Why I am a Federalist

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Hicham Bou Nassif

Claremont McKenna College

The reasons informing my federal commitment are fourfold: 

1) Lebanon is a multi-confessional society. Managing ethnic diversity is never an easy task; indeed, it may well be the major political challenge faced by troubled societies yearning for stability after extended periods of turmoil (for a classic study of identity politics and ethnic conflict see Donald L. Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict;  see also Stuart J. Kaufman, Modern Hatreds: The Symbolic Politics of Ethnic War). Some countries do just that whereas others fall into the permanent civil war trap. Laws in politics and the social sciences are scarce, but the following observation may qualify as such: heterogeneous societies that do indeed manage their diversity peacefully achieve that aim via some kind of federal arrangement. Think of India, for instance, or Canada, or Belgium. Contra facile clichés and false accusations, the ideological backdrop informing federalism is liberalism not identity supremacism or separatism. Federalists recognize diversity because they respect cultural differences; furthermore, federalists are cognizant of, and sensitive to the political implications of such differences. 

2) Theories or ideologies denying societal diversity in the name of meta-narratives allegedly transcending communal groupings are of dubious empirical validity, and typically hide exclusivist and hegemonic sectarian designs. It is no coincidence that Islamists are the most strident anti-federal voices in Lebanon and throughout the Middle East; think Hezbollah, for instance. Arab nationalists also framed federalism as “sectarianism”, never mind the fact that Arab nationalism itself was never anything but the expression of Sunni supremacism under a different name. 

3) Secularism remains to this day foreign to the Arab world (for an interesting discussion regarding Islam and secularism, see Shadi Hamid, Islamic Exceptionalism: How the Struggle Over Islam Is Reshaping Our World). To say that not a single Arab country is secular is a truism but there is more: every single constitution in the Arab world, save Lebanon’s, imposes Islam as religion of state, thus inevitably forcing dhimmitude on Arab Christians who live as second-class citizens in their own countries (for example, the Christian Copts in Egypt). Nothing today suggests that secularism will eventually end the long dhimmi nightmare that has been the historical lot of non-Muslims living in Muslim-dominated societies. Saying otherwise is tantamount to replacing the dispassionate analysis of facts by ideological pipe dreams, an all-too common mistake among observers of Muslim societies. 

That said, it is simply not true that secularism is the answer to diversity management in heterogeneous societies. Quarrels in multi-confessional societies are typically more about identity than religion and proselytism. And while faith contributes to shaping identity, it does not define it solely. Think Judaism, for instance: originally, it was a religion, but centuries of persecutions and tribulations transformed Jews into a people. And while anti-Semitism began as a religious quarrel, it morphed eventually into political and racial ideologies. The point that I am trying to make is simple: secularism prevents religion from taking over society, but that is not the problem in Lebanon. Intellectuals who brandish secularism as a way out of our troubles misunderstand the nature of our social ills. And while federalists typically welcome secularism they understand its limits precisely because they fathom the Lebanese problem better than secularists. It is useful to pinpoint in this regard that former Yugoslavia was secular; but that did little to dilute Orthodox/Catholic/Muslim fault lines within it. The same is true regarding Armenia (majority Orthodox Christian) and Azerbaijan (majority Muslim), whose secular Soviet pasts have done little to assuage their identity tensions and animosities. Nor did French secularism prevent identity friction and subsequent political polarization in a country where growing numbers of Muslims have put secular arrangements under a severe test, and where the rejection of such presence fuels the rise of populist politicians such as Marine Le Pen. 

4) Federalism promotes political, financial, and administrative decentralization. This makes federal arrangements more suited for power devolution and the empowerment of ordinary people than centralized political regimes. Furthermore, federalism enables better governance as decisions pertaining to it are taken at the local level rather than the center, thus allowing greater citizen information and participation in decision-making. 

