Here is why Lebanon is a dying state
Religion dictates all aspects of politics and life, Elie Mikhael Nasrallah says.
Beirut, Lebanon's capital, was once regarded as the Paris of the Arab world: vibrant, dynamic, cosmopolitan. Over the last 50 years, however, it has been beset by war, sectarianism and disease, to the point it is now a shadow of its previous self. Actually, Lebanon itself is dying.
This is a tragedy of historic proportions, yet is anyone noticing? Would the international community even miss Lebanon should it collapse completely and disappear into the sands of time, to become another Jericho or Babylon?
I would miss Lebanon, as would approximately two million of my compatriots who have left that godforsaken country since the 1970s.
I was born in Lebanon and as a young man fled my homeland during the early years of the 1975-90 civil war. I made my way to Ottawa, where members of my family had already established themselves. It was obvious that Lebanon offered me little in the way of a future that did not involve wielding a machine-gun. I have since made a good life here for myself and my family, and I am fiercely proud of my Canadian citizenship. Yet I still mourn for Lebanon.
How could this state of affairs happen? One word: religion.
The Middle East is the birthplace of the Abrahamic religions: Christianity, Judaism and Islam. While you'd think that because they share the same god, as well as several core beliefs and prophets, they'd get along, nothing could be further from the truth. Lebanon's history is proof of this.
In 1859, William Mcclure Thomson, an American Protestant missionary, published an account of his 25 years in the region, entitled The Land and the Book. While this immensely popular travel guide of the time primarily illustrates passages from the Bible, it also offers insight into mid-19th century Lebanese political, social and religious culture. This passage tells us all we need to know about Lebanon, then and now: “The various religions and sects live together, and practise their conflicting superstitions in proximity, but the people do not coalesce into one homogeneous community, nor do they regard each other with fraternal feelings. The Sunnites excommunicate the Shiites — both hate the Druze. The Maronites have no particular love for anybody and in turn, are disliked by all. The Greek Orthodox cannot endure the Greek Catholics; all despise the Jews.”
Lebanon has always been a work in progress. While the borders that define the country today were drawn in 1920 as a result of the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, the region has formed part of numerous empires dating back to ancient times. After the First World War, France controlled the region, and Lebanon was largely a Christian country, with pockets of Muslim and Druze. A few years later, France established the Lebanese Republic with a parliamentary system of government.
This sounded promising, yet since its independence in 1943, Lebanon has recognized 18 different sects and instituted power- and resource-sharing arrangements based on sectarian divisions. This unwritten “National Pact” was based on convention and national understanding of the special place religious groups held within the Lebanese mosaic.
Until 1975, the Maronites, who comprise most of Lebanon's Christians, controlled most positions of power. By then, however, the number of Muslims had grown to the point that they demanded changes to the National Pact. Things collapsed into civil war, as the Sunni Muslims, with the help of Palestinian refugees (also Sunni), sought to alter the system by force.
The civil war ended with the Tiaf Agreement of 1989, which reduced the Christian community's powers and granted the Muslims more say and an allocation of cabinet powers.
Although there has been no national census conducted since 1943, it is estimated that Muslims now constitute about 70 per cent of Lebanon's population and Christians 30 per cent. Regardless, the Lebanese parliament is bound by terms set out in the sectarian accord of 1943 wherein the president of the republic shall be a Maronite, the prime minister a Sunni, and the speaker a Shia.
Essentially, Lebanon is a theocracy. In such a state, private and public matters are viewed through the prism of one's religious or sectarian background. Like gravity, religion is everywhere. It dictates the division of resources, public appointments, education, business, social interactions, simple contracts. Everything. Consequently, there is no hope for a modern state. Even if the country's youth are trained on a par with their peers in other countries, life in Lebanon makes it practically impossible to succeed. So they emigrate, draining the state of its lifeblood.
This is in addition to massive and historical corruption, poor governance, rampant tribalism, legendary incompetence by the elites, and disloyalty among rulers and their respective bases.
The explosion of 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate in August 2020 at the Beirut port was the culmination of this failed theocratic state. By 2022, the investigation into its cause had stalled. Parliamentary immunity and other procedural roadblocks initiated by members of Parliament continue to prevent progress.
These are just excuses. In truth, there is no loyalty to Lebanon, no citizenship. Instead, there are just guests in a multi-room hotel called the Republic of Lebanon. To paraphrase Plato, this country is what it is, because our citizens are what they are.