Arabs (44 page)

The Administrative Council of Mount Lebanon was quick to protest the Syrian Congress’s declaration and insisted that Faysal’s government had no right “to speak on behalf of Lebanon, to set its frontiers, to limit its independence and to forbid it to call for the collaboration of France.”
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Yet political leaders in Mount Lebanon were growing increasingly concerned over France’s intentions. In April 1920, Britain and France confirmed the final distribution of the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire at the San Remo conference. Lebanon and Syria were awarded to France, and Palestine and Iraq passed to British rule. Though many in the Maronite community had sought French technical assistance and political support, they somehow expected France to act out of altruism rather than imperial self-interest. As France began to prepare for its mandate over Lebanon, its military administrators started to impose their policies on the Administrative Council in Mount Lebanon. In turn, politicians in Mount Lebanon began to question the wisdom of seeking French assistance in state-building.

In July 1920, seven of the Administrative Council’s eleven members made a spectacular U-turn and sought an accommodation with King Faysal’s administration in Damascus. They drafted a memorandum calling for joint action between Syria and Lebanon to achieve complete independence for both countries, and a negotiated resolution of territorial and economic differences between the two sides. The dissident Lebanese councilors called for the formation of a Syro-Lebanese delegation to present their claims to the European powers still gathered in Paris. However, when the French got wind of the initiative they arrested the seven councilors on their way to Damascus.

The arrest of some of Lebanon’s most respected politicians sent shock waves throughout the region. Bishara al-Khoury (1890–1964) was a young Maronite lawyer who had worked closely with the French military administrators in Lebanon (he would later become independent Lebanon’s first president). Late in the night of July 10, 1920, the French high commissioner, General Henri Gouraud, asked al-Khoury to come to his residence to discuss an urgent matter. Al-Khoury found Gouraud among his officers, pacing anxiously. The high commissioner informed al-Khoury that the French had just arrested the seven dissident councilors.

“They were traitors who were trying to unite with Amir Faysal and append Lebanon to Syria,” Gouraud explained. “The Administrative Council has been dissolved.”

Al-Khoury was stunned. “On what basis did you undertake this violent act?”

Gouraud replied that they were found with a memorandum setting out their objectives. “You are a Lebanese before all else,” the Frenchman said to Khoury. “Do you agree with their actions?”

Al-Khoury, who had not been shown the text of the councilors’ memorandum, responded cautiously: “I agree with all who seek independence, though I would not turn to anyone from outside Lebanon.” “We are agreed,” replied one of the French officers. Gouraud informed al-Khoury that the seven councilors would be brought before a military tribunal for their crimes.

The trial of the dissident councilors alienated some of France’s strongest advocates in Lebanon. As a trained lawyer, al-Khoury was appalled that such an important trial could be concluded in just two days, and he described the proceedings taking place “in a climate of terrorism.” He was offended when Lebanese witnesses were forced to declare “their love of France” as part of their testimony. The defendants were fined, forbidden to work in Lebanon, and exiled to Corsica. Worse yet, when al-Khoury finally got to read the text of the councilors’ memorandum, he found himself in sympathy with most of their objectives.
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The French were seriously undermining their support base in Lebanon by these high-handed actions.

Nevertheless, French plans for the new Lebanese state proceeded apace. On August 31, 1920, the frontiers of Mount Lebanon were extended to the natural boundaries sought by Lebanese nationalists, and the “independent” state of Greater Lebanon was established the following day under French assistance. Yet the more France assisted, the less independence Lebanon enjoyed. The defunct Administrative Council was replaced by an Administrative Commission, headed by a French governor who answered directly to High Commissioner Gouraud.

By imposing a new administrative structure on Lebanon, France began to shape the political culture of the new state in line with its own views of Lebanese society. The French saw Lebanon as a volatile mix of communities rather than as a distinct national community, and they shaped the political institutions of the country accordingly. Positions within the new Administrative Commission were allocated by religious community in keeping with a system known as confessionalism. This meant that political office was distributed among the different Lebanese religious communities (or
confessions,
in French), ideally in proportion to their demographic weight. Given its long history as patron of Lebanon’s Catholics, France was determined to ensure that Lebanon would be a Christian state.

The challenge for France was to expand Lebanon’s boundaries without making the Christians a minority in their own country. Although Christians represented 76 percent of the population of Mount Lebanon, they were a distinct minority in the newly annexed coastal cities and the eastern territories in the Bekaa and Anti-Lebanon Mountains. The proportion of Christians in Greater Lebanon was thus only 58 percent of the total population and, given differences in fertility rates, declining.
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Ignoring
the new demographic realities of Lebanon’s population, the French favored their Christian clients and gave them disproportionate representation in the governing Administrative Commission: ten Christians to four Sunni Muslims, two Shiite Muslims, and one Druze representative.

Though the French experts believed this archaic system of government best fit the political culture of the country, many Lebanese intellectuals were increasingly uncomfortable with confessionalism and aspired to a national identity. In the newspaper
Le Réveil
, one journalist wrote: “Do we wish to become a nation in the real and whole sense of the word? Or to conserve ourselves as a laughable mix of communities, always separate from each other like hostile tribes? We must furnish our selves a unique unifying symbol: a nationality. That flower can never thrive in the shadow of steeples and minarets, but only under a flag.”
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Yet the first flag that the French allowed independent Lebanon was the French Tricolour with a cedar tree at the center. France was beginning to show its true colors in Lebanon.

