The “Lebanisation" of Lebanon: myth or
reality?
Did Lebanon give up on its Arab Spring?
In 2004, the Lebanese journalist Samir Kassir, a co-founder of the Democratic Left Movement, and a leading figure of the "Cedar Revolution”, was the first to call on the Arabs to become masters of their own fate and do away with the myth of Arab exceptionalism. He put forward the notion that democracy and secularism are compatible with Arab values and Arab culture.
Few months later, on 2nd June 2005, Samir Kassir was silenced forever at the age of forty-five. At the time, the People of Lebanon had vowed to keep his spirit alive and to pursue the battle for freedom and independence.
Unfortunately, and for reasons we do not comprehend, the ball was dropped, and the momentum was lost.
Nine years have passed, and we still have nothing to show for it.
At a time where freedom of thought and freedom of expression are being challenged all over the globe, our fragile democracy is once again put to the test.
Once the only democracy in the Arab world, Lebanon seems to be sitting on the fringes while the “Arab Spring” train passes through the region.
Has the "Lebanisation" of Lebanon as advocated by Samir Kassir become a myth?
On 20th March 2011, over 20,000 people marched throughout the streets of Beirut calling for a radical change to the prevailing sectarian system based on religion and one’s affiliation to a given faith.
In Lebanon, you do not choose your religious faith or affiliation. You are born into it, like you are born Caucasian, or black-skinned, with blue eyes, or brown ones.
A few years ago, all reference to religious affiliation was removed from identity cards. Nevertheless, each citizen remains classified under his/her religious community.
For many such as the Lebanese political analyst G. Corm, “putting an end to sectarianism, that is to say, religious communities, is certainly a challenge, but it is a challenge worth accepting”.
For others, however, social harmony is based on a delicate and miraculous equation among the various religious communities in Lebanon. For them, “confessionalism” is seen as a "safeguard" against authoritarianism and against the risk of hegemony of a religious group over another.
For the advocates of secularization, the introduction of a system based on meritocracy, to replace the current system based on religious affiliation, will reinforce the Lebanese fabric and will propel the country into the twenty first Century. For this to succeed, one would need to start at the source; at school. One needs to change the mindset of an entire population, and engage in what we would call, the “secularization of the minds”.
But in today’s context, would the "secularization of minds" be attainable, without disrupting the fragile equilibrium so many talk about, and as a result the cultural and spiritual plurality of the Lebanese identity?
One of the main challenges facing Lebanon is to go beyond the clichés and to overcome religious communitarianism; an artificial divide, inherited from the Ottomans and the French to serve their own interests.
Indeed, it is about time that the people of Lebanon take charge of their own fate, and reinvent themselves, if they really want to build a democratic and independent country.
Lebanon’s religiously based political construct has its roots in two things:
First it’s a historical construction. Identity-order political divisions in Lebanon have always had a sectarian basis. Due to a lack of consensus on what brings the Lebanese people together a confessional system was established to allow and equal allocation of power to the various communities.
The second is anthropological: its basic assumption is that the religious community exclusively forges the identity and behavior of its members. This is the perception that most Lebanese have on their national identity, due to a partial and reductive perception of their own history.
We believe that the transmission of a common history and identity in Lebanon must begin with the "deconstruction" of current perceptions.
Lebanon is not an artificial creation of French imperialism nor the refuge of Eastern Christians persecuted by Islam, let alone the country of a happy fantasy: Phoenicia.
Lebanon has been in existence for thousands of years. It has its place in the history of mankind, and is there to last.
Many lament that to date, there is no common text book that narrates Lebanon’s history.
I respectfully submit that contrary to popular belief, numerous authors have written extensively on the history of Lebanon. Recently, I came across the masterful research conducted by Boutros Dib, former Ambassador to Lebanon in France, and Rector of the Lebanese University, and titled: History of Lebanon: From the origins to the twentieth century, and published in 2006,
This collective work brings together the contributions of ten historians and geographers reflecting on the diversity of the Lebanese complex identity. Boutros Dib has written most of it. To date, this book seems to one of the few that comprises a complete history of Lebanon written by Lebanese historians (among the ten authors, only one is a foreigner: Professor J. Richard who assumed the drafting of the chapter on crusades). The book ends with the beginning of the Lebanese Civil War in 1975.
