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 LEBANON
FACING THE ARAB
UPRISINGS
Constraints and Adaptation

Edited by
Rosita Di Peri and
Daniel Meier
Lebanon Facing The Arab Uprisings
 Rosita Di Peri • Daniel Meier
Editors

Lebanon Facing The

Arab Uprisings
Constraints and Adaptation
Editors
Rosita Di Peri Daniel Meier
University of Turin CNRS (PACTE)
Turin, Italy Grenoble, France

ISBN 978-1-352-00004-7 ISBN 978-1-352-00005-4 (eBook)

DOI 10.1057/978-1-352-00005-4

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016943268

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017

The author(s) has/have asserted their right(s) to be identified as the author(s) of this work
in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of
translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval,
electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now
known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information
in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the pub-
lisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the
material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made.

Cover illustration: Cover pattern © Harvey Loake

Printed on acid-free paper

This Palgrave Pivot imprint is published by Springer Nature

The registered company is Macmillan Publishers Ltd. London
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The editors would like to thank the Italian Society for Middle Eastern
Studies (SeSaMO)—in particular, President Matteo Legrenzi and General
Secretary Paola Rivetti—for enabling us to bring together a group of
researchers on a panel called “Lebanon facing the Arab uprisings: between
internal challenges and external constraints” during its annual confer-
ence held in Venice in January 2015. We are also indebted to the Institut
français du Proche-Orient (IFPO) in Beirut and to Myriam Catusse, the
director of its “Etudes contemporaines” department, for giving us the
opportunity to set up a workshop in Lebanon a few months later thanks to
the European Research Council’s WAFAW (When Authoritarianism Fails
in the Arab World) programme. We were privileged to receive a warm
welcome at the Orient-Institut Beirut (OIB) and would like to convey
our warmest thanks to its director, Stefan Leder. Our gratitude also goes
out to Sarah Roughley and Jennifer Timmins at Palgrave for their patience
and kindness throughout the process. We were fortunate to receive the
support of the University of Turin’s Department of Culture, Politics and
Society, and of the PACTE Laboratoire in Grenoble to fund the outstand-
ing copy-editing carried out by André Crous, and we wish to express our
gratitude to all of them. Warm regards to Anne-Laure Amilhat-Szary, the
EUBORDERSCAPES programme, and the “Understanding the Middle
East” summer school project for funding Daniel Meier’s trips to Venice,
Catania, and Turin in 2015, which led to discussions and eventually this
collaborative project with Rosita Di Peri.
We also want to acknowledge the help of a few individuals in particu-
lar who assisted us at various stages during the preparation of this book.

v
vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks to Nicolas Dot-Pouillard, Elizabeth Longuenesse, and Bruno

Lefort for actively taking part in our workshop in Beirut and helping
us to frame the topic and strengthen our arguments. Thanks to Hélène
Laffont for correcting several drafts and to Khalil Chemayel in Beirut for
his friendly support at the workshop. Last but not least, we are indebted
to all the contributors for their active participation in the project, their
insightful comments and suggestions both during and after the seminars,
and the patience they showed at all times during the review and finalisa-
tion process of their chapters.
 CONTENTS

1 Introduction 1
Rosita Di Peri and Daniel Meier

Part I From Identification to Social (Dis)order 13

2 “Willy-Nilly We Have to Live Side by Side”:

Relationships Between Locals and Newcomers
at the Syria–Lebanon Border 15
Lorenzo Trombetta

3 The Sunni Community in Lebanon: From “Harirism”

to “Sheikhism”? 35
Daniel Meier and Rosita Di Peri

4 Rebordering the Lebanese Shi’i Public Sphere 55

Francesco Mazzucotelli

vii
viii CONTENTS

Part II From (Re)-ordering to Nationhood 71

5 From isqat an-nizam at-ta’ifi to the Garbage

Crisis Movement: Political Identities
and Antisectarian Movements 73
Marie-Noëlle AbiYaghi, Myriam Catusse, and Miriam Younes

6 “The People Want the Army”: Is the Lebanese Military

an Exception to the Crisis of the State? 93
Vincent Geisser

7 Rethinking Lebanese Welfare in Ageing Emergencies 115

Estella Carpi

8 Syria’s Refugees in Lebanon: Brothers, Burden,

and Bone of Contention 135
Are John Knudsen

Index 155
 NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Marie-Noëlle AbiYaghi is a founding member and the head of the research at

Lebanon Support. She is also an associate researcher at the Institut français du
Proche-Orient (IFPO). She specialises in collective action, activists’ engagement
and gender dynamics in social movements. Marie-Noëlle holds a PhD in Political
Science from the Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne.
Estella Carpi received her PhD in Social Anthropology from the University of
Sydney (Australia). She is presently a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the
University College London, and Humanitarian Affairs Advisor at Save the Children
UK. Her research interests lie primarily in humanitarianism, refugee migration,
and politics of aid.
Myriam Catusse is a political scientist and a CNRS research fellow. From 2013 to
2017, she heads from Beirut the department of contemporary studies at the IFPO
(Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Palestine). She is one of the core team members of
the European research Council-funded WAFAW (When Authoritarianism Fails in
the Arab World) programme and the Power2Youth project.
Rosita Di Peri is Lecturer in Political Science and International Relations in the
Department of Culture, Politics and Society at the University of Torino. She published
Lebanon and the Middle East on “Rivista Italiana di Politiche Pubbliche”, “Rivista
Italiana di Scienza Politica”, “Politics Religion and Ideology”, “The British Journal of
Middle Eastern Studies”, “Oriente Moderno” and “Mediterranean Politics”.
Vincent Geisser is a political scientist and research fellow at the CNRS (National
Center for Scientific Research) based at the Institute of Research and Studies on
the Arab and Muslim world (IREMAM). He is core-researcher in the European
Program “WAFAW” managed by François Burgat. He is President of the Center
of Information and Studies on International Migrations (CIEMI, Paris) and editor
of the journal Migrations Société.
ix
x NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Are John Knudsen is Research Director at the Chr. Michelsen Institute (CMI).
Knudsen specialises on peacebuilding, micro-conflict, and forced migration in the
Middle East. His most recent co-edited books are: Palestinian Refugees: Identity,
Space and Place in the Levant (2011), Lebanon: After the Cedar Revolution (2012)
and Popular Protest in the New Middle East: Islamism and Post-Islamist Politics
(2014).
Francesco Mazzucotelli teaches History of Turkey and the Middle East at the
University of Pavia, Italy. He holds a PhD in Political Institutions from the Catholic
University in Milan, and has previously studied at the American University of
Beirut. With a specific reference to the post-Ottoman space, his main lines of
research are the formation of sectarian identities in the public sphere; the relation-
ship between religions, modernity, and post-modernity; and the role of urban
spaces in contemporary politics.
Daniel Meier is a research fellow at CNRS, Grenoble in the EUBORDERSCAPES
Research Programme and teaches at the University of Geneva. He holds a PhD in
Political Sociology from the Graduate Institute for International and Development
Studies (Geneva). His research interest focuses on border and identity issues in the
Middle East. He recently published Shaping Lebanon’s Borderlands. Armed resis-
tance and International intervention in South Lebanon (2016).
Lorenzo Trombetta is a Beirut-based scholar and journalist specialized on con-
temporary history of Syria. He authored two books, focusing mainly on the struc-
ture of the Syrian power during the last decades. He has won the Syrian Studies
Association prize for best article on Syria published between 2014 and 2015.
Miriam Younes is the research coordinator at Lebanon Support. Her research
focuses on modern intellectual history, ideology theory, and notions of commu-
nism, secularism, leftism, and revolution. She is conducting her PhD at the
Department of Society and Globalization at Roskilde University entitled “Living
leftism in Lebanon. A historical anthropology of leftist intellectuals in Lebanon,
1960–1990.”
 LIST OF FIGURES

