When Lebanese Interior Minister Ziad Baroud issued a memorandum giving Lebanese citizens the option to remove their sect from civil registry records, it seemed like a step towards removing deeply embedded sectarianism from Lebanon’s social fabric.

The country has been convulsed by bouts of sectarian violence, most notably the 1975-90 civil war, in which 150,000 people were killed, and more recently last May when a power struggle spilled into armed conflict and supporters of Shi’ite Hezbollah briefly took over parts of Sunni western Beirut.

Study the measure a little more closely and some questions emerge. What happens to those wanting to run for seats in parliament, which are distributed according to sect to satisfy Lebanon’s delicate power-sharing balance? What about citizens who have to go to court over personal status issues, which in Lebanon are presided over by courts run by religious sects? Ultimately, they have no choice but to reveal their religious affiliation.
   

So it is doubtful that this measure will really remove sectarianism from Lebanon’s moral and social consciousness, especially when you have a political and legal structure in which sectarianism is required to achieve a power-sharing balance to accommodate 17 different religious communities.
   

The Lebanese media has covered this issue extensively: ”The change is a step in the right direction but it is not sufficient. The government needs to take the next step and ensure that all Lebanese have access to personal status laws that aren’t religiously based,” said Human Rights Watch’s Nadim
Houry. “The Lebanese confessional system is discriminatory and has proven to be a failure,” he told Reuters.
   

After all it is still common to come across taxi drivers who refuse to foray into Sunni Muslim western Beirut from Christian eastern Beirut. And some are reluctant to venture into southern Beirut, a Shi’ite Hezbollah stronghold.
   

Some Lebanese will even admit to feeling uncomfortable in districts which they are not religiously affiliated to. And while most will poo-poo sectarianism, they will almost always support the political party that is based on their religious affiliation. It is a testament to how ingrained sectarianism is in Lebanon’s culture that it is the subject of office politics, jokes and the main soccer teams are divided on Sunni-Sh’ite lines.
  

A group of Lebanese friends recently held a symbolic civil marriage ceremony in one of Beirut’s bars in the hip Gemmayze strip to highlight the fact that Lebanon does not allow civil marriages to be conducted in the country. Generally, a couple either has to go to a Muslim sheikh or a Christian priest to wed, which creates a problem when inter-religious couples want to wed — another sectarian aggravation. Ultimately, if neither one of them converts they are forced to travel abroad, usually to Cyprus, to get married in a civil ceremony.  My colleague Alistair Lyon blogged about that issue here.
    
The Taif Peace Accords which ended the 1975-90 civil war said “abolishing political sectarianism is a fundamental national objective” but gave no timeframe. Political alliances since then have been based on religious and sectarian affiliations, although the Christians are now fractious. The constitution also calls for a committee to be set up to abolish “political confessionalism”.
   

So while Baroud’s measure and the mock civil marriage are attempts at nullifying sectarianism, will they really do much to change Lebanese prejudices? Or are these just cosmetic changes? Does the political system need to be overhauled along with secularising the legal system to bring about real change?

Lebanon’s beaches, ski slopes and nightclubs exude glitzy modernity. Its educated elite appears cosmopolitan and sophisticated. But beneath the gloss lie deeply traditional aspects of a society reluctant to shake off a sectarian power-sharing system in which loyalty to one of Lebanon’s 17 religious communities takes precedence over citizenship.

    Nothing illustrates this better than star-crossed lovers.

    Take Laure and Ali, who began dating six years ago after a chance encounter at university in Beirut when they were both 21. She studied political science and now works for an international aid organization. He is a computer and communications engineer.

    Long ago they decided to wed, but there was a snag. Laure is Christian, Ali a Shi’ite Muslim, though they say these identities are just “on paper”. Their families opposed the match across the religious divide, just as they were against the romance from the start.

    “My parents had different arguments, none of them convincing,” recalls Laure. “They said the two families would never get along. They worried what people would say. They said: ‘He’s going to force you to wear a veil, maybe now he’s tolerant, but later he will get more and more into religion’. And then it was the kids, what would the kids be?”

    The objections of Ali’s parents also revolved on social fears, not religious convictions. “If they were very religious, I would understand their point of view. But they are not, so I couldn’t understand their opposition,” he says.

    Laure and Ali could have eloped, as many Lebanese couples in their plight do. Instead they chose a long, uncertain but ultimately successful quest to win over their families.

    “There was such a struggle in my mind,” says Laure, smiling at her fiancé. “I didn’t want to have to choose between someone I love and my parents, whom I love too. After six years of struggle, I’m one of the lucky ones who convinced the parents to agree to the marriage. They like Ali now and they are even asking when we are getting married.”

