Hazem Saghiyeh

No reasonable and just person should make light of the fear of minorities. However, one should also not make light of scaring these minorities and, based on this intimidation, pushing them to the brink of suicide.

I am referring specifically to three minorities in the Arab Levant, namely Shia, Christians and Alawites. These minorities emerged out of centuries of injustice and persecution, but they rose above their wounds and brandished the slogans of enlightenment and modernism, betting in various times on education, parties and sociopolitical reforms. What they bet on did not manage a successful takeoff. One of the reasons was that the Sunni majority did not respond to their bet and went after conservative, slow and sometimes reactionary options. So-called nationalist issues were a noticeable lever in the process of shunning the progressive and modernist agenda.

Yet minorities soon had recourse to military coups in Syria, where they built a sectarian and despotic political regime. In Lebanon, the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, a microcosm of the alliance of minorities, attempted to lead coups twice and failed as many times because of the sectarian composition of the Lebanese society. The most extremist of minority movements later prevailed, whether with Christian radicalism extending from Bachir Gemayel to Michel Aoun or with Shia radicalism that is especially epitomized by Hezbollah.

While this does not exonerate the majority from its responsibility, one should also not minimize the responsibility of minorities, especially since they control power in Syria. Except for a short period following 2005, minorities were also the closest to power in Lebanon. Even during this short period, a material war with Israel was invoked as a pretext so that the equation does not change.

This is too much. First, it goes against the early responses of minorities, which were based on enlightenment, education and parties. This was the case for Christians between the end of the 19th century and the 1940s, and for the Shia between the 1950s and the Lebanese civil war in the mid-1970s. Second, it is built on premises where minorities will be the weakest even if they “strike alliances.” Indeed, should minorities attempt to address the issue in such a “realistic” and unilateral fashion, they will not be able to prevail; rather, all they can achieve is suicide.

This article is a translation of the original, which appeared on the NOW Arabic site on Monday September 19, 2011