ADC Conference Examines Prospects for a Unified Lebanon

By Frank Collins

Ever since a frustrated United States withdrew its Marines from Lebanon at the end of 1983, the continuing civil war there has been relegated to a back page in the American media. The continuing suffering of the Lebanese people receives little comment. And further, little effort is made by Americans to understand why the civil war occurred and the role of the West in the tragedy.

The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) therefore sponsored a daylong meeting December to examine the Taif agreement and prospects for using it as the basis for settling the civil war and reunifying Lebanon.

Dr. Constantine Zurayk, Hisham Milhern and Dr. Halim Barakat analyzed the historical, political and socio-economic background of Lebanon in the morning session. In the afternoon session, Dr. Marius Deeb, Dr. Salim MuJais and Dr. Hala Maksoud discussed pluralism, secularism and the Taif agreement in looking toward the future. It was in the afternoon session that the problems dividing Lebanon surfaced in the discussion itself.

Unique in the Arab World

Lebanon has been unique in the Arab world in having a nearly balanced representation of Islam and Christianity, with the further subdivision of both into several sects.

Lebanon's geographical position and the industry of its people led to great economic success, but this did not lead to a democratic egalitarian state. Instead, personal aggrandizement became the order of the day, the economic gains were acquired by small elites, and the rest of the population remained mired in poverty.

All this was similar to the situation in many countries, East and West, but there were important differences. Lebanon had not absorbed the liberal traditions of the modern nation-state, and thus had not developed much feeling of national identity among its people. Loyalties remained within the clan and within the several sectarian groups. The result was a society fractured primarily along religious lines. To this was added the fact that wealth and poverty became associated with particular sects. Many Maronite Christians were prosperous, and many Shi'i Muslims remained in abject poverty. Half of Beirut's inhabitants, mainly Shi'i Lebanese and Palestinian refugees, lived in shantytowns on its periphery.

The lack of national identity, with loyalty reserved for the religious groupings, resulted in the continuation of a weak national government based on proportional representation of the religious confessions or sects.

The fact that the National Covenant on which the structure of the government was based did not take into account demographic changes since the time of the last national census in the 1930s, when Christians had outnumbered the Muslims, only intensified sectarian rivalries. The presence of political bosses, geographic fiefdoms, intimidation, and, eventually, rival militias, was a sure recipe for instability and civil war.

This, along with the buildup of a disaffected and heavily armed Palestinian refugee population, was the background of the 15 years of multi-polar civil war. The predisposition of the Lebanese sectarian groups and Palestinian guerrilla groups to seek and find monetary and military support from outside the country in such places as Libya, Israel, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iran, France, the USSR and possibly the US, invited the kind of bloody on-again, off-again fighting with few major changes on the ground that has characterized the civil war. In addition, Syria and Israel have staged large-scale direct military interventions in the civil war, and their continuing presence in Lebanon threatens its future political unification and territorial integrity.

Militias are not the way to go about political reform.

The Taif agreement to begin negotiations to reorganize the government based upon equal Muslim and Christian representation, rather than the 6-to-5 edge previously held by the Christians, poses a difficult and controversial task for a sorely divided society. The heart of the dispute is whether to continue to allocate government jobs and parliamentary seats on a confessional basis, or to adopt a secular type of government as the way to bring about a unified Lebanon.

At the ADC conference, Dr. Deeb, defending pluralism, and Dr. Majais, advocating secularism, were on opposite sides in this controversy. The choice is not as simple as it may seem at first to Americans, with their traditions of separation of church and state and equal political and legal status of all citizens, regardless of religious beliefs.

Dr. Deeb said that the lessons of the Eastern European democratic revolution have not been lost on the Lebanese: Militias are not the way to go about political reform. Diversity of political views is essential. Cultural diversity must be maintained. Religion is a vital force.

In a subsequent telephone conversation with the writer, he further expanded his remarks. He said that the confessional basis of the present form of government could be neither ignored nor abolished. For the Christians, modem Lebanon was founded on the basis of a political partnership between Christians and Muslims designed to preserve their separate civil and religious status.

In Dr. Deeb's opinion, many Christians would refuse to concede their status as a separate political community. They could well split out of Lebanon if a completely secular form of government were adopted.

Dr. Deeb said a reasonable compromise from the Christian viewpoint might be to abandon proportional representation for the individual confessions in favor of equal representation of Christians and Muslims. Such a government would not be dominated by either-or by backers of either Paris or Damascus.

Many Muslims would also be unhappy with a secular form of government.

Whether this would be satisfactory to the Muslims and Druze who now form the majority of the population is another question. However, many Muslims, quite apart from the question of sharia, the body of Islamic law, would also be unhappy with a secular type of government, fearing that it may adopt laws that are at variance with the teachings of the Quran. Turkey is the only Muslim country in the Middle East that has a fully secular government. And Turkey is not faced with an almost even division between Christians and Muslims as in Lebanon, having an almost completely Muslim population.

The Case for Secularism

Dr. Majais, in his advocacy of secularism, said the civil war in Lebanon began and continues as a war between the various sectarian militias seeking to increase their share of the political pie. He noted that for most of the Arab states, sharia has disappeared except for family law.

There is considerable uncertainty as to whether the negotiations for governmental reform under the Taif agreement will be successful, in view of the heated controversy between confessionalism and secularism. Dr. Hala Maksoud expressed herself as optimistic—for the first time in 15 years. Beirut is cleared of the militias, and while enactment of the steps prescribed in the Taif agreement is not exactly on schedule, she expects formation of a new government very soon.

Other questions arise about reform of the government. The first is whether the members of the present parliament, elected in 1972, represent the views of the present population, particularly on the question of confessionalism. From a practical stand-point, however, there is no other choice.

A second question is the agenda and timetable of the withdrawal of the Syrian army. Taif provides that within one year of the governmental reforms, the new government will disband all the militias and reorganize the national army and the police. Syrian forces will then assist the government to reestablish its authority over the national territory within an optimum two-year period. The Syrian troops will subsequently be stationed in the Bekaa region for a length of time to be jointly determined between the two governments. Disposition of this question will thus require several years.

A final question is Israeli occupation of the southern portion of the country. No agreement of any kind exists concerning the military occupation, which may therefore continue indefinitely. Here a peaceful solution may be obtainable only through the good offices of the United States and the United Nations.

Frank Collins is an American journalist who divides his time between Washington, DC and Jerusalem.