    Ali admits that the long years of rejection by Laure’s parents, who refused to meet him, had hurt. He thought: “How can they judge me if they don’t know me?”

    The couple’s problems don’t end there. Unless one of them converts, they cannot wed in Lebanon. Civil marriage is not recognized here – unless it is performed abroad. Personal status laws are governed by each religious community, which jealously guard this prerogative as a source of power. So inequalities and anomalies abound.

    “For example, Lebanese law says no one can inherit from someone of a different religion,” Laure explains. “So if Ali dies, I wouldn’t inherit. And if my children are registered as Muslims, they wouldn’t inherit from me.”

    Former Lebanese President Elias Hrawi tried to introduce the option of civil marriage in 1998 over the hostility of Christian and Muslim religious leaders. The bill won cabinet approval but not that of former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri, who held Saudi and Lebanese passports. Saudi clerics ruled that the proposal contravened Islamic Sharia law.

    So next summer Laure and Ali will fly to nearby Cyprus for a civil marriage, probably without friends or family due to the costs. The procedure is so common that travel agents offer wedding packages ($1,680 for a one-day trip to Nicosia to sign the papers plus day use of a Larnaca hotel afterwards and a free bottle of local champagne thrown in).

    “Personally it kind of insults me that I cannot marry the way I want to in my country,” says Ali. “But then again, so many things in this country work in a way they are not supposed to. If we didn’t accept that, we’d all be in depression.”      

 As soon as my plane landed in Baghdad airport earlier this month, I was struck by how much appeared to have changed since I left in March after more than three years’ reporting in Iraq.

 Flights were landing from across the Middle East — Beirut, Amman, Damascus and Dubai — bringing many Iraqis back home after the Muslim Eid al-Fitr holiday.

 The dark, third world airport, packed with Iraqis still fleeing violence when I left seven months earlier, was cleaner, better lit and more efficient. For the first time, guards were using X-ray machines to check incoming bags.

 Baghdad itself had also changed.

 For a city that used to shut down at 5 p.m., it seemed to be full of life once more. I have never seen it looking more beautiful.

 Iraqis were gradually but cautiously returning to their normal lives, spending time at parks and restaurants and going out at night. They seemed less worried about Sunni-Shi’ite conflict.

 The mood amongst the Iraqi staff in the Reuters news bureau was different too. Each one has been touched by the violence that swept the country over the past five years and most had moved their families abroad. Many had to stay in shared rooms in the bureau because it was too dangerous to travel to and from work each day.

 Now, these rooms are only occupied when employees visit from outside Baghdad.

 You can sense hope in the air.

 Some people attribute the drop in violence to the anti-al Qaeda Awakening – the Sunni forces that now control the once restive Sunni Arab areas. Others link it to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s defeat of the Shi’ite Mehdi Army militia, loyal to anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

 Many Iraqis say all they wanted from a “new democratic Iraq” was security. But for years after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, even some of his opponents have yearned for the stability they felt under his rule.

 Could their hopes finally be realised?

 Conversations with senior Iraqi officials in the past few days suggest the optimism may be premature.

 Shi’ite, Sunni Arab and Kurdish politicians spoke of “bad news” ahead. They talked of deep political divisions, and assassinations ahead of the provincial elections expected in January.

 A senior Sunni Arab official, wishing me a happy Eid last week, said: “I wish I could mean this. Nothing has really changed since you have last visited.”

 A Shi’ite official pleaded: “Please be careful, we are expecting lots of problems. Don’t be fooled by the current security situation.”

In downtown Beirut, resurrected from the rubble of the 1975-90 civil war, one is spoilt for choice of smart restaurants, trendy bars and lively clubs. Performances by sexy Lebanese divas and belly dancers contribute generously to Lebanon’s gross domestic product by attracting Gulf Arab tourists enchanted with Lebanese talent and beauty — not necessarily in that order.

There is isn’t a single international designer who has not found his or her way to Beirut’s elegant boutiques and jewellery shops. On the other hand, Lebanese designers such as Elie Saab are dressing Hollywood stars these days.

On the streets of Beirut one can see the latest Mercedes, Jaguars and BMWs jostling with Maseratis and Ferraris, even before they appear in Europe. Appearances aside, Lebanon has one of the best-educated peoples in the Middle East, with its young men and women having a global reach into the worlds of business, banking and academia.

It was comforting to see downtown Beirut teeming again with tourists enjoying the delights the city can offer. Beaches were packed with Beirutis in bikinis and hotels were overbooked with returning visitors who left during the crisis that erupted between the pro-Iranian opposition led by Lebanon’s influential Shi’ite Hezbollah and the U.S.-backed Sunni-led Lebanese government after the assassination in 2005 of former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri. This crisis has been put on hold following a Qatari-brokered agreement in May.

