The only truth about Lebanon is that widespread misery and apprehension are not confined to the southern suburbs, the south, and the Bekaa Valley alone. Nor is it true that Lebanese cities, from the capital through the cities of the north and the mountains, are indifferent; the recent Lebanese ordeal, and those that preceded and may follow it, passed them by almost unnoticed. Rather, we are facing a unique phenomenon, born of both absurd and deliberate causes, that has led to the formation of this misconception: that Lebanon is a collection of disparate republics. We must confront this inherent paralysis, this sterility that has become so deeply ingrained in the fabric of Lebanese life. This paralysis extends far beyond politics, the clash of axes, the Tom Barak document, the speeches of Naim Qassem, and the destruction and rubble surrounding us wherever we turn; it transcends all of that. It is a paralysis that penetrates deeply with its intense and violent effect, as if the recent ordeal, embodied by the war, was the opening act that exposed and laid bare its nakedness before us, as if it were the finger that pointed to the monstrous elephant lurking nearby. And the decisive experience of how we view ourselves and the world.
At this late hour in world history, after all that has happened and is happening globally, politically, economically, and culturally, the mere thought of change—let alone rewriting a new social contract—may seem like delusion and utopianism. In Lebanon, where society is quick to resent and quick to surrender, double doses of frustration and demoralization have made even the mere imagining of change in the shadows seem surreal. Comparing our reality today to what Lebanon was like in its first century is nothing but a wretched irony; its outcome is a banal, futile lament and a disheartening despair. Perhaps we are justified in saying that the absolute acceptance of the “status quo”—as an active historical element in weaving our social fabric—has created a republic adept at temporary stability, eternally postponing its happy ending, and harboring a destructive memory that is revived with every holiday and milestone. Under this premise, and within its orbit, the Lebanese today live in a state of anxiety and contradiction: an impoverished and apprehensive people, constantly monitored and grappling with an identity crisis; angry yet sometimes rigid and sometimes open; dual nationality and belonging; simultaneously ambitious and desperate; corrupt and upright. It is as if politics is no longer a public contract but rather a navigational exercise between islands of protection and loyalties.
Since the end of the civil war and the Taif Agreement (1989), a modern social contract has not been established on solid foundations. Fundamental questions concerning power, rights, and representation have been relegated to temporary compromises and fragile agreements in the name of “consensual democracy.” In this vacuum, the periods of Syrian occupation that followed Taif, and then Iranian “patronage” through the state of Hezbollah, emerged, becoming not merely arrangements of external influence, but mechanisms for reshaping the social contract from within. The Taif Agreement transformed into a factory for a “protection contract” in which rights are replaced by permission to pass through networks of loyalty. Weapons are elevated from instruments of war to a foundational narrative that regulates meaning as well as the distribution of rents and services, making citizenship membership in a network. Thus, Taif was emptied of its contractual function, and the state was reduced to a lower-level administration under a higher security umbrella, while legitimacy was redefined by a sacred/security/service-oriented concoction that supersedes equality and the law. The result was a hegemonic economy that merged service with war and perpetuated the suspended present.
According to the explicit constitutional standard, the Lebanese social contract guarantees equality of rights (Article 7), freedom of speech and assembly (Article 13), and the fundamental principle that “no authority is legitimate if it contradicts it.” The Taif Agreement translated these promises into an institutional framework that ended the war, established new balances of power, controlled weapons, and entrusted the decision of war and peace to the state. However, what followed Taif did not prove to be a complete social contract: reconstruction was preceded by administrative reforms, and the principle of “the state provides for the people” gave way to the principles of “the state rotates power” and “parties fill the void.” Over time, the institutions’ ability to monopolize legitimate violence and provide public services diminished, leading to the emergence of parallel legitimacies and back channels for security and services. This deviation from the text of the contract to its reality is not simply a matter of financial or administrative shortcomings; rather, it is a transformation in the structure of social security: rights are acquired through proximity to a network, not through mere citizenship. With each major crisis – 2006, then the involvement in Syria, up to the recent waves of tension – this dysfunction has manifested itself more blatantly: duality in security decision-making, conflict over the definition of “national interest”, and a further transformation of service into a reward, and loyalty into an insurance policy.
The metaphor offered by modern mafia cinema might be useful here: in Gomorrah, there are no heroics or anthems; “sovereignty” is sold piecemeal, and justice is a “private service” that precedes and supersedes public law. Theoretically, the modern state, as Max Weber formulated it, is a human community that successfully claims a monopoly on the legitimate use of force within a given territory. This is not to say that it “proliferates violence,” but rather that the gateway to violence is singular and conditioned by public law. Any multiplicity of gateways to violence diminishes the state and returns us to a gray area between public law and local “laws.” Applying this lens to Lebanon illuminates a painful path: every decline in the state’s ability to provide public services—health, education, electricity, and an impartial judiciary—opens up wider margins for parallel protection contracts, whether partisan, sectarian, local, or regional. Little by little, the terms of the contract change: the right becomes a “favor,” citizenship is replaced by network membership, and the center of gravity shifts from law to mediation.
