Ottoman Multiculturalism

8/12/2019 Ottoman Multiculturalism

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OTTOMAN MULTICULTURALISW

The Exam ple of the Confessional System inLebanon

A lecture given by

M aurus ReinkowskiOrient Institute of the D eutsche

Morgenlandische Gesellschaft, Istanbul

17 February 1997


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General editor: Angelika Neuw irthEditors: Judith GOtz, Bernhard Hillenkamp, Hanne SchOnigCoverdesign: W olf-Dieter LemkeSubsidised from funds of the Germ an Federal Ministry ofEducation, Science and ResearchPrinted in Lebanon by Hassib Dergham. Sons

Orient-Institut der Deutschen Morgenlandischen Gesellschaft

Rue H ussein BeyhumP.O.B. 2988LebanonE-Mail: [email protected]

Beirut, 19990 by the AuthorISBN 2-912374-27-8


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T he fall of the Ottoman Empire spawned a variety of attemptsto solve the task of integrating a culturally heterogeneouspeople while at the same time establishing a modern politicalsystem. These efforts span from unitary nation-states, intolerantin ethnic and religious terms such as Turkey, Bulgaria andGreece, to consociational systems such as Lebanon. As far as thereconciliation of the interests of different ethnic and religiousgroups andlor the assimilation of minorities and the settling ofdifferences and disputes is concerned, the merits of both strate-gies remain quite limited. Recent bloodshed and unresolved ten-sions have demonstrated that Lebanon and other states need toopen up new channels for political participation, find new modesof political representation, and create new common denomina-tors.

This paper wants to draw attention to the fact that Lebanesepolitical debate almost completely ignores how its consociation-alist system cam e about in the 19th century.11 will not argue thatLebanon has to return to its 'roots' a somewhat purified and

chastened consociationalism of a golden age. Yet, a look backinto the Ottoman past might give some important clues on thepresent po litical culture in Lebanon.

After a short discussion of the Ottoman millet system in thefirst section, I will give in the second chapter an outline of Leba-non's recent history. The third chapter will deal with the conceptof multiculturalism and its potential compatibility with the millet

system: to what extent can the millet system serve as a model orprototype for a modern concept of multiculturalism? Or, to posethe question in a more general sense: What, if anything, does the

This lecture was given at the Goethe-Institut Istanbul, February 17,1997. I am grateful to Glinter Seufert for his useful comments and toAngela Zerbe and Marguerite Wiese for helping me improving theEnglish version of this paper.


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ZOKAK EL-BLAT(T) 9

millet system have in com m on with m ulticulturalism ? The fourth.chapter will be devoted to a short comparison between the politi-cal debate in Lebanon and Turkey. The Lebanese political andintellectual debate does (to my knowledge) in stark contrast toT urkey recur neither to themillet nor to multiculturalism. Yet,to analyze the discussion (or non-discussion) of the millet willgive important clues to underlying political visions both in Tur-key and Lebanon. In the fifth and final section I will discuss thepros and cons of using or not using the concep ts of multicul-turalism and millet as a reference point in the Lebanese publicdebate. As will become evident in the next sections, I am con-vinced that the historical experience of the millet system, or evenits ideal concept, cannot contribute to the creation of a multicul-turalist society.

1. The survival of non-M uslim comm unities and themill t system as a set of ru les and practices

To a certain extent non-Muslims under Ottoman rule enjoyedreligious (including cultural and educational) and juridical auto-nomy. The set of regulations and governmental practices shapingthe relation of the Ottoman Empire s ruling Muslim class with itsnon-Muslim subjects is commonly referred to as the millet sys-tem.

The millet system of the Ottoman Empire is considered to be

derived from an extension of the Islamic notion of dhimina,which was applied in different ways and to varying degrees bymany Islamic polities. The dhimma can be characterized as acontract through which the Islamic community granted the mem-bers of the 'people of the Book' (at first only Jews and Chris-tians) protection and the right to practice their religion, under thecondition that they recognized Islamic sovereignty. The more


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M. REINKOWSKI: OTTOMAN MULTICULTURALISM'?

specific origin of the Ottoman millet system probably lies in theBalkan areas as a means to deal with the mosaic of ethnicgroups and religions of the Balkan Peninsula. The millet systemseems to have been a suitable response to these conditions. In theclassical period of the Ottoman Empire only four millets existed.At the top was the Islamic millet as the ruling millet (millet-ilyikime). Ranked respectively second and third were the twoChristian millets: the Greek Orthodox and the Armenian. Infourth place was the Jewish millet. In the course of the 19th cen-tury a large number of additional millets were established.

