Comprising more than twenty religious and ethnic groups, the modern states of Syria and Lebanon face the overriding problem of regulating confessional and ethnic conflicts.1 The Syrian and Lebanese ruling elites have strongly emphasized the importance of ‘national unity’ against internal and external threats. Despite the call for unity, an implicit and explicit confessional competition has endured, inducing the leaders of most of the religious communities to jockey for securing slices of power. Although the question of power and powerlessness in Syria and Lebanon is related to economic, social, constitutional and cultural aspects, the pres-ent chapter investigates this question through the prism of the nationalist discourse adopted by intellectuals and politicians of the Shiʿis, Druzes and Alawis. The article focuses on this discourse during the period of the Arab Nahda (the Arab awakening) at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century, and its implication on ethno-politics within the two states.