The Forum of Religions and Cultures for Development and Dialogue organized the conference \u201cCitizenship: Reality and Challenges\u201d at the Al-Saha Heritage Village - airport road, attended by religious, political, diplomatic, intellectual, social, cultural, economic and media figures from Lebanon and the Arab world.
Clear verses from the Quran, then the national anthem, and Dr Wajih Fanous introduced the conference at the opening session, after which Allama Sayyed Ali Fadlallah delivered a speech in which he said:
\u201cThe question of citizenship, sensitive as it is - and some may regard it as unrealistic in the shadow of the variety of religions, the disputes of the sects and the domination of the single party, the single religion, the single denomination or the single nationality - we regard as necessary and urgent at this critical stage our nation is living, where division in all its shades is growing and has come to threaten the fabric of society and of homelands, to the point where talk of partition has become open after it was secret.
We hold that citizenship is the best means of preserving the religions, the denominations, the parties and all the groups. It is the safety valve against all the strifes that convulse our reality and are almost destroying it. For whoever sees his humanity crushed and his rights usurped, or sees himself as second class while his partner in the homeland is first class and enjoys privileges, cannot accept, submit and be indifferent; rather he will be strained, he will react, he will revolt and he will beg for whoever extends him a helping hand. And most often another's help to him is not for the sake of his beautiful eyes but a preparing of a foothold for himself. Then there will remain no Islamic unity, no national unity and no meeting of religions.
The tensions we witness in our reality may have as their apparent cause international and regional interventions, or takfiri parties or extremism, or the Zionist enemy, or global arrogance. But the real cause remains - the cause that stands behind all these causes - namely some people's feeling that their humanity is being diminished because they are not the child of a particular sect or a particular denomination, or because they are not the possessor of power and force or the child of this influential political position or the child of this party or that organization.
The injustice befalling any sect, denomination or political position is a project of strife or war, sooner or later, and it is a project of displacement from homelands. For those who emigrate to Europe, and for that expose themselves, their families and their children to danger, emigrate because they felt that their homelands no longer met their needs and no longer made them feel their humanity, and so they left them with no intention of returning.
In more than one saying, Ali linked homeland and humanity, holding that a person cannot be asked to love his homeland, to sacrifice for it and not to sell it, unless the homeland preserves his humanity for him and makes him feel his own being - unless he is a saint or an angel. So he said: \u2018Wealth in a strange land is a homeland, and poverty in the homeland is a strange land. There is no shame in being in a strange land; the shame is in being impoverished in the homeland'\u2026 And he rose higher to say: \u2018No country has more right to you than another; the best of countries is the one that bears you.' And he said: \u2018There is no good in a homeland except with security and joy.'
Therefore we are here to affirm this value so as to study it together and remove all the questions raised about it.\u201d
He added: \u201cSome may find it strange that I, a man of religion, should speak about citizenship and promote it, when I belong to a religion, and religions transcend homelands because they are universal, and the Muslim is the brother of the Muslim and supports him wherever he is; and the Christian is the brother of the Christian. And the Muslim, like the Christian, if he believes in the homeland, sees it only in his own image, with the other in it being second class.
This talk may be logical and correct if we do not link it to other angles. It does not mean that my having an emotional relationship binding me to the people of my religion or to a religious authority should be at the expense of my homeland's supreme interests. Commitment to citizenship takes place in the light of the great purposes of religion, which are specifically moral and human purposes whose heading is justice, freedom and human dignity.
Imam Ali says: \u2018People are of two kinds: either a brother to you in religion or your like in creation. So give them of your pardon and your forbearance the like of what you would love God to give you of His pardon and His forbearance.' And if some speak of the formula of the dhimmis or other formulas that some regard as disturbing relations among the differing citizens, that is no longer the recognized formula; rather this formula has become the national covenant and pact.\u201d
He continued: \u201cWe wanted and still want Lebanon to present a model to be followed in the human being's feeling of his humanity, as long as this country was born from the womb of religions and values. And we shall continue to insist that Lebanon be the place where these values descend and the place from which they set out to the world. Otherwise let us stop talking about religions and talk instead about tribes named after religions.
