The Christians and modern Lebanon

2012-12-10

Unlike in the rest of the Middle East, the Christians of Lebanon were the creators of the country, historically and in the modern republic. They let then include non-Christian areas and made a constitution that guaranteed civil and religious rights to all the 18 religious groups.

Many warnings comes these days for the¨ Lebanezation¨ of conflicts in the Middle East while before 1975 Lebanon was set as an example of coexistence and power sharing between the different parts of the population.

The fault they did I believe was to divide power according to religious affiliations while they should have done it between the ethnic groups in Lebanon. There are two main such groups, the Arab Muslims and the non-Arab Christians.

The Christians are struggling today to unify their sects under one identity and among the main alternatives we find the Phoenician, the Arab, the Aramaic and simply the Lebanese while for the Muslims it is clear that they are Arabs before anything else.

In modern Lebanon the Christians used to be more than half the population while today they are maximum half, they still hold on to key positions like the presidency, army general and head of the central bank despite a growing conflict between the Shia and Sunni Arabs supported by foreign powers, the Christians always do their best to show a bright side of Lebanon and make anything to keep their creation alive and prosper.