 25–27). While the rebels in Syria were unable to achieve their goal, they did manage to alter French administration following the conclusion of the rebellion. The general amnesty offered by M. Ponsot, representing the French administration, called for elections of a Constituent Assembly, held in April 1928 (Hourani 1946, p. 191). The general amnesty and the creation of a Constituent Assembly were an attempt to pacify the rebellious populations by conceding on a new form of representational governance. However, it required that the population accept a specific form of governance and order that could be sustainably managed by the French administration.

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The constituents elected to the new Syrian assembly in April 1928 were mostly moderates from the countryside, but because they lacked cohesion, the nationalists dominated the Assembly and succeeded in forming a party, the National Bloc. This party included Ibrahim Hananu, a leader in the revolt against the French presence in northern Syria and former Ottoman municipal official; Hashim al-Atasi, a Syrian nationalist; Saadullah al-Jabiri, exiled to Douma in Mount Lebanon for his role in resisting the French; Shukri al-Quwatli, a member of the National Party, in the final years of the Ottoman Empire he worked to unite the Arab provinces for independence; Nabih al-Azmah, a member of Al-Fatat Society, a nascent secret Arab national group; Amir Adil Arslan, a confidant of Faisal that helped in the resistance against the establishment of the French Mandate; and Riyadh al-Solh, who had been close to Faisal and who was the son of Arab nationalist Reda al-Solh. In dominating the Assembly, Hashim al-Atasi became President of the Assembly and Ibrahim Hananu, a former Ottoman municipal official and a leader against the French presence in Syria, was appointed President of the Commission in charge of drafting the Constitution. While much of the draft constitution was amenable to the French High Commissioner, M. Ponsot, he objected to the declaration ‘that all Syrian territories detached from the Ottoman Empire constituted an indivisible political unity’. M. Ponsot believed this was ‘irreconcilable both with France’s international obligations and with the existing situation in fact and in law’. In addition to M. Ponsot’s objection to this specific article, he objected to four others, including articles related to Syrian self-determination, which he found to be in conflict to French ‘obligations’ in Syria.33 It had become clear that the French administration in Syria had abandoned legitimate representation, if they had ever supported it in earnest. The threat posed to French interests in Syria by the ruling National Bloc in the Syrian assembly, according to M. Ponsot, necessitated the proroguing of the Assembly. In order to justify this decision, reneging on the criteria established in the provisions of the Mandate, M. de Caix lied in reports that were submitted to the League of Nations. Specifically, the reports blamed the nationalist party for the suspension of the

33 The articles included, Article 2, 73, 74, 75, and 112 of the Draft Constitution (Hourani 1946, pp. 191–193).

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Constituent Assembly on February 5, 1929 (Longrigg 1958, pp. 182– 185).34 The French were operating in order to succeed in the realization of their interests—to maintain Lebanon as a separate and allied entity and to force Syria into submission. As was evident prior to the establishment of the French Mandate, those interests, as per the French, were viewed as civilizational. Given that the French had achieved a higher standard of civilization, their interests were premised to be of greater value than Syrian self-determination. It was becoming clear to the Syrian populations that the French Mandate was nothing more than the continuity of the colonial project, engaged in similar strategies. In addition to the prorogation of the Assembly being viewed by the Syrian population as an abandonment of the Constitution that had nearly come to fruition (Longrigg 1958, pp. 182–185),35 there was a developing economic crisis. The severing of political and economic networks across Syria by French authorities, and the ‘simple exploitation of […] natural resources’ by the French were effecting trade, especially the trade of grain (Chalcraft 2016, pp. 225– 228; Fieldhouse 2008, p. 258; Khoury 1987, pp. 97–151).36 With the aim of disrupting and challenging the French administration, the National Bloc engaged in a series of strikes, actions of civil disobedience, and propagated arguments that Syria was being colonized. In retaliation, M. Ponsot dissolved the Assembly on May 14, 1930, and unilaterally promulgated a constitution for Syria that was to immediately come into force following the election of a Chamber of Deputies (Hourani 1946, p. 193). The constitution that had been tabled by M. Ponsot was nearly identical to the previous constitution put forward by the Syrian Assembly. However, it excluded the articles on geographic claims and self-governance. Despite the communication of the constitution to the League of Nations, it had not come into force until 1932 (Longrigg 1958, p. 188). Crucially, the French administration in Syria was able to avoid criticism for their actions by promulgating the constitution. This unilateral decision, along with the falsehoods made in reports to the League of Nations, created a context that made it seem like the

34 1SL/1/V/394, UK Parliamentary Archives, March 9, 1930, from Cheikh Ismail el Hariri. 35 1SL/1/V/394 March 9, 1930, from Cheikh Ismail el Hariri. 36 1SL/1/V/394 March 9, 1930, from Cheikh Ismail el Hariri.

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French administration were fulfilling their state-building duties in Syria. As such, they were able to manufacture the political environment to their satisfaction. Despite attempts to curtail the presence of, and quiet, the Syrian nationalists by dissolving parliament, the January 1932 elections for the Chamber of Deputies in Syria proved to be in vain for the French administration. As it had been the case in the Assembly, the nationalists were a minority in the Chamber, but their unity had prevailed and they quickly became the dominant voice once again. Following the election of the Chamber of Deputies and the approval of the Cabinet, negotiations began between the Chamber and the High Commissioner. As the nationalists had done before, they urged the French High Commissioner to concede on the inclusion of Latakia and Djebel Druze in Syria, arguing that their separation from the Syrian government was unnatural. Additionally, the nationalists had also come into conflict with the High Commissioner on the status of Syro-Lebanese relations (Hourani 1946, pp. 194–196; Longrigg 1958, pp. 196–198). The concerns voiced by the nationalists drew them back into a deadlock with the French administration, leading to the resignation of the nationalists from the cabinet, although remaining in the Chamber of Deputies, in April 1933. Following the resignation of the nationalists, the moderates and Comte de Martel, who succeeded M. Ponsot as High Commissioner, continued deliberations over a Franco-Syrian draft treaty that would conclude the Mandate. The treaty that had been negotiated, which was heavily in favour of French interests, provided the French Government with the ability to maintain military forces in Syria and the ability to intervene on behalf of Syria should conflict with a third state develop. It also established that Latakia and Djebel Druze would not be included in the future Syrian state. Following the negotiation between de Martel and the moderates, the treaty was put before the Chamber where it was rejected by the nationalists. The High Commissioner subsequently suspended the Chamber, withdrew the terms of the treaty, and allowed the President of the Republic, Izzet Pasha al-Abid, to govern through decree (Hourani 1946, pp. 194–196; Longrigg 1958, pp. 196–198). Notably, despite all evidence supporting the fact that Syria had effectively met the requirements of modern statehood, the French were unwilling to ascertain that the Syrians had, indeed, met the standards, or benchmarks, required. Embroiled in this refusal were key French interests that were threatened by the group of Syrian nationalists.