Fig. 6.1 Official poster glorifying the army’s martyrs 103

Fig. 6.2 Official poster of the LAF: “All for the nation/the soldier” 104
Fig. 6.3 Official poster on the occasion of the 66th anniversary of the
founding of the LAF: “66 thanks are too few” 105
Fig. 6.4 Official poster of the LAF: “In the heart” 105
Fig. 6.5 Manifestation in honor of General Fuad Chehab, Beirut 2013 106
Fig. 8.1 Syria’s displacement crisis: March 2011–March 2015
(48 months) 137

xi
 LIST OF TABLES

Table 2.1 Wadi Khalid, Tall ‘Abbas, and Marj al Khawkh

in comparative perspective 27

xiii
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Rosita Di Peri and Daniel Meier

Abstract This introductory chapter debates the impact of the Arab upris-
ings of 2011 on Lebanese politics and society. The aim is to give a theoret-
ical background to the entire volume showing, at the same time, the paths
of adaptation that Lebanon produces to face the many challenges left by
its regional sectarian and political polarisation. The chapter explores these
paths of resistance and adaptation through the lenses of identification-
building processes, the re-ordering of social and/or political relations, and
the nationhood symbols and meanings.

Keywords Lebanon • Arab uprisings • Identification-building processes

• Re-ordering • Nationhood

At the start of the Arab uprisings, Lebanon was facing a critical politi-
cal situation: In January 2011, the Lebanese government collapsed after
Hizbullah and its allied ministers had made the decision to resign. This act

R. Di Peri ()
Department of Culture, Politics and Society, University of Torino, Torino,
Piedmont, Italy
D. Meier
CNRS-Pacte, Grenoble, France

© The Author(s) 2017 1

R. Di Peri, D. Meier (eds.), Lebanon Facing The Arab Uprisings,
DOI 10.1057/978-1-352-00005-4_1
2 R. DI PERI AND D. MEIER

was the result of tension between the Shi’i Islamic party Hizbullah and the
March 8 coalition on the one hand and the rival March 14 coalition, led
by al-mustaqbal, the Saad Hariri-led Sunni party, on the other. One of the
bones of contention between the two coalitions was the United Nations’
Special Tribunal for Lebanon charged with investigating the 2005 assassi-
nation of the then prime minister Rafic Hariri. The subsequent indictment
of four Hizbullah militants required approval by the state, but the Shi’i
party was ready to do everything in order to preserve its image, including
overturning the government led by the late Hariri’s son Saad. In June
2011, when the Arab uprisings spread across the Middle East and North
Africa, Lebanon formed a new cabinet headed by Sunni politician Najib
Mikati and dominated by Hizbullah. This small country in the Middle
East was facing internal power struggles and seemed oblivious to the
development of regional events.
In early 2011, however, simultaneously with the country’s turbulent
political events, several protests broke out in numerous cities in Lebanon.
The protesters adopted the slogan of the Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings,
“the people want to topple the regime”, but changed it slightly to “the
people want to topple the sectarian regime” (Lebanon Wire 2011). The
protests succeeded in bringing out only a small number of participants.
They lacked strong coordination and consequently failed to have a major
impact, including on the international media (Fakhoury 2011). During
the summer of 2015, after a period of relative calm, the eruption of popu-
lar protests over the halt in garbage collection and of protesters calling
for greater accountability of sectarian leaders echoed the protests in the
region at large and gave a glimpse of the internal damage the Syrian crisis
had caused. Besides the rift between the two main political coalitions, an
even wider crack had opened up within a vivid civil society whose mobil-
isation spread because of a growing distrust of political leadership and
produced a profound crisis in the political system. There were numerous
internal and external hazards, but so far both the system and the society
have managed to adapt.
In the field of social sciences, the 2011 protests in Lebanon (and
Lebanon in general) did not make for “marketable news”. Moreover, in
the post-uprising period, scholars and analysts have increasingly focused
on the regional dimension and attempts to find links and connections
between the events of different countries and tried to understand why
nobody was able to predict such major political changes. The role and
the impact of the domestic dimension and the specific local features were
 INTRODUCTION 3

strongly overlooked. The spasmodic need to find common explanations

of the paths and trajectories of states in the Middle East has concealed
the role of domestic politics, actors, and local decision-making. One of
the most investigated topics at the regional level has been the sectarian
issue by means of a broader culturalist reading of the social and political
process in the Middle East under the label of the whole region’s “sec-
tarianization” (Abdo 2013; Byman 2014). According to these scholars,
a never-ending conflict between Sunnis and Shia was simply a “natural”
consequence of this state of affairs. This view has unfortunately become
an all-encompassing meta-narrative producing simplistic readings of the
regional processes and, at the same time, considering the role of domestic
politics and actors to be irrelevant and giving room to pervasive geopoliti-
cal analysis.
This argument is of particular consequence to the case of Lebanon.
Most of the analysis of that period, especially after the beginning of the
civil war in Syria, focused on Hizbullah’s involvement in the war (Alagha
2006, 2012, 2014; Spyer 2012), the Syrian refugee problem (Knudsen
2014; Dot-Pouillard and Pesquet 2015), Lebanon’s broader regional con-
text (Heydemann 2013; Osoegawa 2013), or the role of the movements/
parties that could affect the region’s geopolitical circumstances—for
example, Hizbullah, Salafist movements, Palestinian refugees, and so on
(see Omayma 2008; Salloukh 2013; Rabil 2014). The impact of the war in
Syria and more generally of the regional turmoil on Lebanon, however, is
only a lens through which to observe how the state and society may adapt
in order to cope with this situation (Di Peri 2014; Meier 2015b).
At present, the political scene in Lebanon is characterised by many
constraints: a political vacuum caused by an inability to find agreement
on the election of a new president; social mobilisation for waste man-
agement, which calls into question the accountability of decision-makers;
political bargaining between the two main political coalitions about the
problems relating to the influx of Syrian refugees; and any other issue
that can be politically divisive. All these constraints have revealed a pic-
ture of a country that cannot be reduced to being a mere proxy of Iran
or Saudi Arabia. By contrast, the internal debate, the vitality of Lebanese
political life, the multiplicity of its actors, and the variety of its topics—
from women’s rights to election laws—show a country in transition that
displays a capacity for continuous adaptation. The actors’ “path of resil-
ience” (their capacity to face the many dangers threatening the country)
goes to the heart of the questioning that led to this volume. How do the
4 R. DI PERI AND D. MEIER

various sectors of Lebanese society manage external and internal threats,

and how did this management—which can sometimes appear chaotic and
uncontrolled—result in a form of adaptation and resistance to the local
and regional constraints?
Assuming that the domestic dimension is crucial in order to under-
stand the resonance and impact of external issues, this book provides an
intimate picture of the country after 2011. The picture is based upon
micro-transformations occurring inside Lebanese society (at different lev-
els and from various starting points, including communities, social move-
ments, and the Lebanese Armed Forces) or by reflecting upon issues that,
even if they have a regional impact, are analysed from the perspective of
their influence on the domestic sphere (Hizbullah, Syrian refugees, con-
sociational system, etc.). Lebanon’s “exceptional” capacity to cope with a
blurred and dangerous environment raises issues at the levels of identity,
order, and the nation state. An examination of these issues forms the basis
for the three main research questions in this book: What kind of identi-
fications and identity resources do the actors’ practices reveal? How do
political actors and social groups re-order interactions and norms in order
to cope with recent changes? And how does Lebanon’s “nationhoodness”
still make sense (or not) for actors with regard to their actions and state
symbols?

