Past weekend marked the 42nd anniversary of the assassination of Lebanese Druze leader and leftist icon Kamal Junblat, who was murdered on March 16 1977. On this occasion I came across two pieces worth checking out: A nice article by Chris Solomon on Syria Comment and an episode of the Lebanese Politics Podcast (which is generally worth listening).
Both, the article and the podcast, shine light on some aspects of the legacy of Walid Junblat's father. Kamal Junblat was not just a leader of the Lebanese Druze, rather his political stature can be compared to late PM Rafiq Hariri's in the 90's, as Nizar Hassan argues in the podcast. Junblat was an extremely complex and also contradictory historical figure who was described with diverse attributes such as socialist leader, intellectual, feudal lord, Arab nationalist and even Francophile - all at the same time.
Second, Junblat was not only a politician with progressive aspirations who aimed to secularize Lebanon's political system, he also played a role in reforming the doctrine of the Druze religion. While not being supportive of "unauthorized" publications of secret Druze religious texts, he contributed to religious reform himself by discovering lost scriptures of the Druze canon. One text even provided a link between the Druze doctrine and Indian philosophy (Junblat was a known yogi himself). However, recent research claims that these scriptures are at least partly falsifications by Kamal Junblat himself or his surrounding. A delicate matter.
To cut a long story short, 42 years after his death Kamal Junblat and his legacy remain contradictory and controversial as ever and therefore a worthy subject for writers and scholars.
 |
Chart featured in the rather commendatory Kamal Junblat exhibition at Beiteddine palace
|
I just feel to add two mere critical aspects:
First, Junblat's staunch rejection of the Maronite domination of the Lebanese state institutions and corresponding his role in the road to civil war. His increasingly radical rhetoric could have been perceived as aimed towards the Maronites as a whole, rather than targeting a political class or clique. This hatred of Maronite domination became especially obvious in his last book I speak for Lebanon and served as a fig leaf to justify Syria's intervention in the civil war. Some accounts, e.g. Theodor Hanf's opus magnum, even claim an individual responsibility of Kamal Junblat for the outbreak of the Lebanese civil war in this regard. Worth reading on that score are also The Druze Community and the Lebanese State: Between Confrontation and Reconciliation by Yusri Hazran and for the German speaking readers Bernadette Schenk's study on Junblat's thought (probably the closest existing work to a scholarly biography of Junblat).
First, Junblat's staunch rejection of the Maronite domination of the Lebanese state institutions and corresponding his role in the road to civil war. His increasingly radical rhetoric could have been perceived as aimed towards the Maronites as a whole, rather than targeting a political class or clique. This hatred of Maronite domination became especially obvious in his last book I speak for Lebanon and served as a fig leaf to justify Syria's intervention in the civil war. Some accounts, e.g. Theodor Hanf's opus magnum, even claim an individual responsibility of Kamal Junblat for the outbreak of the Lebanese civil war in this regard. Worth reading on that score are also The Druze Community and the Lebanese State: Between Confrontation and Reconciliation by Yusri Hazran and for the German speaking readers Bernadette Schenk's study on Junblat's thought (probably the closest existing work to a scholarly biography of Junblat).
To cut a long story short, 42 years after his death Kamal Junblat and his legacy remain contradictory and controversial as ever and therefore a worthy subject for writers and scholars.
Comments
Post a Comment