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In the last two centuries, the Lebanese clashed in 1840, 1845, 1860, 1958, 1975/1990 and 2008. The country currently is going through a cold civil war of sorts. Throughout this strife, loyalties broke systematically along sectarian lines. The reason is straightforward: Lebanese identities are communitarian. To be sure, such identities are socially constructed. But once they are created, they become difficult to deconstruct. The political implications of this fact are tremendous. Think of every major turning point that shaped the history of Lebanon, such as, say, the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the French mandate, the rise of Nasserism followed by the PLO Fedayeen, the Israeli invasion of 1982, the Syrian occupation in post-civil war Lebanon, or the current Iranian occupation by proxy. Two important observations can be made about all such momentous transformations: 1) Not once did the Lebanese react collectively as a people to such exogenous shocks; and 2) Lebanese reactions to such events broke invariably along identity-related lines. While Muslims in general and Sunnis in particular lamented the collapse of the Ottoman order, Christians in general and Maronites in particular applauded what they perceived to be the end of the long nightmare of Muslim rule. Furthermore, France’s Lebanese allies under the mandate were mostly Christians and its foes mostly Muslim. And while not all Muslims were Nasserites or Arab nationalists, the power base of Nasserism in Lebanon was overwhelmingly Muslim. Currently, Iran is Lebanon’s de facto overlord via Hezbollah. Teheran rules Beirut via Shia-proxies. The rejection of Iranian hegemony is especially pronounced among Christians and Sunnis. These examples show that if foreign interventions are a fixture in Lebanese history, communitarian disagreements regarding the suitable reaction to them are also a constant. Nor do the Lebanese agree on the same readings of their history, for that matter. Was Bashir Gemayel, the slain president-elect in 1982, a national hero or an Israeli agent? Was the Druze leader Kamal Jumblat a progressive reformist of Lebanon or an anti-Christian fanatic? Is the leader of Hezbollah, Hasan Nasrallah, the hero of anti-Israeli resistance or an Iranian tool? There are no unified responses to these questions and whatever answers we do have break along identity-related lines. 

Some argue we can “transcend” such lines by creating some kind of all-encompassing national new identity that somehow abolishes sectarian differences. Anyone with even a superficial knowledge of the region’s history should pause before applauding. For what did the creation of a new Turkish identity under Ataturk entail? In effect, the nationalist project in Turkey meant among other things the ethnic cleansing of Armenians and other Christians living there. And what did the rise of Arab nationalism entail in countries such as Egypt or Iraq? The destruction of Jewish and Assyrian communities, and marginalization of Christians. Nationalism in this region of the world is illiberal and violent; historically, it implied group supremacism combined with cultural or physical genocide. Furthermore, one struggles to find a single example of societies breaking along the Christian/Muslim cleavage that somehow manage to transcend it. In fact, such societies typically end up partitioned or imploded. Think Cyprus; or Sudan; or former Yugoslavia; or Timor-Leste/Indonesia; or Armenia/Azerbaijan/Nagorno Karabakh. Wherever Christians and Muslim groups existed as large communities in a shared land, societies were unstable. 

Does that mean that the only option facing Lebanon is permanent civil war and/or separatism projects? It is precisely because they wish to avoid such scenarios that Lebanese federalists suggest federalism and neutrality as alternative. Neutrality would relieve all Lebanese communities from the need to take sides in the never-ending power struggles unfolding in the region. And federalism would alleviate the existential fears of smaller communities who worry lest their status as demographic minorities condemn them to permanent political marginalization amounting in effect to dhimmitude under a modern guise. 

Can federalism work? It is beyond the limits of this post to discuss federal arrangements in detail but the short answer is yes. Most Lebanese districts have clear communal majorities. These districts can form the basis of cantonal units in a new federal arrangement. Enclaved minorities would be given constitutional guarantees so their rights would be respected wherever they may be on Lebanon’s territory. From a technical constitutional perspective, federalism is a practical solution; indeed, it may well be the only solution for a country such as Lebanon, barring of course other kind of “solutions” such as renewed violence or additional state failure. Politically, however, the current context is unfavorable for the federal project for three reasons. First, Hezbollah remains all-powerful and intends to control the whole country rather than rule a part of it. Hezbollah is the major obstacle facing federalism and neutrality today. Secondly, Lebanese Muslims in general remain hostile to federalism for various reasons, including incomprehension of it but also insensitivity to Christian fears. Thirdly, the foreign powers are tired of Lebanese quarrels and do not intend to intervene seriously in Lebanon beyond doing the bare minimum to prevent the country from imploding fully. 

Lebanese federalists understand all the above. Why do they persist in defending federalism? The reason is twofold: context can change; and the neutrality/federalism twin solution is the only one that can work, as I have suggested in this post. That the road is long and difficult ahead for federalists is true; but their fight is worth it because Lebanon is.

Hicham Bou Nassif is the Weinberg Associate Professor of International Relations and the Middle East, and George Roberts Fellow at Claremont McKenna College, California.  He is a co-founder of the Federal Lebanon Movement

Suggested Citation: Hicham Bou Nassif, ‘Why I am a Federalist’ IACL-AIDC Blog (27 October 2022) https://blog-iacl-aidc.org/lebanon/2022/10/27/why-i-am-a-federalist.