ABSTRACT
After long decades of political irrelevance and scholarly indifference, it now seems impossible to escape the Lebanese Shi’a whose seemingly bizarre exploits are widely, if superficially, chronicled. For many policy-makers and academic specialists, the emergence of the Shi’i community of Lebanon as a major political force came as a rude surprise. Only a handful of scholars or decision-makers anticipated that an assertive community of Shi’a would come to enjoy a decisive voice in shaping politics in Lebanon, including an effective veto over plans that failed to take the interests of the Shi’a into account. Little noticed before the 1980s, the Shi’a of Lebanon are now regular fare on the network news, in glossy magazines and on the speakers’ circuit. Observers who scarcely acknowledged the existence of the Shi’a just a few years ago, now mechanistically described them as ‘downtrodden’, ‘long ignored’, ‘underprivileged’, ‘quiescent’, all terms that are often used without very much reflection upon the processes and factors that explain why the Shi’a-while still downtrodden and underprivileged-are neither quiescent nor ignored any longer.