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After the rejection of the initial decree in 1934, Hashim al-Atasi travelled to Paris in 1936 to renegotiate a new Franco-Syrian draft treaty, which included the slow relinquishment of French sovereignty over a twenty-five-year period. Following the negotiation of the Treaty, al-Atasi returned to Syria and was appointed as President. The Nationalist Bloc, led by Shukri al-Quwatli, claimed that the draft agreement was a victory for the Syrian people, and argued that the treaty between the liberal French people and the noble Syrian people after a fight of 16 years, during which the Syrians have tasted the bitterness of a foreign regime and have pulled some eloquent and final lessons [is complete…The Nationalist Bloc] renews its call to the militant nation, men, women, children, to show today like yesterday that it has dignity in liberty and independence. Our heroes, the members of the faithful Wafd (nation), will re-join us bringing the charter of sovereignty and of independence, the day has come and will be the expression of joy from all the nation.37

While the treaty had been ratified by the Syrian government, opposition to its provisions were growing in France. Jamil Mardam, the Syrian Prime Minister (1936–1939), travelled to Paris in order to save the treaty, and after three months of negotiations, was forced to concede on the safeguarding of the French language in schools and the French right to search for and exploit the country’s oil deposits. The agreement between Mardam and the French was opposed in Syria and a complete breakdown of relations between the Syrian government and France opened the gates to a political crisis in 1939, leading to the disintegration of the Syrian government and the suspension of the constitution (Khoury 1987, pp. 207–221). Notably, independence would not occur for Syria as long as the Syrian government continued to make demands that countered French interests, including military outposts, cultural engagements, resource extraction, and primacy in accessing these resources. French interests in resources were not confined to potential oil deposits, they were actively extracting foodstuffs from the region. In January 1941, shipments of food and grain from Lebanon and Syria to France led to ‘the bread crisis’. In response, Shukri Quwatli ordered

37 1SL/1/V/394, UK Parliamentary Archives, September 10, 1936, ‘Manifeste du Bloc Nationaliste au novembre people Syrien’.

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a general strike across Lebanon and Syria in February (el-Solh 2004, p. 117; Firro 2003, p. 178). By March 1941, the strike had spread throughout the major cities of Lebanon and Syria and Quwatli openly challenged the continuation of the French administration; stating that formal withdrawal of France from, and the subsequent collapse of, the League of Nations, meant that the French government no longer had a legal mandate. Quwatli’s narrative threatened the Vichy government who attempted to suppress dissident activity in the region by arresting and killing a number of protestors. However, the French administration realized that force alone could not restrain the protests and on April 1, 1941, Henri Dentz, a Commander in Chief of the Army of the Levant and the High Commissioner of the Levant, issued a declaration restating French support for Lebanese and Syrian independence and offered a series of administrative reforms, including the establishment of a council of directors, led by a ‘head of state’ with a consultative assembly. The promise of independence and the provision of administrative reforms continued to be deployed in relation to French interests. This was evident to the extent that the British government accused General de Gaulle of attempting to re-establish a repressive regime of colonial administration. With external and internal pressure mounting, the French administration conceded to allow for elections in Lebanon and Syria in the spring of 1943. Realizing the potential negative consequences for the future of French interests in Lebanon and Syria, the French attempted to alter the terms. However, the British forcefully declined stating that there was no room for negotiation.38 Still, the French administration was not ready to abandon Lebanon and Syria to independence. The British administration noted that while preparations for elections were underway in Lebanon, there had been interference by the French authorities. It was reported that the French Advisors in Tripoli and Saida established lists of candidates who were aligned with, or whose interests were favourable to, the French. The candidates who did not make the lists were, according to British intelligence officers in Lebanon and Syria, being cajoled or threatened in order to prevent them from running for election and upsetting the pursuit of

38 FO/226/234, TNA, ‘Telegram from Prodrome’; FO/226/237, TNA, ‘Internal Politics, Lebanon and Syria, Alleged British Interference’.

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French interests.39 The reaction to the creation of lists of candidates who were amenable to French interests generated a rumour that the elections were not a free contest between politicians representing Lebanese and Syrian interests, but a contest between Britain and France. The notion that the elections were a proxy for British and French competition in the region was further provoked by candidates who failed to be placed on the French lists and who positioned themselves as ‘British Candidates’. Due to Britain’s history of favouring a monarchist system, and the support for the Hashemite family, the population believed that the British supported ‘one kingly candidate or another’, with Sheikh Daham ibn Meheid of the Fed’an tribe40 stating that ‘it was common knowledge that the British authorities were conducting a vigorous campaign, and spending large sums of money, with a view to popularising the Emir in Syria’. The British, however, were uncomfortable with these assertions and actively repudiated the rumours.41 The rumours that had developed were subsequently used by the French administration with the aim of developing support for their preferred candidates. The French argued that those who claimed to be British candidates or who were not placed on the French lists intended to achieve the British goal of forcing Lebanon into a federation with Syria, and allowing Muslim domination of the Christians.42 The French government was actively attempting to secure their political position, particularly in Lebanon, by reinforcing the civilizational divide between Christians and Muslims. Despite the threats made by the French administration in Lebanon and Syria, and the censuring of many nationalist candidates, the National Bloc in Syria managed to obtain an overwhelming victory and in early August. Following the elections, Quwatli was designated President of the Syrian Republic by the new Chamber of Ministers.43 In Lebanon, French attempts to influence the election by supporting candidates amenable to French interests failed to materialize. Quite possibly, as Riyadh al-Solh 39 FO/226/240, TNA, January 7, 1943, ‘Elections’, from M. Lambert in Beirut. 40 The Fed’an were primarily located in the Syrian Euphrates (Lange 2006, pp. 940–

966). 41 FO/226/240, TNA, February 9, 1943, from M. Lambert. 42 FO/226/240, TNA, March 22, 1943, ‘Conversation between Captain Arab and Dr.

Ayyoub Tabet’. 43 FO/226/240, TNA, August 2, 1943, ‘Shukri Quwatli’s Speech delivered at the Dengiz Mosque on August 2nd, 1943’.

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had argued prior to the elections, the election of nationalists in Syria had an impact on the vote in Lebanon.44 On September 21, 1943, the newly elected Chamber of Ministers met in Beirut and elected Bishara al-Khoury as President with Riyadh al-Solh as Prime Minister (Hourani 1946, pp. 256–257). Following the election, in a speech given to the Syrian Parliament regarding Arab unity, Quwatli stated that the government in Syria had fulfilled the necessary requirements of a proper government, according to the ‘civilized nations’, including a legal government, balanced budget, and the maintenance of public order. He continued that the internal affairs of the country were not of concern to foreign powers, who view themselves as ‘the giver of orders, the ruler and the one who really possesses every power’. To which Quwatli argued, ‘the struggle then is for us to take over all those powers, to take back everything’.45

Conclusion Although it was assumed by the Sublime Porte and, subsequently, the prevalent parties in Lebanon and Syria, that engaging in modernization reforms would allow these polities to become internationally recognized, gain consent, and be able to make legitimate claims of sovereignty, these dynamics did not materialize, despite efforts. While it can be argued that recognition, consent, and sovereignty would have been the result had modernization reforms and the civilizing project did not produce dissatisfaction and alienation, it is not immediately evident that this would have been the case. Rather, what is apparent, as discussed throughout this chapter, is that recognition, consent, and sovereignty were withheld due to the pursuit of European interests. By framing the standard of civilization as a political tool to facilitate the pursuit of European state interests, continued interference and intervention, while justified on normative grounds of protecting minorities or the civilizing project, was strategic. European powers argued that the their alliances with domestic communities had been fostered based on civilizational similarities and a right to offer protection, however, these acts of protection allowed the European powers to maintain a foothold within the Ottoman Empire. In particular, France was able to argue for and on

44 FO/226/240, TNA, January 7, 1943, ‘Elections’, from M. Lambert in Beirut’. 45 FO/226/252, TNA, ‘Internal Politics: Lebanon’.