The History of Lebanon was for Boutros Dib, unanimously recognized for his intellectual integrity and human qualities, the work of a lifetime. I would like to thank his children Maha and Yousef for sharing their father’s writings with us.
Boutros Dib’s book carries with it several lessons. It begins with a geographical overview.
For the historian, the geography of Lebanon influences its history, namely its openness to the rest of the world, and its tradition as a land of asylum.
Lebanon is a country blessed with high mountains plunging to the sea. It cultivates a tradition of openness that starts off with the Phoenician history, leading to the Frankish kingdoms and to Fakhreddin II, who entered into a political alliance with the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, and finally the creation in 1584 of the Maronite College in Rome.
It also cultivates a tradition of tolerance. Over the ages, it has welcomed ethnic minorities looking for a refuge. This is most evident with the presence of the most visible minorities like the Maronites and the Druze who found refuge in the mountains, the Sunnis in the coastal city of Beirut and various ports such as Tripoli and Saida, the Shiites in the Beqaa valley and the southern parts of Lebanon. Even in modern times, Lebanon extended its hospitality to the Armenians who fled the massacres of 1915, the Palestinians expelled from Jordan in the wake of the Black September in 1970, and the Syrians expelled from their homes in 2013-14.
It is unfortunate that the history of Lebanon has been tainted by the events of the past forty years. Hence, the need to deconstruct the preconceptions that took roots in people’s minds and have distorted the reality about Lebanon and its message.
For this to happen, we must revive the spirit of the Cedar Revolution and work relentlessly to restore Trust among the people of Lebanon, and instill a sense of history and of belonging.
To this effect, I propose the formation of a neutral platform, a “think tank”, where ideas and concerns may be exchanged in an open, civilized and transparent manner, away from politics and communitarianism.
The Lebanisation of Lebanon is a reality, but it can only be achieved if all the people of Lebanon come together and take their fate in their own hands.
Erik. W Chiniara
Did Lebanon give up on its Arab Spring?
In 2004, the Lebanese journalist Samir Kassir, a co-founder of the Democratic Left Movement, and a leading figure of the "Cedar Revolution”, was the first to call on the Arabs to become masters of their own fate and do away with the myth of Arab exceptionalism. He put forward the notion that democracy and secularism are compatible with Arab values and Arab culture.
Few months later, on 2nd June 2005, Samir Kassir was silenced forever at the age of forty-five. At the time, the People of Lebanon had vowed to keep his spirit alive and to pursue the battle for freedom and independence.
Unfortunately, and for reasons we do not comprehend, the ball was dropped, and the momentum was lost.
Nine years have passed, and we still have nothing to show for it.
At a time where freedom of thought and freedom of expression are being challenged all over the globe, our fragile democracy is once again put to the test.
Once the only democracy in the Arab world, Lebanon seems to be sitting on the fringes while the “Arab Spring” train passes through the region.
Has the "Lebanisation" of Lebanon as advocated by Samir Kassir become a myth?
On 20th March 2011, over 20,000 people marched throughout the streets of Beirut calling for a radical change to the prevailing sectarian system based on religion and one’s affiliation to a given faith.
In Lebanon, you do not choose your religious faith or affiliation. You are born into it, like you are born Caucasian, or black-skinned, with blue eyes, or brown ones.
A few years ago, all reference to religious affiliation was removed from identity cards. Nevertheless, each citizen remains classified under his/her religious community.
For many such as the Lebanese political analyst G. Corm, “putting an end to sectarianism, that is to say, religious communities, is certainly a challenge, but it is a challenge worth accepting”.
For others, however, social harmony is based on a delicate and miraculous equation among the various religious communities in Lebanon. For them, “confessionalism” is seen as a "safeguard" against authoritarianism and against the risk of hegemony of a religious group over another.
For the advocates of secularization, the introduction of a system based on meritocracy, to replace the current system based on religious affiliation, will reinforce the Lebanese fabric and will propel the country into the twenty first Century. For this to succeed, one would need to start at the source; at school. One needs to change the mindset of an entire population, and engage in what we would call, the “secularization of the minds”.