Packaging machines, organizational discipline, media platforms, service networks, financing, and reconstruction: these elements have become, in Lebanon, a parallel governance structure in their own right. The strength of some parties lies in their being effective institutions in a country where the “institution” is faltering. However, this strength has another side: a lack of uniformity in rules, and electoral competition that transcends programs and relies on predetermined balances. When this model becomes widespread, the country almost becomes a “federation of networks” rather than a state of law. Consequently, the very concept of legitimacy is no longer pure: it is a mixture of the symbolic, the sacred, the service-oriented, and the security-related, by which politics is measured as much as morality.
For example, if the issue were limited to “weapons” in their physical sense—cannons, missiles, and heavy equipment—the debate would be easier for both Hezbollah and its opponents. According to extensive experience, these weapons no longer alter regional equations, but rather inflict heavy costs on their possessors and their communities: death, displacement, destruction of homes and businesses, and irreparable losses to the land and the country. However, reducing the issue to mere iron and gunpowder is a misleading oversimplification. In the current Lebanese experience, weapons are not simply tools of war; they represent a complete way of life with its own systems, meanings, and institutions. Therefore, clinging to weapons is framed as a matter of “existence or annihilation,” and surrendering them is seen as “suicide” for the community. The issue is not simply a “bullet depot,” but a foundational narrative that grants an alternative legitimacy. In practice, the duality of power and the decision of war/peace shatters a fundamental pillar of the social contract, and transforming patronage into a channel of loyalty redefines the public right. Therefore, a discussion of weapons is not valid without a discussion of the system that reproduces its political meaning.
Since 2006, the “Promise” and “Reconstruction Jihad” have filled the state vacuum and amassed a loyal base of support. The Syrian war then solidified the intertwining of “regional security” and the “national pact,” transforming the debate into accusations of treason. With the recent tensions, we are living under implicit rules of engagement, a politics dictated by exceptional circumstances, and a life teetering on the brink of “suspending the future.” The result: the legal pact has not collapsed, but it has receded in favor of a parallel pact based on the language of “protection,” not “rights.”
The issue is not about demonizing one side or exonerating the other; it is more about describing a reality that exacerbates the cost of returning to a single institution called the state. Hence, it may seem that any serious discussion about weapons cannot take place in isolation from a discussion about the system, which reproduces its political meaning within Lebanese society. The sum of all these factors has been a fundamental disruption of the Lebanese social contract, manifested in the collapse of the state’s monopoly on force and the decision of war and peace. Consequently, people’s security became dependent on their affiliations, and an alternative partisan patronage system emerged, transforming rights into gifts conditional on loyalty. Peaceful dialogue and long-term planning ceased, leading to a stagnant and unproductive waiting game. The source of legitimacy shifted from the constitution to religious/security/service-oriented figures immune to accountability, and the debate became confined to the binary of betrayal/loyalty, which sidelined rational politics. Therefore, we live in “parallel republics” within a single state, and any talk of a new social contract without radical change is futile.
The issue cannot be resolved through confrontation, but rather through a political strategy that transforms incentives and integrates power and service within the framework of the law. The goal is not to break the sword, but to place a legal sheath that preserves deterrence and ends the rule of exception. A national defense strategy is declared, integrating capabilities within a legitimate and accountable command structure. This shifts the focus from a “weapon of meaning” operating above the law to a defensive capability operating within it. Simultaneously, public service standards are unified through the gradual integration of health, education, and relief networks into national programs based on a transparent “service purchase” model. This model preserves the role of civil society and eliminates the political price of service. Politics becomes more balanced when its agenda is reflected in a modern law for political parties that exposes campaign finance and media manipulation, revitalizes internal democracy, and returns competition to programs and performance, not to the hierarchy of networks. On the ground, decentralization with accountability is implemented: municipalities are granted broader powers in exchange for transparent budgets, performance indicators, and satisfaction measurements. This ensures that political lists focus on the effectiveness of services, not their identity. As for the ready-made objections—”the state is failing” and “monopoly is unrealistic”—they are answered calmly: deterrence does not contradict institutionalization, and accusations of treason stifle debate instead of fostering it. The goal is not to abolish any party or to accept a crippled state, but rather to engineer a transition that reconnects the power of force with constitutional legitimacy, separates rights from loyalty, and opens the political landscape to natural entitlements. Only then will the language of the social contract be restored: a state held accountable for its service, parties competing with measurable programs, and a society that criticizes without fear.
Ultimately, the Lebanese will have to choose between continuing to live in a “protection market” where the state is fragmented into islands of conflicting loyalties, and building a new social contract that restores the state to its role as the sole unifying framework for all. The first path leads to statelessness and a future without a state, while the second is the only way to move Lebanon from its current state of exception and chaos to the normalcy its people deserve – where the state is the protector and arbiter, citizens are equal under its rule, and political life is based on a clear social contract that is constantly respected and renewed.