Will Lebanon’s ‘Garbage Revolution’ Usher In a Secular State?

[ellenrr]

Many of the protesters this summer are determinedly multicultural, drawn from various religious backgrounds, and many of them want an end to the politics of religious identity. We Want an Accounting is rooted in the Lebanese left, including the Communist Party, but its promotion of secularism appeals across classes.

Beirut is a center for the Arab music and music video scenes, and popular diva Carole Samaha weighed in late last month, saying that a new, secular constitution is needed to end the impasse. Such a change would shake the country’s clan-based elites to their core, and might politically weaken Hezbollah. (In some polls, 50 percent of Shiite voters—who are obliged to vote for Shiite politicians—have said they don’t have strong religious convictions.)

Lebanon’s government does not work. Living there, as a result, is a chore, with electricity, Internet, water and garbage services inadequate and intermittent. The country’s youths, echoing the region’s reformists in Iran, Turkey and the Arab world in recent years, are taking to the streets to demand services. They have created the first major environmental movement in the Middle East. Many have begun considering—in an age of Islamic State’s phony caliphate, the persistence of al-Qaida, Hezbollah militancy and ultra-Orthodox settlements in the West Bank—that a separation of religion and state may be the only way forward.

http://www.truthdig.com/report/page2/will_lebanons_garbage_revolution_usher_in_a_secular_state_20150904

[bemildred]

1. Not a chance.

People want food water shelter and safety, nobody gives a shit about the ideology of the state, and all the trends are going the other way.

[ellenrr]

2. Apparently you didn't read the article

There are trends indicating a secularization, altho I have no idea how it will turn out.

And the fact that people join a left-wing secular group, or an ISIS or another group, indicate that of course they care about ideology.

[bemildred]

3. I read it, I study Lebanon a lot.

I think Prof. Cole is suffering from a bit of confirmation bias here. What Lebanon is now is a tri-confessional arrangement, with some strange features, aimed mostly at not letting anybody bully anybody else, which has a lot to do with why the central government does not work too well, and it seems most unlikely they will give up their tribal ways when those tribal connections are the only thing they can rely on in life, as the government, as we mentioned, does not work too well.

And what replaces the present arrangement is not likely to be secular either, if that arrangement falls apart, the likely result is partition, not some new secular and "technocratic" government. And then there is the war and chaos all around them and inside Lebanon too, and Hezbollah is neck deep in the Syrian war.