Lebanese Independence
Lebanon became independent in November 1943 after the French arrested its entire government and had to release them. The territory had been created by France in 1920 out of Mount Lebanon and adjacent districts, enlarging a Christian-majority mountain area with Muslim coastal cities and the Bekaa, which gave the state a bare Christian majority and a permanent arithmetic problem. The mandate ran under Vichy until British and Free French forces took it in 1941, and de Gaulle's representative proclaimed independence to secure local support and then declined to act on it. Elections in 1943 produced a nationalist government under Bishara al-Khuri and Riad al-Solh, which passed a constitutional amendment removing the mandate's provisions. The French delegate-general arrested the president, the prime minister and most of the cabinet at dawn on 11 November and imprisoned them in a castle. The country stopped working. A general strike closed everything, demonstrations were fired on, and Britain — which had 30,000 troops in the country and no wish to see it explode — issued an ultimatum. The ministers were released on 22 November, which is Independence Day. The National Pact agreed that year is unwritten and is the state's real constitution: a Maronite president, a Sunni prime minister and a Shia speaker, with Christians renouncing western protection and Muslims renouncing union with Syria. It has been the source of every subsequent Lebanese crisis and nobody has been able to replace it. The flag with the cedar was designed in the parliament chamber during the crisis, reportedly sketched on a piece of paper by deputies who wanted something that belonged to neither France nor Syria. It was adopted three weeks before the arrests.
- Year: 1943 CE
- Category: Political
