Branded Seculars

Thanks to a new “non-sectarian” party, the Lebanese now have a choice in which brand of secularism they prefer..

First came Hayya Bina (let’s go), which “seeks to unite Lebanese on the basis of citizenship values which transcend sectarian belonging”, now meet Al-Almana (laicity), which seeks to be “independent of all partisan and sectarian influences”.

But don’t let the similar grandstanding statements of purpose fool you; the two secular movements have very different world views.

While Hayya Bina sports pictures of Samir Kassir and other March 14 people on its main page and sometimes features articles from Fares Khasshan (a Hariri loyalist), Al-Almana, founded by an academic named Mohammad Safa, is “born from the entrails of mass destruction and the corpses of children” and, read carefully: “took off in a path that refuses the policies of defeat and defeatism”. Sounds familiar to all you Assad lovers?

A clue also to Al-Almana’s political direction is the fact that it is touted on Al-Akhbar and relayed on the FPM’s website, both opposition media outlets. Al-Akhbar described a founder that is dazzled by the amount of traffic Al-Almana’s website has generated and the amount of public interest it got.

In Lebanon, it seems, even non-sectarian movements now have March 14 and March 8 versions.