Is this Lebanon’s last war?

A friend of mine from Canada asked: “Please give me one piece of good news, even if it is fake.” There is no good news in what is happening in Lebanon right now so any optimism needs to be about what we might find when the dust settles: Whether the destruction that is happening now could be the final conflict that unites the country, rather than leading to another civil war and even more chaos. If that sounds like an unrealistically hopeful fantasy, blame my Canadian friend’s challenge.
It is all the more surreal to be writing an optimistic analysis accompanied by the sound of huge explosions in Beirut. But what I hope to illustrate is the fact that after every crisis, no matter how divisive, the Lebanese identity emerges stronger and its society more cohesive. When Greater Lebanon was established in 1920, it was generally viewed as a Maronite project and opposed by the majority of its population. Just over a century later, we could finally be on the verge of reaching consensus.
A hundred years ago, the prospect of consensus among the nation’s communities was not promising. The majority of Sunni, Shiite, Orthodox, and Druze were, to say the least, unconvinced at the prospect. In fact, about half of the Maronites were dead set against it and preferred to remain a majority population in Mount Lebanon rather than joining with others in a larger state, especially given that the various groups had nationalist aspirations that generally did not match the intentions of this new entity carved out of former Ottoman districts and provinces.
The newly created borders isolated many people in annexed areas from their historic hinterland. The people of southern Lebanon, for example, had family in — and trade relations with — northern Palestine, Galilee and the cities of Acre, Haifa and Safad. Tripoli had served as the port for Homs and Hama, now in Syria, and Beirut was the port for Damascus. Sidon linked naturally to the fertile plains of the Houran in southern Syria.
The political system that was established did not help. While other newly created states in the region imposed a solid and coherent national identity on a supposedly homogeneous population, Lebanon recognized its multitude of identities in a power-sharing formula, the aspiration being that a cohesive structure would emerge naturally from the mix; Lebanon was a fruit salad, hoping to become a smoothie.
It is true that unity and cohesion in the country has emerged stronger from the many crises it has faced. During periods of war and other times of hardship, the Lebanese tend to forget their differences and go out of their way to show solidarity. This is happening now on an impressive scale; people displaced by the conflict are being accepted in the most unexpected areas, and volunteers and nongovernmental organizations are doing some amazing work with very few resources. In times of crisis even the use of language changes, as people become less confrontational and show more empathy and understanding for their fellow citizens.
This view might sound unrealistic, all the more so since my writing was just interrupted by what felt like the mother of all air raids. But look at the results of previous turmoil. Between the 1950s and 1980s, and during two civil wars, Lebanese politics was dominated by the question of the country’s Arab identity and its participation in the Arab-Israeli conflict alongside the Palestine Liberation Organization, which became a key participant in the civil war with the support of about half the population. There were some Lebanese nationalists among the Sunnis but they were the exception.

Lebanon was a fruit salad, hoping to become a smoothie

Nadim Shehadi

The entire region was driven by a wave of Arab nationalism, the hero of which was President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt. My mother thought he was the most handsome man in the world. When he gave a speech, I could hear it without interruption even while walking through the souq in Saida; all the shops had the broadcast playing at full blast.
The civil war was a complex affair but broadly speaking the two opposing sides were a Sunni-Druze alliance and a Maronite-led grouping, with external players involved in various roles. It was not exactly sectarian in nature but let us just say that if you drove through an area you would find posters and graffiti that left no doubt about its dominant sectarian and political affiliations. Dissent was rarely tolerated within communities; Prime Minister Sami El-Solh’s house was burned in 1958 and he had to move to the other side of the city.
Let us just say that it would have been hard to convince anyone in the mid-1970s that Rafik Hariri would emerge as a leading Lebanese nationalist in the 1990s, or that the son of Kamal Jumblatt would be one of the main leaders of the Cedar Revolution against the Syrian presence in Lebanon, alongside Samir Geagea and his followers.
These developments were the result of a complex process through which the experiences of the civil war were internalized and new accepted wisdom emerged. Sometimes it is difficult to believe one’s ears as politicians begin to sound like their historical rivals, while maintaining their own specific narratives about the past.
Slogans can be powerful tools, and in Lebanon we have had slogans of reconciliation after each crisis, such as: "What is past is past," "No winner no loser," "One Lebanon, not two." There are also family and regional ties that will always transcend sectarian and political divisions.
The path to consensus is marked by heroes and martyrs from each community: Kamal Jumblatt for the Druze, Bachir Gemayel for the Maronites, Riad El-Solh and Rafik Hariri for the Sunnis, and Moussa Al-Sadr for the Shiites.
The assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah leaves a huge power vacuum; he was a divisive figure who at one stage became an icon for the broader Arab and Muslim world and will remain such to his followers. They are bereaved and confused, feeling betrayed and defeated.
The consensus that will emerge from the current tragedy unfolding in Lebanon is unpredictable. There are a multitude of mixed signals and it is too early to interpret them. There is perhaps some hope that the Hezbollah constituency might assimilate with the wider population if it draws the right conclusions and finds a way to reconcile a tragic history and join the post-Taif consensus.
The divisions that remain mainly involve relations with Israel, with an armed guerrilla force linked to the “Axis of Resistance” on one side versus the prospect of a negotiated border settlement and a broader regional peace on the other. Authorities in Israel are indirectly helping to bring the two sides closer together, with the prospects for peace looking more distant as a result of the brutality of the Israeli attacks on Gaza and Lebanon.
Michel Chiha, the father of the Lebanese constitution who is credited with — and sometimes blamed for — creating the nation’s political system, once wrote that Lebanon would need 10 years of peace and stability before all of its population would see the benefits of the Maronite project and endorse it. It turns out he was wrong; it did not take years of peace, it took several crises — and they did join in.

• Nadim Shehadi is an economist and political adviser. X: @Confusezeus