The Inseparability of Society and Authority.

Authority is an outcome of societal acceptance.

Authority draws its legitimacy from the consent for certain power relationships within a society. In the absence of such a consent, contradictions within a society can lead to separations and isolations, with a rejection of any claim of authority. Therefore authoritarian regimes if not accepted by a society will impose this consent.

The power system we have today was legitimized in the early 1990’s to end the Lebanese civil war. Sectarian taïfa warlords and some billionaires agreed on it, sponsored by external powers. Technically, it was defined through constitutional changes approved on September 30, 1989 in Taïf (Saudi Arabia) by the remaining members of parliament at that time, who were later ousted. An agreement in 1992 established a formula regulating the sectarian taïfa allocation of resources and positions of power in a bet on oil money and regional peace. Society at the time was ready to accept anything that turns the page of a bitter war that lasted 15 years.  What if today’s new page maintained the existing power system?  It would absolve them from yesterday’s mistakes as if nothing had happened, and bribe society with an illusionary future of extravagance and luxury.

Society is shaped by its own power system.

As the main function of authority is to organize societal relations within a set of rules, regulations, and institutions, it is the essential contributor in forming and strengthening some ties while gradually disintegrating others. As such, we claim that our project is able to produce a society to the extent that it seeks to form and maintain a purposeful network of relations that strengthens assimilations internally while self-differentiating from external societies. Power is not something that is given and taken or politicians who come and go, but rather an institutional backbone at the heart of societal formation.

The power system that came about in the 1990’s helped establish an imaginary coexistence of various sectarian taïfa identities. While the extremist ideologies of these sectarian taïfas were shaped during the civil war when sectarian taïfa identities took their extreme features, they further strengthened in the three decades that followed due to the consolidation of authoritarian relations and the generalization of submission and loyalty to sectarian taïfa leaders. The role of a sectarian taïfa leader is to maximize the share of resources allocated to his sectarian taïfa , and then oversee the distribution of these spoils among members of his sectarian taïfa sub-group. This means that whoever does not belong to a sectarian taïfa sub-group has become without rights.

Understanding these interdependencies leads us to conclude that the current condition of our society is not a coincidence, and that the future of our society is not a fate.