NEW LENSES FOR OLD PROBLEMS

Thanks to empirically grounded research that delves into recent events,
the book explores several dimensions of Lebanon’s post-uprising “excep-
tionalism” from different angles in order to renew perspectives on classical
topics that include mobilisation, army, political movements, and refugees.
At the core of those processes is the production of a collective identity that
is currently affecting the entire region, which is worthy of exploration with
respect to Lebanon as it covers most of the themes investigated in this
volume. In so doing, we also acknowledge that Lebanon’s socio-political
trend can shed new light on the developments and dynamics in the region.
The book’s chapters focus on the post-2011 era in Lebanon and ques-
tion history, at many levels, by proposing lenses at different scales through
which to read historical facts and sectarianism in order to re-shape the
boundaries of society. All the chapters’ narratives make sense and practices
related to them for each case studied. The narratives can differ from the
one to the next, they can have parallel discourses, or the practices can
 INTRODUCTION 5

diverge. Furthermore, the facts on the ground will raise doubts about old
categories, concepts, narratives, and common boundaries. To this aim,
three main transversal “identity incubators” will be considered.
First of all, there is what we call “identity in practices”. This label refers
to personal, sectarian, or multiple belongings. Instead of identity, the
notion of identification is more accurate to describe what we mean, as it
underlines an ongoing process (Brubaker 2001). Beyond “sectarianism”
(a term commonly used to explain the Lebanese context), social classes,
regional belonging, and other identity factors play a crucial role, and class
community (Picard 1985) may be useful to re-assess the situation that
some groups are currently facing.
Secondly, there is a major issue that we identify as the “social order”.
It links identity with norms and values at the scale of a social commu-
nity (groups) seeking to (re-)organise socio-political and mental spaces (of
movement to carry out actions). The theoretical frame can be linked with
the (b)ordering or re-ordering processes currently ongoing at different
locations and levels of society (Meier 2015a) and regarded as a way for
people to fix or re-arrange interactions in order to cope with a changing
situation (Syrian refugees, socio-economic constraints, political vacuum,
Salafist threats, etc.).
The third “identity incubator” is the issue of nation fabrication—that
is Lebanon’s “nationhood”—and therefore its failure in both Lebanon
and the Middle East, as revealed by the Arab uprisings and underscored
by many commentators since the rise of the Islamic State organisation
(Cheterian 2014; Daguzan 2015). How does “identity in practices”
refer or relate to the state? In which narrative or ideology? After 2011,
what kind of relationship exists between the state and (communal, class,
regional, civil, or military) society? What about the nation today in
Lebanon? “Nationhoodness” requires an examination of how people rec-
ognise themselves in the nation state: through classical symbols of the state
(army, welfare, borders, or other institutions) or through the existence of
powerful actors able to provide alternative identity structures (Hizbullah,
Islamic, or non-sectarian belonging).
The book is divided into two parts totalling seven chapters aside of this
introduction: “From identification to social (dis)order” and “From order-
ing to nationhood”. Each chapter incorporates the three “identity incuba-
tors” mentioned above that are strongly interrelated and ultimately serve
to counter the prevailing arguments used to describe Lebanon before and
after 2011.
6 R. DI PERI AND D. MEIER

FROM IDENTIFICATION TO SOCIAL (DIS)ORDER

The result of the Arab uprisings in Lebanon, especially after the outbreak
of the war in Syria, is that they seem to have brought identities to the
surface. At the levels of parties, groups, communities, neighbours, core-
ligionists, and others, the Lebanese have overcome many difficulties to
transcend appurtenance and challenge old legacies. On the one hand,
because of a sectarian reading of the regional context, the narrative of
sectarianism has blocked the “identities in practices” with the skilful use of
rhetoric and repertoires. On the other hand, by contrast, it has offered a
stimulus to re-think and re-imagine a new social dis(order). The upheaval
inside and between the parties and communities, as well as the transforma-
tions in some regions and disputed border areas, has effectively brought to
the foreground those processes that contrast with the catastrophic reading
of the Lebanese context and shown, instead, its flexibility and adaptability:
its “path of resilience”. This first part of the book, which resonates with
the three “identity incubators”, mainly discusses these processes of resil-
ience at many different levels.
With a focus on the border regions, Lorenzo Trombetta argues that
local actors in Lebanon have been playing a crucial role by ensuring the
exceptional flexibility of the Lebanese system. By analysing three different
cases, Wadi Khalid, Tall ‘Abbas, and Marj al Khawkh, the chapter pres-
ents how communities struggle to maintain social order in the midst of a
precarious status, adapt their social interactions, and adjust their physical,
cultural, and political spaces. It also emphasises that the concept of class
community, beyond pure sectarianism, is able to describe the process of an
elaboration of (local or supranational) identities by Syrians and host com-
munities that goes beyond physical and mental borders.
Daniel Meier and Rosita Di Peri look at the Sunni community’s paths
of transformation and adaptability and focus on the post-2011 era in par-
ticular. The identity-building process, which led to the consolidation of
Lebanon’s Sunni community, especially after the end of the civil war, and
gave birth to the phenomenon of “Harirism”, was challenged by the assas-
sination of Rafic Hariri in 2005. From this moment on, Sunni “identities
in practice” have emerged and underscored the crisis of “Harirism”—an
entirely unexpected development in Lebanon. This shift paved the way
for the rise of radical Sunni movements, such as that of Sheikh al-‘Asîr
between 2011 and 2013. These movements display a clearly antisystemic
 INTRODUCTION 7

stance capable of altering the social order, challenging the Sunni com-
munity itself.
Another case of “identity in practice” is analysed by looking at
Hizbullah, which is at the core of Francesco Mazzucotelli’s chapter. Here,
the focus on possible dissent inside the Shi’i movement, especially after its
involvement in the Syrian war, shows how Hizbullah’s inability to listen
to its internal disagreements can offer a fresh perspective to look at the
party’s political dynamics. Hizbullah is not a monolithic bloc but com-
posed of multiple identities that can challenge the internal and the exter-
nal social order and simultaneously have an impact on the nationhood
consciousness.

