Lebanon once again stands at a precarious crossroads, afflicted by enough ills to force a reconsideration of the country’s very viability. Political dysfunction, economic collapse, constitutional decay, erosion of sovereignty; each is real, but none is the root cause. Beneath these crises lies something deeper: a cultural virus that has shaped Lebanon for a century. And crucially, Lebanon has already witnessed a model capable of treating it.
Growing up in Verdun, a rare mosaic of Lebanon’s diversity, and later teaching at AUB, I lived in spaces where coexistence flourished. But both were surrounded by walls, physical in AUB’s case and psychological everywhere else. Beyond those boundaries, I saw a persistent collective suspicion: in schoolyards, extended families, and in my home region of the South. Every sect, party, or community interpreted the other’s actions as a threat to its rights. Every political move demanded a “compromise” to avoid conflict. This virus of communal distrust has shaped Lebanon from 1920 to independence in 1943, the 1958 crisis, the 1973–75 tensions, the civil war, and the post-Taif era.
Instead of confronting this structural weakness, we blamed “external actors” and surrendered to the parallel Arab virus of conspiracy theories. Worse, whenever one group gained temporary power, often with foreign backing, it practiced selective exclusion of others. This rotation of exclusion became the default mechanism for managing crises, not resolving them.
The Taif Agreement, despite its intentions, evolved into a cartel arrangement, with outside arbitration. Government institutions were captured by militia leaders, not to serve citizens, but to balance each faction’s enrichment while neglecting the majority of the population. The result is the Lebanon we see today: a paralyzed state, fragmented society, permanent economic crisis, foreign intervention, and the evaporation of people’s life savings.
Yet Lebanon is not doomed. Our own history contains a brief but powerful counterexample; the Chehabist model. Fouad Chehab, emerging after the 1958 crisis, built a state centered on two pillars: professional, accountable public institutions, and a government that treated people as citizens rather than clients of sectarian intermediaries. For six years, Lebanon experienced governance rooted in national unity, social justice, and institutional integrity.
Why did it work? Because Chehab attacked the core virus head-on: collective distrust. He avoided exclusions, and gathered a team of incorruptible, highly competent individuals across sects and classes, forging a civic culture that transcended Lebanon’s political genes of patronage and nepotism.
Today, as the old cartel system collapses, we have a unique opportunity to revive this vision; through a new social contract & an ecosystem of grassroots organizations that share these values.
Let us begin. Together, we can make citizenship, not sect, our common identity.
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Kamel Abdallah, Ph.D
Kamel Abdallah, Ph.D is a Regional Food Security policy expert, as well as serving/served as Chief Executive officer of private sector large (>> USD billion dollars) agriculture industrial groups in the middle east having led Aujan Group of Saudi Arabia, Exeed Industries of Abu Dhabi, Baladna of Qatar, and Canal Sugar of Egypt, all tasked with ensuring self-sufficiency of major food commodities . He also worked closed with NGOs in the USA & region, including serving on the board of Fouad Chehab Foundation in Lebanon. Kamel remains integrated with academic where he served as AVP & Professor at AUB, and currently is an adjunct prof. at OSB, AUB.