Lebanon, year zero

When I travelled to Lebanon in 2006 - after the Hezbollah-Israeli War, to carry out a field mission of several post-conflict reconstruction projects - I was able to understand the complexity of the Middle East chessboard expressed in this small, intricate and exciting country. In Lebanon, various socio-ethnic-religious identities coexist and continue to be located in their own space, without achieving full common integration; which greatly complicates the country's progress from every point of view: social, economic, political and international.

After having been a land of passage, crossroads and presence of the main peoples and empires of Antiquity, the Modern and Contemporary Ages - including its membership of the Ottoman Empire - the Decolonization of France leads to the creation of an independent state in 1943. The Arab-Israeli conflict and the country's own internal complexity led to an uninterrupted climate of war from practically the beginning of the 1950s until the Lebanese Civil War (1975-2000). With the end of the Civil War, in the year 2000 the Israeli presence in the country ends and years later in 2005, after the assassination of Rafiq Hariri, the Syrian presence ends, after a deep movement of social protest due to the assassination. In 2006, after a series of cross attacks, a new Hezbollah-Israeli war breaks out in South Lebanon. Lebanon has a Mediterranean border (to the West), a border with Israel (to the South) and a border with Syria (East and North). As can be seen, it has been at war with all the neighbouring states, and has also participated directly or indirectly in all the widespread conflicts in the Middle East.

How do you explain this concatenation of conflict in the country? As we pointed out earlier, Lebanon's clan system has deep historical roots. In more recent times, this system has been consolidated through the Taïf Agreements of 1989, which, under Saudi mediation, prepared the framework for peace after the Lebanese Civil War (1975-2000). These agreements established the objective - in the long term - of eliminating this clannish system, but at the same time, they carried out a pragmatic distribution of power - in the short term - in specific areas for each of the main socio-ethnic-religious communities: Sunni Muslim, Shiite Muslim and Maronite Christian. Thus, according to the Lebanese Constitution, the Presidency of the State is reserved for Maronite Christians; the Presidency of the Government for Sunni Muslims and the Presidency of the House of Representatives for Shiite Muslims. Each of the socio-ethnic groups has struggled to maintain its sphere of power and to influence - as far as possible - the others. The social changes of recent years have led to major socio-political movements to maintain these power quotas and as far as possible increase them - mainly by the socio-religious groups with the greatest demographic potential.

The current Lebanese population stands at 5.5 million (CIA World Factbook estimates, 2020). Of these, 61.1% are Muslims (30.6% Sunni and 30.5% Shiite; there is also a small proportion of Alawites and Ishmaelites). Christians account for 33.7 per cent, the vast majority of whom are Maronites. The Druze comprise 5.2% of the population, along with small communities of Jews, Baha'is, Buddhists and Hindus (CIA World Factbook, 2020). It should be added that within the country there is a large refugee community which, according to the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), numbers almost a million people - mostly from Syria, with minority groups from Iraq, Sudan and other countries (UNHCR, 2020). In addition, half a million Palestinians are living in Lebanon as refugees, according to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA, 2020). To further complicate matters, there is a significant number of Lebanese living outside the country - known as the "Lebanese Diaspora" - which, although there are no exact figures, according to the "Diaspora.org" page, could amount to some 12.5 million people. According to these estimates, 2/3 of Lebanese would be living in the diaspora.

Each of the socio-religious groups is supported by one or more international powers. The Sunnites, by most of the Gulf countries led by Saudi Arabia, the Shiites by Iran and Syria - and indirectly by Russia -, the Christians by France and the United States mainly, as well as in general by the States of the European Union. To this must be added the presence of numerous jihadist groups. Israel maintains relations with Sunni and Christian groups, its great enemy being Iran and, therefore, the Shiite faction. According to this panorama, Lebanon can be considered the territory of the Middle East where its own and other people's disputes are settled, which explains its instability and cyclical conflict.

To all the factors mentioned above, we must add the critical factors of the year 2020; mainly the economic situation and the health crisis. According to the World Bank, the economic collapse in recent years has been due - to a large extent - to the conflict in neighbouring Syria and the presence in "Cedar Country" of 1.5 million refugees, of which, as we have already pointed out, approximately 1 million come from Syria (UNHCR, 2020), (UNRWA, 2020). This fact has put the Lebanese economic system at its limit in 2019. According to the World Bank in 2019 - with data from 2018 - unemployment has increased by about 300,000 people and poverty by about 200,000. The Lebanese economy grew by only 0.2% in 2018, with inflation rising significantly to 6.1% and the fiscal deficit to 11.5% of GDP. The debt-to-GDP ratio amounts to an unsustainable 151% (World Bank, 2019). The health crisis caused by the covid-19 pandemic has resulted in almost 80 deaths and 6,500 infections in Lebanon (Ministry of Health of Lebanon, 2020). 

These data contrast with the high level of the Human Development Index (HDI) in Lebanon.  According to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the country's HDI in 2019 was one of the highest in the region, with 0.730 points and a 93rd position, being considered a country of high human development. The HDI indicator measures a set of factors such as per capita income, access to health, education, gender equality and multidimensional poverty (UNDP, 2019). According to these parameters, we can say that, although Lebanon is a high development country, its political complexity and conflict reduce its potential, so that if these were resolved, Lebanon could be one of the great powers of the Middle East. 

The explosion of almost 3,000 kilos of ammonium nitrate in the port of Beirut in August this year has triggered a situation that is unsustainable from a social, political, economic and international point of view. This explosion has caused some 5,000 injuries and 154 deaths to date, as well as extensive destruction of Beirut. The explosion has triggered a humanitarian crisis that will require an intensive reconstruction plan. According to the Donors' Conference - held on 9 August under the auspices of Paris - a total of USD 250 million could be raised for the most basic needs: education, health, food, shelter and medicine. The physical reconstruction of the country will be only a small part: the most complex and long-lasting part concerns the fight against corruption, the overhaul of the power system and, above all, the national reconciliation that has been pending since the end of the Lebanese civil war. Many representatives of States, international organisations and representatives of Lebanese society have called for an independent international inquiry to shed light on what happened. 

The intensity of the explosion and the damage caused seem to require a total reconstruction of Lebanon, as if it were in the "year zero" of its existence. The decision of the Special Criminal Tribunal for Lebanon that has judicially investigated the assassination of Rafiq Hariri in 2005 (Special Tribunal for Lebanon, 2020) will be published in the coming days - 18 August 2020. We must be attentive to this moment that will mark the possibility of reconciliation in Lebanon and, in particular, the response of Lebanese society, which is already stretched to the limit by the country's lack of progress.