LEBANON: Children Learn That Religion Excludes

By Mona Alami Reprint | | Print |

Mona Alami

BEIRUT, Mar 25 2008 (IPS) - From East to West, the Arab region is afflicted with mounting religious divides that are increasingly affecting the well-being of the region’s children. Lebanon’s constitution, which splits power equally between Muslims and Christians, is no exception to this growing chasm.

Under the constitution, 18 religions are formally recognised by the Lebanese government. No other country in the region boasts such diversity, but it is a mix that has ultimately become both Lebanon’s greatest strength and its weakness.

“In such a varied society, the question of identity is always at the forefront of people’s concerns,” says Mahmoud Natout, professor of psychology at the Lebanese American University.

After 15 years of civil strife (1975-1990), when Lebanon’s main religious factions fiercely battled each other, Lebanon finally reached a peace agreement in 1989 – albeit one that was imposed by foreign powers. In the following 15 years, religious tensions abated, only to reignite in 2005 after the assassination of former prime minister Rafik Hariri, leading to a political crisis that has been increasingly taking a religious dimension.

Ten-year-old Maher who attends private school in Beirut, says his schoolmates constantly inquire about his religious beliefs. “My mom is Christian and my father Muslim, and children are always trying to find out what sect I belong to,” he says angrily.

“Religion is extremely important to Lebanese, but there is a difference between the spiritual and social aspect,” says Prof. Nabil Dajani from the sociology department at the American University of Beirut. “In Lebanon, it has become a form of political thinking.”

Dajani says children in Lebanon are mostly educated within the political facet of a religion.

“At school, Shias will support Hassan Nasrallah (leader of Hezbollah, the Shia resistance movement) while the Sunnis identify with Saad Hariri (a member of parliament and son of the slain former prime minister),” says Jana, a teenager at a private school on the outskirts of Beirut. Faith itself is secondary; religion is defined by the children’s environment, or the political affiliation of their parents.

Aida Suleiman, a public school teacher working in Aley, a predominately Druze city some 17km from Beirut, says that fights are erupting more frequently between children from different religious backgrounds. “Tensions are on the rise between Druze and Shia kids, who are a minority at our school.” The Druze, about a quarter of a million in a nation of four million, are a people who have beliefs seen as an offshoot of Islam.

Dajani explains that although many Lebanese schools are secular, they are heavily segregated, with a veiled sectarian curriculum. The country is mostly divided along invisible lines that separate communities, with the exception of capital Beirut. “In my children’s classes, some of the kids have never met Sunnis in their life,” says Dalia, a mother of two residing in the vicinity of Tyre, a coastal city in the south.

Rana, who teaches at a private school in the suburbs of Beirut, has also observed an increase in altercations pitting children from different communities against each other. “Girls are also starting to be veiled at a younger age – sometimes as young as seven – and the numbers have probably increased from around 5 percent of female students to 30 percent in recent years.”

Often, religious traditions are forcefully imposed on children by over-zealous parents. “One of my seven-year-old students was forced to wear the veil after her mother cut her beautiful long hair,” says Rana.

Jana says one of her schoolmates was withdrawn from school by his parents for 10 days because the headmaster refused to allow him to break the school’s dress code and wear black during Ashoura (the commemoration of the martyrdom of Husayn, grandson of the prophet Muhammad).

Therese Bechara, who works at a public school for girls in a predominantly Christian area, explains, however, that although conflicts rarely arise between her students, one of hers girls admitted she was mocked at at a party because of her Christian belief.

According to Dajani, the Lebanese are becoming increasingly fanatic, practising religion by strictly adhering to rituals and traditions. Unfortunately, the education system is also feeling the brunt of this religious fervour.

In one upscale private school in Beirut, a prominent religious authority demanded a ban on a French history and geography textbook because it contained a century-old illustration of the prophet Muhammad. Under pressure, the school agreed to have the illustration deleted.

Yammout says the need for spiritual development among the youth is not properly addressed by parents. Instead, children are indoctrinated and taught that there is only one narrow path leading to religious enlightenment.

“There are two dimensions to religion: one that is socio-cultural and another that is spiritual. If the latter is not addressed, society will verge on communalism and tribalism, with children likely to believe that they are sacred while others are profane.”