The Politics of Lebanese National Identity: A History of Arabism, Phoenicianism, and Sectarianism

• Alessandra Ditchkus, International Relations, University of Delaware

• Rudolph Matthee, History, University of Delaware

Since the emergence of Lebanon’s modern polity, the small nation has been shaped by competing interpretations of national identity. This project will examine the historical development of Arabism and Phoenicianism—both as political ideologies and national identities, as the two are intrinsically intertwined—from the earliest conceptions of sectarianism in the region to the modern day. This project will ask how these two movements evolved and came to shape the competing views of Lebanese national identity that have repeatedly acted as a catalyst for domestic conflict, sectarian division, and foreign intervention. Although these identities were, and are not, exclusive to particular religious demographics, their politicization, specifically during the Lebanese Civil War, gradually associated Arabism predominantly with Lebanon’s Muslim population, while Phoenicianism predominantly became associated with Christians. While existing scholarship has often treated Arabism and Phoenicianism separately, or merely focused on Lebanon’s sectarian political system, this study adopts a comparative historical approach to analyze both ideologies across the same pivotal historical events.  In doing so, it demonstrates not only how Arabism and Phoenicianism developed in response to the same events, but how each identity often evolved in relation to the other. By utilizing previous scholarship, political writings, and primary accounts, this project argues that Arabism and Phoenicianism should not solely be treated as competing claims of ethnic ancestry. Rather, the two function as dynamic political ideologies that offer fundamentally different explanations for Lebanon’s place within the Mediterranean, the Arab World, and the broader international order. Although Arabism formalized itself as the official identity of Lebanon through the Ta’if Accord following the Lebanese Civil War, Phoenicianism survived as a cultural state of mind.   By delineating how each identity evolved parallel to one another over the span of more than a century, this project brings forth the conclusion that there has never been a singular, concrete vision of Lebanese national identity. Rather, it has been continually reformed in response to war, famine, colonial intervention, and institutionalized sectarianism.