In March 1922, Gouraud announced that the Administrative Commission would be dissolved and replaced by an elected Representative Council. The measure angered Lebanese politicians both because the French had acted unilaterally and because the new elected assembly would have even fewer responsibilities than the former Administrative Commission. Far from being an elected legislature, the Representative Council was barred from discussing political matters and was to meet in session for only three months of the year. The decree gave legislative power to the French high commissioner, who could adjourn or dissolve the Representative Council at will. Even France’s most ardent Lebanese supporters were outraged. “This decree of enslavement now gives [France] the image of a conquering power casting treaty and friendship beneath the boot of its victorious soldiers,” wrote one disillusioned Francophile émigré.
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Undeterred by the growing Lebanese opposition to their rule, the French proceeded with elections for the Representative Council. They spared no effort to ensure that their supporters were elected and that their opponents were excluded.

Muhammad Jamil Bayhum, the Beirut delegate to the 1919 Syrian Congress, had opposed the mandate in principle and was outspoken in his criticism of French administrative measures in Lebanon. Though he had never considered running for office, close friends persuaded him to join an opposition slate. Bayhum met with the French administrator responsible for organizing the elections to see if the authorities would object to his candidacy. The official, Monsieur Gauthier, assured him that the elections would be free and that the French authorities would not intervene in the process at all. Encouraged by Gauthier’s response, Bayhum announced his candidacy on a strong nationalist slate, which quickly rose to the top of the polls.

Despite Gauthier’s assurances, it was soon clear that France had every intention of intervening in the electoral process. Once the French came to appreciate the electoral
appeal of the nationalist list, they worked to undermine its candidates. Within weeks of their first meeting, Gauthier called Bayhum to his office and asked him to withdraw his candidacy, on “an order from the highest authority.” Bayhum was outraged, having spent an intense month on the campaign trail. Gauthier was direct: “We will oppose you in the elections, and if you are elected we will expel you from the Council by force.” When Bayhum refused to back down, he found himself in court facing charges of electoral fraud. During the court hearing, the judge called Gauthier himself as a witness.

“My good sir, do you not have many complaints against Monsieur Bayhum confirming that he bribed the secondary electors to buy their votes?” the judge asked.

“Indeed, indeed,” replied Gauthier.

The judge turned to Bayhum and said, “I have an enormous file [on you].” He pointed to a folder. “It is overflowing with complaints against you for buying votes, which is something the law forbids.”

Bayhum argued his case to no avail. The charges of electoral fraud were left hanging over Bayhum to pressure him to withdraw his candidacy for the council.

After his hearing, Bayhum retired to discuss strategy with the other members of the nationalist list. One of his friends was Gauthier’s personal physician, and the doctor offered to call upon the French administrator to try to persuade him to drop the charges against Bayhum. The doctor returned from his interview laughing, much to the surprise of Bayhum and his friends. Gauthier had dismissed the doctor’s efforts to speak on Bayhum’s behalf, replying: ‘You, my friend, have no experience in politics. I would say that it is Monsieur Bayhum himself who has obliged us to keep him out of the Assembly. What we want is this: if we place a glass on a window sill it will stay in its place, and not budge a hair’s breadth.”

The doctor understood Gauthier’s message all too well: the French would tolerate no challenge to the institutions they put in place. Someone like Bayhum threatened to knock the “glass” of French colonial rule right off the Lebanese window sill. Bayhum recalled: “We all laughed with the doctor at this ridiculous policy, imposed on our country by the mandatory power. This was the same country that had promised to help us attain our independence.” Bayhum withdrew his candidacy and chose not to stand for the council at all.
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The elections confirmed France’s intention to rule Lebanon as a colony rather than assist it in achieving independence. These measures convinced some of France’s strongest supporters to join the growing ranks of Lebanese nationalists struggling against French rule. It was an ominous beginning for the French Empire in the Middle East in the interwar years. If France couldn’t make things work in Lebanon, how would it manage in its other Arab territories?

W
hile the French faced electoral battles in Lebanon, colonial administrators in Morocco were confronted with a major armed uprising that targeted both Spanish and French rule. Between 1921 and 1926, the Rif War posed the greatest challenge yet to European colonialism in the Arab world.

France was given the green light by the European powers to add Morocco to its North African possessions in 1912. The Moroccan sultan, Moulay Abd al-Hafiz (r. 1907–1912), signed the Treaty of Fez in March 1912, preserving his family’s rule in Morocco but conceding most of his country’s sovereignty to France under a colonial arrangement known as a protectorate. In principle this meant that France would protect the government of Morocco from outside threats, though in practice France ruled absolutely, if indirectly, through the sultan and his ministers.

The first thing the French failed to protect was Morocco’s territorial integrity. Spain had imperial interests in Morocco dating back to the sixteenth century, its coastal fortresses having long since evolved into colonial enclaves (Ceuta and Melilla remain under Spanish rule to the present day, fossils of an extinct empire). France had to negotiate a treaty with Spain setting out their respective “rights” in Morocco, a process concluded in November 1912 with the signing of the Treaty of Madrid. Under the terms of the treaty, Spain claimed a protectorate over the northern and southern extremities of Morocco. The northern zone comprised some 20,000 square kilometers (8,000 square miles) of the Atlantic and Mediterranean coastline and hinterlands, and the southern zone covered 23,000 square kilometers (9,200 square miles) of desert that came to be known as Spanish Sahara or Western Sahara. In addition, the port city of Tangier in the Strait of Gibraltar was placed under international control. After 1912 the Moroccan sultan ruled a very truncated state.