Lebanon has been in the news ever since skirmishes broke out between ‘Hezbollah’ and Israel. While the Islamic terror outfit fired rockets to target the civilian population in Israel, the Jewish state responded with pager blast and elimination of Hezbollah’s chief Hassan Nasrallah.
The Middle Eastern country, which has now fallen into the hands of Islamic terror groups that regularly use its territory to attack Israel, was once a peaceful nation.
Lebanon comprised of 53% Christians, mostly Maronites (Syriac Christians), in 1932. Its capital city of Beirut was called the ‘Paris of the Middle East.’ The country prospered as a regional centre for finance and trade.
Since it happened to be the only Christian-majority nation in the Middle East, Lebanon from the very start had the moral obligation to accommodate the ‘minority’ Muslim community and its two sects (Shia and Sunni) to promote communal harmony.
Other Islamic countries in the region had no such obligation to placate any ethnic or religious minority. The constitution of Lebanon, which came into force in 1926, introduced the idea of ‘confessionalism’.
For the unversed, confessionalism is a system of governance wherein political power is distributed proportionally between different communities per their population.
Political representation of Muslims in Lebanon
Article 24 of the 1926 Constitution called for equal (50:50) representation of Muslims and Christians in political power sharing, despite Christians being the obvious majority.
The Maronites objected to the disproportionate representation of Muslims and adopted the ‘National Pact’ in 1943 following the country’s liberation from the French Mandate.
The ‘National Pact’ aimed to placate the Syriac Christians while not taking much away from the second majority aka the Muslims. A compromise was reached in 1943 between Maronite leader Bishara al-Khouri and Sunni leader Riyadh al-Solh.
Under the arrangement, the representation in Parliament was changed from 1:1 ratio to 6:5 in favour of the Maronites. While it ensured an equitable power-sharing mechanism, two other things became almost mandatory.
The Prime Minister of Lebanon would henceforth be a Sunni Muslim while the Speaker of the National Assembly would be a Shia Muslim. The post of President would be reserved for a Maronite Christian.
The National Pact in many ways is reminiscent of the ‘Jitni Abadi Utna Haq’, a scheme espousing proportional representation in India along case lines, proposed by the Indian National Congress and its leaders (Rahul Gandhi in particular).
Of course, the Maronites of Lebanon at that time couldn’t gauge the far-reaching effects of this scheme of confessionalism.
High fertility rates, mass emigration and a race to change demographics
According to the data [pdf] furnished by the Lebanese Information Centre, the Christian population in Lebanon was down to 38.22% in 2011. At the same time, the Muslim population in the Middle Eastern nation soared to 61.62%.
However, the drastic change in the population dynamics of Lebanon did not happen overnight. It was rather a calculated move, facilitated by the influx of refugees, forced emmigration of Christians and a high fertility rate.
For context, in 1956, Christians and Muslims constituted 54% and 44% of the population in Lebanon. Thanks to the ‘National Pact (1943)’, Muslims had a 5:6 representation in the Parliament i.e. proportional political equity.
They were clear incentives to increase their population to ensure more political power sharing. A look at the fertility rates of Christians and Muslims in Lebanon highlights the reason behind the demographic change.
In 1971, Muslims were producing an average of 5.44 kids as compared to 3.56 kids by Christians. On breaking the numbers further down, we find that Shities had an average of 6.65 children in 1971 as compared to say 3.75 children of Maronites.
The high fertility rate of Muslims was further compounded by the mass influx of Muslim refugees, particularly from Syria.
According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Lebanon today has the largest number of refugees per capita and per square kilometre in the world.
It must also be noted that a large number of Christians (3.95 lakh) left the Middle Eastern country between 1975 and 1984 amid the outbreak of the Lebanon Civil War, thereby further skewing the population in favour of the Muslims.
Muslims exhibited intolerance as their population swelled
Israel, the only functioning democracy in the Middle East, became a rallying point for the Muslim population in Lebanon soon after its creation in 1948.
The Shias and Sunnis supported the Arab States in their resolve to eliminate the Jewish State while the Maronites supported the Western powers that allied with Israel.
As the Muslim population surged in Lebanon, support for homegrown radical Islamic outfits grew and hostility towards the Christian community increased. They began demanding a change to the ‘National Pact’ which ‘benefitted’ Maronites.
The Palestinian cause, the common enemy being the Jews and Christians, united the Shias and Sunnis. The result was the outbreak of a 15-year-long civil war in 1975. The Muslims supported the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) but the Maronites opposed it.
Taif Agreement and undoing of proportional representation
The conflict led to the deaths of an estimated 1.5 lakh people. The resolution came in the form of the ‘Taif Agreement or Taif Peace Accord’, which ultimately revealed the price of tolerating the intolerant.
Proportional representation of the Christian community in the Parliament was brought down from a 6:5 ratio to a 1:1 ratio. The power of the Sunni Muslim-led-position of Prime Minister was increased in relation to the Maronite Christian-led-position of President.
A system, crafted to ensure political equity to the minority, thus led to the diminishing of the power of the Maronites that once constituted the majority.
With the power moving to the ‘Muslim’ Prime Minister and his Cabinet, the role of the ‘Christian’ President in the electoral scenario of Lebanon is diminished.
Contrary to the objectives of the ‘Taif Agreement’, Islamist outfit Hezbollah was not disarmed. It grew in strength and attacked Israel on multiple occasions in the years that followed, eventually resulting in the 34-day war in 2006.
A lesson for India
According to projections made by the Lebanese Information Centre, the Christian population is estimated to be 41.12% in 2045 while the Muslim population will remain around 58.78%.
Proportional representation remains at a 1:1 ratio in the Lebanese Parliament but the loss of the demographic majority and change in governance structure meant that Maronites are rendered powerless in the country.
Confessionalism proved to be a disaster for Lebanese society, an idea which is now being imported into the Indian political discourse by Rahul Gandhi.
After having failed to counter the BJP on issues of development, national security and cultural preservation, Congress has taken it upon itself to divide the country along caste lines.
Besides promising a caste census, it has also assured to lift the upper limit on reservation in its 2024 election manifesto. Rahul Gandhi is campaigning with the slogan ‘Jitni abadi utna haq,‘ hinting at proportional representation in government jobs, admission to colleges and more.
This has the potential to further polarise and divide the society. Not only that, once such demands are fulfilled, it can extend to electoral politics.
Given that India’s demography is changing fast, it may not be long until certain religious communities demand fixed representation based on their population size. It would then be akin to walking in the footsteps of Lebanon and setting the nation on the path to disaster.
While it may look far-fetched today as it appeared to Maronites in Lebanon at one point in time, it will not take long for the country to plunge into chaos when dangerous ideas of proportional representation manifest in reality.
