Inside the Lebanese Confessional Mind.

This dry monograph employs survey research and the behavioral methodology of quantitative political science to address the issue of Lebanon's viability. Is a modicum of trans-sectarian political cooperation in a unitary Lebanon now possible? Is there any chance that Lebanon can be reconstructed? To these questions, the author responds with a resounding negative. In his opinion, any reference to a Lebanese "people" would be "injudicious." The Lebanese have always had "little, or nothing, in common to warrant the establishment and maintenance of a viable state". Professor Khashan quotes approvingly the observation of a British tourist in Lebanon in the early 1940s: "I haven't yet come across one spark of national feeling: [Lebanon] is all sects and hatreds and religions". The author's conclusions will probably disappoint neither the Annenberg Research Institute (Bernard Lewis, Director) where he held a research fellowship while composing this volume nor Dr. Daniel Pipes of the Foreign Policy Research Institute whom he thanks for reading a first draft of the manuscript.

Much of what Hilal Khashan, an Associate Professor of Political Studies and Public Administration at the American University of Beirut, reports is hardly news. That Maronites detest Palestinians and have traditionally rejected political or cultural ties with the Arab World, that Sunnis have long been the strongest supporters in Lebanon of Arab nationalism, or that Lebanese Christians and Druze are more likely than other sects to favor normalization of relations with Israel will surprise no one. His many pages of regression and factor analysis re-document much of what Professors Halim Barakat, Nafat Nasr and Monte Palmer demonstrated about Lebanese particularism almost two decades ago. Certainly, this book constitutes at best a cloudy crystal ball: Since the time when data were collected in 1988 and early 1989, a functioning Lebanese national government has been recreated, most Lebanese militias disarmed, and the most acute sectarian tensions defused. One important reason for this book's apparent misprognoses may be that significant portions of its data are open to interpretations quite different from those advanced by the author.

Professor Khashan and a team of 15 assistants interviewed 2,300 students from all six Lebanese universities. Students were selected in proportion to their sects' estimated percentage of the total Lebanese population. All interviews were conducted on a basis of confidentiality by individuals from the same religious community as the respondents. Data provide a snapshot of the religiosity, social class, professional objectives and "democratic" orientation of interviewees, as well as group solidarity, intergroup perceptions and sectarianism and secularism. An especially useful table on "perceived self-identity" reveals the different understandings Lebanese have of their country's origins and their relationship to both the nation and the past. This is the most comprehensive survey of public opinion conducted in Lebanon to date, and will provide ample grist for debate concerning implications for the future of the views of a part of the Lebanese elite during the final and perhaps most bitter stage of Lebanon's civil war.

Most interesting in this volume--and perhaps at least modestly encouraging for those who wish a brighter future for all Lebanese--is what Professor Khashan reports about the attitudes of almost all Lebanese toward Syria, and the democratic, tolerant, pluralist and secularist inclinations of the Shi'i community in Lebanon. Unfortunately, the author either falls to recognize the implications of his data on these topics or arrives at categorically negative conclusions which the data do not support. Given the effort which Professor Khashan obviously devoted to this book, it is regrettable that he apparently did not benefit from the sort of objective criticism before publication which might have corrected its shortcomings.

The author reports that it is "surprising," even "stunning," that Lebanese students of all sects reject any "special, all-encompassing tie with Syria." Indeed, students "oppose the very thought of [a] special [relationship] with Syria". Professor Khashan attributes this unanimity both to Syrian heavy-handedness in dealing with Lebanese civilians and to a Lebanese conviction that continued forced economic subsidization of Syria by Lebanon will preclude any recovery of the Lebanese economic and financial systems. Given such readily comprehensible explanations, why should anyone be surprised by the Lebanese consensus? Does not this consensus point to the limits of political ideology in Lebanon? Does it not also suggest a common understanding of recent Lebanese history, and a shared sense of occupation, repression and exploitation? Finally, does it not provide some basis upon which Lebanese of all sects may begin to cooperate to build a new Lebanon? The Lebanese consensus which Professor Khashan identifies surely offers some reason to view Lebanon's future with greater optimism than does the author.

Another and more important reason to do so is the outlook of Lebanese Shi'is which he describes in detail. Now a substantial plurality of the Lebanese population, Lebanese Shi'is, Professor Khashan reports, manifest the highest democratic orientation of any sect in Lebanon. More than 43% of Lebanese Shi'is are "highly" committed to democracy as against 36.9 percent of Protestants, their closest competitors. In their openness to political compromise, Shi'is are second only to Protestants among Lebanese communities. Shi'is (and Sunnis), the author observes, perceive "no conflict between Islam and Christianity". Indeed, a Shi'i penchant for toleration is reflected in an admonition by Musa al-Sadr to his co-religionists which Khashan quotes: "The Christian is your partner in this land--love him so that he will love you, and help him so that he will help you". Acceptance of pluralism by many Lebanese Shi'is is suggested by the fact that 38 percent (the highest of any sect) state that their best friend is not a member of their own religious community, and that they are willing to support other sects against their own when their co-religionists appear to be aggressors. Secularism too is apparent among a significant percentage of Shi'is: 72.6 percent say that Lebanon should become a secular state (as against 21.4% of Maronites, 17.8% of Druze and 16.5% of Sunnis), and 30 percent endorse civil marriage in Lebanon. Given the fact that demographic trends indicate that Shi'is will constitute an ever larger percentage of Lebanon's population, are not such data cause for rejoicing rather than despair? Do they not argue for conclusions strikingly different from those offered by the author?

This book is marred by an unconscionable number of misspellings, malapropisms and inconsistencies in footnote citation. Examples: "board" should be "broad"; "as have come" should read "as having come"; "parturition" appears in a totally indecipherable sentence; and the final item in footnote 5, page 3 lacks complete bibliographical detail.

Professor Khashan's study is worthy of attention for the statistics it contains. Otherwise, neither its interpretations nor its prose recommend it.

Antony T. Sullivan, Center for Middle Eastern and Northern African Studies, The University of Michigan.