THE LEBANESE STUDY COMMITTEE: A CHRISTIAN THINK TANK IN WARTIME LEBANON (1975–1982)

Chloe Kattar

doi:10.1017/s0018246x20000400

Abstract

AbstractThis article seeks to shed light on the Lebanese Study Committee, an overlooked centre of intellectual production and political activity during the Lebanese Civil War. It was comprised of legal experts and Maronite monks of the Lebanese Maronite Order, and emerged at the Holy Spirit University of Kaslik in 1975. The committee was created at the initiative of the Catholic clergy in order to endow the Christian war effort with an ‘intellectual pole’ capable of studying recent developments and provide solutions aimed at defending the interests of the Christian society. By making use of hitherto inaccessible primary sources, its internal and external publications, the article elucidates the activities and ideas of the committee, which worked to counteract leftist discourse and propaganda. By paying attention to the context of the Lebanese Study Committee's emergence, the article also brings to light a history of interaction between lay, clerical, state, and para-military institutions. It concludes that its creation is the direct consequence of the grassroots mobilization of conservative agents, which is reminiscent of the ways in which Western conservatism was revived in the same years.

Highlights

This article seeks to shed light on the Lebanese Study Committee, an overlooked centre of intellectual production and political activity during the Lebanese Civil War
The committee was created at the initiative of the Catholic clergy in order to endow the Christian war effort with an ‘intellectual pole’ capable of studying recent developments and provide solutions aimed at defending the interests of the Christian society
By paying attention to the context of the Lebanese Study Committee’s emergence, the article brings to light a history of interaction between lay, clerical, state, and para-military institutions

Summary

CHLOE KATTAR University of Cambridge

By paying attention to the context of the Lebanese Study Committee’s emergence, the article brings to light a history of interaction between lay, clerical, state, and para-military institutions It concludes that its creation is the direct consequence of the grassroots mobilization of conservative agents, which is reminiscent of the ways in which Western conservatism was revived in the same years. THE LEBANESE STUDY COMMITTEE oldest monastic orders in Lebanon, and the most politically committed, and the aim of these meetings was to come up with a concerted answer to the unfolding crisis This was the first of countless meetings between various Christian intellectuals and the OLM monks, which would continue throughout the war, thanks to the strategic location of USEK. By examining the understudied topic of Christian conservatism in the Middle East, this article challenges the historiographical markers usually associated with Arab intellectual history, mostly studied through the cases of Arab nationalism and leftist thought. The same could be said about the Lebanese Right, often associated with concepts such as fascism, sectarianism, and xenophobia

But this is a simplistic

The intellectuals appealed to the honesty of their Muslim