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behalf of the Catholic communities in the Syrian provinces, elevating their political and economic status, and in the wake of threats against these communities, offer military protection, as was evident with the French occupation of Mount Lebanon. In addition to alliance formation between religious communities and European powers, many of the modernization reforms were facilitated with broad European help. With these reforms in place, and with the help of European powers, the latter believed that it was their right to ‘advise’ the Ottoman Empire. The advice offered to the Ottoman Empire was not discretionary, it was expected that the Ottoman Empire, either the Sultan or the Sublime Porte, would heed to the demands made by European powers, or else suffer the consequences. In some cases, those consequences included the potential dissolution of large parts of the Empire by means of foreign occupation, as Russia had threatened following the Crimean War. Under the condition of these threats, the Ottoman Empire was required to engage in further modernization to gain the continued support of other European powers. Although pressure was placed on the Ottoman Empire to engage in these reforms, the supporting European powers were able to increase their interference. Additionally, in the case of the Crimean War and its aftermath, it was in the interests of many European states—particularly those that supported the Ottoman modernization reform, for the Ottoman Empire to remain intact. This was also evident with regard to the British support of the Ottoman Empire following the occupation of the Syrian provinces by the Egyptian forces. Notably, from these two examples, throughout the nineteenth century, the Ottoman Empire was crucial to the European balance of power system. The application of the state as a standard of civilization facilitated increased interference and interventions in the domestic matters of the Ottoman Empire; impacting the development of state–society relations as well as the institutions of statehood. From this application, the Ottoman Empire continued to be subordinated by the group of ‘civilized nations’, and by means of interference and influence throughout the civilizing project, the European powers were able to extract concessions. In this way, the state as a standard of civilization became a tool of European politics.

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Works Cited Aksakal, Mustafa. 2011. The Limits of Diplomacy: The Ottoman Empire and the First World War. Foreign Policy Analysis 7 (2): 197–203. Anghie, Antony. 2004. Imperialism, Sovereignty and the Making of International Law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Barr, James. 2011. A Line in the Sand: Britain, France and the Struggle That Shaped the Middle East. London: Simon & Schuster. Beydilli, Kemal. 2001. From Küçük Kaynarca to the Collapse. In History of the ˙ Ottoman State, Society and Civilisation, Vol. 1, ed. Ekmeleddin Ihsano˘ glu, 63–132. Istanbul: Research Centre for Islamic History, Art and Culture (IRCICA). Chalcraft, John. 2016. Popular Politics and the Making of the Modern Middle East. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Commins, David Dean. 1990. Islamic Reform: Politics and Social Change in late Ottoman Syria. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Davison, Roderic H. 1963. Reform in the Ottoman Empire, 1856–1876. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Duxbury, Alison. 2011. The Participation of States in International Organizations: The Role of Human Rights and Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. el-Solh, Raghid. 2004. Lebanon and Arabism: National Identity and State Formation. London: Centre for Lebanese Studies. Fieldhouse, David Kenneth. 2008. Western Imperialism in the Middle East, 1914– 1958. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Findley, Carter Vaughn. 1989. Ottoman Civil Officialdom: A Social History. New Jersey: Princeton University Press. Firro, Kais. 2003. Inventing Lebanon: Nationalism and the State Under the French Mandate. London: I.B. Tauris. French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon. 1923. The American Journal of International Law 17 (3): 177–182. Goldfrank, David M. 2013. The Origins of the Crimean War. New York: Routledge. Hertslet, Edward. 1875a. The Map of Europe by Treaty: Political and Territorial Changes Since the General Peace of 1814, vol. 1. London: Butterworths. Hertslet, Edward. 1875b. The Map of Europe by Treaty: Political and Territorial Changes Since the General Peace of 1814, vol. 2. London: Butterworths. Hertslet, Edward. 1875c. The Map of Europe by Treaty: Political and Territorial Changes Since the General Peace of 1814, vol. 4. London: Butterworths. Hopwood, Derek. 2014. Porfirii Uspenskii: A Russian observer of Near Eastern society. In Cohabitation et conflits dans le Bilad al-Cham a l’epoque Ottomane: Musulmans et Chretiens a travers les ecrits des chroniqueurs et des voyageurs, ed. Salim Daccache, Carla Edde, Stefan Knost, Bruno Paoli, and Souad Slim,

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133–152. Lebanon: University of Balamand, Institut francais du ProcheOrient, Universite Saint-Joseph, Orient Institut Beirut. Hourani, Albert. 1946. Syria and Lebanon, a Political Essay. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ismail, Adel. 1976. Documents Diplomatiques et Consulaires Relatifs a l’Histoire du Liban et des Pays du Proche-Orient du XVII Siècle à Nos Jours. Beyrouth: Éditions des Oeuvres Politiques et Historiques. Khoury, Philip S. 1987. Syria and the French Mandate: The Politics of Arab Nationalism, 1920–1945. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Lange, Katharina. 2006. Heroic Faces, Disruptive Deeds: Remembering the Tribal Shaykh on the Syrian Euphrates. In Nomadic Societies in the Middle East and North Africa: Entering the 21st Century, ed. Dawn Chatty, 940–966. Leiden: Brill. Longrigg, Stephen Hemsley. 1958. Syria and Lebanon Under French Mandate. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Mitchell, Timothy. 1988. Colonizing Egypt. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Neep, Daniel. 2012. Occupying Syria Under the French Mandate: Insurgency, Space and State Formation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Northedge, Frederick Samuel. 1986. The League of Nations: Its Life and Times, 1920–1946. Leicester: Leicester University Press. Palmer, Alan. 1992. The Decline and Fall of the Ottoman Empire. London: John Murray Publishers. Prochaska, David. 1990. Making Algeria French: Colonialism in Bône, 1870– 1920. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rich, Norman. 1991. Why the Crimean War? A Cautionary Tale. New York: McGraw-Hill. Salibi, Kamal. 2005. A House of Many Mansions: The History of Lebanon Reconsidered. London: I.B. Tauris. Šedivý, Miroslav. 2010. Metternich and the Syrian Question: 1840–1841. Austrian History Yearbook 41: 88–116. Slade, Sir Adolphus. 1867. Turkey and the Crimean War, a Narrative of Historical Events. London: Smith, Elder & Co. Strangford, Viscount. 1869. A Selection from the Writings of Viscount Strangford on Political, Geographical, and Social Subjects, Vol. 1, ed. Viscountess Strangford. London: Richard Bentley. Troubetzkoy, Alexis S. 1986. The Road to Balaklava: Stumbling into War with Russia. Toronto: Trafalgar Press. Van Dyck, Edward A. 1881. Capitulations of the Ottoman Empire Since the Year 1150. Washington: Government Printing Office.

