Commemorating Malikiyya: Political Myth, Multi-ethnic Identity and the Making of the Lebanese Army

Army officers in this period later recalled that the officer corps was torn by the partisan quarrels that characterized Lebanese politics and society in the early years of independence. Particularly divisive was the heated debate between two Maronite-led factions: Bechara al-Khufi's "Constitutional Bloc," which advocated a compromise with the Muslim communities within Lebanon and agreed to some measure of cooperation and solidarity with the neighboring Arab states, and Emile Edd's "National Bloc," which favored a smaller "Christian Lebanon" that would continue to rely on Western powers -- i.e. France. Antoun Saad, later head of army intelligence (the Deuxime Bureau), recalls that the Lebanese officers intensely debated political issues since "they, in spite of their discipline and despite the fact that they are soldiers, are sons of Lebanese families who are divided and belong to this or that side." Occasionally, he adds, things came close to violence, and the army commander in chief, General Fuad Chehab, had to intervene in order to stop the officers from attacking one another.(12) Another officer, Shawqi Kheirallah, recalls a debate that split the cadets of the first Lebanese officer course in the era of independence when they were asked to find a name for their course (according to the custom, the cadets in each officer course chose its name and announced it during their graduation ceremony). While the "Isolationists," i.e. supporters of Edd and the French Mandate, insisted that their course be named after Bashir II, Emir of Mount Lebanon (1788-1840), he and other supporters of the "Constitutional Bloc" and Lebanon's independence preferred Emir Fakher al-Din II (1590-1635) who, unlike the former ruler, had managed to expand the borders of his emirate nearly to Lebanon's present borders. Kheirallah, whose memoirs criticize the army harshly but still suggest that the years he served there were the best of his life, does not specify which of these two contesting groups gained the upper hand at the end of the day; but according to the army bulletin al-Jaysh (The army), which later published the names of all officer courses in the army's history, the name that was finally chosen was one that could bring together all Lebanese cadets: "Filastin" (Palestine).(13)
More evidence of the preserving role of the myth of the battle of Malikiyya can be found in the names of the articles dealing with this episode and the messages they conveyed, which, in fact, served to place the memoirs, maps and photographs that they presented in context. One army veteran, whose memoirs appeared in its bulletin in 1980, was quoted as saying: "In 1948 the Lebanese army captured al-Malikiyya and in 1980 [i.e. during the first attempt to reconstruct the army] it captured the hearts of all Lebanese";(47) an article published a year later was titled, "The Battle of Malikiyya is a Glorious Page in the History of the Army";(48) a third article, which appeared in the Lebanese weekly al-Afkar on the eve of Israel's 1982 invasion, was titled, "The Resurrection of the Army Depends on Another Battle of Malikiyya" (it opened with the claim that General Fuad Chehab had gone to the presidency from this battle).(49) In July 1998, during the third attempt to reconstruct the army, another article on the battle appeared in the army bulletin al-Jaysh: "Forgotten Braveries in the Battle of Malikiyya."(50) The rhetoric of rescuing the battle of Malikiyya from oblivion only serves, however, to underline the continued, albeit not always successful, effort to commemorate it.