It is easy to bash a serious idea and harder to propose a serious alternative. Mr. Young wrote a facile piece today - "Federalism is not the silver bullet many Lebanese Christians think it is" (thenationalnews.com) - doing just that. There is so much intellectual myopia in the piece one really doesn’t know where to begin dissecting it. For instance, Mr. Young is worried about the economic viability of various cantons should Lebanon turn federal. It doesn’t occur to him that the economy collapsed under the centralized system of governance he is so adamantly clinging to. Is the economy really an argument one can use in defense of the status-quo, and against change? Nor does it occur to him that it is utterly impossible to punish the mafia and reform the current system for a reason obvious to all, except to Mr. Young and his cohort of Jacobin centralizers: the mafia IS the system. And unless the system is radically altered, business will continue as usual. Business, indeed, is continuing as usual since 2019.
Yes, Christians feel estranged in a country that once used to be theirs as Mr.Young correctly notes. His solution? Taef-style administrative decentralization. How does that change the fact that Christians do not feel about Iran the way most Shia do? Or that Christians overall really couldn’t care less about the fate of al-Aqsa mosque like many Muslims do? Or that most Christians still think of Bashir Gemayel as an icon whereas most Shia feel the exact opposite about him? I can go on and on. These are mere examples. The point here is this: there are profound divergences between the Lebanese groups and by extension radically different political choices. How is administrative decentralization a solution? Mr. Young doesn’t bother answering or even mentioning such fundamental issues. Lucky thing he is no doctor. He would have prescribed a painkiller to a patient suffering from cancer.
Mr. Young says that pro-federal impulses do not make federalism more realistic. Then he urges the application of Taef. My question here is simple: Taef has been a dead letter for three decades. Why is it lunacy to think federalism, but it is the epitome of wisdom seemingly to imagine that a sudden resurrection of a defunct agreement is possible? If Taef was viable, why did it die in the first place?
Mr. Young seems worried about “Levantine cosmopolitism”. Did that ill-defined ideal protect the survival of the Lebanese Jewish community? We know the answer to that question. Will it ensure the survival of the Lebanese Christians? They are leaving in droves and many of those who remain stuck in the current “Levantine cosmopolitism” that Young is enamored with can’t marry because they can’t afford to. Contra young Shia men who benefit from Iran’s generosity, poor Christians really have nowhere to go to save leaving the country that is. The Christian community is not only shrinking demographically; it is also getting poorer and is more demoralized every day. Against the ongoing existential crisis of Lebanese Christians, pontification about “cosmopolitism” seems quite frankly ridiculous. Did Michael Young read Hazem Saghieh’s latest book on Arab romantics? He should. He, Young, is one of them. Spoiler alert: this is no compliment.