In early Ottoman times the term millet was used mainly forthe Islamic community the umma; non-Muslim communitieswere referred to as icTife, jemdat, gebran or dhimmt. Later, theterm millet was extended to non-Muslim communities, andeventually came to refer to them exclusively. The source of thischange in meaning is probably to be found in the 19th centurywhen the term, misinterpreted by European Orientalists, was re-introduced to the Ottoman Empire. 2 The millets were quasi-autonomous units which performed functions in legislative, judi-cial, fiscal, religious and charitable affairs and were responsiblefor educating their members. Until 1878 the Ottoman state corre-sponded with the millet leaderships by way of the Foreign Min-istry. 3 The millet system allowed individual communities to re-

2 Benjamin Braude, 'Foundation Myths of the Millet System', in:Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Empire. The Functioning of aPlural Society, eds. Benjamin Braude and Bernard Lewis, New York:Holmes and Meier 1982, 72; but see Michael Ursinus, art. 'Millet', in:The Encyclopaedia of Islam, new ed., vol. 7, Leiden: Brill 1993, 62f,who sees the change of meaning already setting in with the 17th cen-tury in the attempt to ward off European missionary activities.

3

Roderic Davison, 'Nationalism as an Ottoman Problem and the Otto-man Response' in: Nationalism in a Non-National State. The Disso-

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t n their local ethnic and linguistic distinctiveness, and thus pro-duced a system of 'religious universality and local parochialism'.It was universal in the sense that a specific church in the Otto-man Em pire was seen as an entity. It was limited because eachreligious group at a given place defined itself as a unit and re-lated primarily to mem bers of its own g roup. The mill t system.was thus a socio-cultural and communitarian form of organiza-tion which w as based primarily on sectarian identity, and onlysecondarily on linguistic and ethnic features.4

Nonetheless, critics rightly charge that the term mill t falselysuggests an unchanging phenomenon w hich endured throughoutthe centuries. The term has for this reason been labelled as an'historical fetish' plaguing the historiography of the last hundredyears. Indeed, in today's usage the term sugg ests an administra-tive and technical concreteness which, in the face of large re-gional and temporal differences, could never really have been. Inpoint of fact, a consistent designation or organization for thevarious non-Muslim communities scattered throughout the Em-

pire does not seem to have ex isted until the 19th century.

lution of the Ottoman Empire, eds. William Haddad and WilliamOchsenwald, Columbus, Ohio: Ohio State University Press 1977, 33-37.

4 Kemal Karpat, 'Millets and Nationality: The Roots of Incongruity ofNation and State in the Post-Ottoman Era', in: Braude and Lewis,Christians and Jews, 141ff, citation on 147.

Braude Foundation M yths,72ff.

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guag e', while maintaining a 'special nature'. The special natureof Lebanon springs from the multitude of its confessional groups

and the high percentage of non-Muslims.

Six confessionalgroups are of greater political significance, among them threeMuslim communities: the Sunnis, the Shiites, and the Druzes.The other three are Christian: the M aronites, the Greek Ortho-dox, and the Greek Catholic.

