Building Bridges: Michel Chiha and the Construction of Modern Lebanon

Abstract

For almost three decades, the banker, journalist—and occasional poet—Michel Chiha (1891-1951) constructed, through the pages of his newspaper, Le Jour, a possibilist approach to Lebanese nationhood that was directly influential in the configuration of the National Pact and, ultimately, Lebanese independence. However, and despite the prominent role his thought played in the construction of the ‘Lebanese formula’, his work has been sorely overseen and misunderstood by scholarship. Analyzing Chiha’s editorial production, this paper will underline how this author’s cosmopolitan philosophy came to define the Lebanese self-perceptions of identity, defining constitutional practices until the present.