Hazem Saghiyeh

Between 1990 and 2005, Christians were marginalized under the “tutelage regime” in Lebanon. Back then, active parties on the Muslim side without any exceptions colluded with the tutelage power, including Hezbollah, former PM Rafik Hariri, MP Walid Jumblatt and Speaker Nabih Berri. Even after the fall of the “tutelage regime,” the “four-party alliance” bore witness to the Muslim inclination to resume the Christians’ marginalization under different circumstances.

This dark experience was probably the main reason behind the emergence of the Aounist phenomenon and behind the search by a narrow majority of Lebanese Christians for a demagogical and populist illusory solution to their frustration. The conclusion they came to back then was that “national partnership” was merely empty claims and that “partners” are ready to sacrifice and forsake them and to derive the greatest amount of benefits from their marginalization.

Such a feeling is bound to awaken some hidden and suppressed feelings and memories: What happened would not have taken place were it not for the spread of a majority culture deeply rooted in the past and intent on ignoring the difference of the other. This ignorance can be noticed in countless major choices in Lebanon’s modern history regarding which the Christians’ wishes were never taken into consideration.

This bitterness most likely spilled over from Lebanon’s Christians to Syria’s, and this overwhelming feeling was promoted by the television boom over the past decades. The plight of Iraq’s Christians following the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime in 2003 consolidated the same feeling. In Syria, however, the prolonged confiscation of political life gave Christians the choice – or so the majority thought – between a military and almost-lay minority that would preserve them, and more-or-less Islamic forces, which would annihilate them. Following the victory of the Egyptian revolution, Christian Copts in Egypt seem to be in a worrying situation, thus providing an additional reason driving Christians to turn their back on revolutions.

This bleak image is based on many facts, which denote despotic and intolerant structures. Some of these are based on our unreformed fanatic structure and culture, while others result from military regimes whose repression played a key role in the exacerbation of fanaticism in general. Yet this analysis and the ensuing conclusions fail to take into account the most important truth of all, namely the future. Indeed, the Christians’ insistence on pitting their rightful causes against the rightful causes of their peoples is tantamount to portraying their cause as unjust, despotic and tyrannical. This takes the edge off the moral superiority of Christian concerns in the Levant and, by extension, the concerns of minorities.

Nevertheless, it offers a multitude of reasons threatening their security and existence. Their behavior actually promotes fanatic behavior against them, and increases the societal Islamist dose they are afraid of. On another level, their support for the Syrian military will prolong despotism and the repression that strengthens and benefits Islamists.

On another level, it would be useful to remember that this Syrian military rule was the most important factor underlying the change and weakness that plagued Lebanon, knowing that Christians take pride in their specificity in this country and its specificity for them.

The history of revolutions is laden with calls and attempts aiming to reconcile sectarian and sectoral demands (minorities, women, etc.) with the demands of popular majorities. Yet it would be no exaggeration to say that such attempts entail a certain amount of risk, as proven by the fact that some of them succeeded whereas others failed. Still, it has been proven that the minority’s voice can affect the general picture. Indeed, if its democratic and pluralistic ambition that is open to the future and bent on building a nation for everyone prevails, the result is totally different from what things would be like if dissoluteness based on past memories and hatreds were to prevail. And minorities have both elements.