CHAPTER 9

Conclusion: Taking Histories of Post-colonial Statehood Seriously

The development of the modern state in the global south, and its emergence throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, was the result of a standard of civilization. By taking the modern state in Europe as the pinnacle of socio-political progress and development, polities in the global south were required to mimic the institutions, structures, and norms of the modern state in Europe. As evidenced and discussed with regard to the Ottoman Empire, until its collapse, and the mandate state system in Lebanon and Syria, failure to engage and develop knowledges and practices of statehood in a manner that replicated the European state was considered a civilizational failure, requiring further interference and intervention. From exploring the histories of these international engagements with the Ottoman Empire and, subsequently, Lebanon and Syria, it is possible to pose two interrelated questions. First, and discussed throughout this book, how have the international conditions that wrought the state as a standard of civilization of the nineteenth century been maintained in contemporary global politics, embedding racially inflected knowledges and practices? Second, and discussed throughout this conclusion, based on these historic developments, how can the post-colonial state be reconceptualized as a separate entity from dominant conceptualizations of modern statehood and, relatedly, to what benefit? © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 A. Delatolla, Civilization and the Making of the State in Lebanon and Syria, Middle East Today, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57690-5_9

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With regards to the first question, discussed in the introduction of the book, the logics of development and state-building are constructed from many of the same assumptions emergent in the nineteenth century. In particular, there exists a relationship between state typologies and civilizational hierarchies, both functioning within a standard of civilization. In the contemporary period, it is evident that the state continues to be measured on a linear scale, one that assumes that the model of progress and development exists, in its closest form to the ideal type, in the Western state. By interrogating the histories of this dynamic in relation to state-making, it is evident that there exists a continuation of coloniality in the logics of these hierarchies and the knowledges and practices concerned with modern statehood. This is embedded in the institutions, structures, and norms of the post-colonial state, with specific reference to Lebanon and Syria, but also the dynamics of the international state system, where racially inflected knowledges and practices continue. This concluding chapter revisits the discussions on the standard of civilization in relation to the state in Lebanon and Syria. It notes how the dynamics produced from the standard of civilization of statehood did not create perfect replications of the European state, but amalgamated and assembled institutions, structures, and norms. It subsequently discusses the need for the disciplines of political science, international relations, and development studies to reconceptualize the state. Building from these discussions, it concludes by pointing to the international transformations following the nineteenth century, noting the lack of political changes in relation to the state in the global south, reproducing the standard of civilization and its various parts.

The Standard of Civilization and the Production of the State in Lebanon and Syria The modern state as a standard of civilization was multifaceted, requiring the modernization of the Ottoman Empire relating to institutional, structure, and normative organization. Modernization and the replication of the modern state in this manner had adverse consequences for the populations of the Syrian provinces, their relationship to governing institutions, European powers, intercommunal relations, and the norms that followed from modernization. Specifically, the principle of equality being an important aspect of modern statehood, had a resounding effect on

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populations of the Ottoman Empire. As a principle that emerged in relation to statehood with the French Revolution (1789–1799) it has since been considered a cornerstone of state practice. Although equality has been central to modern and centralized state jurisprudence, it continues to be debated and contested. Nevertheless, its application to the Ottoman Empire was used in a manner that relegated the principle of tolerance, a norm of Ottoman governance, as ‘traditional’ and unmodern. The application of equality, a result of a standard of civilization that was focused on statehood, facilitated the development of socio-political schisms that later became embedded in intercommunal and state–society relations. While equality in governance created new rights and privileges that were awarded to religious communities, it also mitigated the ability of religious communities to engage in autonomous personal law. This disrupted social and political relations, creating sentiments of alienation and displacement within the Ottoman Empire among the Muslim communities, and led to animosity directed at religious minorities, particularly the Christian populations. The feeling of resentment among some Muslim communities caused by a perceived increase of rights and privileges awarded to Christian populations, manifested—at times— in violence. It also created sentiments of alienation between Christian and Muslim populations with the governing institutions of the Sublime Porte. Here, the Christians became unsure about their place, losing their relative autonomy, and straddling different expectations in society and in relation to the state. As discontent increased, the Ottoman Empire attempted to pacify the populations by reinstating privileges among the notable classes. The aim was to provide the notable classes with tax benefits, hoping that this population would influence their communities to follow the authority of the Sublime Porte. In addition to trying to appease the notable classes as a means to pacify the peasant classes, the Ottoman Empire attempted placate Muslim communities by offering them new administrative positions. As such, European consuls wrote of the Empire’s failure to administer the principle of equality and consequent failure to engage in civilized government. Despite these efforts, and others discussed in Chapter 3, the Sublime Porte was unable to quell widespread feelings of alienation and discontent. The schisms that had developed by altering the principle of governance created opportunities for European consuls to embed themselves in the local dynamics and politics of the Syrian provinces. The relations that developed between sectarian groups and European powers, specifically the

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French and the Catholic communities, the Russian and the Orthodox communities, and—to some extent—the British and the Druze communities, were facilitated by the intercommunal schisms that had emerged and deepened due to modernization reforms. These alliances, however, were justified by racial-civilizational characterizations, whereby the European powers, with the exception of Britain, assumed civilizational similarities due to religious creed, as was the case with France and Russia. Not only did they argue that they had a responsibility to protect populations who were perceived to be of civilizational similarity due to their religion, but that the ‘fanatical’ Turks and Muslims were the cause for continued underdevelopment of these communities. As discussed in Chapter 4, the alliances that formed based on these relations, were engaged in a process of racialization that attributed civilizational characteristics to religious identification, impacting the subsequent development of nationalist movements and Mandate era politics. Race and the racialization of religious groups in the nineteenth century had widespread effects for global politics of the early twentieth century, with Muslims being characterized as susceptible to engagement in political violence and civilizational inferiority the Mandate system and its application was developed and justified. Although packaged as a moral endeavour in the post-colonial era of liberal internationalism, the Mandate system was the continued effort of the previous civilizing project. However, instead of the language of civilization, the Mandate system mobilized the de-racialized language of preparing societies for autonomy and independence, by instituting practices of ‘good governance’. Yet, there was a continued external racist hierarchization, indicating which societies required Mandate governance. With regards to the former Syrian provinces of the Ottoman Empire, these hierarchies impacted intercommunal relations and issues of governance throughout the state-building project, becoming entangled in French interests. Here, political power in Lebanon was unevenly distributed in favour of the Maronite communities, resulting in ongoing domestic tensions that continued to reproduce a sectarianism that could be understood through racist politics. Although the European powers had pressured the Ottoman Empire to develop reforms that upheld the principle of equality, the resulting intercommunal schisms produced a set of dynamics that were anything but equal. Attempts by the Ottoman Empire to placate discontent, particularly among the Muslim communities, only increased schisms,