2.1. Political Confessionalism in the F irst Republic

The pact also reconfirmed the principle of po litical confession-alism and consociationalist democracy in L ebanon. In the L eba-nese confessionalist system confessional groups, and not parties,were (and still are) acknowledged a s the main actors in the po-litical arena. Whereas the term political confessionalism ismostly used with a negative connotation to depict the whole ofthe political culture of Lebanon, hinting at its deep-rooted clien-tism, the term `consociationalism' designates in a more specific

way the m echanisms of conflict resolution and interest balancingin a multi-confessional society. Gerhard L ehmbruch coined theterm proportional democracy to describe historically grownmechanism s of accomm odating political conflict, as in Sw itzer-land, for example. Arend Lijphart adopted this theory, naming it`consociationalism by borrowing Johannes Althusius conso-ciatio ( community of common destiny, cooperative ), and ap-

The arra number 60 of 1936 officially accepted 17 communities. 11of these are Christian: M aronite, Greek-Orthodox, G reek-Catholic,Armenian-Orthodox, Armenian-Catholic, Syrian-Orthodox, Syrian-Catholic, Assyro-Chaldean (N estorian), Chaldean, Latin, Protestant.Five are M uslim: Sunnite, Shiite, Druze, Alaw ite, Ismailite. The sev-enteenth community is the Jewish. See Antoine Nasri Messarra,Theorie generale du systeme politique libanais, Paris: Cariscript199 4, 26. In 199 5 the Copts were admitted as the 18th community.


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plying it to societies which are 'divided by segmental cleavagesand which follow concern lines of objective social differentia-tion 9

Political confessionalism and its concomitant procedures,such as proportional representation in government service orparliament, are ideologically based on the concept of a syncreticnationalism. Syncretic nationalism aims to unify varying cultural,ethnic and religious groups under the umbrella of a common na-tion. 10 While the different groups have the right to articulate andrepresent their group interests in the political arena, they also seethemselves as part of a larger community, Lebanon. The conceptof syncretic nationalism displays obviously idealistic traits. Itrequires the acknowledgment of all the participating groups thatinter-confessional conflicts may not exceed a certain limit, andthat they all ultimately share the common nation of Lebanon.Quite a few Christian and Muslim groups fostered such a 'be-nevolent' Lebanese patriotism. For example, the Chaldeanbanker Michel Chiha expounded the functionalist conception of

Lebanon's raison d etre as a 'merchant republic. Lebanesepatriotism thus showed a curious similarity to the failed conceptof `Ottomanism' propagated as an official state nationalism inthe late Ottoman period. Both were intended to bridge religious,ethnic and political rifts, and both were lacking emotional appeal.

9Arend Ljiphart, Democracy in Plural Societies. A Comparative Ex-ploration. New Haven 1977, 3.

1Theodor Hanf, Coexistence in Wartime Lebanon. Decline of a Stateand Rise of a Nation, London 1993, 29, fn. 50; see also Nawaf Kab-bara, 'Critique of the Lebanese Theory of Consociational Democ-racy', in: Reconstruire Beyrouth. Les paris sur le possible, Lyon:Maison de I Orient Mediten - aneen 1991, 345.

11See Hanf, Coexistence, 70 .


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Nonetheless, the reality in Lebanon was always a differentstory. Maronites profited greatly from a distorted ratio of repre-sentation because the power allotments were based on numbers

derived from a census conducted in the 1930's, out-of-date in thelater decades. The Maronites, in a way the millet-i ljakimein thefirst Lebanese republic, propagated a kind of `domi-nationalism',trying to legitimize the Maronites predominance. 12

2.2. Po litical Confessionalism after 19 9 0

In August and September 1990, the Lebanese parliament consti-

tutionalized the agreement of Taif (wathigat al-watani).It had been hammered out in October 1989, by those Lebaneseparliamentarians who remained from the last elections in 1972.In October 1990, Syrian forces attacked the Presidential Palacein Baabda on the outskirts of Beirut, and overwhelmed the lastdefenses of those units of the Lebanese army that had remainedfaithful to its commander, the general-major Michel Aoun, whohad asserted to be the acting President. The 'uncivil war' that had

started in 1975 came to an end, and the 'Second Republic ofLebanon' was born.

In the Second Republic of Lebanon there seem to be threepositions with regard to the problem of confessionalism. The firstis the pragmatic approach, that of 'muddling through'. Althoughone of the avowed aims of the new Lebanese Republic was torepress political denominationalism, seen as a major cause of the

outbreak of the civil war and the collapse of the political system,the Taif agreement and the preamble to the Constitution of 1990

2 A late `dominationalist' example is the grim book of Walid Phares,Lebanese Christian Nationalism. The Rise and Fall of an Ethnic Re-sistance, Boulder, London: Lynne Rienner 1995.


