14/07/2025

Lebanon’s Christians: Autonomy or Extinction

By Hicham Bou Nassif| Weinberg Associate Professor of International Relations and the Middle East and George R. Roberts Fellow at Claremont McKenna College-California


This week, Lebanon witnessed yet another flood of venom in the political discourse of the Shiite camp. The declared stance remains a firm grip on weapons indefinitely, coupled with threats to “take the lives” of those who attempt to disarm them. Another increasingly vocal position is growing resentment toward power-sharing parity and veiled warnings directed at Christians, suggesting that even the proposed tripartite division does not truly reflect the country’s demographic reality.

Anyone observing the scattered statements of Shiite politicians, activists, and media figures will reach the conclusion that their project is twofold: maintaining their arms — either in their current form or under a “defense strategy” that transforms “the Party” into a kind of Popular Mobilization Forces — Lebanon Branch; and altering the system to ensure that demographic dominance translates into permanent political supremacy enshrined in the constitution.

In truth, Lebanon’s fundamental conflict since 1984 has been between Christians and Shiites. The war led by Nabih Berri and Hezbollah against expatriate voting lies at the heart of this conflict, as it continues a long-standing demographic transformation in which both Berri and Hezbollah have played a central role — from wartime dynamics of displacement and ethnic cleansing, to land theft in what was originally the Christian-majority southern suburbs. And later, after the war, to the crime of naturalization that granted citizenship to tens of thousands of undeserving individuals. And now, to what is practically the disenfranchisement of hundreds of thousands of expatriates — most of whom are Christians.

Why do most of the Christian elite — both political and ecclesiastical — along with a significant portion of the Christian public, fail to grasp that Lebanese politics is an unending sectarian struggle? The reasons are many, including:

  1. Indifference toward the fate of Lebanon’s Christians, despite the clear fate that befell Christians in Syria and Iraq, which portends what lies ahead in Lebanon if the current course continues.
  2. The current status quo benefits a handful of individuals vying for the presidency, ministerial positions, parliamentary seats, military leadership, and so on. These figures act as guardians of a system that secures their personal interests, even as it drives the Christian middle class — tired of endless wars and crises — to seek stability elsewhere.
  3. Cultural alienation, which convinces those afflicted that caring about the fate of Lebanon’s Christians is “sectarian,” and that the solution lies in secularism, state-building, citizenship, etc. — in short, in values that no one tells Christian students (who study these ideas in foreign languages at their schools and universities) are rooted in Western civilization. Islam, historically, views this civilization as an adversary to be conquered, not a model to emulate.
  4. Narrow partisanship, which leads many to believe that political engagement means allegiance to a Maronite leader and waging battles against other Maronite leaders — full stop.

Because of all this, the rhetoric of the Church, the feuding Christian leaders, and their partisans is moving in one direction (minority alliances; Arabism; implementing the Taif Accord; Lebanon the message and vocation; mutual partisan hatred, etc.), while Christian interests lie in another direction entirely. And the essence of that interest is clear: Acknowledging that Lebanon’s Christians are a people with a distinct and unique identity; and recognizing that self-rule is a right for the Christian people of Lebanon, just as it is a right for any other people.

In this sense, calls for federalism, confederalism, or even partition are national liberation dynamics for a people being forcibly dragged by alien and transnational identities toward a destination they do not wish to reach.

So, who is the moderate Muslim in Lebanon? It is the one who understands all of the above and is not offended by it. Ultimately, Christians are not trying to impose anything on anyone. They are simply tired of the illusion of partnership and the myth of Lebanese-ness. They have given up on trying to persuade those who say, “We will take the lives of those who want to disarm the resistance,” to believe in the Lebanese project.

The autonomy Christians seek for themselves is something they recognize as a right for all.

And who, by extension, is the extremist Muslim in Lebanon? Not only those who follow the Wilayat al-Faqih (Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist) or idolize Ahmad al-Sharaa, but anyone who denies the Christian people the natural right to self-governance. It doesn’t matter if someone drinks alcohol with us, moves to Ashrafieh, Yarzeh, or Badaro, or puts up a Christmas tree. Anyone who denies the Christian people their right to autonomy is their adversary.


This article was originally published in Arabic by Nida al-Watanaon 14 July 2025. The original can be found here.

The views expressed in this op-ed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of SyriacPress.