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deepening European interference and claims against the Empire. In addition to religious and sectarian identity markers becoming elevated due to modernization reforms, impacting domestic and international politics, it also transformed the relationship between territory, identity, and governance. Following the logic of the modern state in Europe and under pressure to engage in reforms, the Ottoman Empire tied identity and governance to territory in three different ways, as discussed in Chapter 5. In addition to the institutional and administrative modernization reforms, replicating the kinds of state structures of the modern state in Europe, the Ottoman Empire employed the same logics of European state organization and expansion. First, the development of split authority in Mount Lebanon, which led to the division of territories and governance structures between the Maronite and Druze populations. Second, the promulgation of the Land Code of 1858, which emphasized territorial ownership, offering opportunities for the peasant classes to acquire territory. However, in many cases, landowning elites and capitalists came to acquire new territories, broadening their influence in society, the economy, and politics. Third, the Ottoman Empire attempted, with some success, to sedentarise nomadic tribes and bring sedentary tribes under the control of the Sublime Porte. The Ottoman Empire’s imperial expansion of authority, allowed the Sublime Porte to develop new sources for resource extraction at a time when European economic pressure was increasing. Despite the Sublime Porte’s efforts to replicate the knowledges and practices of territorial governance embedded in modern statehood, they were not able to enact or sustain authority. The inability to enact or sustain authority following the reforms regarding territorial governance can be blamed on the ongoing interference and interventions by European states and their constantly changing benchmarks of statehood. As discussed previously, pressure in the form of interference and intervention by European powers in the Ottoman Empire was not only impacting institutional and administrative development, but was also having effects on intercommunal relations. The combined impact, though not surprising, was that of increased dissatisfaction and alienation, particularly among the Muslim communities. The result, discussed in Chapter 6, was violent resistance against favoured Christian populations and threats against European administrators. While violence as a form of resistance was used in various contexts to resist European encroachments and the transforming political and economic

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realities between religious communities, it failed to procure the desired ends. The failure of violent resistance led to increased European, and particularly, French presence within the Syrian provinces. This resulted in continued and explicit French involvement in the administrative affairs of the Ottoman Empire and later, Lebanon and Syria. The French administration, throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth century made use of their existing alliances and relationships with the notable classes and the Catholic communities to influence and facilitate reforms in favour of French interests. However, resistance did not only emerge in the form of violence. Although violent resistance can be viewed as a form of popular mobilization against perceived sources of oppression, nationalist resistance, led by social and political elites, also developed into popular movements against European interference. The nationalist movements represented, as discussed in Chapter 7, not only attempts to curb European interference and interventions, but an assembled set of logics; between modern and ‘traditional’. These assembled logics mobilized customary identity markers framed by the context of modern nationalism. The aim, arguably, was to first establish an internally and externally recognized national identity and, second, to make claims of autonomy based on a nationalcivilizational narrative in order to resist further external interference. In the first instance, the Young Ottomans, a heterogenous group of political elites, sought to pressure the Ottoman Empire to develop political reform programs while maintaining a distinct Ottoman identity. Despite their efforts to replicate the knowledges and practices apparent in the modern European state, their engagement with modernity was considered superficial by European consuls. Additionally, their attempt to limit European interference and intervention presented a threat to European interests. Without obtaining their desired goals, the Young Ottomans, for the most part, fell into obscurity. Nevertheless, their development provided a foundation for future movements, including the Young Turks, Arab, and Syrian Nationalists. In addition to seeking to limit European interference, these nationalist groups were actively working against the Sultan and the Sublime Porte, as well as each other. As stated, these movements fostered identity markers relevant to the development of ‘imagined communities’, necessary to engage in rational nation-state building. The directives of these nationalist movements exemplified how the standard of civilization had become embedded in the social and political processes related

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to modern statehood. Nationalist movements actively acquiesced to the norms of the rational state-building project, tying identity markers to governance and territory, and engaging in institutional and bureaucratic centralization to replicate the modern state in Europe. Although this had become omnipresent with these later nationalist movements, there had been a slow process from the early nineteenth century leading to these developments. The use of statehood to measure the degree of civilizational attainment did not lead to independence or autonomy for the polities that were subject to the civilizing project. Instead, the standard of civilization that had been applied continued to shift, changing with the evolving political dynamics between European states and their interests. As discussed in Chapter 8, the standard of civilization related to modern statehood can be viewed as a discursive tool to justify interference and intervention in the form of the European civilizing project. Additionally, the state as a standard of civilization and its application to the Ottoman Empire provided opportunities for the European powers to attain particular political and economic interests and balance inter-European competition. As such, the state in Lebanon and Syria did not only emerge in relation to attempts to replicate the state in Europe, but also with regard to competing European political and economic interests. This book has focused primarily on the effect international racialcivilizational hierarchies had on modern statehood as the modern state was used as a test or measurement of civilized engagement. In doing so, it becomes evident how these international practices apparent in the nineteenth century and continuing into the twentieth century have impacted the domestic development of states in the global south. Discussed here, in relation the Lebanon and Syria, is how the state-building projects of imperialism and colonialism have had a scarring effect on the state in terms of institutional, structural, and normative developments; impacting state– society relations and intercommunal relations within these territories; and reproducing colonialism. (Re)Thinking Statehood The issues discussed throughout this book emerge specifically from a period of European expansion that was facilitated by racist hierarchies. The modern state in Europe, being considered the pinnacle of human social and political advancement, a development of a superior people due

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to racist biological and cultural factors, was used as evidence to justify these hierarchies. The modern state, as a standard of development and progress, was mobilized as a test or a measurement of progress and civilization of societies and polities in the global south. Where a society or a polity was considered uncivilized, deficient, or backwards, different kinds of political engagements were justified, ranging from external interference and intervention and imperialist politics, to colonization. With regard to the former, it was believed that interference, intervention, and imperialist engagements would facilitate a civilizing process. As such, aspects of statehood, from equality tied to citizenship, institutions and structures of centralized governance, territorialization, and nationalist movements that tied governance to identity and territory were mobilized. The racially inflected logics and the aspects of modern statehood reflected a particular nineteenth century conceptualization and framing of statehood. As discussed in Chapter 2, when the modern state is discussed, the framing of statehood and its conceptualization often reflects a specific European experience of state formation, knowledge, and practice. It either refers to a Weberian definition of statehood, one that emphasizes governance over a defined territory and population, legitimate use of coercion, or in cases where histories of state formation are emphasized, a narrative of cultural or organizational uniqueness. Argued here, such definitions and histories have little relevance to the experiences and the assembled knowledges and practices of statehood that developed in the global south; specifically those that emerged as a consequence of imperialism and colonialism. By taking these histories into account when discussing statehood in the global south or post-colonial world, it requires scholars and practitioners to decenter the assumed universality of statehood, as this universality is one that reproduces an abstract conceptual uniformity detached from historic experience. By thinking about statehood, how it is framed and practiced in relation to the varied historical experiences would require a reconceptualization based on heterogeneity; disrupting many of the theoretical starting points in political science, international relations, and development studies. In the case of Lebanon and Syria, and covered in this book, one way to consider this reconceptualization is to examine how race and violence become embedded in the institutions, norms, and practices of statehood. Even when states emerged from similar pressures and policies imposed by the same imperial and colonial power, with histories that are deeply intertwined, as was the case of Lebanon and Syria, differences are evident.