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take a rather ambiguous stance. They expressed an avowedcommitment to the gradual and careful deconfessionalization ofthe political system in Lebanon, 3

but nonetheless the politicalgame was carried on with the old 1943 consociationalist model,not touching its foundations.14

Many of those who point to the insurmountable difficulties ofdeconfessionalization are suspect in their commitment to thecommon cause. George Sa'adeh of the Maronite Kataib arguedvery am biguously that political deconfessionalization is not possi-ble without a very long process of changing the w hole structure ofconfessionalism, implying that this is not possible at 0. 5 NabihBerri, Speaker of Parliament and leader of the Shiite Amal, ex-cused his practice of appointing Shiites to positions within hisreach. He pointed out that as long as the confessionalist systemhas a firm hold on Lebanon, M aronites, Sunnis, etc. will capitalizeon this system. Berri justified his practice with the hypocriticalargument that he wants to illustrate by his confessionalist policythe dangers of confessionalism.16

Paragraph (h) of the preamble to the constitution of 1990 rules that

'the suppression of political confessionalism is a primary politicalobjective that shall be realized according to a gradual plan.See for critiques of this laxness: Ilyds Sabd, 'Al-Azma al-lubnaniya

il ayn?', Al-Mustaqbal al-carabi 135 (1990), 98; Nal* Wkim

45-48, Ijusayn al-Quwwatli 52, Tawfiq Hindi 66, I-Jusayn Kan`n82f., all in: L ubnein w a-c7fliq al-m uslaqbal,Beirut: Centre for ArabUnity Studies / Markaz dirasat al-watida al-carabiya 1991; GhassanSalame, 'Small is Pluralistic: Democracy as an Instrument of CivilPeace', in: Democracy without Democrats? The Renewal of Politicsin the M uslim W orld,ed. Ghassan Salm* London: Tauris 1994, 105.

5 Al-Nahr, 19.11.1993, 5.

16 Al-Nahar, 28.2.1995, 3.


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But how can anyone guarantee that such a sublim ated confes-sionalism w ill ever be safe from the diverse egotisms and m achi-

nations that exploit the potential of different confessional identi-ties? As the stress lies here on the national unity of the Lebanese.,and not on a common democratic political system, the demo-cratic commitment of some of these positions is somehow un-clear.

The opponents of political confessionalism correctly declarethat this system transforms conflicts which are not religious inand of themselves into religious conflicts. 18 However, as experi-ence since 1990 has shown, the confessional system is amazinglytenacious. This is due in part to the fact that the abolition, or atleast the reduction, of confessionalism depends on the approvalof the confessional groups themselves a concerted voluntaryself-disbanding and a so-to-speak last major act of confessional-ism.

So how to account for the longevity and deep-seatedness ofconfessionalism? Many political scientists explain the rise andthe tenacity of confessionalism only in the context of Lebanesehistory after 1920. This might be due to Lebanese self-esteemand the desire to draw a clear line between themselves and theOttomans. For example, even in the papers of the PermanentCouncil for Lebanese Dialogue no reference to the Ottoman pastcan be found.

There are also theories deserving consideration wh ich explainpolitical confessionalism solely in terms of twentieth-century

lg Kabbara, Critique, 360; see also Volker Perthes, Der Libanon nachdem Biirgerkrieg. Von ra if zum gesellschaitlichen Konsens?, Baden-Baden: Nom os 1994, 132.


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history. The well-known political scientist Ghassan Salame hasproposed the hypothesis that Lebanese proportional democracyowes its existence to the calculations of the dominant but not

absolutely dominating Maronites in the 1920s, that alone, with-out the participation of other religious groups, they would not beable to retain pow er.19 What speaks against Salame's argument isthe fact that the end of the civil war sounded the knell of Maro-nite dominance without bringing down political confessionalism.Another objection to Salame's theory is that the foundations ofconfessionalism are discernible prior to the establishment of theRepublic. If we assume that it is not solely the deep-rootedness

and ensuing indispensability of the confessionalist system whichmake it so omnipresent in Lebanese political life, what is it then?To answer this question, let us look back, beyond the confines ofm odern Lebanon.

