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On: 29 October 2014, At: 05:13
Publisher: Routledge
Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered
office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK
To cite this article: Eyal Zisser (2009) Shiite Lebanon: Transnational Religion and the Making of
National Identities, Middle Eastern Studies, 45:3, 517-523, DOI: 10.1080/00263200902781663
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00263200902781663
Book Reviews
organization in particular, since Iran extended its backing to them, and the struggle
against Hizballahs sworn and bitter enemy, the neighbour to the south Israel.
In the book under review, Roschanack Shaery-Eisenlohr focuses on very dierent
issues, having to do with questions of education and social and political activity, and
alongside all this and deriving from it, questions of religious, communal, and
national identity among the Lebanese Shiites. By means of these questions ShaeryEisenlohr seeks to raise doubts about the validity of several of the fundamental
assumptions lying at the base of most of the studies devoted to the Shiites of
Lebanon. As she says in the rst pages of her book:
In this book I show how certain social, political, and religious activities of
Lebanese Muslim Shiites since the 1960s, though often viewed as promoting socalled sectarianism, are not antagonistic to the discourse of Lebanese
nationalism. Far from posing an opposition to the nation, Shiite activities
have centered on a set of practices and ideologies that seek to break the
hegemony of Christian (mainly Maronite) narratives of Lebanon as a nation, to
place the historically marginalized Shiites in the center of Lebanese national
politics and self-imagining, and to change sectarian power relations, granting
Shiites more prominent positions. These alternative visions of nationhood
portray Shiites as ideal Lebanese competing for political inuence and
representation. In this context, transitional Shiite relations between Iran and
Lebanon have helped articulate a new Shiite-centered Lebanon national
narrative. (p.2)
The author adds:
By asking these questions, I wish to address two main concerns in modern
Middle Eastern Studies in light of the growing importance of religion and of
globalization in the area. First, I intend to contribute to the study of
nationalism in the Middle East. I analyze the nexus of religion and nationalism,
showing how religion is in fact an integral part of national imaginations. Shiite
activism in Lebanon since the 1960s cannot be explained as only instrumentally
motivated by a desire for more access to economic and political resources. It
needs also to be framed as part of the production of a specic nationalism in
which Lebanese Shiites break with the dominant national narrative of
Maronite Lebanon, with which most of them do not identify, and aim to
establish a national narrative dominated by a Lebanese Shiite vision of
morality, themes, and symbolism. (p.3)
There is no doubt that the uniqueness of the book under review, and therefore its
importance and contribution to scholarship, lie rst of all in its being a view from
within.
First, the book oers a view from within insofar as the author herself is concerned.
She tells us that while she was born in Germany and graduated from an American
university, she is the daughter of an Iranian family that lived for a while in Iran. As
such, she is able to identify with and feel part of the Shiite milieu in Lebanon, even
though she is not Lebanese by origin. And to a large extent she was also able to be
under the surface and the motivations at the base of these tendencies are dierent
than they seem at rst glance.
The book proves the importance of eld work, and of addressing issues such as
education and society and questions of identity, for ultimately it is these that
determine the worldview and behaviour of the individual person. Shaery-Eisenloh
writes with an air of great optimism and with the feeling that she has a mission to
defend the Shiites. One might venture to say that this circumstance does not detract
from her book, but rather adds to its value.
In this connection, it is tting to sum up by quoting the authors own words:
A willingness to share power across sectarian lines should be followed by
acknowledging the diversity among Shiites and accepting that there is no
inherent logic that Iran is the center of Shiism and that the Shiites from other
parts of the world coordinate their activities with Iran.
Every appeal for transitional religious solidarity and for postnationalism is
rooted somewhere in a nationalist agenda.
The future power struggles in the Middle East might then not be cast in the
familiar tensions between secularists and Islamists or Sunnis versus Shiites, but
dened in new, unexpected alliances across the lines.
Shaery-Eisenlohrs Shiite Lebanon constitutes an important contribution to
historical research on Lebanon, and along with other studies it will help in piecing
together the extremely complicated Lebanese mosaic puzzle.
Eyal Zisser
2009 Eyal Zisser
The New Turkish Republic. Turkey as a Pivotal State in the Muslim World
Graham E. Fuller
Washington DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, 2008, Pp.180, indices, $14.95,
ISBN 1-6012-7019-4
The New Turkish Republic is the rst book in a series which seeks to introduce
political hacks and policymakers to several pivotal states in the Muslim world. It
discusses the dierent foreign policy strategies which are currently open to Turkey,
and considers the prospects for Turkeys changing relationship with the USA. The
central thesis of the book is that Turkey is now entering into a new period of close
engagement with the Middle East, once again assuming an inuential role in the
region after a long period of self-imposed isolation from its neighbours.
Fullers analysis of Turkeys foreign policy is informed by years spent working
both in Turkey and elsewhere in the Middle East. However, his analysis is not only
shaped by his long experience, but also by the particular nature of his work in the
region. Fuller is an ex-CIA ocer, and has also worked for the RAND Corporation
(a think tank linked to the US armed forces). It is not surprising then that Fuller
presents a picture of Turkish politics as viewed from an emphatically American
perspective. This approach seems tailored to the requirements of Fullers target