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Indeed, it is these histories and the production of difference that need to be considered and understood when discussing statehood. By focusing on these histories and the production of difference, it is possible to move away from engaging in discussions of post-colonial similarities and differences, of weakness and strength, and in particular with regards to the state in Lebanon and Syria. Still, by analyzing the way that these states are characterized and categorized, some important aspects of statehood become evident. In the first instance, the statebuilding measures that were implemented in the Ottoman Empire were not designed to provide independence. Whether external influence and pressure regarding state-building measures were developed and implemented due to inter-European competition and interests, they were mobilized under the auspices of racial-civilizational hierarchies that consistently undermined autonomy and independence. Similarly, the policies of the French Mandate were developed to retain French influence in the eventual post-independent Lebanese and Syrian states. The dynamics produced by Ottoman modernization reforms and the French Mandate highlight what Frantz Fanon stated when discussing the inability to completely engage in a process of decolonization. The state, as a unit for ordering and organizing society, became embedded, structured in particular ways to facilitate control and extraction. While it is possible to make this claim of all states, what sets the post-colonial state apart is the manner in which this practice of control and extraction was for the benefit of foreign states, rather an internal mechanism for war making and protection, as argued by Charles Tilly. The development of the post-colonial state in the throes of imperialism and colonialism was, ultimately, a civilizing project, that was to benefit the interests of those engaged in the civilizing project. The institutions and norms that were developed throughout the Ottoman modernization period, although outwardly stated as necessary for eventual recognition, facilitated European interference and interventions, justified by racialized characterizations of the population, and for the benefit of political and economic interests of the European powers. As such, the state in the global south, developed for the purposes of imperial and colonial interests, needs to be conceptualized in relation to its colonial and imperial histories, representing the continuity of coloniality.

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The Standard Lives On While the history of the nineteenth century global transformation and the engagement of European powers in rational state-building measures through imperial and colonial practices may be considered an unfortunate relic of the past, these knowledges and practices continue to shape global north-south and west-east interactions. This is evident with regard to contemporary practices of development, state-building, and counterinsurgency, as discussed in the introduction of this book. These contemporary practices, although using a different language and discourse, seek to reform state–society relations through institutions and administration; measure effectiveness and capacity of statehood; and mobilizes racialized characterizations of states, nations, and populations. Although the language and discourse of development and statebuilding no longer generates civilizational divisions in an explicit manner, state typologies reproduce many of these historic divisions. Where nineteenth century imperialism and colonialism was justified by differentiating the civilized from the uncivilized, the ordered from the disorder, and the rational from the irrational, contemporary engagements emphasize the difference between strong states, weak states, and failing states. In addition to these typologies mapping onto historic characterizations of statehood, they reproduce a linear spectrum from ‘bad’ to ‘good’ that leaves little room for divergence. What this means for the state is that an ideal type based on Western statehood continues to be upheld as a standard for states considered weak or failing. Based on these measurements, development and state-building attempt to replicate an ideal type, to rationalize and order society into functioning units (states). These states are pressured to engage in a form of socio-political development that requires the replication of Western norms of governance. Where states are perceived to have fallen behind, are considered weak or failing, the descriptive characterizations of the state, government, and society are used in a generalizing manner that often builds on historic racialized assumptions. While the focus may be on institutional and administrative capacity, the existing incapacity of state institutions and administration is, at times, considered a socio-cultural trait of the population; highlighting the continued racial inflections that embed statehood in discussions of civilization.

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Index

A Abd-el-Kader, 168, 201 Abdul Hamid II, Sultan, 187, 194–197, 200, 202, 205 Achrafiye, 171 Administrative assembly, 172 Al-Atrash, Sultan, 179 Alawites, 175, 232, 234 Al-Cherif, Ihsan, 231 Aleppo, 79, 88, 104, 116, 117, 148, 149, 164–166, 168, 171, 189, 190, 201, 220, 228, 232–234 Aleppo Uprising, 25, 156, 163–165, 181 Alexandretta, 232, 234 Ali, Muhammed, 78, 81, 101–103, 105, 106, 137, 188, 192, 217–219, 222–224 Al-Khoury, Fares, 230 Alliance, 24, 79, 96, 102–105, 109, 136, 142, 163, 166, 167, 170, 220, 222–225, 231, 233, 243 Al-Mahayni, Selim Agha, 168

Al-Solh, Riyadh, 236, 241 Anglo-French Declaration, 173, 177 Arab Fraternity Arab Brotherhood, 208 Fraternité Arabe, 208 Arab Kingdom, 201 Arab National Movement, 201 Arab question, 175, 176 Arendt, Hannah, 73, 156, 158–160 Autonomous, 8, 19, 45, 83, 173, 199, 206, 222, 232, 249

B Balta Liman, 81, 220 Bashir II, Emir, 110, 111, 113, 137, 138 Bashir III, Emir, 113, 139 Beirut, 22, 85, 105, 118–120, 140, 146, 163, 164, 168, 171, 197, 198, 201, 204, 207–209, 224, 232, 242 Beka’a Valley, 166

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 A. Delatolla, Civilization and the Making of the State in Lebanon and Syria, Middle East Today, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57690-5

279

280

INDEX

Britain, 19, 20, 57, 58, 70, 71, 73, 81, 82, 84, 88, 90, 98–102, 107–109, 121, 140, 144, 161, 162, 173, 176, 179, 193, 209, 215, 218–222, 228, 241, 250 C Caliphate, 201, 202 Canning, Stratford, 88, 114, 139, 163, 164, 226, 228 Capitulations, 220, 226 Centralization, 51, 70, 83, 107, 119, 135, 147, 150, 155, 190, 191, 197, 202, 253 Chamber of Deputies, 237, 238 Chamber of Ministers, 241, 242 Chehab, 110, 113, 137, 138, 167 Churchill, Henry, 83, 108 Civilization civilized, 2, 4, 11, 19, 20, 23, 25, 42, 51, 53, 55, 61, 70, 82, 89, 90, 96–99, 102, 104, 106–108, 112, 116, 119, 121–123, 132–134, 136, 137, 157–160, 162, 174, 178, 186, 189, 210, 218, 219, 221, 222, 225, 229, 231, 249, 256 uncivilized, 11, 17, 19, 52, 73, 98, 99, 122, 161, 165, 177, 181, 182, 186, 215, 254, 256 Codification, 51, 146, 234 Comité Central Syrian (CCS), 204–206 Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), 195, 204, 206–208 Congress of Paris, 88, 228 Constantinople, Treaty of, 217 Constitution, 35, 89, 190, 191, 193, 194, 196, 203–206, 231, 236, 237, 239 Council administrative, 83, 90, 102