Yet underneath the glitzy facade is a country mirroring the real currents of militancy and Sunni-Shi’ite sectarianism unleashed by the Iraq war.

The conflict in Iraq has brought back to the surface the historical Sunni-Shi’ite feud throughout the Middle East. It overthrew a Sunni dictator, brought Iraq’s Shi’ites to power and tipped the balance of power in favour of Shi’ite Iran and its Hezbollah allies in Lebanon.

This, in turn, has incensed Sunni Arab countries and left a bitter legacy across the Arab world, Lebanon in particular which is traditionally a proxy battleground where regional forces settle their disputes.

In Lebanon, the Sunni-Shi’ite rivalry is in danger of taking a vicious turn. Fundamentalist Sunni Salafi groups have established a foothold in the northern city of Tripoli, which admittedly had been a hotbed for Sunni Islamist groups in the 1980s before they were crushed by Syria, then the dominant power in Lebanon.

Now these forces have found their way to the southern city of Sidon and to eastern Lebanon and some Palestinian refugee camps.

Added to the Iraq war factor is the humiliation inflicted on Sunni prestige in May by Hezbollah when it overran West Beirut, traditionally a Sunni bastion, after a row with the government. That proved without a doubt that they called the shots in the country.

As a result, Sunni groups are seething, with some tilting towards radical Islamism.

The growing influence of these groups is no longer just in the poor neighbourhoods of Tripoli but it has reached the more affluent parts of the southern port city of Sidon — through mosques and preachers setting out to indoctrinate young Sunnis.

A friend recently recounted how her nephew and some of his friends, all American-educated and from affluent Sunni conservative families, were victims of this indoctrination and turned into zealots after attending prayers at a mosque near Sidon.

“Now he spends his days in his room reading the Koran and listening to militant chants. In his eyes we are non-Muslims and following the infidel way of life. Nobody is able to communicate with him or get through to him,” the friend told me.

Lebanon, it seems, is being used once again by its politicians and their regional patrons as a laboratory.

Anti-Syrian Sunni Lebanese politicians, backed by Sunni heavyweight Saudi Arabia, have not only ignored the growing influence of Salafi groups but have courted them in some instances in their attempt to roll back the rising tide of Shi’ite influence embodied by Hezbollah.

Syria, which after the 2003 U.S.-led war encouraged and facilitated the flow of jihadists to Iraq and into Lebanon, has warned of growing Islamist militancy in north Lebanon and said a vehicle used in a suicide attack in Damascus last week had crossed into Syria from a neighbouring country, implying it could have been Lebanon, Jordan or Iraq.

With these local and regional actors playing with fire, how long before their policies backfire

One of the problems with countries like Syria - secretive and authoritarian - is that whenever a bomb goes off or someone is assassinated, the list of possible suspects is extensive.

One can draw up a long list of enemies who could have plotted and carried out Saturday’s rare car bomb attack on a major road near a Syrian state security complex and an intersection leading to a famous Shi’ite Muslim shrine. The blast, which killed 17 people including a brigadier general and his son, poses another test to Syria’s reputation for keeping a tight grip on dissent and maintaining stability in a troubled area. 

High on any list of possible perpetrators are Sunni Salafi jihadis active in Syria now, and who for years were able to cross through the Syrian borders into Iraq to fight U.S. troops. This stopped recently when Damascus tightened its borders following pressure from Iraq and the United States and opted for a policy of detente and moderation starting with indirect peace talks with Israel through Turkish mediation and a diplomatic drive to end its international isolation.

The jihadis, angry at Syria cutting off their routes, relaunching peace talks with the Jewish state and detaining their militants, could have turned their guns against Damascus. And this could have involved a mix of personnel — foreign expertise helping local Islamists.

Another motive for the latest attack could be Sunni-Alawite tensions in Lebanon. Sunni militant groups based in northern Lebanon have been fighting a sectarian war with Lebanon’s Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam which has close links to Syria, whose ruling elite has been dominated by minority Alawites for over four decades.

Syria said an Islamist suicide bomber was responsible for the attack and that the vehicle had entered Syria from a neighbouring Arab country on Sept 26. It did not name the country but Syria’s Arab neighbours are Iraq, Lebanon and Jordan.

Assad, whose country has dominated Lebanon for three decades and was forced to withdraw its troops after the assassination of former prime minister Rafik al-Hariri, warned this month of a danger from what he called foreign-backed Sunni extremists in the predominantly Sunni city of Tripoli. He called for a solution to “the rising threat” of Islamist militants in the city.