FROM (RE)-ORDERING TO NATIONHOOD

The second part deals with the process of (re-)ordering that is affecting
Lebanon as it faces new challenges and problems and how this process
relates to nationhood via narrative or ideology. Ways of belonging can
sometimes be identified through social mobilisation at the start of and
during the Arab uprisings.
Myriam Catusse, Marie-Noëlle AbiYaghi, and Miriam Younes call
attention to the concept of “sectarian shadow” as part of their reflection
on identities during mobilisation. As a means to take distance with “iden-
tity in practices”, the “sectarian shadow” underlines the non-conscious
categories of thoughts strongly marked by sectarianism that continue to
shape the social order, even among antisectarian groups of Lebanese citi-
zens. It highlights the difficulties of going beyond those norms that bind
together and rule actors’ social lives in Lebanon.
One of the ways that the citizens of Lebanon have found to express
their collective belonging and their concern for nationhood lies in the
popular empowerment of the national army. This institution, as Vincent
Geisser clearly shows, functions as a symbol during times of trouble and
deep uncertainty and a means to discredit political and sectarian actors.
This return to the state is also shaped by a professional communication
sector in the army that plays a role in identifying it as a guarantor of civil-
ity, situated far above the corrupt political scene and able to come to the
defence of citizens and state borders.
Another means to establish a link between social order and nation-
hood can be found in Estella Carpi’s chapter, which explores the effect of
humanitarian technocracy on the welfare state system. She explains how
8 R. DI PERI AND D. MEIER

welfare regimes have been experienced across Lebanon in the wake of

internal and regional displacements. Thanks to the example of Beirut’s
southern suburb in the aftermath of the Israeli bombing campaign in
2006, she shows how the postwar internationalisation of local welfare
has created a management crisis because of the cycle of prioritising new
emergencies. But welfare and aid appear to pursue differing social orders
and curb cohesion and feelings of seamlessness, which generally define
nationhood.
Finally, Are Knudsen’s study of Lebanon’s sectarianism in the face of
the Syrian refugee crisis highlights the process of re-ordering national pol-
itics from another point of view. The lens of the state’s non-camp policy
with respect to the more than 1 million Syrian refugees in Lebanon reveals
the chaotic political scene. The polarisation regarding the war in Syria
provides an original tool to assess the contradictory visions of nationhood
in Lebanon.

TOWARDS NEW CHALLENGES

Between 2011 and 2015, Lebanon experienced a severe political crisis,
one of the longer and more delicate ones since the end of the civil war.
Instead of falling into a new cycle of violence, this small country of the
Middle East showed a rare, somewhat “unexpected” flexibility and capac-
ity to adapt, especially considering the turbulent regional environment.
This flexibility, however, is not without consequences: As the analysis
developed by this book’s various contributions points out, Lebanon, its
institutions, and population have been directly affected by the transforma-
tions that occurred during this critical period. New protests erupted and
new actors emerged to challenge the state and its institutions, while old
confessional legacies have remained and become stronger. All these factors
shape the boundaries of the identity fabrication process and their connec-
tions between the nationhood legacies, questioning the (re)production of
the social order. This tendency is not something new in Lebanon, a coun-
try capable of re-inventing itself even after violent and dramatic events.
However, despite the many ways that social actors have found to adapt
to the challenging (local and regional) environment, Lebanon appears to
be walking a tightrope. Its capacity to cope with several types of danger,
which some describe as the power of the weak, can also be a trap, a sort
of self-confident illusion. Playing with fire, as the sectarian leaderships
seem to be used to doing by threatening and weakening state institutions
 INTRODUCTION 9

as well as state legitimacy, may provoke unpredictable and unintentional

results. While there is no doubt about the renewed or reproduced powers
of the zu’ama (Kingston 2013; Cammett 2014; Salloukh et al. 2015),
the sprawling presence of sectarianism is something discussed by all the
authors in this book—whether in relation to garbage protests, the army,
Syrian refugees, or humanitarianism—from the variable perspective of
“identity incubators”. This lens has been adopted to shed new light on
actors’ capacities at the scale of their daily life, in such changing times, as
well as on the dynamic aspect of identity-building processes.
This volume has sought to illuminate a few visible (and some less visible)
social processes at stake in Lebanon but concludes with the paradoxical
result of mixed feelings: On the one hand, the state is constantly down-
graded and its capacity to act threatened by powerful actors on the political
scene. On the other hand, social actors seem to act as moral guardians of
a sinking ship called Lebanon when they build new relationships between
each other or with the old and new refugees. Many challenges remain and
are immediately visible: electing a new president, setting up a new legisla-
tive electoral process, and more broadly re-legitimising politics in the eyes
of the country’s citizens. But the highest priority may be a return to nor-
mality. When abnormal times become “normal”, what is taken for granted
needs to be re-shaped, re-thought, and re-built together. Contrary to the
end of the civil war in 1990, the next step for Lebanon will be to put
opposing views of the nation and the state around the same table. Thus,
there may be an opportunity to re-configure the Lebanese Republic after
the end of the war in Syria. Sadly, in any realistic scenario, this will only
happen after a slow return to sectarian “business as usual”, like what hap-
pened with the “national dialogue” gatherings after the popular protests
of 2005 and the Doha Agreement in 2008. Therefore, the question is not
whether another social movement will clamour for political leaders to be
accountable or for the protesters to be represented in a new deal but when
exactly this “second” uprising will take place.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Abdo, Genevieve. 2013. The New Sectarianism: The Arab Uprisings and the
Rebirth of the Shi’a-Sunni Divide. Analysis Paper, 29, The Saban Center For
Middle East Policy, Brookings Institution.
Alagha, Joseph. 2006. The Shift in Hizbullah’s Ideology: Religious Ideology, Political
Ideology and Political Program. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
10 R. DI PERI AND D. MEIER

———. 2012. Hizbullah’s DNA and the Arab Spring. New Delhi: KW Publishers.
———. 2014. Hezbollah and the Arab Spring. Contemporary Review of the
Middle East 1(2): 189–206.
Brubaker, Rogers. 2001. Au-delà de l’identité. Actes de la recherche en sciences
sociales 139: 66–85.
Byman, Daniel. 2014. Sectarianism Afflicts the New Middle East. Survival 56(1):
79–100.
Cammett, Melani. 2014. Compassionate Communalism: Welfare and Sectarianism
in Lebanon. New York: Cornell University Press.
Cheterian, Vicken. 2014. Failure of the Modern Middle East Nation State. Roll up
the Map. Le Monde Diplomatique (English edition), July. Accessed January 25,
2016. https://goo.gl/pk8gsX
Daguzan, Jean-François. 2015. La fin de l’Etat-nation? De Barcelone à Bagdad.
Paris: CNRS Editions.
Di Peri, Rosita. 2014. Islamist Actors from an Anti-system Perspective: The Case
of Hizbullah. Politics, Religion & Ideology 14(4): 487–503.
Dot-Pouillard, Nicolas, and Jean-Baptiste Pesquet. 2015. Les réfugiés syriens au
Liban: l’émergence progressive d’un discours de neutralité. Confluences
Méditerranée 92(8): 61–72.
Fakhoury, Tamirace. 2011. Lebanon Against the Backdrop of the 2011 Arab
Uprisings: Which Revolution in Sight? New Global Studies 5(1). Accessed
January 24, 2016. http://goo.gl/W1V6Cu
Heydemann, Steven. 2013. Syria’s Uprisings: Sectarianism, Regionalization and
State Order in the Levant. Working Paper 11, FRIDE, Madrid.
Kingston, Paul W.T. 2013. Reproducing Sectarianism: Advocacy Networks and the
Politics of Civil Society in Postwar Lebanon. Albany, NY: State University of
New York Press.
Knudsen, Are. 2014. Violence et déplacement: La crise des réfugiés Syriens au
Liban. Maghreb-Machrek 218: 29–40.
Lebanon Wire. 2011. Anti-sectarian Protests Reject Support from Lebanon Leaders.
March 18. Accessed January 25, 2016. http://goo.gl/fpcpFC
Meier, Daniel. 2015a. (B)ordering South of Lebanon: Hizbullah’s Identity
Building Strategy. Journal of Borderlands Studies 30(1): 97–109.
———. 2015b. Popular Mobilization in Lebanon: From Anti-system to Sectarian
Claims. Democracy & Security 11(2): 176–189.
Omayma, Abdel-Latif. 2008. Lebanon’s Sunni Islamists—A Growing Force.
Carnegie Paper, Carnegie Middle East Center, 6. Accessed January 20, 2016.
http://goo.gl/3LlZSW
Osoegawa, Taku. 2013. Syria and Lebanon: International Relations and Diplomacy
in the Middle East. London: I.B. Tauris.
 INTRODUCTION 11