governing, 5, 88 Mejlis , 86, 142 Crimean War, 88, 115, 116, 166, 226, 227, 243 D Damascus, 80, 84, 86, 87, 101, 102, 107, 108, 113, 118, 146, 148, 149, 166–169, 171, 175, 177, 179, 197–199, 201, 218–221, 223–225, 232, 234, 235 Damascus massacre, 25, 156, 169, 170, 181 Danube Danubian, 193 Debt, 147, 192, 194 De Caix, Robert, 236 Decentralization, 200, 204, 207–209 De Gaulle, General Charles, 240 Deir el-Qamar, 113, 139, 167 De Jouvenel, Henri, 179, 180 De la Fosse, A. Chattry, 166, 171 De Lallemand, Comte, 166, 167 Dentz, Henri, 240 De Ratti-Menton, Comte, 80, 223 De Redcliffe, Lord Stratford, 88, 105, 228 Desert, 130, 180 De Torcy, M. (French military captain), 97, 99, 115, 118, 119 Djebel Druze, 179, 232, 235, 238 Druze, 24, 87, 109–115, 123, 136–143, 151, 162, 166, 167, 169, 172, 175, 179, 180, 198, 250 Druze Revolt, 25, 156, 181 E Economy, 16, 33, 42, 48, 73, 142, 145, 150, 232, 251 Eddé, Emile, 178, 179

INDEX

Effendi, Shakib, 142 Egyptian, 55, 56, 78–81, 102, 136–138, 141, 162, 217, 220, 222 Equality, 23, 24, 52, 55, 70–75, 77–82, 84, 86–91, 95, 103, 108, 134, 170, 191, 199, 206, 220, 222, 248–250, 254 Ethnic, 25, 42, 75, 77, 100, 118, 131, 186 ethnicity, 132 Ethnolinguistic, 132 sectarian, 53, 100, 102, 231, 232 Expansion, 10, 17, 21, 24, 33, 36, 43, 49, 50, 60, 73, 75–78, 95, 98, 101, 109, 112, 130, 135, 146–149, 152, 203, 216, 219, 251, 253

F Faisal (Faisal I bin Hussein bin Ali al-Hashimi), 120, 174–178, 181, 231, 236 Fanon, Frantz, 4, 39, 135, 156–160, 172, 181, 208, 255 Farren, John William Perry, 79, 101, 102, 219 Feudal, 43, 110, 132, 136, 137, 139, 141 Financial, 193, 194 First World War, 34, 57, 230 France, 19, 20, 23, 43, 44, 58, 70–73, 79, 81, 87, 88, 90, 98–100, 102, 105–107, 109, 111, 117, 120, 121, 140, 144, 161, 162, 170– 173, 176, 178, 179, 198, 208, 209, 215, 220–222, 226–228, 231, 234–236, 239–242 Franco-Prussian War, 193

281

G Geoffrey, M. (French Consul), 166, 168, 204 German, 225 German Empire, 193, 194 Germany, 209 Gilbert, M. (French Consul), 198, 200, 201 Gouraud, General Henri, 177, 179, 232 Governor, 76, 83, 86, 104, 111, 113, 114, 138–140, 142, 174, 178, 179, 193, 196, 197 Greece, 97, 134 Greek, 98, 100, 105, 204

H Haffar, Loutfi, 230, 231 Hasbeya, 113, 167 Hatt-ı Serif, ¸ 71, 78, 82, 84, 88, 104, 106, 107, 109–111, 122, 140, 142, 162, 164, 190, 223, 225, 229 Hatt-I Humayun, 115 Hauran, 166, 198 Herriot, Édouard, 178 Hierarchy, 6, 10, 11, 44, 53, 86, 209, 220 hierarchies, 4, 6, 9, 11, 16, 17, 19, 20, 23, 36, 37, 49, 50, 54, 56, 60, 69, 70, 72–74, 90, 95, 96, 105, 107, 110, 112, 117, 121, 161, 185, 186, 203, 215, 248, 250, 253, 255 hierarchization, 16, 20, 107, 250 High Commissioner, 178, 180, 236, 238, 240 Homs, 104 ˙ Hünkâr Iskelesi Agreement, 218, 221

282

INDEX

I Independent, 19, 34, 39, 42, 48, 59, 140, 149, 151, 152, 199 J Jerusalem, 221, 226, 227 Jews, 76, 85, 87, 108, 204 Jewish, 83, 108 Judicial, 84, 142, 220 K Kemal, Namik, 188, 192, 194 Kurds, 8 Kurdish, 8, 76 Kütahya, Convention of, 217–219 L Land Code, 24, 130, 135, 144–147, 150–152, 251 Latakia, 175, 204, 238 Layard, Sir Henry, 109, 198, 201 League of Nations, 37, 176, 179, 230, 231, 236, 237, 240 Lebanese Alliance, 208 Alliance Libanaise, 208 Lebanese Committee, 208 Comité Libanais , 208 Lebanon, 2, 3, 19, 21, 22, 25, 26, 36, 38, 46, 106, 112, 122, 130, 156, 157, 171, 172, 174, 176, 178, 180–182, 215, 216, 230–235, 237, 239–242, 247, 248, 250, 252–255 Lebanese, 20, 21, 24, 97, 115, 120, 121, 123, 171, 175, 178, 185, 203, 235, 240, 241, 255 London, Treaty of, 217 M Mahmud I, Sultan, 226

Mahmud II, Sultan, 82, 218–220 Mandate, 24, 35, 37, 38, 57, 91, 174, 177, 178, 180, 216, 231, 232, 236, 238, 240, 250, 255 Maronite, 24, 104, 109, 110, 113, 114, 120, 123, 136–139, 141–143, 152, 162, 166, 167, 171, 175, 182, 232, 233, 251 Mesopotamia, 39, 81, 148, 149, 176, 209, 218, 222 Iraq, 8, 46, 57, 58, 151, 172, 174 Midhat Pasha, 188, 193, 194, 198–201 Military, 33, 39, 50, 55, 57, 59, 76, 82, 83, 89, 105, 110, 116, 137, 145, 148, 156, 177, 196 Modernization, 11, 13, 14, 19–22, 24–26, 35, 38, 49, 50, 54, 56, 57, 59, 70, 71, 78, 84, 86, 89, 110, 112, 118, 119, 122, 123, 130, 135, 140, 141, 144, 146, 147, 156, 158, 161, 162, 164, 195–197, 200, 211, 223, 229, 243, 248 Mount Lebanon, 24, 84, 104, 106, 108–115, 119–121, 123, 130, 135–144, 146, 151, 152, 164, 166, 167, 169–172, 175, 181, 185, 207–209, 232, 233, 236, 243, 251 Murad, Nicolas, 104, 109 Mutassarif, 172 N National Bloc, 230, 236, 237, 241 Nationalist, 38, 120, 123, 175, 178–180, 185, 187, 206, 208, 236, 238, 242 nationalism, 17, 20, 25, 38, 40, 120, 131, 132, 185–188, 200, 210, 252 Native, 135, 173

