Lebanese Demographics: The stubborn myth of a Lebanese Shia "majority"

-

Lebanese Demographics: The myth of a Lebanese Shia majority

Numbers are important. Especially in a democracy- They say that in a democracy, demography is destiny.

A large number of scholars get Lebanese demography wrong.

One key reason they get it wrong is that in Lebanon the government does not conduct a census of the population. It is a well known fact that the percentage of Christians in the population, for a number of reasons that include a lower birthrate and emigration, has been declining over the years. The population of Lebanon has been dominated, numerically, by Muslims for years now.

However, the Taif Accord that created the Lebanese Second Republic and ended the civil war was premised on the idea of parity between the Christians and the Muslims. As a result the representation in the parliament was split in half between Muslims and Christians and the powers of the three top positions in government were recalibrated making the Maronite presidency a less powerful position than it was under the First Republic.


This is all agreed on and uncontroversial.


However, what is not clear is the demographic distribution within the two confessional groups. The focus has always been on the breakdown within the Muslim community. Serious scholars have made far -fetched claims as to the confessional breakdown within the Islamic community- always exaggerating the percentage of the Shia in the population. Fouad Ajami, Augustus Norton, Shaeri-Eisenlohr, among many others, make the claim that the Shia are a “majority” of the population and make a strong argument for the changing of the political regime based on this claim that they present as a clear fact that has scientific veracity beyond questioning. They actually imply, directly and indirectly, that Lebanon is some sort of apartheid South Africa where the Shia are “oppressed and marginalized” by the political system when their numbers entitle them to rule the country. After all- isn’t democracy the one person – one vote- y’all?


Ajami is excused because he admits that he is not a numbers guy but an old school political scientist who dislikes numbers and he got into the business before sophisticated numeracy was the norm. That is fine- he will not be publishing in the MPSA's AJPS anytime soon. However, despite that aversion to numbers, he is willing to call the population percentages by gut instinct it seems.


The best proxy of the demographics of the country is the study of the voters’ rolls prepared by the government. The government keeps track of voters by sect. These records approximate the demographics of the country.  Based on these records, in 2013 the Sunnis are 28.1 %  of the population, the Shia 27.6%, and the Maronites 20.1%. The Muslims are  62.1% of the population.

Below is the link to the Assafir story citing the study:
http://www.assafir.com/Article.aspx?EditionId=2453&ChannelId=59057&ArticleId=316&Author=


  



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Response to Amer Zahr’s Sexual Harassment Column

-
Image
Rana Abbas, former ACRL executive director Amer Zahr, Rana Abbas's BFF Response to Amer Zahr’s Sexual Harassment Column The Imad Hamad saga has attracted a motley crew of individuals who joined in for two reasons: 1. To say, without any legal basis for personal knowledge, that the allegations are “true” for a variety of reasons.  2. To say that we basically need no investigation and that Imad should be fired because these two women have made these allegations. Allegation is the key word. Let’s look at the bright side of this sordid affair. Who knew that everyone in our community is a solid supporter of women’s rights? This is great! It really is. However, by God, people will prove it by piling on Imad Hamad before receiving all the facts. Let me make one thing clear. I am not stating these women were not harassed; nor am I stating they were. No one, other than Imad and the women, was in the room when the alleged harassment occurred.  No third party could
Read more

The Lessons of the Wissam Allouche case: About lies, not terrorism

-
Image
Wissam Allouche arrested by the JTTF Flag of the Lebanese Shia Amal Movement The Lessons of the Wissam Allouche case: An American Lebanese Shiite Muslim caught in the government and media dog- and- pony show Wissam Allouche, a Lebanese Shia immigrant from Lebanon was sentenced to five years in prison for lying on his citizenship application and for lying to get a security clearance from the Department of Defense. The US government had asked for a ten- year sentence. Allouche’s criminal case began in 2013 and he was tried and convicted in 2015 in the Western District of Texas district court.  After conviction, the US Attorney for the Western district of Texas issued a press release that read in part: “Jurors found that defendant lied about his previous association with the Amal militia This afternoon in San Antonio, a federal jury convicted 45–year-old Lebanese–born Wissam “Sam” Allouche of knowingly lying to federal authorities on his U.S. citizenship petit
Read more

The Palestinian-Israeli Conflict

-
The Lebanese secular al Safeer newspaper. The Lebanese leftist/ secular/communist Al Akhbar Both called the individual who attacked the Jewish religious school in Jerusalem a “shaheed” or martyr. When Arab seculars and communists, in addition to Islamists, call this person a martyr, it is further proof that the conflict is, not surprisingly, a political conflict between Jewish nationalism and Palestinian nationalism- not a religious conflict. Neither party in this conflict is respecting international law. It's a fact regardless of who has the big guns- and it's Israel who has the big guns here. Noncombatants continue to suffer.
Read more