International Alert’s engagement in Lebanon began in 2009. Alert’s long-term goal in Lebanon is to contribute to a political process that reconciles the desires of its diverse communities for security, freedom and development with the interests of an equitable, democratic and peaceful Lebanese nation. Through our work, Alert seeks to contribute to the management of Lebanon’s multiple conflicts without recourse to, or the threat of, violence.
Our programme objective is to build knowledge, create new perspectives, and facilitate dialogue that help transform the political process through allowing influential actors with diverse confessional and partisan affiliations to build trust, debate issues and work cooperatively to address the concerns facing their country.
The strategic approach of the Lebanon programme is to engage influential actors who are affiliated to the major groups engaged in the Lebanese conflict – in other words, to work “with the grain to help transform the grain”. To date, our work has primarily targeted actors in the political sphere, such as political parties. Since 2009, Alert has worked with the Leaders of the Youth and Student Wings of 19 of Lebanon’s most powerful and influential political parties. Youth leaders are important players in Lebanese politics. In many cases, they lead the most active sections of the parties and oversee hundreds, if not thousands, of young members. Youth leaders also have a demonstrated ability to use the relationships they have built to communicate with each other for the purpose of mitigating conflict “on the ground”, which can often break out between young people during times of tension.
The Lebanon programme strategy is grounded in evidence-based assessments which show there are much fewer peacebuilding initiatives in Lebanon that target the political sphere (as opposed to community-based or civil society-based initiatives). It is also grounded in scholarly research which suggests that the types of change most needed in Lebanon is unlikely to occur without the support of influential elites.
Where
International Alert’s Lebanon office is located in Beirut.
Conflict Context
The last five years have been a critical period in Lebanon’s post-civil war history. Though shifts were already underway, the beginning of this period is marked by the assassination of Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in February 2005. The assassination triggered the largest public demonstrations, and counter demonstrations, in Lebanese history and ushered in the withdrawal of Syrian presence from Lebanon. These sudden and dramatic events also revealed and exacerbated a deep polarization in the Lebanese political landscape – represented by the two main coalitions: the March 8th coalition (led by Hezbollah and its allies), and the March 14th coalition (represented primarily by Hariri’s Future Movement and their allies). This dichotomous split between Lebanese communities groups to frame the politics of Lebanon to this day.
With the Syrian withdrawal, many of the questions that have long faced Lebanon were once again reopened – questions of national identity, foreign policy orientation, security and defence, the viability of Lebanon’s delicate system of political power-sharing, among others, all came to the fore, once again. At their core, these questions are not new. Rather, they represent fundamental and unresolved issues that have shaped the Lebanese Republic since before its official creation in 1943. This is why it is important to see whatever political deadlock or crises the country faces as an on-going manifestation of unresolved issues fundamental to nation-building. More precisely, it is crucial to understand that it is the structural inadequacies of the Lebanese state and its political institutions that help to perpetuate the dominance of a political class without the political will or capacity to effectively address these issues.
How
Alert’s Lebanon programme currently has one core project entitled: “Doing Politics Differently: New Spaces for Dialogue and Cooperation between Youth Leaders of Political Parties”. This project began in 2009 and is funded by the Royal Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The “Doing Politics Differently” project works directly with the Youth Wings of 19 of Lebanon’s most powerful political parties. The aim of the project is to build new knowledge and perspectives and facilitate dialogue among a new generation of Lebanese political leaders for the purpose of enabling them to represent constituents, engage in the political process, and influence political change in more democratic and collaborative ways, and less clientalist and ”sectarian” ways.
Alert brings together the youth leaders of divided political parties with Lebanese and international experts in socio-economic policy, politics, and conflict resolution, to engage in activities including:
- in-depth learning about comparable cases of conflict around the world,
- evidence-based educational seminars on issues facing the country and their relation to conflict, and
- facilitated dialogue and debate for the purpose of increasing trust and collaboration.
Why
International Alert’s project with the Youth Leaders of political parties is based on the understanding that through dialogue, comparative learning, and structured processes of reflection and debate there is potential among young leaders and members of political parties, to question styles of politics that perpetuate division and instability – such as patriarchal and hierarchical styles of political leadership, patronage-based systems of fostering political loyalty, zero-sum thinking and sectarian calculation, threats of violence, and so on – while still respecting the needs and concerns of Lebanon’s diverse communities.
Why focus on political parties? In Lebanon political parties are the central figures of the political arena. Parties represent the main motivators and avenues for citizen participation in the political process and are central to the process by which conflict is either fuelled or mitigated. This is particularly true among Lebanese youth. In 2005, Lebanon saw the intensification of communal divisions, and with it the increasing politicisation, and polarization, of the younger generation. Since then, Lebanese youth have joined the ranks of Lebanese political parties in increasing numbers. Thus, in part, this project responds to the context of deepening politicisation and polarisation of young Lebanese citizens and seeks to promote new ways of doing politics among them.