2.3. A Look back into the 19th Century

One of the rare exceptions in the Lebanese political debate who

stresses the historical roots of confessionalism is Antoine NasriMessarra. He argues that political confessionalism is a genuinelegacy of Ottoman rule, and even dates back to the Mamluk era.Confessionalism being so deep ly rooted in Lebanon, the countryis condemned to a system of a sectarian-representational democ-racy whether it likes it or not.20 However, Messarra is a rigid ad-

19 Salame, Small is Pluralistic, 86, 97.20 Messarra, Systeme politique libanais, 21; see also his 'Les chances de

survie du systme consociatif libanais. D'une consociation sauvage... n modle consociatif rationalis', in: La Societe de Concor dance, eds. Theodor Hanf, Antoine Nasri Messarra and Hinrich Rein-strom, Beirut: L'Universite Libanaise 1986, 107 and his Le pacte li-banais. Le message d universalite et ses contraintes, Beirut 1997,152ff.

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vocate of political confessionalism and his historical analysis isnot based on the presentation of factual evidence.

As mentioned earlier, Lebanon was and is profoundly af-fected by the presence of a large number of religious groups. Canwe therefore trace political confessionalism in Lebanon directlyto the millet system which should have existed in Ottomantimes? Such direct causality is very unlikely. For one thing, theOttoman state propagating Hanefite 'orthodoxy' did not easilyrecognize a large number of religious groups in Lebanon, espe-cially Islamic heterodox groups such as the Shiites, the Druzes,

and the Alawites. Mount Lebanon was not one of the core areasof the Ottoman Empire. From the beginning of Ottoman rule inthe early 16th century until the middle of the 19th century,Mount Lebanon was only indirectly controlled, and left to therule of local dynasties. In the middle of the 19th century thestatus of Mount Lebanon was decisively changed. Until this timethe area had been only a part of one or more Ottoman provinces.In 1842, however, two provinces were created: one in the north-

ern part of Mount L ebanon under a C hristiankaymakam,and onein the southern part under a Dru.ze kaymakam. In 1861, bothprovinces were consolidated into one mutasarriflik, a semi-autonomous province. These steps were taken in response to un-rest and massacres which had occurred along religious bounda-ries (Druzes against Maronites), but which had a strong socio-econom ic m otivation.The results of this development were double-edged. On the one

hand, more than 300 years of relative autonomy ended when theOttoman state eliminated local centers of power. On the otherhand, a new kind of relative autonomy was institutionalized. Atthe same time the beginnings of the representational system ofthe religious groups can be detected. In 1845, a council consist-ing of one member of each denomination, Sunni, Maronite,

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Druze, Greek Orthodox, and Greek Catholic, was assigned to thegovernors of both provinces. When the unified province ofM ount L ebanon w as created, the institution of a representative

council was continued . Some time later the council came to beconstituted on the basis of a demographically proportional distri-bution of seats.

It is obvious then, that the origin of the confessional systemof Lebanon goes back to this era. The R glem ent Organiqueof1861/1864 betrays the strong influence of European conceptssuch as political participation. European pressure and influence

on the Ottoman Em pire were obvious in all the reforms under-taken to pacify Mount L ebanon . It is astonishing that historicalresearch has not yet clarified to what extent the confessionalsystem owes its existence to a genuine Lebanese tradition ofpower brokerage, to Ottoman statecraft and constitutionalthought, and to the influence of European conceptions.21W hat seems to be clear however, is that this system of admini-stration can hardly be considered a manifestation of the Ottomanmillet system itself. Lebanon s intricate election system, alsostemming from the 19th century, is almost the opposite of the

21Leila T. Fawaz explains in her monograph An Occasion for War:Civil Conflict in L ebanon and Dam ascus in 1860,Berkeley, Los An geles: University of California Press 1994, the term millet shortly on275, footnote 25, but leaves it unclear whether this passage refers toLebanon specifically. See also Elizabeth Picard, Lebanon; A Shat-tered Country. Myths and Realities of the Wars in Lebanon, NewYork, London: Holmes and Meier 1996, XI, 10, 21f, 64, who swaysforth and back between the interpretation of confessionalism either asan Ottoman heritage and or as an European introjection into Lebanon;Engin D. Akarli, The Long Peace: Ottoman Lebanon 1861 1920,Berkeley, Los Angeles: University of California Press 1993, 25,points to genuine Lebanese roots of confessionalism. but does notevaluate their contribution to the system set up later.

