Lebanon: One sovereign nation, multiple identities

Lebanon was never intended to become a battlefield for regional conflicts, an extension of foreign political ambitions, or a country in which one community imposes its identity, ideology, or historical interpretation upon the others, but rather a sovereign homeland founded upon the coexistence of different cultures, religious traditions, languages, and historical identities, whose diversity should constitute the foundation of its national character rather than a permanent justification for political confrontation and foreign intervention.

The National Pact of 1943 represented more than an agreement to distribute political responsibilities among religious communities, because its essential purpose was to preserve Lebanon's independence through a common understanding that no community would seek foreign protection to dominate another, while none would attempt to dissolve the country's sovereignty into a broader regional political project, thereby establishing the foundations of a political neutrality intended to protect Lebanon from competing external allegiances.

Neutrality, therefore, is not a new concept that Lebanon must invent, but a founding principle whose original meaning deserves restoration, recognizing that maintaining diplomatic, cultural, and economic relationships with neighbouring countries does not require participation in their conflicts or submission to their political and military strategies.

Unfortunately, successive political developments, foreign interventions, and the growing influence of armed organizations progressively weakened this understanding, while the civil war and the political settlement that followed created conditions in which the Lebanese Republic struggled to exercise exclusive authority over its territory, its security, and its national decisions.

The Taif Agreement of 1989, although contributing to the framework that ended the civil war, introduced a constitutional definition of Lebanon as Arab in identity and affiliation, a formulation that, in my view, failed to respect fully the country's pluralistic historical character and deserves democratic reconsideration, particularly given the military pressures and foreign influence surrounding the political circumstances in which the agreement was negotiated.

Lebanon is not a country of one culture, one historical identity, or one linguistic heritage, but a homeland of citizens who may identify with Arab, Syriac Aramaic, Phoenician, Armenian, and other cultural traditions, and whose equal citizenship must never depend upon accepting the historical narrative or cultural affiliation of another community, regardless of its numerical majority or political power.

Lebanon's national identity must be Lebanese, while its cultural identities must remain multiple, freely expressed, and equally respected, because national unity cannot be built by imposing cultural uniformity, nor can coexistence survive when one community's understanding of history becomes a compulsory definition for everybody else.

This same principle must govern political life, where parties should compete over national policies rather than religious mobilization or foreign allegiances, and where Hezbollah's independent military structure presents a fundamental contradiction with the sovereignty of the Lebanese state, since no political organization, regardless of its religious affiliation or justification, should possess the authority to determine questions of war and peace outside legitimate constitutional institutions.

The issue is not directed against the Shiite community or any other Lebanese community, but concerns the principle that all citizens must live under one constitutional authority, one national defence policy, and one state whose sovereignty cannot be divided among armed organizations or foreign-sponsored political movements.

Decentralization represents the necessary internal complement to neutrality, allowing communities and citizens greater responsibility for local development, public administration, political and economic priorities, while preserving one sovereign republic responsible for defence, foreign policy, constitutional guarantees, and equal citizenship, without permitting local autonomy to become an instrument of sectarian exclusion or territorial division.

Lebanon's future therefore requires neither the abandonment of its diversity nor the invention of an entirely new national mission, but the restoration of independence from foreign domination, the implementation of meaningful decentralization, the exclusive authority of the state over weapons and national security, and the recognition that no religious, cultural, or political identity can be imposed upon all Lebanese.

Lebanon must remain Lebanese in its national identity, pluralistic in its cultures, neutral in its international orientation, decentralized in its administration, and sovereign in its decisions, because it belongs equally to all its citizens and must never become the exclusive property of any community, political party, or foreign power.