Demographic Structures in Mount Lebanon (1250-1850): Transformations and Implications

This paper challenges the view that Mount Lebanon was a refuge for minorities, since that view today raises questions about the causes of the population variables in Mount Lebanon: are they voluntary or the result of religious practices that have appeared as alternatives to the failure of political and social relations between the governing authorities and the religious groups on one hand, and the groups between themselves on the other? These variables were unable to form a social cohesion providing a minimal level of social justice and the conditions for co-existence. The past of Mount Lebanon does not make for an optimistic future, particularly as religious and sectarian affiliations of groups in Mount Lebanon that took the Mountain as home are still ruled by their religious creeds. For this reason, the practices undertaken by the political authorities are not separate from their ideological environment which aimed to punish those groups for their political errors.

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This paper challenges the view that Mount Lebanon was a refuge for minorities, since that view today raises questions about the causes of the population variables in Mount Lebanon: are they voluntary or the result of religious practices that have appeared as alternatives to the failure of political and social relations between the governing authorities and the religious groups on one hand, and the groups between themselves on the other? These variables were unable to form a social cohesion providing a minimal level of social justice and the conditions for co-existence. The past of Mount Lebanon does not make for an optimistic future, particularly as religious and sectarian affiliations of groups in Mount Lebanon that took the Mountain as home are still ruled by their religious creeds. For this reason, the practices undertaken by the political authorities are not separate from their ideological environment which aimed to punish those groups for their political errors.

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