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'ideal' of the millet system. According to Clifford Geertz, theLebanese election system, which has remain unchanged in itsbasic traits until today, 'acts to align certain leaders from thevarious sects over against certain other such leaders in such away that political ties tend to cross-cut sectarian ones: 22 Insteadof a compartmentalised society in which each of the milletsdeals happily and unhampered with its own affairs Mount Leba-non of the 19th century reveals a m ore com plex picture.

3. M ulticulturalism versus the mill t system

In the light of these historical facts it would be very doubtfulwhether the historical experience of the millet system (indeed isthere one?) offers a solution for the dilemmas of modem-dayLebanon. Is it conceivable that by drawing on the positive as-pects of the millet system, the degenerate political confessional-ism might reform itself in such a way as would enable it to be-come a liberal and democratic force in a multicultural state? Per-haps we should first turn our attention to the question whetherthe millet system can serve as a model or even a prototype ofm ulticulturalism at all.

At first glance there appears to be some correspondence be-tween the millet system and the concept of multiculturalism.Very generall, multiculturalism demands that all religious orcultural groups are fundamentally equal and are recognized assuch. All groups should have the right to the unrestrained devel-

opment of their cultural and religious lives, and the state shouldprotect these g roups and assure their ability to survive.

22 Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Culture: S elected Essays,NewYork: Basic Books 1973, 294, cited after Akar'', T he Lon g Peace,190.

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Did not the millet system accomplish just that? In my opin-ion, this assumption must be definitively denied. The millet sys-

tem was first of all, like any political and social system, a systemof rule intended to lead to optimal results using the fewest possi-ble means. Moral or humanitarian concerns, if at all present,were only of secondary importance. The concept of tolerance inits current Western definition was unknown to either pre-modernChristian or Muslim states. The Ottoman millet system may havegranted to religious groups autonomy in religious and certainjudicial affairs, but always in the context of Ottoman rule and the

dominance of the Islamicumma.

Moreover, themillet

systemwas not interested in a liberal, open form of rule within the semi-autonomous millets. The concept of multiculturalism, on theother hand, always involves convictions about what societiesshould or should not be. Multiculturalism assumes the equality ofdiverse ethnic or religious groups in a constitutional state whichprotects this principle. Protection of the individual in this concep thas precedence over the protection of the group. Only insofar asthe inviolable basic rights of the individual are not harmed can agroup actively pursue its cultural interests. 23 The Ottoman milletsystem and multiculturalism are for that reason systems whichare not at all com patible. This is one im portant point.

T he other po int is that it m ight be helpful to take a closer lookat the Ottoman millet system in order to perceive the historicalrelativity of phenomena which today are often regarded as unal-terable entities. Nationalism, for example, which has been adominant ideology of the last few decades all over the world,

23See for an extensive discussion of multiculturalism: Charles Taylor,Multiculturalism and the Politics of Recognition. With commentariesby Amy Gutmann, Steven C. Rockefeller, Michael Walzer and SusanWolf, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1992.

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should not necessarily be viewed as the only possible organizingprinciple of large comm unal associations.

4. Turkish Paramnesia and Lebanese A mnesia

Israel, Turkey, and Lebanon each often claim to be the onlyworking democracy in the Middle East. But like Israel and Tur-key, Lebanon has failed to establish a set of political mechanism sable to integrate a religiously and ethnically mixed populationwithout provoking violence along ethnic and religious lines. As a

result of this failure, Lebanon has experienced the trauma ofpointless wars without actual winners, wars that could not givebirth to fundamental solutions. Being well aware of all the differ-ences between Turkey and Lebanon I would nevertheless like tocompare in a short digression the discussion of the milletsystem in in these two states.

