Citation

White B. Stud. Ethn. Nation. 2007; 7(1): 64-85.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2007, Association for the Study of Ethnicity and Nationalism, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/j.1754-9469.2007.tb00108.x

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Minorities are specifically modern political groupings: they belong to the era of nation-states. This article explores the emergence of minorities in Syria under the French mandate. It examines the contradictions caused by French attempts to impose a religious political order within the secular form of the nation-state, showing how that form created minorities, most of whom cannot simply be mapped onto the millets, or religious communities, of the Ottoman Empire.