Every now and then, we find, despite everything that has happened and continues to happen, someone getting up to deride Lebanon’s “sectarian system” and hold it responsible for the condition of the devastated country.
The “sectarian system” is not something one can defend, nor can it be absolved of blame for some of the disasters that have hit Lebanese people, particularly its role in entrenching clientelism and corruption, a problem aggravated by centralization.
With that, accuracy and honesty call for delineating its share of the blame; when these lines are not drawn, criticism of the “system” becomes part of the dynamics through which we absolve ourselves of blame as a society while portraying the system as a foreign intruder that parachuted its way into that society. We know that self-exoneration is an indigenous tradition of mainstream Arab political culture, not a distinctly Lebanese phenomenon. As for lampoons of the system, they are, in this sense, also born of a longstanding, proud transnational tradition practiced almost mechanically, and many of these (absolute and preconceived) lampoons encompass a tendency to reject any measure that regulates existing social relations.
Moving beyond the binary of an eternally divine people and a system that is forever profane, we should note (since it is the worst element of this bad political system) that “sectarianism” predates the sectarian regime. Whether we consider the latter to have emerged the year “Greater Lebanon” was founded, 1920, or 1943, the year Lebanon attained its independence, it simply inherited “sectarianism” as a framework for collective socialization. In turn, sectarianism had grown out of premodern tribal and kinship-based modes of socialization.
If the sectarian system has maintained and reproduced this sectarianism, which is indisputably the case, the system has always been trailing behind sectarianism, panting as it struggles to keep up. While it is true that this system reproduces sectarianism in its raw, civic form, nothing indicates that society is hiding a strong popular alternative that transcends sectarianism and its system. While it is common knowledge that political parties which identify as secular and anti-sectarian have been shrinking, and that the October 17 moment was the exception that proves the rule, it is Lebanon’s municipal elections that offer the most robust argument in favor of the claim. The overwhelming majority of the electorate votes, despite the fact that the sectarian codes of the parliamentary electoral process do not apply to local races, for members of their sect in these elections.
On that note, a few remarks to add some nuance to the notion that the “sectarian system” is in itself purely shameful are in order. It is not a military dictatorship imposed on the population by force of arms, but rather a product of a parliamentary process. While this process may deserve to have its integrity challenged, its shortcomings do not nullify its representative capacity. Seeking a more balanced perspective, one must mention a fact that cannot be overlooked: the “sectarian system” allowed Lebanon to evade the clutches of military rule and quasi-totalitarianism that several Arab countries have been subjected to.
More importantly, perhaps, every moment of the sectarian implosion and violence was a moment of identitarian implosion set off and shaped by transnational struggles. The first time this happened was in 1958, with the rise of Nasserism and the divisions around it. Then, in 1975, the country split around Palestinian resistance, and most recently, over the rise of Hezbollah and its wars. Since these shifts lead to the proliferation of arms, the more vulnerable communities inevitably panic, which evokes communal cohesion and mobilization. Moreover, these episodes are coupled with the disruption of the “sectarian system,” not its operation: the state’s arms become weaker than those of sectarian militias; indeed, the services and provisions offered by the state may even become inferior to those of militias.
The picture is only complete once we add an overview of conditions in neighboring countries that often supply the local militants with arms, money, ideology, or all three. A region run by a regime like Assad’s in Syria, or the Khomeinist regime in Iran, and before them the regime of Abdel Hamid Sarraj in the Egyptian-Syrian United Arab Republic, is a threat to the security of consolidated states and countries with a cohesive population. So how could it not threaten the security of a recently established country with many sects and subcultures like Lebanon?
That is why criticizing the “sectarian system” in Lebanon without pointing out that its neighbors have no regard for either international law and norms or national sovereignties, and without addressing what are called cross-border nationalist struggles, is a critique that combines selective omission with a lot of bad faith. That much can be said before mentioning the current context. What are we to say then, once we add that this critique is utilized against the “sectarian system” as it undergoes one of the most difficult and helpless moments in its history, a time in which the sectarian militia known as Hezbollah can drag the country into a destructive war like the one we have just undergone and whose burdens continue to weigh on us?
Anyone seeking to vanquish sectarianism and its political system will find themselves attempting the impossible if their efforts do not entail, at the very least, walking away from so-called nationalist causes and their ramifications: the worship and sanctification of weapons, congeniality with police states, military regimes and militias, in Lebanon and beyond, and the behaviors that following their order or dissolving into them entails.
