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• 1. educated | August 29th, 2007 at 2:02 am

  this is a great analysis by a French nonetheless:

  Preliminary research into the social composition of the FPM and the Lebanese Forces also suggests that class is a defining difference between the groupings in the Christian camp, adding a dynamic to their frequent clashes. The French geographer and anthropologist Beltram Dumontier, who has conducted fieldwork in the Beirut suburb of ‘Ayn al-Rummana, describes the two groups this way: “Youths who do not pursue a university education will often be either unemployed or doing menial jobs. So their social networks, as well as their financial situation, are conducive to making hanging out in the streets of their quarters their main pastime and mode of socializing. And so they get involved in a very male subculture of street life, prone to violence, centered on the idea of ‘defending the quarter,’ and this is how the foot soldiers of the Lebanese Forces are recruited. On the contrary, those who do advance in the educational system spend most of their time away from the neighborhood. Their environment of political socialization is the university, where they meet people from other areas or communities on an equal footing, and where political action will tend to be around more complex issues. I have encountered more than one family where one brother was with the Aounists and the other with the Lebanese Forces, and always the political preference corresponded to education.”

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