Page 111 - Necmettin Erbakan University Press

TAI’FAH OR NATION? A POLICITAL HISTORY

SOCIAL OF THE LEBANSE MARONITE COMMUNITY

Editor : Borja W. Gonzalez Fernandez
Page : 638

Measurement : 16X24 cm
Year : 2020
Category : Social
ISBN : 978-605-70069-3-6
DOI : 10.51144/neupress.2023.97

Going beyond the scripturalistic and even archaeological penchant so ubiquitous in Oriental Christian Studies, this book’s
focus on the present will try to dispel the dominant historiographical account that portrays the Maronite community as the
hegemon in pre-war Lebanon to underline, on the contrary, how the community participated, on an equal footing with
the other major Lebanese tawa’if, in the game of “corporate federalism”, in the consociational arrangement that
characterized what Michel Chiha defined as the country of “associated confessional minorities”. In fact, it will be argued
that the bitter internal rivalries plaguing Maronite leadership, in both clerical and lay circles, throughout our study period –
and beyond, as witnessed by the only recently overcome conflict between General Caun and Samir Geagea – prevented
the community from taking full advantage of the constitutional prerogatives formally attributed to its main representative in
the political game, the President of the Republic. Forced to compromise, the Maronite community participated, as will be
explained below, in the development of an unwritten constitutional tradition that, breaking away from the rigid legal
positivism enshrined by Kelsen and his followers, consecrated a power-sharing decision-making system which, under the
catchy name of National Pact, severely curtailed presidential authority and established a double-veto arrangement at the
helm of the State.
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