But in today’s context, would the "secularization of minds" be attainable, without disrupting the fragile equilibrium so many talk about, and as a result the cultural and spiritual plurality of the Lebanese identity?
One of the main challenges facing Lebanon is to go beyond the clichés and to overcome religious communitarianism; an artificial divide, inherited from the Ottomans and the French to serve their own interests.
Indeed, it is about time that the people of Lebanon take charge of their own fate, and reinvent themselves, if they really want to build a democratic and independent country.
Lebanon’s religiously based political construct has its roots in two things:
First it’s a historical construction. Identity-order political divisions in Lebanon have always had a sectarian basis. Due to a lack of consensus on what brings the Lebanese people together a confessional system was established to allow and equal allocation of power to the various communities.
The second is anthropological: its basic assumption is that the religious community exclusively forges the identity and behavior of its members. This is the perception that most Lebanese have on their national identity, due to a partial and reductive perception of their own history.
We believe that the transmission of a common history and identity in Lebanon must begin with the "deconstruction" of current perceptions.
Lebanon is not an artificial creation of French imperialism nor the refuge of Eastern Christians persecuted by Islam, let alone the country of a happy fantasy: Phoenicia.
Lebanon has been in existence for thousands of years. It has its place in the history of mankind, and is there to last.
Many lament that to date, there is no common text book that narrates Lebanon’s history.
I respectfully submit that contrary to popular belief, numerous authors have written extensively on the history of Lebanon. Recently, I came across the masterful research conducted by Boutros Dib, former Ambassador to Lebanon in France, and Rector of the Lebanese University, and titled: History of Lebanon: From the origins to the twentieth century, and published in 2006,
This collective work brings together the contributions of ten historians and geographers reflecting on the diversity of the Lebanese complex identity. Boutros Dib has written most of it. To date, this book seems to one of the few that comprises a complete history of Lebanon written by Lebanese historians (among the ten authors, only one is a foreigner: Professor J. Richard who assumed the drafting of the chapter on crusades). The book ends with the beginning of the Lebanese Civil War in 1975.
The History of Lebanon was for Boutros Dib, unanimously recognized for his intellectual integrity and human qualities, the work of a lifetime. I would like to thank his children Maha and Yousef for sharing their father’s writings with us.
Boutros Dib’s book carries with it several lessons. It begins with a geographical overview.
For the historian, the geography of Lebanon influences its history, namely its openness to the rest of the world, and its tradition as a land of asylum.
Lebanon is a country blessed with high mountains plunging to the sea. It cultivates a tradition of openness that starts off with the Phoenician history, leading to the Frankish kingdoms and to Fakhreddin II, who entered into a political alliance with the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, and finally the creation in 1584 of the Maronite College in Rome.
It also cultivates a tradition of tolerance. Over the ages, it has welcomed ethnic minorities looking for a refuge. This is most evident with the presence of the most visible minorities like the Maronites and the Druze who found refuge in the mountains, the Sunnis in the coastal city of Beirut and various ports such as Tripoli and Saida, the Shiites in the Beqaa valley and the southern parts of Lebanon. Even in modern times, Lebanon extended its hospitality to the Armenians who fled the massacres of 1915, the Palestinians expelled from Jordan in the wake of the Black September in 1970, and the Syrians expelled from their homes in 2013-14.
It is unfortunate that the history of Lebanon has been tainted by the events of the past forty years. Hence, the need to deconstruct the preconceptions that took roots in people’s minds and have distorted the reality about Lebanon and its message.
For this to happen, we must revive the spirit of the Cedar Revolution and work relentlessly to restore Trust among the people of Lebanon, and instill a sense of history and of belonging.
To this effect, I propose the formation of a neutral platform, a “think tank”, where ideas and concerns may be exchanged in an open, civilized and transparent manner, away from politics and communitarianism.
The Lebanisation of Lebanon is a reality, but it can only be achieved if all the people of Lebanon come together and take their fate in their own hands.
Erik. W Chiniara