Picard, Elizabeth. 1985. De la ‘communauté-classe’ à la résistance ‘nationale’:

Pour une analyse du rôle des Chi’ites dans le système politique libanais
(1970–1985). Revue française de science politique 35(6): 999–1028.
Rabil, Robert. 2014. Salafism in Lebanon: From Apoliticism to Transnational
Jihadis. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
Salloukh, Bassel. 2013. The Arab Uprisings and the Geopolitics of Middle East.
The International Spectator 48(2): 32–46.
Salloukh, Bassel, Barakat Jinan S. Rabie, Lara W. Khattab Al-Habbal, and Mikaelian
Shoghig. 2015. The Politics of Sectarianism in Postwar Lebanon. London:
Pluto Press.
Spyer, Jonathan. 2012. Hizballah and the Arab Revolutions: The Contradiction
Made Apparent? MERIA Journal 16(1). Accessed January 20, 2016. http://
goo.gl/KzVt7k
 PART I

From Identification to
Social (Dis)order
 CHAPTER 2

“Willy-Nilly We Have to Live Side by Side”:

Relationships Between Locals
and Newcomers at the Syria–Lebanon
Border

Lorenzo Trombetta

Abstract The chapter investigates how the social, economic, and politi-
cal Lebanese context has unexpectedly shown a remarkable capacity to
absorb the effects of the Syrian crisis. Local communities in Lebanon have
been playing a crucial role by ensuring this relative stability in a terri-
tory affected by a massive presence of Syrian refugees and, in many cases,
physically close to war-torn Syrian areas. This chapter is the result of in-
depth fieldwork conducted since 2012 in various Lebanese areas close to
the border with Syria: Wadi Khalid, Tall ‘Abbas, and Marj al Khawkh. It
describes the physical and rhetorical relationship between the border and
both refugees and Lebanese nationals, and the development of local (often
supranational) identities that go beyond the border itself.

Keywords Lebanon • Border • Syrian refugees • Local communities

L. Trombetta ()
Ansa Italian News Agency, Beirut, Lebanon

© The Author(s) 2017 15

R. Di Peri, D. Meier (eds.), Lebanon Facing The Arab Uprisings,
DOI 10.1057/978-1-352-00005-4_2
16 L. TROMBETTA

INTRODUCTION
Lebanon’s social, economic, and political landscape is often described as
one of the most unstable and fragile in the Middle East. However, since
the beginning of the Syrian uprising in the spring of 2011, this system
has unexpectedly shown a remarkable capacity to absorb the effects of the
crisis. The massive influx of Syrian refugees and the prolonged status of
war in Syria have indeed exacerbated the pre-existent domestic political
and sectarian tensions in various regions in Lebanon, but the country still
appears to be far from the brink of a new nationwide “civil war” (Thränert
and Zapfe 2015).1
In contrast to the current narrative, I argue in this chapter that local
actors in Lebanon—in particular those living in territories affected by the
presence of Syrian refugees and physically close to war-torn Syrian areas—
have been playing a crucial role to ensure the Lebanese system is excep-
tionally flexible (Trombetta 2014). There is a scant body of literature
addressing the role of local factors in providing flexibility and longevity to
the Lebanese system, especially at times of political and sectarian polarisa-
tion and the escalation of economic tensions.
Some of the more recent texts focus on humanitarian faults—partic-
ularly related to health care—that the Lebanese system has discovered
in the reception of refugees (El-Khatib and Scales 2013; Parkinson and
Behrouzan 2015). Naufal’s work (2012–13) addresses the humanitar-
ian issue while it confronts the complexity of Lebanese political dynamics
(Berneis and Bartl 2013). In particular, it analyses the official position
regarding the conditions of refugees, the repercussions of the refugees’
arrival on the sensitive balance of the Lebanese political system, and the
mobilisation of national institutions and the wider international com-
munity. Van Vliet and Hourani (2014) stress that the living conditions
of refugees inside Lebanon, as well as host–refugee relations, also point
to continuities between the geographical areas of resettlement and their
socio-demographic compositions. Other works analyse the feelings of the
Syrians and the Lebanese towards the territory in which they live, as well
as Syrians’ perceptions of themselves as refugees in relation to citizens
(Christophersen et al. 2013; Harb and Saab 2014; Saghiye and Shaykh
2015).
This study intends to contribute to the debate on the exceptionality of
the situation in Lebanon, in contrast to the general tendencies currently
 “WILLY-NILLY WE HAVE TO LIVE SIDE BY SIDE”: RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN... 17

at play in the region, which is afflicted by open conflicts that are fostered
not only by regional and international rivalries but also by the outbreak of
ancient rivalries at the local level. I intend to present here how communi-
ties struggle to maintain social order in the midst of a precarious status as
they adapt their social interactions and adjust their physical, cultural, and
political spaces.
In order to assess the role of a vast array of local dynamics, I have
questioned primary and secondary sources on the relationships between
Syrians and their host communities in the light of the increasing tensions
that have emerged from socio-economic, political, and sectarian rivalries.
The sectarian factor seems to strain some communities even more, even
though, in other cases, sectarian homogeneity—in the sense of a collec-
tive belonging to the same confessional group—appears to help mend the
wounds caused by economic difficulties through nepotistic/client systems
of labour.
The research reveals how, in many cases, the divisions among commu-
nities are recomposed in order for them to safeguard their common inter-
ests, which mainly relate to land resources and the maintenance of social
peace (silm al ahli). Furthermore, local political and religious elites have
been playing a crucial role in easing the tensions that have evolved over
time as a result of socio-economic disparities, diverse community belong-
ing, and conflicting political and ideological affiliations.2
The exceptional Lebanese dynamics are also part of a wider framework
of collective identity formation in the Middle East. The various commu-
nities in the region are now increasingly ready for action to compete for
natural resources. Yet, their contrasts are portrayed as conflicts among
disparate communities, allegedly with different identities that contradict
each other. The juxtaposition of identities also occurs within Lebanese
territories and is represented, on the one hand, by people who, like the
Syrians, claim their belonging to “other” territories across the border, and
on the other hand, by those Lebanese who rediscover their “Lebanesity”
on this side of the border (Carpi 2015).
Nevertheless, as I will try to show in this study, Syrian and Lebanese
communities living side by side develop local (often supranational) identi-
ties that go beyond the border. I argue that the shaping of these identities
is essential in order for these communities to adapt to the new order, seek
elements of continuity with the past, and throw symbolic bridges towards
the future.
18 L. TROMBETTA

