Nothing to Celebrate as Lebanon Turns 100

By Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian

This year marks the 100^th anniversary of the creation of Lebanon. Given the mess the country is in, there’s been little to celebrate.

On Aug. 4, a massive explosion tore apart a large part of Beirut’s port, killing over 190 people, wounding thousands more, and leaving some 250,000 homeless.

The blast came at a difficult time for Lebanon, which is mired in an unprecedented economic crisis. The currency has crashed, throwing more than half the country’s five million people into poverty. Unemployment stands at 25 per cent and now a third of the population is living below the poverty line.

The economic situation had already triggered large anti-government protests. So bad as things have been these past few years, they got even worse For many, this new disaster seemed like the last straw.

Prince Edward Island’s Lebanese community has been raising funds to help alleviate the suffering, but it can only do so much.

Why does tiny Lebanon even exist? The idea of a separate Lebanon, carved out of a larger vague region that was called Syria under the Ottoman Turks, came from France. It was designed to give Lebanon’s Christians, especially those who belonged to the Maronite Church, their own homeland.

In the second half of the 19th century, France increasingly positioned itself as a “protector” of Arab Christian groups, intervening to protect them during conflicts.

With the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in the First World War, France and Great Britain established their rule over the Fertile Crescent under a system of Mandates, under the legal and diplomatic aegis of the League of Nations. These mandates, really colonies, included Palestine, Transjordan, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq. The Syrian and Lebanese mandates were held by France.

Incorporating the largely Sunni Muslim lands of the Bekaa Valley and adding further new territory along the coast to the north and in the Shia majority south, all outside of the Christian heartland around Mount Lebanon, the 1920 borders of this Greater Lebanon included a substantial percentage of Muslims who never reconciled themselves to the state.

Lebanon became independent in 1943 under a National Pact forged by Christian and Sunni Muslim elites from Beirut, with no input from the Shia. It was a complex political system that ensured Christian hegemony.

French financial, commercial and cultural interests would continue to be interwoven with the Maronite community in particular. More generally, access to political and economic power was organised around sectarian identities.

To this day, parts of the country’s elite speak French, and at many schools, French is spoken in class. A vast number of wealthy Lebanese own a second home in France.

This system remained relatively stable until the 1970s. But after a 16-year civil war and the intervention of foreign powers, including Iran, Israel and Syria, it fell apart and the Christians no longer dominate.

Indeed, the state-within-a-state known as Hezbollah, the Shi’ite militant party whose armed strength far exceeds that of the country’s own military, has a hammerlock on Lebanon’s politics.

Though Lebanon is effectively a failed state, there is still a soft spot for it in the heart of the country that gave it birth. Since the August disaster, French President Emmanuel Macron has visited twice. Arriving on Aug. 6, he was mobbed walking about in the Christian districts of Beirut.

Macron met with officials from the eight largest political groups. They were given a so-called “French Paper,” a draft program for a new government. He set deadlines for them to take action and told them he’d be back in December to check on progress.

Meanwhile, a petition circulated online calling for Lebanon to be placed “under French Mandate for the next ten years.” Attracting more than 61,000 signatures, it condemned Lebanon’s officials and its “failing system, corruption, terrorism and militia.” French rule, it asserted, would establish “a clean and durable governance.”

Lebanon is at “risk of disappearing” without crucial government reforms, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Aug. 27. “The international community will not sign a blank cheque” otherwise, he warned in a radio interview.

Back in Beirut on Sept. 1, Macron alluded to France’s long history of involvement in the country and again insisted that the Lebanese elite must meet popular demands for reform by revising the existing political structure – ironically, the one initially created by Paris a century ago.

To help Lebanon overcome its endemic malaise, Paris has taken a variety of steps: encouraging and promoting internal Lebanese dialogue through international and intra-Lebanese conferences, sending French leaders to the country on frequent visits, mobilizing international economic assistance, and attempting to strengthen the Lebanese army so it can become a national military force with sufficient strength to counter Hezbollah’s army.

Macron’s visits have raised further expectations that change will finally come to lift Lebanon out of its dire political and economic troubles, all of which were exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and the catastrophic explosion at the port.