Lebanon and Turkey are only rarely mentioned together. In

contrast to the Bosnian case, and despite the geographical prox-imity and centuries-long common history of the two countries, inTurkey neither the state nor the society were deeply emotionallyinvolved in the long-lasting Lebanese civil war. 24 The politicaland juridical systems of these two countries could not be moreopposite, and in fact represent two extremely different modelsfor coping with cultural differences in the population. Lebanon'spolitical structure is multi-confessional while Turkey s is unitary.

4

The civil war in Lebanon was mostly seen as an extension of the Pal-estinian question. See for example Irfan Acar, Liibnan Bunalimi yeFilistin sorunu [The Lebanon crisis and the Palestine Question], Ankara: Turk Tarih Kurumu 1989; M. Lutfullah Karaman, Uluslararasi

cikmazznda Filistin sorunu [The Palestine Question in thedeadlock of international relations], Istanbul: tz Yayinctlik 1991.

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In Turkey, according to the constitution, citizenship is territorialand devoid of any cultural and racial connotation, but the popularnotion of a Turk is in practice conceived with an ethnic andreligious reference, seeing the Sunni Turk as the decisive andcore element of Turkey.

Lebanese national identity is tom between the individual sattachment to his or her confessional groups and his attachmentto the Lebanese entity, or to a broader notion of `Arabness', andtherefore one would expect Lebanese political debate to referfrequently to the experience of the millet system. Turkey, on theother hand, has completely done away w ith the Ottoman practiceof organizing its population in confessional groups, mak ing themillet experience seemingly irrelevant. In reality, however,Turkish historians, intellectuals, and particularly proponen ts ofpolitical Islam often point to the merits of the millet system andits potential for organizing modern societies, going so far as tosee in it a prototype o f liberal concepts of society. The T urkishhistorian Kem al Karpat, teaching in the United States, says forexample:

'The Ottom an state was probably the most perfect Is-lamic state ever to come into existence. It sought to cre-ate a homo islamicus in accordance with the Shariat,while permitting the non-Muslims to retain their faith andidentity through the liberal provisions of the millet sys-tem.'

Other T urkish historians assert that 'the tolerance being one ofthe cornerstones of the tradition of the Turkish-Islamic state' al-

25Kemal Karpat: Presidential Address MESA 1985: Remarks onM ESA and N ation and Nationality in the M iddle East', Middle EastStudies Association Bulletin20 (1986), 9.

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lowed its subcultures to persist, 26 made possible by the almostperfect construction of the millet system .27 Western societies sawthe transformation from feudalism through absolutism to the

democratic system. The Ottoman society, however, never experi-enced any changes and saw no reason for it. 'The state had a so-cial structure which m ight be called a federation of nations.'28

The transformation of the Ottoman millet system into a pat-tern of opposing nations is interpreted in a similar manner. At thebeginning there is a kind of Ottoman-Islamic contrat social, the classical' relationship between the Sultan and the dhimini. T he

European politics of penetration and usurpation however de-stroys the harmonious and stable power structure and leads to thetorn and conflict-laden character of today s Middle East. In com-parison to present-day inter-communal conflicts the Ottomanachievements in providing tolerance and harmony can be reas-sessed.29

Two self-images are here made to converge: the image of theOttoman imperium that acted in the tradition of 'tolerance' and'liberality', built the harmonious millet-system and e.g. allowedthe imm igration of Jews fleeing from an ti-sem itic Europe, and the

26 Mim Kemal Oke, Erm eni Meselesi 1914-192 3 [Th e A rm enian Ques-tion 1914 1923], Istanbul: Aydinlar cap 1986 , 281.

27 Giilnihal Bozkurt,

elgelerinin ve S iyasi Gelimelerin

altinda Gaynmiislim Osmanli Vatandailarinin Hukuki Durumu

[The legal status of the non-Muslim Ottoman citizens according t?German and English do cum ents and in the light of political develop-ments], Ankara: Ttirk Tarih Kurumu 1989, 10 .

