Lebanon - Annotated Bibliography Example

Within the context of the stated, allegiance to Lebanon is subsumed by family and blood and this is the real source of the country's division and problems. Cerulo examines the phenomenon of identity in this article. As he explains, each and every individual has multiple identities. Amongst these are primordial identity, optionalist identity and collectivist identities. A person is identified in terms of his family, his social class, his educational status, his religion, his ethnicities and his nationality, to name but a handful.

None of these identities cross out or negate the other but, instead, supposedly co-exist. The real question is which of these identities dominates as the dominant identity is usually that which directs behaviour and actions. Cerulo believes that the dominant identity is a negotiated identity, one that has been constructed on the based of all the identities particular to the individual. Farour, a political sociologist, argues that Lebanon's youth are confronting an identity crisis. Not only do they have to contend with the multiple identities which are thrust upon them by the very fact that they happened to be born in a country in which familial and ethnic identities dominate over others but with the East versus West tension.

They are expected to be Easterners, Arabs whose identity is defined in traditional Arab-centric cultural terms. Yet, due to their unprecedented exposure to the outside world and to Western culture, they are unable to unquestioningly accept the traditional Arab/Eastern identity. They are trapped between Eastern and Western identities and are a product of the interaction between the two. Faour believes that the country's youth is engaged in the negotiation of an identity which would draw the East and the West together.Salibi, K. (1988) A house of many mansions: The history of Lebanon reconsidered.

Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.Salibi engages in a historical investigation of the roots of Lebanon's identity problem. As he presents it, over the past centuries Lebanon was exposed to numerous cultures, each and every one of which attempted to impose itself on the country. The Arabs tried to Arabize Lebanon, the Ottomans tried to Ottomize and the French to Frenchify it to name but a few examples. Throughout its history, Lebanon has moved from one identity to the other.

The ultimate outcome was that the country was not given the opportunity to develop its own national identity, culminating in division between multiple identities. This, according to Salibi, is Lebanon's