Downward, Christian soldiers

Go back a couple of weeks to the three-way summit between President Michel Sleiman, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. A great deal has been written about that noisy conclave, but almost nothing about one of its subtexts: the marginalization of Maronite representatives, creating a sense that the community was incidental at a vital moment for Lebanon’s future.

What emerged from the summit was a stern, demographically understandable reminder that the country’s destiny is being shaped by the dynamics of Sunni-Shia interaction. Even Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, armed with a talent for barging in on performances to which he was not invited, remained incognito. However, he then sought to compensate by organizing a Druze congress with representatives from Israel, Syria, and Lebanon, to create the impression that he had some 700,000 coreligionists under his wing.

But not the Maronites. Michel Sleiman’s short-sightedness was a disappointment. The president defied protocol by barring two former presidents from the Baabda lunch — allegedly because the Syrians did not want Amin Gemayel there, and King Abdullah was happy to avoid Emile Lahoud. Worse, Sleiman did not invite the Maronite patriarch, Nasrallah Sfeir, because that, too, would have apparently discomfited Assad. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Saad Hariri ensured that the Sunni mufti would meet King Abdullah at his home, on the sensible grounds that there was no reason to offend his community’s highest religious representative, and a political advocate.

It was lost on Sleiman that he would have only gained in legitimacy through Sfeir’s presence. To have the patriarch in attendance would have been Sleiman’s way of saying that he alone could deliver a Maronite blessing for the summit’s results. The president should have made Sfeir’s presence a condition for hosting his Arab counterparts. Instead, he averted a fight and looked like a guest at his own party — isolated, uncomfortable, largely immaterial to the proceedings.

The decline of Lebanon’s Maronites, and of the Christians in general, is an old story, and a dismal one. It is dismal because the community’s nastiest setbacks have been self-inflicted. It’s not a bad thing to be realistic. For Christians to refuse to surrender any power today on the grounds that, historically, they have been entitled to this post or that, this privilege or that, is utterly foolish. Lebanon is changing, and if the community doesn’t adapt voluntarily, in a way allowing it to negotiate its own fate, it may one day face imposed change.

However, the worst thing is for a realistic perception of Christian decline to transform itself into hopelessness, which can only accelerate the decline. We are very near to that stage. Christians have tended to reduce everything to numbers: Two-thirds of the country is Muslim, therefore all is lost, you will hear many of them say. This is not only a narrow view of reality, it is a recipe for self-immolation.

For starters, the simplistic Christian-Muslim dichotomy is no longer reflected on the ground. For better or worse, and very simplistically and unsatisfactorily, Lebanon is better defined these days by a triangular relationship — between Sunnis, Shia and Christians. There is much that is disheartening in subdividing Lebanese society in that way, but it’s also true that this condition has yielded a much more complex set of political choices, particularly for Christians. Michel Aoun has sided with Hezbollah, Samir Geagea with the Future Movement, and Michel Sleiman has tried to steer in the middle.

There is also the fact that Christians continue to play a significant, sometimes a vanguard, role in Lebanon’s society, culture and economy, with an overwhelming percentage of remittances coming from Christians abroad. And yet there is also, and paradoxically, a disturbing lack of political vigor, economic innovation or intellectual dynamism in the community. The political leadership is mostly corrupt, myopic or unresponsive, satisfied with managing the status quo; the clergy, with its vast networks of influence, including schools and parishes, is awash in greed and tawdriness; Christian intellectuals devote relatively little time to imagining new foundations for their country or community and generally publish little that is stimulating, while those who do find themselves largely unread or unheard.

Christian talent is all around, yet seems invisible. The challenge for the community will be to discover the right mechanisms allowing Christians to reinvent their role in Lebanon. But don’t hold your breath; expect little from the president, the church and the political leadership. As for the society, overall far better than its leaders, it appears locked in a paralysis of despair that can bring no good.

The Baabda summit is the latest reminder of how steep the Christian climb will be. Driven by petty disagreements, open to foreign manipulation, disoriented by the transformations all around them, the Christians can offer better. But needed first is a psychological overhaul of the community, one more elusive than ever.