Clericist Catholic Authors and the Crystallization of Historical Memory of WW1 in Lebanonist-Particularist Discourse, 1918-1922

Abstract

For those clerical Lebanese writers bound to the West by French and Latin, the slaughter of World War I showed that both pro-Catholic and secularist ideologies had failed to maintain peace and prosperity in Europe. The clericists felt they were tied to the fate of the European states the secularism of which they hated by binding themselves aesthetically to the Latin languages. They also felt the need of a protector against some Muslims after Turkish hostility in Mount Lebanon destroyed the old ideology of Ottoman multisectarian developmental tendency.