Lebanon's history awaits its textbook

Recently, I saw four boys sitting at lunch near Bliss Street. They were talking about politics and student elections before moving to a conversation about civil war. Though only about 20 years of age, they discussed violence with a sense of normalcy, their debate echoing confessional odium and distrust. 

The boys represented a sample of Le-banon’s younger generation, one with no collective memory of the 15-year Civil War. That’s because Lebanon’s modern history is buried in a locked book with the key nowhere to be found. But how can we build a common future when our youths ignore their past? How can we achieve reconciliation and civil peace when the history we know remains exclusive and when facts serve ideology, not truth? 

Under the 1989 Taif Accord ending the Civil War, Lebanon was supposed to unify its history text books and civics curriculums. Yet two decades later the state still gives schools the freedom to choose their own history books. These do not deal with post-1950 history and each presents a different perspective of historical events. For instance, some books demonize the French Mandate while others do the contrary. Schools usually select their text book in line with their religious and political affiliation. 

There have been many new calls in recent years for the adoption of a common history book. In 1997, a committee was formed to institute a unified history book and program. This went nowhere. The main argument used to explain the absence of a common history book is the fact that communal differences have still not been resolved and that there is no consensus between Lebanon’s religious communities over interpreting their past. Simply put, the Lebanese cannot agree on one story. 

We need to change our approach in writing a common history book. However, seeking to impose a shared reading of history and using the conventional method of imposing a single interpretation of events that would represent “The Truth” is unrealistic in the Lebanese context. Each of the different communities in Lebanon is attached to its own culture, memory and martyrs. Political parties have their own reading of history. Why look for one story in a country whose history has been crafted by the stories of different cultures and communities? Wouldn’t that represent a negation of Lebanon’s pluralistic identity? 

What we can do, however, is work on a non-political, non-ideological book compiling a chronology of facts, figures and events: “Get your facts first and then you can distort them as much as you please,” Mark Twain once wrote. The facts, their cause, and their consequences could then be described using evidence and sources from the different communities or groups involved in any given episode. Such a history book would use a comparative approach, placing one view of an event next to others. The presentation of different narratives of events would shed light on similarities, differences, and contradictions left for student analysis and discussion. 

Students would then be able to engage in a constructive learning process, distancing themselves from ideologies and emotions and building an independent sense of criticism toward what happened. The multiple perspectives ensuing would enable students to enrich their grasp of reality and encourage them to respect diversity and understand the distortions and stereotypes they were previously encouraged to adopt. 

This approach in teaching history has been used in some European countries. One example is the Southeast European Joint History Project. A group of historians and researchers from the Balkans sought to encourage intercultural understanding to do away with widespread stereotypes and nationalist-ethnocentric historical interpretations. They produced four history books introducing material and perspectives from the 11 countries of the region. In April 2009, the European Parliament adopted a resolution on “stability and prosperity in the Western Bal-kans” calling for the relevant educational authorities to adopt the books of the project. Greece has authorized the use of these books in its secondary schools.

The “how” is as important as the “what” when teaching history. As Robert Stradling has written in his book “Multiperspectivity in History Teaching: A Guide for Teachers: “The extent to which these various problems can be resolved, particularly the potential learning difficulties associated with multiperspectivity, will depend on the teachers’ overall approach to history and on how they prepare the students.” 

History teachers should be trained in how to handle the multiperspective historical approach, manage sensitive topics, provide valuable reading sources like press articles and clippings offering the different perspectives, engage students in debates, and promote critical inquiry. 

Using multiple perspectives in history can be a complex task. The methodology used to select the events, number of perspectives and sources without crowding a Lebanese national history text book would require a lengthy article on its own. Yet in a country like Lebanon, seeking truth is a dynamic process of continuing dialogue, of communities opening up to each other and sharing their stories. 

Multiperspectivity in the teaching of history is the right approach to start building a collective memory, whereby our children can read the different stories, turn the page, but without forgetting the contents of the chapter. 

 

Dalal Mawad is a Lebanese freelance journalist. She has published articles in The Palestine Chronicle, Now Lebanon and L’Orient-Le Jour, and is youth coordinator and executive board member of the Green Party of Lebanon. She wrote this commentary for THE DAILY STAR.