Stretching the margins: Identity, power and new ‘frontiers’ in Lebanon’s Maronite community

ABSTRACT

While assuming, as a starting point, that communities in Lebanon are ‘spaces’ where various techniques of domination and control are reproduced to prevent their members from questioning the religious, identitarian or political hegemony, in this paper we argue that the Maronite community’s resizing process has created in-between border spaces within this community, where new discourses aimed at questioning this system of control arise. To justify this in-between border spaces’ relevance to understanding discourses of dissent, the analytical category of liminality will be explored. This will help answer the questions of why counter-hegemonic discourses arise in marginal spaces and how these spaces become liminal. We contend that the manifest incapacity of the Maronite elites with regard to bordering and ordering the ‘margins’ of their own community is weakening the elites’ (political and religious) control over these new spaces: they became ‘arenas’ where dissent potentially coagulates and new social realities free from the community control system can emerge.

KEYWORDS:

• Lebanon
• Maronites
• in-between border spaces
• liminality
• marginalization

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. The main reference here is to the work of Antonio Gramsci and especially his concept of hegemony, particularly as it was developed in ‘La questione meridionale’ (2005) and his ‘Quaderni dal carcere’ (2014).

2. Maronitism is the political and socio-economic strategy promoted by the Maronite community and is characterized by the imposition of a pervasive political presence, conservatism and an economic policy of laissez-faire. See Hagopian (1989).

3. These courts vary from community to community but have the common characteristic of enjoying great autonomy that, de facto, escapes control of the state’s judiciary bodies. The Lebanese Court of Cassation, Lebanon’s highest court, is the final arbiter of disputes and is responsible for examining the compatibility of religious codes with the public order. However, it has long interpreted this responsibility as being limited to examining jurisdictional and procedural rather than substantive religious rules.

4. Of course, there is a significant risk that the concept of liminality becomes overstretched. For example, when we move from individuals and groups to the entire society or to the international system, the danger is determinism, namely that liminality can be found in every place and experience across time and space.

5. The National Pact was an (unwritten) agreement that legitimized the power of the Maronite and Sunni communities at not only the social but also the state level. The National Pact outlined a power system based on representativeness (also in demographic terms) of the communities, which favoured the Christians. See, among others, Assaf (1999) and Zamir (1985).

6. The last regular census in Lebanon was carried out in 1932; since then, the demographic question has been used instrumentally by all the political parties in the country.

7. In ‘Christian’ surveys, the comparison is between Muslims and Christians as a whole and not between communities because this would further underline the Maronites’ marginalization. Today, Christians make up about 34 per cent of the Lebanese population. Lebanese Information Centre (2013).

8. Interview, member of the Lebanese Forces, Maarab, 22 November 2014.

9. The main points in the agreement echoed the 1943 National Pact, except for a new power-sharing arrangement between communities, which introduced a new political and institutional setup. The country’s (Maronite) president was replaced by the (Sunni) prime minister as the highest political authority in Lebanon; the powers and term of office of the (Shiite) president of Parliament were increased, and the number of deputies was increased to 128, equally shared between Christians and Muslims.

10. This is not new as intra-Maronite competition has always existed.

11. Interview, political journalist, Beirut, 21 November 2014; interview, Lebanese parliamentary, Beirut, 19 November 2014.

12. One of the most interesting pieces of evidence is the creation, in May 2003, of the Qornet Shehwan Gathering coalition. Its aim was to increase Christian participation in the elections in response to the negative effects of the amended electoral law, which they had strongly opposed. The gathering took on a more official tone only after the first Council of Bishops’ statement and consolidated itself as the political wing of the patriarch.

13. After the 2009 elections, Sfeir declared: ‘I regret that the winners in the June 7 elections [haven’t turned out to be] winners, while the losers [haven’t turned out to be] losers’ (The Daily Star, 2009).

14. Interview, bishop, Jbeil, 25 May 2016.

15. In a joint press conference at the beginning of June 2015, after a months-long political vacuum, Aoun and Geagea declared the start of a common path to reach an agreement for the presidency of the republic, which resulted in the election of Michel Aoun in November 2016.

16. Interview, representative of the Phalange Party, Bikfaya, 20 November 2014.

17. See UNDP (2008). Despite the lack of more recent data, the situation is expected to worsen, especially after the 2011 influx of Syrian refugees into the country. In December 2015, the Central Administration of Statistics released figures for poverty in Lebanon pertaining to 2011, i.e., prior to the arrival of Syrian refugees. According to this assessment, the rate of poverty in Lebanon was estimated at 27 per cent, with the rate in Beirut and Mount Lebanon being the lowest, and the highest rates recorded in the Bekaa and the North.

18. It is interesting to note how, for example, according to the Arab Barometer surveys, Lebanon’s economic situation is one of the population’s primary concerns. Arab Barometer (2012).

19. Interview, Maronite religious leader, Jbeil, 19 November 2014; interview, representative of the Progressive Socialist Party, Beirut, 22 November 2014.

20. Interviews, Ghebele village and surroundings, 2014–2016.

21. Interviews, ML representatives, Beirut, 3 June 2016.

22. Interviews with priests and monks in Ghebele and surroundings 2014–2016.

23. Even if the Maronite Church is subject to the Church of Rome, it has considerable autonomy not only through the religious tribunals governing the life of community members but also with regard to doctrinal issues, such as the possibility for Maronite priests to marry and have children.

24. Interviews and participant observation conducted in Keswerean between 2014 and 2016.

25. World Bank (2017).

26. Interviews with a doctor and an entrepreneur, Ghebele, 23 May 2016.

27. Interviews 2014–2016.

28. See the minutes of the conference about the preservation of Maronite lands on the ML website (http://goo.gl/wHM4R9, accessed 1 October 2017).

29. Interview, Maronite religious leader, Ghebele, 1 June 2015.

30. Interviews 2014–2016.

31. A political leader I interviewed (who asked to remain anonymous) told me that the only thing he is doing for the future of his children is to secure them a passport, maybe Canadian, to give them the chance to go outside Lebanon.

32. One of the cases often referred to by the interviewees is the almost obsessive care that Maronites take when preparing religious ceremonies such as weddings, baptisms and communions; such events are not significant moments of sharing among the community but rather ostentatious displays of belonging, a manifestation of their presence, compared with other communities. Interview with a religious woman, Ghebele, 21 March 2016.