Browse by Category

• Featured Commentary
• Today's News
• Heard on the street
• Setting the Record Straight
• Middle East Analysis
• Background Basics

Middle East Analysis

Sectarian Citizenship

By Hanin Ghaddar (Now Lebanon)

posted on 04/30/08

Last year, when a group of people submitted a request to the Interior Ministry to delete their religious affiliation from official registries, the reply was that no one has the right to be without a religion in Lebanon. This might be dismissed as a quaint tradition if it were not for that fact that, as Sunday, April 13, marked the 33rd anniversary of the outbreak of the outbreak of Lebanon’s devastating 15-year civil war, the specter of conflict, once again, looms over a country still dominated by sectarian allegiance.

Sectarianism in Lebanon is not only a social and religious issue; it is tied to the Lebanese constitution. In Lebanon, life events such as marriage, death and inheritance are not governed by a single law. Rather, each citizen has to submit to the specific rules of the religious community to which they belong. In short, the Lebanese cannot be secular citizens. …

Although Lebanon’s institutions have been modernized and equipped with democratic tools, its official posts continue to be predicated on the principle of power sharing between the leaders of religious communities. Critics argue that civil, rather than religious-based, personal status laws, would allow citizens to refer to the state as the only authority and, as such, would take a degree of power, and income, away from the church and the mosque, the priest and the sheikh. However, opposition from religious and political figures anxious to maintain their grip on power has succeeded in scuttling most serious initiatives advocating secularism and the creation of civil laws. Access the full article>>