Extreme public dissatisfaction with the political system and the authorities were related to sectarianism, according to the fifth annual report of the Lebanese Foundation for Permanent Civil Peace.
The report said that the absence of the state of law has had a negative impact on participation and trust by the public in state institutions.
However, Lebanese society has shown a form of resigned resistance toward civil strife, and will need more than mere incitement to return to civil war.
Begun by the Lebanese Foundation in cooperation with the Ayia Napa Conference Center in Cyprus in 1999, the program, which is a permanent investigative and action-oriented institution, published its report based on “120 indicators of the Lebanese co-existence pact.” The report used documentary research and debate gathered by over 20 university students and researchers.
The report is divided into three parts: assessing facts that harm civil peace, positive actions in favor of co-existence, and areas of activism.
According to the report, several surveys show extreme public dissatisfaction with the political system, which leads to frustration and a lack of confidence and participatory involvement in society.
The report said the country is still in a denial concerning the civil war. Several proposals to officially commemorate April 13 as a national contrition day and build a war memorial for all the victims of the civil war have not been accepted so as not to “open old wounds.”
The report said talk about national unity and integration hides a basic problem, promoting public space.
This regression is abundantly clear in the management of public funds and administrations as public services, the report said.
It said unions, professional bodies, the media, the social and economic council and other bodies do not facilitate public debate about general problems with a strategy of dialogue and participation.
The report says there are sectarian political divisions which enable common interest issues to be mobilized or blocked according to sectarian preferences.
The significance of unions and parties is often reduced to a subordinate position. The report cites the example of sports events, where sectarianism arises even if the team consists of both Muslims and Christians.
The report suggests that intolerance prevails among the youth, who withdraw into their own community.
The report underlines five positive points in the strengthening of civil peace: the commemoration of April 13; Lebanese constitutional heritage despite erratic governance; intra-sectarian competition rather than inter-sectarianism (the case of Metn is an example); administrative reform programs; Lebanon is no longer exploited by foreign parties to induce regional change, but does remain hostage to the regional conflict.
The report puts forward 10 areas of activism: establishing the rites of national commemoration and contrition (a war memorial should be set up in Downtown Beirut in memory of all who died); assessing all intellectual works about war; the removal of some words and concepts (such as sectarianism, national reconciliation and national dialogue which it says are not always as innocent as they seem).
Demands of activists also include implementing the new history curriculum and calling objects and people by their actual names. The report said good governance and its procedures are drowned in general, ambiguous complaints as to the national pact and the Constitution. Practices that avoid placing blame on local politicians do not favor transparency and good governance, the report said.
Such perspectives for future action also include maintaining civic action and analyzing military service experience to deduce practices which strengthen interaction among youth.
They also include promoting local public debate and a culture based on autonomy to renew the population’s trust and empower them, reconciling religions and international human rights, and developing cautious foreign relations, both isolationist and progressive isolationist to preserve the internal co-existence pact, and progressive when it comes to Lebanon’s international and Arab role.
The report said the country should root out the “plot” theory in its representation of foreign policy.
The report concluded that a real “renaissance” has always been cultural, and sudden and violent revolutions have strengthened major democratic principles only after gradual cultural progression.