METHODOLOGY
This chapter is part of an ongoing research that I started in Wadi Khalid
between 2011 and 2012. In May and November 2011, and again in July
and October 2012, I conducted several field assessments in the area, both
as a reporter and as an International Non Governmental Organization
(INGO) consultant. I was able to gather various kinds of information and
perceptions from Syrian refugees, Lebanese residents, local and foreign
humanitarian staff members, bus and taxi drivers, journalists, common-
ers, lawyers, representatives from local institutions (mainly makhatir3),
Lebanese military and police officers, and school principals. Most of the
time, I collected information through informal conversations and a few
semi-structured interviews. As for the secondary sources, I have turned
primarily to monographs and articles focusing on local histories.
From the outset, the question at the core of my investigation con-
cerned the relationship between local Lebanese residents and newcomers
originating on the Homs plain on the other side of the border. Owing to
the extremely tight geographical and historical connections between com-
munities spread along the porous border, Wadi Khalid can be considered
a special case if compared with other Lebanese areas affected by the over-
whelming presence of Syrian refugees. The outcomes of my preliminary
inquiries regarding the relations between local residents and newcom-
ers likely would not have been representative enough to be extrapolated
into a trend on the broader Lebanese scale. I have therefore widened the
geographical scope of my research and chosen Tall ‘Abbas in northern
Lebanon and Marj al Khawkh in southern Lebanon as the other two key
places to enrich my understanding of the main issue.
The fieldwork in Wadi Khalid was mainly conducted between 2012
and 2014, and I visited Tall ‘Abbas and Marj al Khawkh over the course
of 2015. Tall ‘Abbas and Marj al Khawkh provide similarities as well as
variations to the situation in Wadi Khalid. In all three I had the chance
to carry out my fieldwork through local contacts established beforehand.
Both Tall ‘Abbas and Marj al Khawkh are located quite close to the Syrian
border but have a material relationship with the border that is very distinct
from Wadi Khalid. The Syrian area just across the border from Tall ‘Abbas
is different from the area that is on the other side of the border next to
Marj al Khawkh. The demographic pressure in these two areas also has
different characteristics than in Wadi Khalid. The political and sectarian
geography differs between the areas of Wadi Khalid, Tall ‘Abbas, and Marj
 “WILLY-NILLY WE HAVE TO LIVE SIDE BY SIDE”: RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN... 19

al Khawkh, as do the geographical origins of Syrians who have sought

refuge in the three villages.

TALL ‘ABBAS, WHERE HISTORY IS BACK

Tall ‘Abbas (literally: the Hill of ‘Abbas) is divided into two different
areas: eastern (sharqi) and western (gharbi) Tall ‘Abbas. The two sides
are split along the Ustuwan River. Around 3000 people (Feghali 2010,
91), mainly Orthodox Christians (91 %), live in the town’s western part,
whilst the eastern side is inhabited by fewer than 1000 people (Feghali
2010, 3:89), most of them Alawis (65 %) and Sunnis (27 %). One-third
of the population of Tall ‘Abbas—from both the eastern and the west-
ern sides—left the country during and after the civil war and now mainly
reside in North and South America and in Australia. Like other villages
on the ‘Akkar plateau, Tall ‘Abbas suffers from a lack of basic services for
the population and perspectives for the youth. There is no geographical
continuity between Tall ‘Abbas and the Syrian hinterland on the other side
of the border. Nevertheless, the official ‘Abbudiya border crossing is only
a few kilometres away from the Hissa–Tall ‘Abbas crossroad.
Demographic pressure is very high, as Syrians represent more than
half of the current population: around 2500 refugees out of 4000 resi-
dents. The first Syrian families (Sunnis) arrived from the Homs region
between 2011 and 2012. They entered Wadi Khalid and later moved
around inside northern Lebanon. In 2013 the refugees who had reached
Tall ‘Abbas settled in a cultivated area on the edge of western Tall ‘Abbas.
A small landowner, a Sunni, rents out the land for almost $1500 dollars
per month, and every time the Syrian families struggle to bring in the
agreed amount of money. The local communities, predominantly Alawite
and Orthodox, seem to look at the Syrians with suspicion more for socio-
economic reasons than for political and sectarian differences. Until 2014,
although there were potential reasons for tensions because of the different
political stances towards the Syrian crisis, the residents of Tall ‘Abbas were
mostly afraid that newcomers would get work in the fields and increase the
crime rate and security problems. “We are a small community here. We all
know each other. We don’t know these Syrians. They say they are poor,
but in their country they have houses and land. Do they want to expand
here, too?” (Interview, Tall ‘Abbas, May 2015), asks a small landowner
in western Tall ‘Abbas. He tells of robberies attributed to the Syrians and
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 Transcriber’s Note
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Over the Santa Fé Trail
1857

BY
W. B. NAPTON.
1905.
FRANKLIN HUDSON PUBLISHING CO.,
KANSAS CITY, MO.
 CONTENTS
Page
I. Captain “Jim Crow” Chiles 3
II. In Camp, South of Westport 10
III. Buffalo 14
IV. Companions of Voyage 18
V. Pestiferous Indians 21
VI. At the Kiowa Camp 28
VII. To the Cimarron 33
VIII. My First Antelope 38
IX. A Kicking Gun and a Bucking Mule 46
X. A Gray Wolf 50
XI. Arrival at Las Vegas 54
XII. In Peril of Indians 62
XIII. Captain Chiles’ Chase 69

LEWIS & CLARK’S ROUTE RETRAVELED

Chapter I 73
Chapter II 84
Chapter III 93
 ILLUSTRATIONS
Page
“Jim Crow” Chiles Laughed 7
The Mule Suddenly Bucked 24
Punched Him With the Point 26
Difficult to Get the Heavily Loaded Wagons Across 34
Their Drivers Were Unable to Restrain Them 40
“Skeesicks” Walked Up 44
He Plodded Along With the Lame Cattle 46
He Jumped and Kicked 48
The Officers Dragged Him Out 60
“Men, They Are Indians!” 66
 Over the Santa Fé Trail, 1857.

