Elizabth Picard and Alexander Ramsbotham (Eds), (London: Conciliation Resources, 2012, 107pp.)<\/b><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 With the growing intensity of the conflicts in Syria, with the flows of refugees and increased foreign participation, the dangers of serious, negative impact on neighbouring countries is real.\u00a0 This impact is already being felt in Lebanon which has its own multi-level divisions and scars from its own long civil war (1975-1990).\u00a0 Thus this issue N\u00b024 in the Accord series published by Conciliation Resources is a most useful analysis of the complex situation in Lebanon and its historic links with Syria.\u00a0 Each chapter is written by a different author, and no attempt is made to create an artificial consensus.\u00a0 Different views are expressed \u2014 a reflection of a moving reality influenced by domestic and regional conflicts involving a wealth of actors.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Syria and Lebanon have been historically entangled \u2014 economically, politically and socially, both having been parts of the Ottoman Empire.\u00a0 At the end of the First World War, the Ottoman Middle East was divided between France and England and placed under the mandate system of the League of Nations.\u00a0 France held both Syria and Lebanon.\u00a0 France linked the two with a common currency until 1948 when both Lebanon and Syria became independent states. (1)\u00a0 During the mandate period, people moved freely between the two states, especially for business reasons.\u00a0 Thus one finds family members in both countries as well as broader clanic\/tribal ties.\u00a0 During the Lebanese civil war, Syrian political leaders played a role, often behind the scenes.\u00a0 The 1989 Taif Peace Agreement which led to the end of the Lebanese civil war was largely guaranteed by Syria and was followed by more formal treaties between the two states on such issues as commerce and education. The post-1989 relationship was seen as asymmetrical, favouring Syria \u2014 a widely held view in Lebanon.\u00a0 Attitudes toward Syria have become a line of division within Lebanese politics, symbolized by the names of the political alliances: 14 March Alliance (named for the date of anti-Syrian street protests in 2005 that prompted Syria\u2019s military withdrawal) and the 8 March Alliance (named after pro-Syrian demonstrations, also in March 2005).<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Lebanon has been commonly called \u201cthe Switzerland of the Middle East\u201d \u2014 not only because of its international banking system but especially for the way regional and religious interests are carefully balanced in the government and parliament.\u00a0 This system of government has been called \u201cconsociationalism\u201d by the leading scholar of the term, Arend Lijphant who has analysed the Netherlands, Switzerland and Lebanon.(2)\u00a0 Consociationism is basically a system of government that allocates power between religious or ethnic communities with power-sharing between community leaders often in a \u201cgrand coalition\u201d, with regional autonomy and a spirit of compromise so that no group is felt overly \u201cshut out\u201d from decision making.\u00a0 However the basic difference between Switzerland and Lebanon is that political factions in Switzerland do not shoot at each other.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The constitutional divisions of Lebanon are complex and frozen so that they end up being based in part of myths \u2014 such as the division of the population in two equal halves: Christian and Muslim. There is also an over-representation of rural districts as many people left the rural areas for the Beirut area or for work in the Arab Gulf states.\u00a0 To make things more complicated, there are 18 recognized confessional groups: 4 Muslim; 13 Christian and a small but recognized Jewish community. Plus there are people who consider themselves as \u201cnone of the above\u201d but you have to choose to be only in recognized communities.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The first group to upset this delicate balance was the Palestinian refugees who arrived after the 1948 and 1967 Arab-Israel wars and Palestinian leadership which was expelled from Jordan in 1970 \u2014 today some 450,000 people.\u00a0 The Palestinians do not have Lebanese citizenship and are barred from owning property or from entering certain employment such as medicine, law and engineering.\u00a0 The Palestinians are divided among themselves \u2014 PLO groups, pro-Syrian factions, and Islamist militant groups.\u00a0 They are kept out of formal Lebanese politics but are nevertheless there.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 New flows of refugees from the fighting in Syria may aggravate the Lebanese balance.\u00a0 There are Palestinians who have been living in Syria and no longer feel safe as well as Syrians with ties to communities also found in Lebanon.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Ideally, Lebanon\u2019s people need to find ways to empower themselves to move forward so that reforms deemed necessary are implemented, so that building national consensus and reconciliation are pursued as priorities, and so that policies are adopted that allow their state to survive and manage in its perilous environment.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Is there a Lebanese civil society and can it play a role in the reconciliation and reform efforts?\u00a0\u00a0 Marie-Noelle AbiYaghi in her chapter on Civil mobilisation and peace in Lebanon <\/i>writes \u201c Lebanon\u2019s civil society is often seen as a collection of communal groups each with its own associations and structures of mobilisation.\u00a0 However, since the final years of the civil war, Lebanese society has also mobilised through trans-sectarian associations devoted to peacebuilding, social reconstruction and welfare, and to ecology and human and political rights.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 There would be three sources for trans-confessional civil society efforts: youth, women, and business \u2014 the three sectors largely left out of the political structure.\u00a0 However, the sectarian ruling elites have been able to divide, co-opt and manipulate civil associations in order to preserve and advance the interests of the elites.\u00a0 The elites \u2014 often the same families from one generation to the next \u2014 have hijacked NGOs and trade unions, infiltrating them and weakening them from the inside.\u00a0 As AbiYoghi concludes \u201cNeither the Lebanese state nor civil society provides an area in which citizens can claim their rights or hold sectarian leaders to account.\u00a0 At a time when sectarian ties define citizens\u2019 participation in politics, civil society activists have learned that sectarian leaders will only support or represent agendas that do not challenge their hegemony or that contribute to consolidating their patronage networks.\u00a0 In this highly fragmented context, most civil associations do not act as means for civil interaction, but rather are used as tools to reinforce the clientist and sectarian status quo.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It is likely that refugees from Syria will only increase the sectarian leadership though there may be changes in some power relations. Hezbollah has strong links to Syria and Iran and its relative strength could change were the government in Syria to change radically.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 What role can non-governmental conflict-resolution organizations play? There is a significant Lebanese\/Syrian population in the USA, some dating back to the early 1900s \u2014 the family of the Lebanese poet Kahlil Gibran being an example.\u00a0 Often these Lebanese and Syrian Americans are educated and have professional positions in society. The same holds true for Western Europe\u00a0\u00a0 Some NGOs or peace research centers may be able to facilitate discussions on the future of the Middle East, the role of trans-confessional movements and the impact that can have those living outside the Middle East given that Lebanese communities may be vulnerable to political and sectarian manipulation and mobilisation in relation to the conflicts in Syria.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The Accord study ends with a useful bibliography and a list of key websites for those who want to continue being active on this important situation.<\/p>\n
NOTES:<\/b><\/p>\n
1)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 For a lively account of the break up of the Ottoman Empire and the start of the mandate system, see Robert Fisk The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East <\/i>\u00a0(London: Harper Perennial, 2006, 1368pp.)<\/p>\n
2)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 See Arend Lijphart. Democracies in Plural Societies: A Comparative Exploration<\/i> (New Haven, CT: Yale\u00a0 University Press, 1977) as well as other works by the same author.<\/p>\n
___________________________<\/p>\n
\u00a0Ren\u00e9 Wadlow, a member of the Fellowship of Reconciliation and of its Task Force on the Middle East, is president and U.N. representative (Geneva) of the Association of\u00a0World\u00a0Citizens. He is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace, Development and Environment.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Syria and Lebanon have been historically entangled \u2014 economically, politically and socially, both having been parts of the Ottoman Empire. At the end of the First World War, the Ottoman Middle East was divided between France and England and placed under the mandate system of the League of Nations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40044"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40044\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}