The Lebanese Social Structure… and Again… Made Simple

So for those who found my post Social Group Dynamics in Lebanon very, very, very long and boring (for those who didn’t, I really appreciate your patience!), here’s a video that puts the same idea across… and entertains you at the same time. It’s made with the 2009 Elections in mind, but that doesn’t change any of the facts communicated.

Enjoy and excuse the bad language!

Tolerance for Dummies

One of the key terms of my PhD research is ‘social integration’. In the 1995 World Summit for Social Development, the United Nations listed 3 agenda headings as a priority for action, one of which was ‘enhancing social integration’ – alongside ‘decreasing poverty’ and ‘reducing unemployment’.

The United Nations defines social integration in relation to 2 approaches:

1) Social integration as an inclusionary goal: for greater justice and equality of life particularly targeted towards minority groups and deprived communities

2) Social integration as heightened solidarity and mutual identification: for promoting tolerance and harmonious interaction at all levels of society to decrease the likelihood of violence

A few months ago, I was fortunate enough to meet Elie Awad, the founder of Lebanese NGO Youth for Tolerance. This NGO is concerned with both approaches to social integration. Their statement reads:

“We at Youth for Tolerance, or Y4T in short, work to promote a culture of tolerance that will result in respect, acceptance and appreciation of religious and political diversity in Lebanon, as well as in a better inclusion of all socially marginalized groups.”

Youth for Tolerance, as their name suggests, focus on the stage of tolerance. They break down the social integration process into small steps:

1) Noticing differences

2) Finding differences amusing

3) Finding differences enriching

4) Seeing beyond differences

One of their many interventions to achieve this is a small simple booklet: ‘Tolerance for Dummies’, a guide for young Lebanese to achieve tolerance.

Although it is rigorous and highly grounded in conflict management theories, it is written in an easily accessible, engaging and entertaining voice. It contains tips, anecdotes, warnings, fun exercises and lots of humour for ‘achieving tolerance nirvana’ as the subtitle states. To make the reader’s experience even more interesting, it asks him/her to flip the book over if they disagree with any of the tolerance statements. What’s on the back? ‘Civil War for Dummies’! So the second half of the book is a detailed simple process, again with lots of humour and interactivity, couterarguing tolerance and explaining how simple anti-tolerant steps can quickly instigate the other extreme: A civil war.

Front and back covers

I highly recommend reading this booklet. It demonstrates how the typical everyday behaviour of every single young Lebanese can inflict a snowballing effect on Lebanese integration or segregation. ‘The whole is the sum of the parts’.

If you would like a PDF copy of the booklet please leave your email address in the comments, or get in touch with Elie Awad at info@youthfortolerance.org.

Religious Solidarity and Opposition

The reason certain social groups in Lebanon today dislike one another goes back beyond the July War of 2006, the assassination demonstrations of 2005, the Civil War of 1975-1990, and the Independence of 1943. Who we like and support today is most likely not who we will like and support in the future, or who our parents, grandparents, and great grandparents liked and supported in the past.

Today in the 21st Century, political power is in the hands of the Sunnis, during the Independence years in the 20th Century it was in the hands of the Christian Maronites, during the Ottoman Empire (1516), it was in the hands of the Druze (who are a religious minority today), during the reign of the Fatimids of Egypt in the 10th Century, it was in the hands of the Shia.

Today, Sunnis and Druze go hand in hand, during the Ottoman Empire Druze and Sunnis had over 100 years of armed conflict, with the Shia supporting the Druze in the majority of the battles.

Today, Maronites are divided between government opposition and government alliance, during the Mameluk rule in the 14th Century, when Maronites were at their weakest, they enjoyed the strongest solidarity with one another.

Years and years of everchanging solidarities and oppositions have succeeded in accomplishing only one thing: more segregation.

I have begun mapping out the religious solidarity and opposition in Lebanon since the Ottoman Empire to the present. This is what it’s looking like until the end of the Maan rule, which historically, is only the first phase of our autonomous history. This mapping has yet to become more complex with the Melchites dividing into Greek Catholic and Greek Orthodox, the Maronites dividing into two political convictions, the Druze dividing into Jumblat and Arsalan supporters, etc.

Our social groups are becoming more and more branched out every day, when what we all really aspire to, is that all these lines intersect into one line, one colour, labeled ‘Lebanese’.

Religious solidarity and opposition chronological mapping

Close-up

Note: The original mapping is very large, so not all the text is visible in this image. If you would like the full resolution mapping please leave a comment with your email address and I will email you a PDF version.