I.
Captain “Jim Crow” Chiles.

When I was a lad of 12 years of age my father had a red-headed

overseer, good-natured, loquacious and fond of telling stories, the
kind that suited the understanding and tickled the fancy of a boy. His
stories were always related as being truthful accounts of actual
occurrences, although I suspected they were frequently creatures of
his own imagination. This overseer, a Westerner born and bred, had
driven an ox wagon in a train across the plains to New Mexico; had
made two trips across—in 1847 and 1848—one extending as far as
Chihuahua, in Old Mexico. His observation was keen, and his
memory unexcelled, so that, years afterwards, he could relate, in
minute detail, the events of every day’s travel, from the beginning to
the end of the journey. I was charmed with his accounts of the
Indians and buffalo, wolves, antelope and prairie dogs.
Reaching the age of 18 in 1857, with indifferent health, my father
acquiesced in my determination to cross the plains to New Mexico.
The doctor said the journey would benefit my health. Already an
expert with a gun or pistol, I had killed all kinds of game to be found
in Missouri, and had read Gordon Cumming’s book of his hunting
exploits in South Africa, so that I felt as if nothing less than killing big
game, like buffalo and elk, could gratify my sporting proclivities.
Colonel James Chiles of “Six Mile,” Jackson County, was a state
senator, and while at Jefferson City during the session of the
legislature, my father telling him of my desire to go out to Santa Fé,
the colonel sent me an invitation to come to his house by the middle
of April and go out with a train belonging to his son. So in the early
spring of 1857 I set out from my home in Saline County, well
mounted and equipped for the journey.
The spring was backward, and when I reached Colonel Chiles’s
house in the middle of April winter was still “lingering in the lap of
spring.” The grass was not good on the plains until the 10th of May.
It was arranged for me to go out with the train commanded by “Jim
Crow,” a son of Colonel Chiles.
“Jim Crow” was then about twenty-five, not over medium height,
but strong, athletic and wiry, and had a pretty well established
reputation as a fighter among the frontiersmen. He had killed a
lawyer named Moore, who lived at Leavenworth, in the Noland hotel
at Independence. After the Civil War he killed two other men at
Independence, and he himself was eventually killed in a fight with
the Independence town marshal. But I found “Jim Crow” a kind and
considerate friend, jovial and good natured generally, but subject to
violent fits of anger, and when angry, a very dangerous man. One
night on the “trail,” while he and I were riding some distance ahead
of the train, amid the solitude of the darkness and the vast plains, the
conversation drifted into a confidential vein. He recalled the killing of
Moore, saying he regretted it beyond measure; that the affair had
haunted him day and night; that he would willingly give up all that he
owned or expected to acquire to be relieved of the anguish and
trouble and remorse the act had caused him. But he was possessed
of the kind of courage and combativeness which never suggested
the avoidance of a fight then or afterward.
Kansas City was even then, in 1857, an aspiring town. For a
month or two in the spring the levee was covered with wagons and
teams, and sometimes four or five steamboats were at the wharf
discharging freight. General John W. Reid had recently bought forty
acres, the northwest corner of which is now the intersection of
Broadway and Twelfth street, for $2,000. The land was covered with
timber, which he cut into cord wood and sold to the steamboats for
about enough to pay for the land.
 There were no streets, and only one road from the levee, leaving
the river front at Grand avenue, running obliquely across to Main
street and back again to Grand avenue, in McGee’s addition.
Colonel Milton McGee had taken down his fences and laid off his
cornfields into lots.
The work cattle and wagons were collected and a camp
established, about the first of May, on the high, rolling prairie near
the Santa Fé trail, three miles southwest of Westport. The wagons
were heavy, cumbrous affairs with long deep beds, covered with
sheets of heavy cotton cloth, supported by bows. A man six feet high
could stand erect in one of them, and they were designed to hold a
load of seven or eight thousand pounds of merchandise each. Those
in our train were made by Hiram Young, a free negro at
Independence, and they were considered as good as any except
those with iron axles. The freight consisted of merchandise for the
trade in New Mexico. Two of the wagons were loaded with imported
champagne for Colonel St. Vrain of Las Vegas and Mora.
There was a shortage of good ox drivers that spring and Captain
“Jim Crow” found it difficult to supply the number he needed. Twenty-
five dollars a month “and found” were the wages. One evening, while
we were lounging around the corral, waiting for supper, three men
came up on foot, inquiring for the captain of the train. They were
good looking, well dressed men, two of them wearing silk hats, but
bearing no resemblance to the ordinary ox driver. They said they
were stranded and looking for work. They proposed to Captain
Chiles to hire to him for drivers, while they disclaimed any knowledge
of the calling.
 “JIM CROW” CHILES LAUGHED.

“Jim Crow” laughed, and after interrogating them as to their

antecedents, said he would hire them on probation. “I will take you
along,” he said, “and if I find you can learn to drive cattle before we
get to Council Grove, the last settlement on the road, then I’ll keep
you; otherwise not, and you must look out for yourselves.”
 They were invited to supper and assigned to a mess. One of
them was named Whitcom. He hailed from Massachusetts and had
never seen a yoke of oxen in his life, but he was strong, sturdy and
active, and before we reached New Mexico he was rated the most
dextrous driver in the outfit. Moreover, his team looked better than
any in the train when we reached the end of our journey. Ten years
ago Whitcom was living in Cheyenne, and was one of the wealthiest
cattle raisers in the state of Wyoming.
Another of the three hailed from Cincinnati. He wore a
threadbare suit of broadcloth and a “plug” hat, and was tall, angular,
awkward, slip-shod and slouchy in appearance. He had been
employed in his father’s banking house in Cincinnati, and was
accomplished in penmanship and a good accountant; but he proved
to be utterly unfit for an ox driver. He could not hold his own among
his rough companions, and became the object of their jeers and
derision. By unanimous consent he was given the name of
“Skeesicks,” and by this name he was known ever afterwards.
The third of the trio proved to be a fairly good driver, and is now
a prosperous merchant in the state of Montana.
Among the drivers was a young Mexican, Juan, who had been in
the employ of the Chiles brothers for years. Through him we were
enabled to converse with the Kiowas and Comanches when we
reached them. Many of the Indians could speak or understand
Spanish, but could not understand a word of English. We had men
among the teamsters from Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas and
Texas. They soon became known and answered to the name of their
own state. “Tennessee” and “Texas” prided themselves on the size
and weight of their whips, and the loudness of the noise they could
make in popping them.
Young Reece, from Missouri, went out with the train for his
health. He had consumption and hoped the journey over the plains
would be of benefit to him. He was very tall, being six feet four
inches, of large bone and frame, but thin as a huge skeleton, and
had allowed his heavy black hair to grow until it hung below his
shoulders. He was well off so far as property was concerned, and
rode a splendid dapple gray horse, muscular, tough and graceful,
with handsome mane and tail, which could fairly fly over the prairie.
 II.
In Camp, South of Westport.

