Khashan, a professor at the American University of Beirut, has produced a stunningly original study on the political attitudes of Lebanese. Deploying fifteen interviewers and a questionnaire containing 135 items, he ascertained the views of 2,300 college students, mostly Beirut-based, in late 1988 and early 1989. (The exigencies of war precluded a more representative sample.) Khashan asked about such matters as socio-economic status, the religion of one's best friend, views on ties to the Arab world, and the desirability of changing Lebanon's political system.
1980
Here and there, he turned up surprising results. Only 30 percent of the respondents favor "special" diplomatic ties with Syria - an extraordinary repudiation of the Asad regime's heavy-handed presence in Lebanon. Despite the renowned cohesion of their community, Maronite students show distinctly less group loyalty than Sunni or Shi'i Lebanese.
These points aside, the bulk of his research confirms one's unhappy expectations about sectarianism in Lebanese life. On virtually every issue, student views divide along ethnic/religious lines. Take the matter of Palestinians living in Lebanon. Eighty-one percent of Sunnis want them to become Lebanese citizens; the exact same number of Maronites want the Palestinians deported; and 74 percent of the Greek Orthodox want them to remain in their current refugee status. Khashan concludes his study sounding sirens for the dire straits of Lebanese communal relations, suggesting that the country's welfare depends on destroying the confessional mind.
Nov. 2, 2012 update: As shown by a critique today in al-Akhbar of Khashan, this little book review lives on almost twenty years later.
