Is our problem really with Hezbollah’s doctrine?

A widespread view in Lebanon holds that the Lebanese quarrel with Hezbollah stems from its doctrine and its adherence to the wilayat al-faqih as theorised by Khomeini. But the question deserves to be framed differently: does the problem truly lie in the doctrine itself, whether one agrees with it or rejects it, or rather in the imposition of that doctrine and the practices it entails upon society as a whole and upon the State?

We have no right whatsoever to object to what others believe, nor to contest their full right to embrace whatever ideas and convictions they choose, whatever these may be. Any individual or community is free to forge its own intellectual and spiritual vision of the world, whether religious or political. This falls within the domain of freedom of conscience, a freedom enshrined in the Lebanese Constitution, one that is not, in its very essence, open to debate, nor should it be.

Each individual and each community is free to see the world as it wishes and to build its own intellectual and spiritual framework without any form of tutelage. What becomes, however, a matter of objection, refusal, and indeed profound concern, is the moment when doctrine ceases to be a freely assumed personal or collective choice and becomes instead a force that imposes its law upon others, a project seeking to drag an entire society down paths it has not chosen. The difficulty deepens when doctrine transforms into an authority superior to that of the State, or into an instrument for imposing its choices upon a plural and diverse society, for at that point one is no longer in the realm of “belief” but in that of coercion. The objection, then, bears not on “what you believe” but on “how and why you seek to bind others to those beliefs.”

At that stage, we are no longer facing a divergence of opinions or a diversity of convictions, but a perilous shift from the space of freedom to that of authoritarianism and domination. If I hold it as a principle that the beliefs of others are none of my concern, I am, on the other hand, entirely concerned when those beliefs become the pretext for drawing me into a war, for altering my way of life, or for imposing a political reality upon me against my will. This position proceeds from no hostility towards any community or school of thought: it is a defence of pluralism, of the right to differ, and of respect for the limits of all authority.

The problem, then, does not lie in “what we believe” but in “how we translate that belief into practice.” For when conviction becomes the justification for imposing fateful decisions upon a plural society, for monopolising arms and wielding them as instruments of threat, and then for determining questions of war and peace outside the framework of the State and its institutions, one has crossed the boundaries of freedom and entered the logic of despotism and domination. This was recently made manifest in the declarations of certain leaders and adherents of Hezbollah, asserting that their arms will remain until the advent of the Mahdi !! At that point, one exceeds the bounds of reason and approaches collective delirium.

In a society like Lebanon, founded by its very nature upon pluralism and a delicate balance, any attempt to impose a single model, whether ideological or religious, cannot but engender profound disorder, not because that model would necessarily be wrong in itself, but because it is imposed outside of any consensus and in breach of the rules of coexistence.

It becomes therefore necessary to restore things to their proper place: defending freedom of belief does not mean accepting that it be imposed upon others, and pluralism does not imply that any one group may set itself up as guardian of everyone’s choices.

What we need today is not a doctrinal debate that would only deepen divisions while missing the essential point, but a clear agreement on the limits of practice: the freedom of the individual or the group ends where the freedom of others begins, and no idea, whatever it may be, can legitimately transform itself into an authority imposed upon society and the State.

This problematic cannot, however, be fully grasped if one confines oneself to the level of the behaviours or the visible political decisions of the Hezbollah movement. This is where the full importance of the approach developed by Waddah Sharara becomes apparent, for he did not regard the phenomenon as a mere collection of practices but as a coherent structure producing a particular mode of commitment, discipline, and loyalty. In State of Hezbollah, the Party reveals itself as a space that transcends political organisation to constitute a “society within society,” endowed with its own logic for defining legitimacy, belonging, and duty.

From this angle, the engagement of individuals belonging to this movement, or their conformity to its injunctions, ceases to be a simple personal choice and becomes instead part of a collective mind that reshapes their perception of the world and of their place within it. This collective mind rests not only on conviction but on a system of symbols and meaning of considerable depth, articulated around martyrdom, sacrifice, the sacred, and belonging to a cause that transcends national borders. It is precisely here that the difficulty of the debate resides, for one is no longer in the presence of a political decision open to argument and contestation, but face to face with a mental and ethical structure of remarkable cohesion.

Even in understanding this structure, however, the fundamental question remains: does this internal cohesion justify converting it into a force imposed upon the outside world? And can a collective mind, however coherent and self-assured, claim to reduce a diverse society to its own categories and impose its trajectory upon it?

The true challenge, then, consists neither in deconstructing the belief itself nor in engaging in doctrinal controversy that risks proving sterile, but in drawing the boundary between the domain where this collective mind has every right to live and to express itself freely, and the domain it may not cross when the destiny of an entire society is at stake.

In this sense, the more rigorous debate proves to be not a confrontation between beliefs but a struggle over the limits of authority and over who holds the right to determine the common destiny. And here, understanding the phenomenon is no longer enough: it is necessary to reaffirm a simple and decisive principle, namely that no force is legitimate when it claims to rise above the society to which it is supposed to belong, and that no idea may transform itself into a fate imposed upon others.