When independent Lebanon was established in 1943, the political structure was designed to determine the proportion of representatives in the parliament according to the density of the country’s sects. At first glance, this design, based on confessionalism, the successor of the “Mutasarrifate System” formed in 1861, was seen as the only way to ensure social justice for Lebanon.

However, in line with this understanding, political road maps drawn by sectarian concerns in Lebanon led to divisions not only amongst the political elite but also the Lebanese people who were parts of the sectarian system. While the civil war between 1975 and 1990 demonstrated the violent form of this separation, most of the actors of the civil war took part in post-war Lebanese politics and played important roles in deepening the social crisis after the war.

On October 17, 2019, the Lebanese people took to the streets with the slogan “all means all” (kullun ya’ni kullun) in order to remove the perpetrators of this crisis, and to create a new political and legal system. In the early days of the demonstrations, when no sectarian slogans were chanted and party flags were not allowed, the only thing the demonstrators wanted was the complete destruction of the sectarian political system.

So, for the Lebanese, the purpose was to rid themselves of this sect-based political system and the patterns of hegemony it had created in 150 years.

However, the existing social rifts became visible during the demonstrations and manifested themselves with the main protest locations shifting to smaller ones and different social groups raising their individual demands. Calls for a “civil state” addressing leaders of the sectarian system were ironically replaced by the retired soldiers’ reaction to salary cuts or by students’ slogans to improve the education system.

In addition to these, with the failure of Hassan Diab’s government, which was established in January 2020, the sense of unity in Lebanese society eventually disappeared.

Following the protests in Lebanon, questions began to arise such as how many of the problems resulted from the sectarian political system, and whether the problem is the system itself or the politicians who cannot run it.

It now became necessary to question the sectarian codes ingrained in Lebanese society.

It was clear that the political elite sought to dissolve any formation which defied the sectarian understanding centered on their own interest.

At the same time, it became necessary to question the sectarian codes ingrained in Lebanese society in order to understand how the country’s social segments handle the current problems.

The Shiite political factor in Lebanon

Shiites were the first to break from the October protests. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s statement had a significant impact on the Shiite community who said that the demonstrations went beyond their original intent. Many Shiite groups followed Nasrallah’s call to “leave the streets” signaling the first split in Lebanon’s protests. The instance revealed the endless trust of the Shiites in the party’s leadership; the Shiites appear to interpret sectarian identity as absolute obedience to Nasrallah’s political orders.

It is true that there is a strong threat perception by members of all sects who are afraid of being taken over by another sect. However, the walls of the Lebanese sectarian system are not that sturdy. The slogans chanted by some Shiite groups against their own sectarian courts before the October protests is a good example of this fragility.

Shiite mothers took to the streets to draw attention to how they were victimized by the rights of custody accorded to them by the Jafari court in January and February 2020.

Although they did not unite with other sects, Shiites too turned to the streets to solve their internal problems during the main protests. Shiite mothers took to the streets to draw attention to how they were victimized by the rights of custody accorded to them by the Jafari court in January and February 2020. However, they did not want to remove the courts completely, but to reform them. For them, the institutions for the preservation of Shiite identity should remain in place – these were only defects that needed to be corrected.

This is, of course, not unique to Shiites in Lebanon. After the massive seaport explosion in Beirut in August 2020, the images of support by each ethnic and sectarian group given to their community make it clear why the Lebanese return to their sectarian quarters. According to Armenian Weekly, most of the medical needs and construction materials sent from Armenia to Beirut would be transported to the city’s Armenian neighborhoods most heavily affected by the explosion.

Armenia, of course, was ready to provide tailored assistance to the country’s substantial and influential Armenian community. Similarly, footage shows the Maronite Church distributing social aid to their coreligionists. People have little choice but to take refuge in their sects.

For the majority of Sunnis, Lebanese sectarianism is more of an actor-oriented problem. If the system is not going to change, the actors should not change either. Therefore, the country’s prime minister Saad Hariri should have remained in his position since he could protect the Sunnis better than Diyab thanks to the support of the Gulf States. That was what actually happened, and Hariri took over again a year later proving that he was the leader of the Sunni community.

There are also some groups who define sectarianism on the basis of socioeconomic and cultural traditions. One of them is the Druze community, who have been zuama-landlords in Mount Lebanon for many years. Centuries ago, the structure formed by the Druze, who were among Lebanon’s influential landlords and held political power in their hands, was not focused on sectarianism.

Even though their population was limited, they managed to maintain their sectarian principles thanks to the zuama system. Today, this system is weaker in Lebanon than in the past, but it continues to maintain its strength for the Druze. The Druze political leaders Velid Canbolat and Talal Arslan maintain this system in order to protect their sectarian identity. For the Druze, sectarianism finds its way via the zuama system.

No doubt, the political order in Lebanon does not satisfy any social need today. Politicians, who believe that they can open any door with the sectarian key, do not hesitate to shut these doors in people’s faces when the circumstances allow for it. Deepening cracks cause the society-state relationship to deteriorate.

One hundred fifty-three days have passed since the port of Beirut blew up destroying one third of the Lebanese capital, leaving over 200 people dead and a tally of around 3000 injured. Since the largest non-nuclear explosion in the history of mankind, only 25 middle and lower-tier Lebanese-officials in connection with the ammonium nitrate—that caused the explosion—were arrested while three others that should be, are outside the country.

Yet, the chief of Lebanon’s customs agency, Badri Daher, remains the “most senior” Lebanese official to be held in custody thus far.

This has left Lebanese citizens in addition to officials and observers from around the world perplexed and in shock. Their confusion is justified. In fact, existing government records show at least 2 presidents of the republic, 4 prime ministers, 2 commanders of the Lebanese army and dozens between ministers and senior security officials with knowledge of the 2,750 tons of explosives-grade ammonium nitrate stored at the port since late 2013.