In the camp, three miles southwest of Westport, we were

detained for a fortnight or more, awaiting the arrival of our freight at
Kansas City. There were twenty-six wagon, five yoke of oxen to
each, carrying about seven thousand pounds of freight each. There
were no tents, so we slept on the ground, either under a wagon or, if
we preferred it, the broad canopy of heaven.
Captain “Jim Crow” commanded the company, with Rice as
assistant wagonmaster. There was one driver for each wagon, and a
boy of 16, of frontier origin and training, whose duty it was to drive
the “cavayard” or loose cattle, taken along in case any of the teams
should get lame or unfit for service. “Jim Crow,” immediately on his
arrival at the camp, gave the boy the nickname of “Little Breeches,”
suggested by his very tight-fitting trousers, and the name,
abbreviated to “Little Breech,” stuck to him.
While encamped below Westport I was fortunate in purchasing a
first rate “buffalo horse,” a California “lass horse,” that had been
brought across the plains the previous year. He proved his
excellence afterward, was very fast and would run up so close to a
buffalo that I could sometimes touch him with the pistol point.
Camped in our vicinity were several corrals of trains belonging to
Mexican merchants, who used mules instead of oxen, and had lately
come up from New Mexico. These Mexicans subsisted altogether on
taos (unbolted) flour, and dried buffalo meat, while our mess wagon
was filled with side bacon, flour, coffee, sugar, beans and pickles.
I soon got on fair terms of acquaintance with the master of one
of these Spanish trains. He was a successful buffalo hunter, but I
was surprised to find he used a spear for killing them, instead of a
pistol. When a buffalo was found at a distance from the road or camp
he would goad the animal, until so enraged, it would turn upon and
follow him, and in this manner he would get the game to a more
convenient place for butchering, before finally dispatching it.
There were no farms fenced up in sight of our camp at that time,
but the prairie was dotted with the houses of the “squatter
sovereigns,” who were “holding down” claims.
On the 10th day of June we yoked up and started on the long
journey. At the outset everybody about the train, from the captain to
the cavayard driver, was filled with good humor. The weather was
perfect, the view of the apparently boundless prairie exhilarating.
The road having been surveyed and established by the government
before the country was at all occupied, was almost as straight as an
arrow toward the southwest. The wagonmaster would arouse the
men before daylight in the morning and the cattle would be driven up
to the corral, yoked up and hitched to the wagons by the time the
cooks could prepare breakfast, a cook being assigned to each mess
of six or eight men. Some of the oxen were not well broken to the
yoke, and it was a difficult task at the dim break of day for a green
man to select each steer that belonged to his team in the corral,
where the 250 were crowded together so that their sides would
almost touch.
Once on the road the drive was continued for from eight to
twelve miles, the stops being governed by the convenience of
camping-places, where grass and water could be found for the
cattle. Familiarity with the route was essential in the wagonmaster,
who, riding some distance ahead, would select the camping-place,
and when the train came up direct the formation of the corral. The
cattle were immediately unyoked and turned loose, herded by two of
the teamsters. Often it was necessary to drive the cattle a mile or
more from the corral in order to find sufficient grass, that near the
road being kept short by the incoming trains from Mexico and the
outgoing trains ahead of us.
 At Council Grove there was a considerable settlement of Indian
traders. There we found assembled a large band of Kaw Indians,
who had just reached there from a buffalo hunt on the Arkansas. The
Kaws were not classed as “wild” Indians, and I think had been
assigned to a reservation not far off, but when they got off on a hunt
their native savage inclinations made them about as dangerous as
those roaming the plains at will, and whose contact with the white
man was much less frequent.
Beyond the Diamond spring we met two men on horseback, who
were hunting cattle belonging to a train then corralled some distance
ahead. The cattle had been stampeded by Indians in the night and
they had lost fifty head. The train could not be moved without them.
The men had been in search of them for two days and thought they
would be compelled to offer a reward for them, that being found
necessary sometimes, along the border. The Indians and
“squawmen”—white men married to, or living with, Indian squaws—
would stampede cattle at night, drive them off and hold them until
they ascertained that a reward had been offered for them. Then they
would visit the corral, learn with seeming regret of the cause of the
detention of the train, declare that they were well acquainted with the
surrounding country and could probably find them and bring them in,
offering to perform this service for so much a head. After the bargain
was struck the cattle would be delivered as soon as they could be
driven from the place of their secretion. It was not infrequent for a
band of Kaws to strike a wagon master in this way for as much as
from $100 to $500.
Here we learned that Colonel Albert Sidney Johnson, in
command of a considerable force, had moved out from Fort Scott
against the Cheyennes, who were on the warpath up on the
Republican river, in the western part of Kansas, but we missed
seeing the command until months later, on our homeward journey in
September.
 III.
Buffalo.

As we were drawing near the buffalo range preparations were

made for a chase. The pistols were freshly loaded and butcher
knives sharpened. One morning about 9 o’clock, on Turkey creek, a
branch of the Cottonwood, we came in sight of buffalo, in a great
mass, stretching out over the prairie as far as the eye could reach,
though the topography of the country enabled us to see for several
miles in each direction. The prairie in front of us was gradually
undulating, but offered no great hindrance to fast riding. Reece and I
were anxious to try our skill, and Captain Chiles said he would go
along to assist in butchering and bringing up the meat; but, as he
was riding a mule, he could not be expected to take an active part in
the chase. Reece was mounted on his splendid iron gray and I on
my trained buffalo horse, each of us having a pair of Colt’s navy
revolvers, of six chambers in holsters.
We rode slowly until we got within three or four hundred yards of
the edge of the vast herd. Then they began to run and we followed,
gaining on them all the time. Pressing forward, at the full speed of
my horse, I discovered that the whole band just in front of me were
old bulls. I was so anxious to kill a buffalo that I began shooting at a
very large one, occasionally knocking tufts of hair off his coat, but
apparently having little other effect. However, after a lively run of
perhaps a mile or two he slackened his pace, and at last stopped still
and, turning about, faced me. I fired the one or two remaining
charges of my revolvers, at a distance of twenty or thirty yards, and
thought he gave evidence of being mortally wounded. After gazing
steadily at me for a few minutes he turned around and walked off. I
followed, but presently he resumed a gallop in the direction the main
herd had gone, soon disappearing from view over a ridge. So I had
made a failure, and felt a good deal put out, as well as worn out by
the fatigue of fast riding.
Through a vista between the clouds of dust raised by the buffalo,
I got a glimpse of Reece. His horse proved to be very much afraid of
the buffalo and could not be urged close enough to afford shooting,
with any degree of certainty, with a pistol. Reece held his magnificent
horse with a rein of the bridle in either hand, his head fronting
towards the buffalo, but the frightened animal would turn to one side,
despite the best efforts of his master, fairly flying around in front of
the herd. That was Reece’s first and last attempt to kill a buffalo on
horseback.
I rode back towards the train, soon meeting Captain Chiles, who
greeted me with derisive laughter, but considerately expressed the
hope that I would have better success upon a second attempt. As we
were all very anxious to get some fresh meat, he suggested that I
should lend him my horse; that he would easily kill one with a
double-barrel shotgun, which he was carrying in front on his saddle. I
readily agreed to this, and mounting on my horse, he put off and
promptly slew a fat, well-grown calf that proved good eating for us
who had lived on bacon for many days.
That afternoon I turned my buffalo horse loose, permitting him to
follow, or be driven along with the cavayard, in order that he might
recuperate from the exhausting races of the forenoon. The following
morning he was as good as ever, and I resolved to try another
chase.
Having received some pertinent instructions from Captain Chiles,
as to the modus operandi of killing buffalo on horseback at full
speed, I mounted and sallied forth with him, the weather being ideal
and the game abundant.
At the left of the road, in sight, thousands of buffalo were grazing
in a vast plain, lower than the ridge down which we were riding.
Opened up in our view was a scope of country to the southeast of
us, a distance of ten miles. This plain was covered with them, all
heading towards the northwest.