Last year, when a group of people submitted a request to the Interior Ministry to delete their religious affiliation from official registries, the reply was that no one has the right to be without a religion in Lebanon. This might be dismissed as a quaint tradition if it were not for that fact that, as Sunday, April 13, marked the 33rd anniversary of the outbreak of the outbreak of Lebanon’s devastating 15-year civil war, the specter of conflict, once again, looms over a country still dominated by sectarian allegiance. 

Sectarianism in Lebanon is not only a social and religious issue; it is tied to the Lebanese constitution. In Lebanon, life events such as marriage, death and inheritance are not governed by a single law. Rather, each citizen has to submit to the specific rules of the religious community to which they belong.

In short, the Lebanese cannot be secular citizens. The concept of citizenship is predicated on the idea that all citizens are equal in the eyes of the state. Mandatory religious courts have no place in this system – all citizens should have the right to choose to abide by a single set of rules.

A constitutional problem

Lebanon’s governing system is based on the distribution of political power among religious factions. Although Lebanon’s institutions have been modernized and equipped with democratic tools, its official posts continue to be predicated on the principle of power sharing between the leaders of religious communities.

Critics argue that civil, rather than religious-based, personal status laws, would allow citizens to refer to the state as the only authority and, as such, would take a degree of power, and income, away from the church and the mosque, the priest and the sheikh. However, opposition from religious and political figures anxious to maintain their grip on power has succeeded in scuttling most serious initiatives advocating secularism and the creation of civil laws.

 “The Lebanese constitution and the political system reinforce sectarianism. The only freedom that is guaranteed by the constitution is the freedom of religious creed,” said Ziad Baroud, a legal expert and a leading figure in Lebanese civil society.

Although the Taif Agreement, which brought an end to the Lebanese civil war, explicitly named the abolition of political sectarianism as one of its key principles, no timeline was set for its implementation. Today, almost twenty years later, little progress has been made.

Small steps

One of the more recent initiatives is the “Secular House,” founded by a group of activists and headed by Lebanese writer Nasri al-Sayegh. Located in Hamra, on Khalidi Street, the center was created as a gathering place for secular-minded people and today it is organizing a campaign to have religious affiliation deleted from the official registry of citizens’ birth, marriage and death certificates. It is too early to tell just how effective the campaign will be.

An earlier initiative had similar goals but stalled in the face of a centuries-old system. In the period following the 2005 Independence Intifada, a newly-formed organization called 05AMAM generated considerable buzz with an awareness-raising campaign, “Stop Sectarianism before it stops us.”

But despite the debate and the positive response sparked by the “Stop sectarianism” campaign, 05AMAM faced numerous challenges preserving the original momentum. Speaking to NOW Lebanon, Nicole Fayyad, an 05AMAM representative, said that the problem was a lack of long-term planning. “It’s not easy to maintain resources and funding for a long time,” she added. “Today, we are still working on the same ideas, but on a different level; that is, smaller projects in schools and universities.”

In fact, a number of civil society organizations today prefer to work on the schools level for two reasons. First, they believe that education is the best channel to effect a change in the system; and second, they do not have to confront religious leaders directly.

Bottom line

According to Baroud, the problem extends far beyond the constitution: It is also tied to the weakness and fragmentation of Lebanese civil society. “Except for the civil marriage campaign, there are no serious and comprehensive programs,” he said. “Renewed crises are always a reason to postpone any serious effort, [even though] we know that the real cause of these crises is the sectarian system,” he added.

To counter the problem, Baroud believes that instead of eliminating sectarianism, we should acknowledge it and acknowledge the fact that it is necessary to go through political leaders in order to effect change. “We cannot ignore these leaders and therefore, we need to give them guarantees and involve them in the equation.”

As for the various civil society initiatives, Baroud believes that their inability to effect change has much to do with the negative response of the society. “We cannot speak of a silent majority anymore; there is a silent minority, and the rest do not want to change the system because they are benefiting from it,” Baroud said. “We cannot separate sectarianism from clientelism.”