INDEX

Navarino, 217

O Organic Law for Lebanon, 142 Organic Law for Syria, 180 Organic Law of Mount Lebanon, 142 Réglement Organique, 172 Orthodox, 80, 104, 155, 217, 218, 250 Ottoman–Egyptian War Second, 81, 82, 104, 107, 110, 113, 136, 137 Outrey, M., 167, 169, 171

P Pacify, 8, 15, 46, 53, 57, 58, 142, 172, 176, 180, 191, 235, 249 pacifying, 8, 151, 171 Palmerston, Lord Viscount, 101, 107, 110, 112, 218, 219, 224 Paris Peace Conference, 120, 173, 175 Paris, Treaty of, 116, 228, 229 Parliament, 203–206, 238 Pasha, Ahmed, 166, 167, 169 Pasha, Assad, 140 Pasha, Cevdet, 198 Pasha, Enver, 172 Pasha, Halil Sherif, 193 Pasha, Ibrahim, 79–81, 85, 86, 101–103, 105, 106, 113, 137, 217, 218, 220–224 Pasha, Mustafa Fayzel, 188, 192 Pasha, Nedjib, 83, 108, 113, 114 Pasha, Nuri, 231 Pasha, Sureya, 148 Patrimonio, M., 119 Phoenicia, 121, 233 Phoenician, 24, 121, 123, 143, 233 Ponsot, Henri, 180

283

Post-colonial, 1, 2, 10, 15, 16, 19, 21, 23, 26, 38, 41, 60, 216, 247, 248, 250, 255

Q Qaymaqam, 114, 141, 142, 172 Quwatli, Shukri, 239, 241

R Race, 20, 40, 54, 72, 88, 95–97, 99, 101, 104, 105, 115, 116, 118, 119, 121, 123, 136, 163, 187, 201, 202, 254 racialized, 96–98, 101, 106–110, 112, 115, 121, 122, 124, 141, 156, 159, 160, 162, 170, 177, 181, 186, 210, 255, 256 racist, 9, 10, 19, 54, 84, 96, 104, 107, 108, 158, 164, 172, 190, 250 Reform, 7, 24, 39, 57, 78, 82, 88, 106–109, 115, 116, 118, 129, 144, 147, 164, 166, 189, 190, 193, 194, 223–225, 227, 229, 243, 252, 256 Refugee, 225 Religion, 17, 18, 20, 44, 53, 54, 59, 72, 88, 96, 97, 99, 101, 104, 105, 115–119, 122, 124, 131, 132, 201, 250 Representation, 141, 172, 191, 204, 207, 236 Resistance, 20, 21, 24, 25, 35, 38, 52, 57, 155, 156, 158–161, 163, 171, 172, 177, 178, 180–182, 185–187, 191, 192, 197, 199, 203, 208, 210, 217, 236, 251, 252 Rose, Joseph, 163, 164 Rousseau, M. (French Consul), 199

284

INDEX

Russia, 20, 23, 70, 71, 73, 81, 87, 88, 90, 100, 102, 105, 109, 115, 117, 121, 140, 144, 161, 162, 193, 209, 215, 217, 218, 221, 222, 226–228, 243, 250 Russian, 38, 81, 88, 102, 105, 106, 109, 116, 129, 140, 155, 159, 169, 170, 193, 216–219, 221, 222, 225, 226, 228, 229, 250

S Saida, 142, 198, 232, 240 Said al-Deen, Emir, 113 Sarrail, Maurice, 178, 179 Secret Society of Beirut, 201 Sectarian, 23, 24, 36, 54, 80, 89, 97, 102, 106, 109, 110, 116, 119, 120, 124, 130, 135, 137, 139, 141, 143, 163–166, 171, 175, 226, 249 sectarianism, 37, 112, 165, 250 Sèvres, Treaty of, 176, 177 Shari’a Law, 84 Shaw, Stanford, 204 Shi’a, 166, 175, 198 Sovereign, 34, 36, 38, 45, 46, 51, 57, 108, 131, 144 sovereignty, 16, 40, 43, 45, 46, 50–52, 54, 55, 59, 61, 82, 98, 120, 123, 134, 148, 161, 218, 220, 229, 239, 242 State-building, 3–16, 19, 21, 23, 35, 41, 48, 54, 59, 73, 84, 91, 95, 151, 152, 170, 172, 173, 181, 182, 185, 234, 238, 253, 255, 256 Straits Convention, 218 Sublime Porte, 21, 24, 71, 72, 74, 76–78, 80, 82, 83, 85–87, 89, 90, 100, 109–115, 118, 119, 122, 123, 135, 138–142,

148–152, 162, 163, 165, 170– 172, 189, 191–194, 196–198, 200–202, 207, 209, 210, 220, 222–227, 229, 242, 243, 249, 251, 252 Sunni, 226, 234 Sykes-Picot Agreement, 173 Syria Syrian, 19, 20, 22, 25, 55, 58, 74, 77–79, 81–83, 85, 86, 89, 96, 97, 99, 101, 103–107, 109, 112, 115–121, 123, 124, 129, 130, 136–138, 143, 150, 151, 155, 158–160, 162, 165–168, 170, 171, 175–177, 180–182, 186, 196–198, 200–204, 207, 208, 210, 217, 222, 224, 226, 230, 231, 233, 236, 237, 239–241, 243, 248–250, 252, 255 Syrian assembly, 236, 237 Syrian Question, 173 T Tanzimat, 26, 106, 116, 121, 136, 162, 189, 190, 216, 228 Tax Baratakli, 85 Jizya, 75 taxation, 43, 44, 77, 82, 85, 89, 110, 133, 137, 144, 146, 150, 152, 192 Tilly, Charles, 43, 44, 59, 83, 133 Tolerance, 21, 23, 71, 74–77, 84, 134, 149, 206, 249 Tribes nomadic, 24, 147, 148, 150–152, 251 sedentary, 24, 148–152, 251 Tripoli, 178, 192, 202, 204, 227, 232, 240 Turkey, 118, 171, 176

INDEX

Turk, 85, 99, 103, 105, 107, 108, 117, 118, 122, 162, 173, 176, 197, 202–205, 209, 226, 250 Turkish, 100, 110, 176, 185, 186, 196, 206, 208–210

285

W Wadi Ledja, 167 Weber, Max, 5, 41, 45–47, 52, 102 Weygand, General Maxime, 178 Wilson, Woodrow, 173, 174 Wood, Richard, 87, 105, 111, 113, 138, 139, 226

U Uspenskii, Porfirii, 79, 80, 102, 221 V Violent, 16, 24, 25, 48, 112, 155, 160, 161, 172, 181, 200 violence, 6, 8, 18, 24, 25, 40, 56, 69, 79, 87, 108, 142, 156, 158, 159, 161–167, 169–171, 175, 177, 179–181, 185, 204, 219, 249, 251, 254

Y Young Ottomans, 25, 186–196, 210, 252 Young Turks, 25, 172, 186, 187, 195–197, 202, 203, 207–210, 252 Z Zahlé, 167, 174