Tuesday, November 24, 2020

Lebanese Christians leaning for Far - Right isolationists




The delay in the formation of the Lebanese government was because Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri announced that he was to choose the Christian ministers himself while granting other Lebanese sects the freedom to choose their ministers and withholding this matter from Christian parties and President Michel Aoun. All that has caused resentment among Christians in Lebanon, despite the Church’s silence.

Regrettably, internal Lebanese policies set since the Taif Agreement are causing fractures in the Lebanese society leading to securitization and the rise of existential concerns for the Christians.

Historically, Christians in the Middle East were separated into three ideological lines as follows:

1- The Isolationists: 

They consider themselves an extension of the West; culturally and religiously. Afraid of their being and existence as a minority in an overwhelming Islamic environment. They call for retrenchment, isolation, and sometimes secession or even a federal state. 

Today, supporters of this ideological line benefit from the prevailing sectarian incitements. They appeal to many Christians trying to cast 'solutions from glorified history'.

Realistically, the Christians' status in Lebanon and the Levant is no longer the same. The end of the Lebanese civil war has come at the expense of the Christians and their historical role in the system, and it is impossible to turn back the clock.

2- The Nationalists:

Those call for full integration either with Greater Syria or The Arab Nation. Understanding that the religious aspect will prevent Christians from acquiring a good status in states with an Islamic majority, they cheered secularism to make citizenship the basis for state-building and office.

These ideas have receded significantly among Christians after the decline of the nationalist and pan-Arab wave after Jamal abd-Nasser, besides the rise of sectarianism in the region as a whole.

3- Levantines:

They consider their minority status as no threat to them; they do not feel threatened by the Muslim majority. Thus, they believe that the preservation of their role and existence requires openness to the environment while maintaining cultural heritage, pluralism, and freedom of belief.

They reject being 'remnants of a Crusaders' in the region, and they always assert that they are an integral part of the Arab world and their fate is closely linked to that of Muslims. Levantines believe that civil states are the best solution for Arab-world problems, or so they assume.

General Michel Aoun (as head of the Free Patriotic Movement) championed this idea, making it a roadmap for his national understandings and policies of "re-empowering Christians in the Lebanese system" and calling for a civil state.

Based on the above, the Lebanese Parties' political practice will lead to long-term problems and societal fractures. Christians of the second and third lines are being pushed to the first one through malicious policies that take a sectarian character, including - but not limited to - Hariri's attempt to cover up the real obstacles in forming his government by transforming it into an Islamic-Christian sectarian conflict.

The Lebanese elite today adopt narrow-minded policies, based on the principle of political maliciousness and personal gain at the expense of true national gain; which is manifested in the unity of the fate of Christians and Muslims, their belief that one hand can never clap on its own, and that the exodus of Christians from the Levant is a loss for Muslims in it... Without this faith, the will be no resurrection for Lebanon.

1 comment:

  1. Humanity has to be divided one way or the other, race, religion, nationality, creed, cast, gender and age groups, at the end everything is going to be alright because only life itself is important the rest are vague boundaries.

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