We have accepted and do accept that Lebanon's formula should be in the form it is in, even if at a minimum for the present stage, as long as this formula came about with the agreement of the Lebanese. But what we want, and in preservation of this homeland so that it may be a model, is that we put in place the frameworks capable of preventing whoever is the child of a sect, a denomination or a political axis from behaving on the basis of the position of his sectarianism - when he is a president of the republic, a prime minister, a speaker of parliament, a minister, a deputy or a citizen of a sect or a denomination. For when he is in a position, he must be the child of the homeland, not the child of a sect.\u201d
He said: \u201cIt greatly disturbs me, and disturbs you, to hear talk about the rights of the sects. But from the position of speaking about the citizen's rights, we can demand the rights of our sects from the position of our citizenship, from the position of human rights in this homeland.
For Lebanon, as for the region, we want the building of the state of the human being, even if that be by way of recognizing the sects and the denominations. And this can only come about if we strip the sects and the denominations of their fanaticisms and bring into them the spirit of religion - the religion of values, humanity and tolerance.
Sectarianism in its existing sense is tribalism masked with the mask of religion and its cover, and it is the furthest thing from religion and faith. Sectarianism exploits religion, invests in it and distorts it, so that with it religion appears as a factor of hatred, rancour and division. And this is a stab at religion.
Citizenship, dear friends, should not be only the choice of the system; it should be the choice of the citizen, who must behave from the position of being the child of a homeland and must measure those he chooses, supports or raises on shoulders by the extent of their sincerity to their homeland, not their sincerity to their sects and their political positions. This education is required in homes, in school curricula, in churches, in mosques and in cultural centres; for change will come only through changing souls, since God does not change what is in a people until they change what is in themselves.
The citizen is the one who makes citizenship when he raises up the leaderships that believe in citizenship at the expense of the sectarians.\u201d
He added: \u201cProceeding from this conference, we call for building the state of citizenship in the face of the state of sectarian fanaticisms - not in opposition to the religions, because we hold that the problem is not in religion but in its sectarianization and its politicization. Religion is a set of values that life cannot do without; rather we want them in building the state of transparency and law in the face of the state of corruption; the state of law in the face of the state of favouritism; the state of justice in the face of monopolization; the state of planning as against the state of improvisation; the unified, strong state as against the state fragmented by the fragmentation of its sects and weakened by the division of its people; the state that determines the enemy from the friend on the basis of national criteria and not for the account of this sect or that and the attachments of this political party or that, such that it awaits the password coming from overseas, or goes to this country or that so that it may solve its problems. The state that is able to absorb its citizens' ambitions, not the state that expels them.\u201d
He affirmed that \u201cthe task is not difficult if we decide to come out of our worn-out garments, which no longer suit the challenges of the age and the ambitions of the sons of this homeland, and to put on new garments.
Before this state - the state of the human being, the state of citizenship, the state of no-corruption and no-monopolization - there are obstacles for which solutions must be sought so as to bring it nearer.
The first concerns the role of the sectarian system in planting great impediments before this project. This system, despite all its contradictions and its conflicts, you see standing united against any process of changing its rules, since it regards that as threatening the interests of its pillars; and the first of its weapons is stirring up sectarian and denominational sensitivities. But it is not as strong as it claims, and this is what the movements objecting to its policies have confirmed, despite their weak points. Its strength is that it is protected from within and from outside, which still wants this country not to be a homeland but a role, influenced and reactive.
The second obstacle concerns Lebanon's geopolitical position, which makes it highly affected by the regional and international equation, because of regional ambitions on the one hand, and the sects' dependence on regional support to improve their influence in the internal conflict on the other - a support that strengthens the policy of division and deepens it.
The third obstacle is the feeling of the human being in Lebanon and outside it that his safety no longer lies with the state but with his sect and his denomination, and his lack of trust in everything the state calls for.