28 Bilal Eryilmaz, Osm anli Devletinde Gayrimslim T ebianin Y Onetimi[T he adm inistration of non-M uslim subjects in the Ottom an em pire],Istanbul 1990, 12.

29 Oke, Erm eni Meselesi,283.

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Turkish nation state that emerged in the fight against imperialistsand other adve rsaries. Most historians w ould accep t that this trans-formation certainly took place: from an imperial and multi-ethnicpower to the defensive and fragile structure out of which Turkeywould emerge as the core element. Yet, a simultaneous role asmulti-national imperium and anti-imperial nation corresponds lessto reality than to the Turkish historians efforts to find a satisfyingtransformation from the first to the second im age. Turkish histori-ans w ant to defend their past and the legitimacy of their territorialpossessions.

In Lebanese political consciousness the Ottom an past of L eba-non is generally even not rejected, it is simply ignored. But this isnot an exception: the Lebanese political consciousness seems tohave developed the capability of a concerted forgetfulness. In theLebanon after the long civil war 'a pervasive mood of lethargy,indifference, weariness w hich borders, at times, on collective am -nesia 30 was often described. In the same vein after 1990, as afterthe short civil war of 1958, the formula of 'there is no victor andno defeated' la-ghlib wa-lii-m agh liib) was often stressed in the

attempt to w ipe out the mem ory of hatred and suffering. This neg-licence and forgetfulness of the past might also be an heritage ofOttom an rule, particularly between 184 0 and 186 0 . A peace treatybetween Druzes and Maronites after the civil war in 1860 basedexpressedly on the 'oblivion of the past'. The Ottoman phrasema ma rimed ('let the bygones be bygones') was enforced by theOttom an authorities in the peace protocol after the clashes of 1845

3 Sam ir Khalaf, 'Urban D esign and the Recovery o f B eirut', in:Recov-ering Beirut, eds. Samir Khalaf and Philip S. Khoury, Leiden: Brill,42.

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in the Mountain. 31 The suppressing of the Ottoman past in theLebanese public might be in this sense another con8ociationalistventure in order to equalize the balance sheets of loss and suffer-ing the precondition for cross-communitarian co-existence.

Engin Akarh rightly says in his important work The LongPeace: Ottoman Lebanon 1861-1920 that the confessionalist sys-tem was a success in its time. But the long-term Ottoman contri-bution to the Lebanese identity seems am biguous: on the one handthe Ottomans contributed to the institutionalizing of conscocia-tionalism (a heritage also ambiguous in itself) but for the price ofrepressing the past. In this sense the Lebanese will have to facetheir suppressed Ottoman past to be able to do away with it fi-nally.

5. Placebo multiculturalism and toxic mill tism

In Lebanon, both proposed solutions, a comprehensive laicism ora purged and salubrious confessionalism, might be consistent

with multiculturalism, but the second concept seems at the firstglance closer to multicultural demands. While the dignity of theindividual would not be violated, the religious group and its sig-nificance for the cultural identity of Lebanon are acknowledged.In the United States, however, often thought to have come closeto a m ulticultural society, the state p rotects the individual and notseparate ethnic or religious groups. By virtue of this protection ofthe individual, the declaration of belief in a religion or belongingto an ethnic group is also protected, although this in itself is notthe object of protection.

31By the way, this maiii-mii-matc7phrase was heavily rejected by theMaronites as they saw their hopes for indemnities to be paid by theDruze or the Ottomans being damaged.

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We would, however, bet that to start a debate on multicultur-alism, let alone on the millet system, in Lebanon without drawing

on the country's real historical heritage, would open Pandora'sbox rather than free Aladin's genie. Lebanon has painfully expe-rienced how seemingly neutral concepts become imbued withsignificance in the sectarian struggle for power, and unfortu-nately millet system' and 'multiculturalism' are ideal terms withwhich the old games could be continued. A look back into itshistory might be helpful for Lebanon. Yet, it seems that althoughthe historical experience of the millet system and the discussion

of multiculturalism might generally enrich political debate, inLebanon's case at least, it might be easier to solve the funda-m ental political problems w ithout them.

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Documents

Ottoman Multiculturalism