Peter Vesterlund

Lebanese. It’s a simple word, easy to spell, easy to pronounce. But what does it really mean? What defines a Lebanese? The logical answer would be ‘someone who is born in Lebanon or is a Lebanese citizen’.
But in Lebanon logics don’t always apply.

Today it has been 65 years since Lebanon was freed from French colonial rule and proclaimed itself an independent nation. The army celebrated by parading on Martyr’s Square – the very spot where Lebanese nationalists were hanged during World War I for revolting against the Ottoman rulers. The square is a symbol of the Lebanese struggle for independence.

But does it really make sense to talk about Lebanon as an independent nation?

Lebanese president Michel Suleiman (left)

Allow me to present a personal observation I have made during my stay in Lebanon - one that I as an outsider find rather peculiar. When I engage in a conversation about politics with a Lebanese I often pose the question: With what do you identify yourself first and foremost – your nationality or your religion?
Sadly, if one is to look at this from a nationalist perspective, quite often the answer is the latter.

My impression is that regardless of being Christian, Sunni, Shi’it or Druze confessional identity often overshadows national identity. Yet, this does not imply that people don’t also consider themselves Lebanese. They do, but they often consider their own confessional community the only true Lebanese. People of other religions are considered less Lebanese or in some cases not Lebanese at all.

It is important to state that the above applies to far from all Lebanese. But it doesn’t seem to be that uncommon either.

For outsiders this could easily be interpreted as the Lebanese being extremely religious. Why else would religion be such a dividing factor? This is not the case, though. In fact, seen as a whole, the Lebanese seem to be less religious than people from most other Arab countries that I have visited. But they are very tied to their confessional communities. This is of course due to the division of people into confessions throughout Lebanese history and particularly during the civil war.

But the 16 years of bloody battles were not about religious issues. The Muslims were not fighting to introduce Shari’a law – just as the Christians were not fighting to make Sundays a national holiday. It was all about power – good old fashioned secular power. The main characters of the war just happened to be from different sectarian factions - accustomed to think of politics in terms of religious divisions.

Still today religion in itself is not what divides the Lebanese. But belonging to different religious communities is.
As the guy I met in Bulldog Bar the other night put it: “I am more Christian than Lebanese. I feel terrible saying this, because this is really a problem for my country.”
It’s a problem because it is exactly this mentality which makes Lebanon a powder keg threatening to explode by the smallest spark and blow the country into another bloody conflict. As long as people think in this way the definition of the word Lebanese will remain a blurred one.

Sure, Lebanon is independent. But it’s not really a nation.

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