The Father's Success and the Son's Failure: Explaining the Growth of Lebanon's Resistance to Syria's Invisible Occupation

In the 15‐year period since the Syrian military entry into Lebanon on June 1, 1976, allegedly to put an end to the civil war that broke out there a year earlier, Syria firmly solidified its control of the country, as evidenced by the signing of the “Treaty of Brotherhood, Cooperation and Coordination between Syria and Lebanon,” on May 22, 1991, which granted Syria a special status. Yet, 14 years later, on April 24, 2005, the Syrian forces withdrew from Lebanon. This article seeks to explain this relatively rapid decline in Syria's standing in Lebanon by examining the strategies of the two Syrian rulers who indirectly controlled this country during those years. It examines what was right in Hafiz al‐Asad's strategy in Lebanon, and what did not work in Bashar's policy. In 2000, the year of Hafiz al‐Asad's death, Syria's status in Lebanon seemed unshakable: 1) Lebanon's president (Emile Lahoud) acted as Damascus's puppet; 2) Hezbollah, the Shi‘a militia Hezbollah largely accepted Syria's authority while it simultaneously tightened its control over southern Lebanon and also began gaining popularity in the rest of the country; and 3) finally the politics of the noble families, which had characterized Lebanon since its establishment, began to gradually give way to a politics where a political figure is measured by the level of his connections to the country's power base in Damascus. Yet, merely five years later, Syria was under immense pressure to withdraw its forces from Lebanon. This suggests that we must look at the difference between the strategies of Hafiz al‐Asad and his son Bashar for controlling Lebanon to better understand the rapid deterioration in Syria's standing in the country. We argue that the difference in the degree of anti‐Syrian pressures from Lebanon's society and political elements between the two tenures is largely rooted in the different strategies that the two Syrian presidents adopted for informally ruling Lebanon. We identify three main areas where Bashar al‐Asad made mistakes due to his failure to continue his father's methods. First, Bashar put all his cards on Hezbollah, thus antagonizing all the other groups which resented that Shi‘a dominance. Second, in stark contrast to his father, Bashar distanced himself from the regular management of Lebanon's ethnic politics. Hafiz al‐Asad made sure that all the leaders of the different ethnic groups would visit Damascus and update him on their inter‐ethnic conflicts, and then he would be the one who would either arbitrate between them or, for expediency reasons, exacerbate these feuds. Once the ethnic leaders had to manage without Damascus, they learned to get along, making him far less indispensable for the running of the country. Finally, Bashar, unlike his father, did not make a real effort to gain international and regional legitimacy (or at least de‐facto acceptance) for Syria's continued control over Lebanon. Most conspicuously, while Hafiz participated in the First Gulf War against Iraq, his son supported Sunni rebels who fought against the United States‐led coalition forces there. This foreign acquiescence was significant since the Lebanese felt they had a backing when they demanded Syria's withdrawal in 2005. These different strategic approaches of the two rulers meant that the father's policies wisely laid the ground for some of the most controversial measures which were needed as part of any attempt to monopolize control over another country, such as Lebanon (assassinating popular but too independent‐minded Lebanese presidents/prime ministers or extending tenures of loyalist ones), whereas the son's policies myopically failed to do so properly. Indeed, the article will show that while both the father and the son took these same controversial measures, the responses of the Lebanese were completely different. Admittedly, some historical developments increased the Lebanese propensity to rise up against Syria, and these meant that Bashar did in fact face a harder task than his father in maintaining Syria's informal occupation. The Israeli withdrawal from its so‐called “security zone” in south Lebanon meant that one justification for the Syrian presence was gone. More importantly, the risk of renewed eruption of the civil war (which in turn had meant for many years a greater willingness by the locals to tolerate the Syrian presence which prevented the war's resumption) declined significantly due to a variety of processes that could not have been halted even with better “management” of the interethnic strife from Damascus (i.e., making sure that the ethnic groups remained in deep conflict with each other). Nevertheless, as we will show, Bashar's mistakes played a crucial role in bringing the rival ethnic groups together by making Damascus their joint enemy.     

从对中国电影的态度看中华文化在海外华人中的传播——对英国华裔青少年的调查分析

论文以英国华裔青少年为例,通过问卷调查,了解中国电影在海外华侨华人中的接收情况,探讨了电影对中华文化在海外华侨华人中传播的作用和效果。论文认为中国电影是华侨华人接触和了解中华文化的重要途径,海外华人对中华文化有强烈的认知渴求,希望从中国电影中获取关于中国"言"、"象"、"意"的多层次、多元认知,他们对历史和当代中国的情况并重,对中国电影的解读体现出其文化间性。电影作为中华文化海外传播的重要窗口,应该增加其内容和形式的多样性,摆脱题材的单一性和对中国的刻板印象,用中国的话语讲好世界的故事,以摆脱文化弱势的处境,彰显中华文化的魅力,让中华文化更好地被华侨华人和世界所接受。     

江苏邳州蘑菇顶D1发掘与相关问题研究

2015年6月,南京博物院、邳州市博物馆联合对江苏省邳州市蘑菇顶D1进行发掘,清理了两座墓葬,推测其时代分别为东汉时期(M1)和春秋战国时期(M2)。墓葬多次遭盗掘,没有出土随葬品,仅在盗洞中发现一些残器。M2应为古徐国大型墓葬;墓底有较小方坑,墓道、墓室为多次分块夯筑,这种墓葬结构与夯筑方式较为独特、少见。这一发现对于徐州地区春秋战国时期墓葬研究,特别是古徐国葬制、葬俗具有重要的意义。     

“乞休”与“挂冠”:晚明弃官现象与政治文化嬗变

在明代君臣关系中,君权一直处于强势地位,并左右着官员进退。明中后期,这种情况出现了微妙的变化。时值万历朝出现大范围缺官,以京官为首的文官群体以此为契机,引发了群体性的致仕乞休现象,不惜以影响政府的正常运作为代价,孤立皇帝,从而扭转了在致仕问题上长期处于被动的局面,并由此引发了官员对于君臣关系、权力分配及仕隐哲学的再思考,影响了主流舆论的变化以及政治力量在中央与地方之间的转移等。这种主动弃官的现象所折射出的理性精神和反传统思想在一定程度上催生了晚明政治文化的进步因子,并为中国日后具有近代意义的民主政治发展奠定了基础。     

Cultural and trade practices in Sincu Bara (Senegal): a multi-proxy investigation

The Sincu Bara site in Senegal is one of the most famous archeological sites in Western Africa. Here we present the results of a multi-proxy study that combined microscopic analyses, carbon content, stable carbon isotope (δ¹³C) and radiocarbon (¹⁴C) measurements. This investigation exhibits a chronological framework in two phases: from 400 yr AD to 650 yr AD and 650 yr AD to 900 yr AD. Furthermore, it shows that besides basic potteries, some potsherds are notable for a temper exclusively made with human-harvested C4 plants. Finally, the ¹⁴C analysis performed on the organic slip strongly indicates the use of bitumen or bitumen-derived products for red slip preparation. This suggests the establishment of trade relationships with Nigerian and/or Trans-Saharan populations as early as 400 yr AD.