Hence, this raises imminent questions around “why haven’t any big heads rolled” and “who are the perpetrators”?

While there could be a myriad of multi-layered answers for this question, the complexity of the situation does not strip it from a straightforwardness it inhabits. In theory, a vector connects the massive explosion of August 4 and the “Lebanese sectarian system,” rendering it responsible for what went down on that day.

More so, the intricacies of this “system,” which came alive in 1943 through an unwritten agreement called the “National Pact,” will also explain the grim chances the process of justice and accountability possess in the short to medium term.

At first, the accusation will sound odd for outsiders, especially that such an unfortunate event should reasonably capture the fingerprints of the perpetrators (individuals) instead of anonymizing them.

But the precedent is there; the April 1986 Chernobyl disaster near the city of Pripyat in the north of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic allows for a fair comparison with the case in Beirut.

The Harvard historian Serhii Plokhy’s 2018 book on Chernobyl reconstructs the sequence of events and assigns blame. In effect, Plokhy argues, it was the “Soviet system” that created Chernobyl and made the explosion inevitable. More so, glimmers of this understanding appeared in the HBO Chernobyl series, too.

In the final episode, Valery Legasov—a member of the Academy of Sciences—testifying as a witness, tells a Soviet court that the disaster happened because the tips of the control rods were made of graphite, which sped up the reaction, when the control rod was supposed to slow it down.

When asked, by the prosecutor, why the reactor was designed this way, Legasov cites the same reason that other safety precautions are ignored, and other corners are cut: “It’s cheaper.” He seems to be damning the whole “system.”

Today, the sectarian system in Lebanon has managed to dodge the most dangerous bullet aimed at it in the massive nationwide protests that rocked Lebanon starting October 17, 2019.

Since the independence in 1943, the sectarian political system has created social unrest in 1952 which ousted a sitting president, the 1958 sectarian-driven crisis (a mini-Civil war), followed by a 15 year sectarian civil war (1975-1990), a massive rift in society following the assassination of ex-Prime Minister Rafic Hariri in 2005 which had sectarian underpinnings (and a civil war by other means), another sectarian mini-civil war in May 2008 which resulted in a revamped social contract (the Doha Agreement) also based on sectarian grounds, and military intervention in the Syrian conflict spearheaded by a sectarian militia for sectarian interest, years of political vacuum, lastly to be topped by a nuclear-like explosion in the capital and a complete economic meltdown as the country nears bankruptcy.

Today, this sectarian system in Lebanon has managed to dodge the most dangerous bullet aimed at it in the massive nationwide protests that rocked Lebanon starting October 17, 2019, unprecedented in scope and with a political narrative that denounced all sectarian leaders and the system itself.

While the protest movement posed a real threat to the sectarian ruling class, the “system” again capitalized on crises to re-enforce itself and roll back the sense of solidarity that brought Lebanese citizens together transcending sectarian fault-lines, the antidote of the sectarian system in place.

From the COVID-19 pandemic to the August 4 explosion and the economic meltdown, different sectarian stakeholders are attempting to further marginalize the state’s institutions and fan the flames of sectarianism—for instance, through quite random sectarian clashes in certain hotspots—to put the genie back in the bottle.

Additionally, despite the massive differences between the sectarian leaders at a time when the country is living its most severe crisis in contemporary history, they look after each other and work on maintaining the status quo, which preserves their interests.

Meanwhile, a class war has been launched by the sectarian leaders on the majority of Lebanese citizens (average Joes), in order to make them unilaterally bear the burdens of the economic meltdown the regime has created.

This war is manifesting itself in different ways, first by shunning any prospects of much needed reform of a system built on sectarian loyalties, nepotism and clientelism rather than meritocracy.

A complete obstruction of any investigation that could assign the blame on individuals and hold them accountable, whether for the economic Ponzi-scheme engineered to rob Lebanese of their life savings or the explosion of August 4^th.

And lastly, an undergoing “lirafication” process of all the dollar accounts in Lebanese banks at a time when the Lebanese Lira is losing its worth at a record speed and dollar bills have become as rare of a sighting as Halley’s Comet.

A clear-cut example of how the sectarian system functions is the recent efforts by sectarian leaders, including the clergy of different sects, to block a Lebanese judge in charge of the investigation from questioning senior officials, much less holding them to account.

Even though the schism between the sectarian leaders is widening, their interest-driven politics has forced them to work together to ensure no one is held accountable. This vicious cycle keeps bringing the same faces to power despite the need for reform and change.

Therefore, this system in its current dynamics is irreformable and sectarianism will continue to reign supreme blocking any attempt for much needed reform or the creation of a Lebanese citizenship that can possibly short-circuit the system and put it on a path of change.

Even when the leaders of the country miserably failed to deal with a global pandemic inflicting irreversible damage to an ailing economy because of their mismanagement, they do not have to worry about any form of accountability because “the system” protects them and rids them of any responsibility.

In her article, “Lebanon: The 3-Decade Impossible Power Sector Reforms,” Lebanese energy consultant, Jessica Obeid, discusses the electricity sector as a case in point of the ridiculousness of the system, its inability to reform and the impunity sectarianism provides you with.

While the country has defaulted on its debt for the first time in its history, because of different political, economic, and fiscal crises, the same party that has controlled the Ministry of Energy for the past decade racking up more than $39.5 billion to the public debt—equivalent to 43% of the country’s public debt, it still insists on controlling the ministry in any future government to be formed under the banner of “protecting the rights of [a] sect.” Meanwhile, the country anxiously awaits possible extended periods of darkness in 2021 due to the chronic corruption and mismanagement.