The bombing was reminiscent to attacks that were carried out in the past by Syria’s Islamist opposition led by the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood which has been locked in a bloody feud with the secular government since the 1980s when late President Hafez al-Assad launched a major crackdown against their followers and supporters in the northern city of Hama.

That left thousands of Muslim Brotherhood activists dead — some estimates are as high as 20,000 –  languishing in prisons or forced underground.

A riot by Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists at a military prison near Damascus in July suggests the bitter fight between the authorities and the Brotherhood is far from over. There were conflicting accounts of the incident but human rights groups said Syrian security forces killed dozens of prisoners during the riot at Sidnaya prison.

A Syrian official said the disturbances began when Islamist inmates took prison officers hostages and set conditions for their release. Special anti-riot units were brought in from Damascus to end the riot which was quashed violently, according to various accounts.

Syria, which has been ruled by the secular Baath Party since 1963, has sometimes used Islamist groups as proxies to pursue its interests in neighbouring countries, even though it showed no mercy domestically to the 1982 uprising at Hama by the Muslim Brotherhood.

It will likely pursue the hard line policy against militants but Saturday’s attack, which follows the assassination of the military commander of Lebanon’s Hezbollah in Damascus and a senior military aide to President Assad in northern Syria earlier this year, has dented Syria’s watertight security image.

The killing of Imad Moughniyah, in particular, who was on Washington’s most wanted list for two decades for hijackings and suicide bombings against U.S. Western and Israeli targets worldwide, raised serious questions about whether the Assad regime was master in its own house. 

More generally, the recent attacks suggest that Syria itself may become victim to its government’s dabbling in jihadism, like so many other sorcerers’ apprentices across the region who tried to harness Islamist militancy for their own ends only for it to blow back on them.

Posted by Aws Qusay

I left my home in Baghdad early that day, on tenterhooks as I headed to a job interview for which I had been preparing for weeks.

It was July 2006, five months after the bombing of a revered Shi’ite shrine unleashed a wave of sectarian killing in Iraq. Only the day before, my neighbourhood in southwestern Baghdad was rocked by a huge bomb that destroyed a local mosque.

As I walked to catch the bus that morning, thoughts of the interview dropped quickly from my mind when I saw six bloodied bodies piled by the side of the street. They were men and boys, riddled with gunshot wounds. They were handcuffed and some were blindfolded. I hurried along. 

When I boarded the bus, my fellow passengers and I peered out of the windows, unable to turn away from the scores of dead bodies — revenge killings after the mosque bombing — we saw lying on the sidewalk. We were all looking for people we knew.

After my interview, I returned to find that my entire neighbourhood had been sealed off by U.S. and Iraqi troops.  I was worried sick about my family trapped within. I phoned them and pleaded with them to stay inside.

Eventually, with nowhere to go, I decided to make the trip to my grandfather’s house in western Baghdad. Under any other circumstances, it would have been too risky, since his neighbourhood was controlled by al Qaeda militants and had been the scene of massive bloodshed. But I was desperate.

When I arrived that afternoon, shaken by what I had seen and exhausted from the blistering heat, my grandfather welcomed me and sat me down to watch the World Cup soccer final — Italy versus France.

Normally, like any other Iraqi, I would have been riveted by the game. But the sight of the bodies I had seen that morning were seared in my mind.

The next morning, I sat in the garden in front of my grandfather’s home. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw several men halt a bus in broad daylight and force its
passengers onto the street.

One refused to move, and they shot him right away.

The air was thick with shouts and pleading. The gunmen, who wore no masks and couldn’t have been much older than me — I was 24 at the time — lined up all but one of the others on the pavement and executed them. One of the men killed was wearing a blue Italy soccer jersey.

It was then I understood my country was at civil war.

Thousands and thousands of Iraqis were killed in the sectarian, and indiscriminate, violence of 2006 and 2007.

Finally, U.S. and Iraqi forces managed to curtail the violence, erecting tall concrete walls around the city and deploying thousands of troops and police on the streets.

Today, my family no longer hover at home each evening, afraid to venture out. They stay out late visiting family — although they have never stopped looking over their shoulders.

A few weeks ago, I attended Iraq’s first full-capacity soccer match since the fall of Saddam Hussein. Jubilant fans packed the 50,000-seat al-Shaab stadium in central Baghdad for the national football league final.

 ”Sunnis and Shi’ites! We are all brothers!” the ecstatic crowd chanted. I stood watching the cheering crowd, waving Iraqi flags.

 The home team lost the match, but it didn’t matter. It was a victory for all of us.