The last obstacle is the eliminationist, exclusionary mentality that rejects the other, which has become a feature of reality in our countries and even in the world.
We do not see these obstacles as preventing and impeding if everyone feels that they have no choice but to return to citizenship, for it is the safety of societies and through it the spirit of religion is realized.
We hope from this conference, which brings together an elite of thinkers, researchers and academics, that it will come out with results that remove the obstacles and fulfil the ambitions in which lies the salvation of Lebanon and of the Arab countries - which, alas, are meant to replicate the experience of the system of sectarian quota-sharing as a solution to the crises of their political community, whereas it is an entry point for producing yet more crises.\u201d
The opening session
At the opening session there was a speech by Neemat Frem, in which he held that \u201cwhat is befalling us is the result of a structural imbalance\u201d, affirming that \u201centering the world of citizenship is a natural growth to which societies rise through their awareness and their experiences. In Lebanon we have missed the awareness required to derive wisdom from our experiences.
We need an operating system that achieves economic growth and distributes the national wealth with justice. If we want a corrupt society, let us continue to encourage corruption; but if we want a national society, we must encourage such a society.\u201d
He concluded by affirming the importance of the existence of a national contract that protects everyone.
Then came the speech of the engineer Amin Mohammad Al-Daouk, who affirmed that \u201cthe officials must be good citizens and must provide the atmosphere for people to be so. Where does this cycle begin? The first task in this equation is the education of the educators, and all educators are seekers of good.\u201d
He affirmed that \u201cwhat is required is educating the citizen in citizenship: that the citizen should be equal with his brother not on the basis of denomination, religion or belief, but on the basis of citizenship. Religion does not differentiate among people, so the citizen must know that he is one among brothers in this homeland, all equal in responsibilities. The educator is the one who develops the spirit of citizenship so as to build harmonious persons; education is a continuous practice, and the educator must be open, seeking the good and intending it.\u201d
Then Judge Abbas Al-Halabi spoke and pointed out that fear would not have blazed up in Lebanon had the state remained strong with its constitution, its constitutional institutions and its army, and been able to give reassurance to all the Lebanese, noting that \u201cthe weakness of the state with all its apparatuses constituted an opportunity for the sects to overpower it, and so chaos occurred\u201d.
He said that \u201cthe future of this region lies in its unified states founded not on a religious basis, but in the pursuit of achieving the civil state that recognizes the religions and respects them\u201d.
The opening session closed with a speech by the thinker Dr Tayyeb Tizini, who said: \u201cThe matter of citizenship is one of the troubled matters in the Arab world. The question of citizenship is an ancient question bound up with the transformation from the pre-rational being to the rational being; it is a matter bound up with history, and it has an origin connected with the beginnings of humanity - that this being should come out of nature and become master of himself; and this means that it is history that demonstrates this.\u201d
He asked: \u201cWhat is religion? And who is the religious person? The religions arose as absolutes; but when we step forward to discern the relationship between the absolute and the relative, we find a relationship that has rarely arisen in Arab thought, except a little. The relationship between the absolute and the relative is one-dimensional: the absolute is absolute over all the forms of existence and is manifested in them, while the relative cannot be absolute - for God is the one who has no partner.\u201d
He held that \u201cthe fires of the Arab world must begin to be extinguished, and people in the Arab world must discover that they are human beings who are different and varied. Social education is what establishes the being who is connected to the absolute, and this has limits that lead to the distinction between the absolute and the relative; and as a result everyone is in the right. All believers are in the right, equal as such. Education comes to prune this relationship and to discover innumerable dimensions; the capacity for religious knowledge is a human capacity, but the danger exists between the absolute as absolute and the relative.\u201d
He held that \u201cthe idea of citizenship is par excellence a human production, and it arose when the historical being began to express himself. Citizenship here becomes a state that is not impossible: it is the affair of human beings - how they were brought up, how they lived, what their interests are. The striking thing is that we put our hands on religious acknowledgements of the sort attributed to the Messenger: \u2018You know better the affairs of your world.'\u201d <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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