Reflections of the 1958 Lebanon Crisis in Turkish National Newspapers


Forming a mosaic with its culture and belief elements, Lebanon has always been a notable country in the Middle East throughout history. With the coexistence of various elements making up a value, from time to time, those factors have also shown different reactions along with internal dynamics and regional evolvements. The increase of relative and class domination in president Camille Chamoun management especially in the last two years, caused unrest in crucial parts of the society. Nervous and achy 1957 elections were also debatable in terms of their results. In May 1958, opposition leaders called for a strike to their interlocutors due to some events in the country. With this call, many strikes began along different places in the country, which also brought along an environment of conflicts that would take place until October. The crisis it faced in 1958, has left a deep scar in the country’s social and political history. The 1958 Lebanon Crisis has created deep concern in the Middle East countries. Like many countries in the region, Turkey has also closely followed the crisis. The events in Lebanon were reflected in Turkey's national newspapers from the beginning to the end of the crisis. This study was performed in order to identify how the influential 1958 crisis of Lebanon was perceived by the Turkish side. Although there are many studies about Lebanon in Turkey, there was no study that analysed the 1958 Lebanon crisis based on newspapers. From the point of this gap in literature, national newspapers of Turkey; Akşam, Cumhuriyet, Hürriyet, Milliyet, Ulus and Vakit were scanned and news related to the 1958 Lebanon crisis were identified. The crisis was analysed in perspective of gathered news.


Keywords


Middle East, Lebanon, General Strike, Conflict, Civil War, 1958 Crisis.

Author : Abdullah EKİNCİ -Abdullah ORAK
Number of pages: 459-476
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.29228/TurkishStudies.43259
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Turkish Studies - Historical Analysis
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