For more than a century, the narratives of Lebanese Shiites have shifted between scientific and cultural engagement in Jabal Amel, the challenges of representation and development within the modern state, and the harsh experience of wars and tense borders.

Today, with shifting internal and regional conditions, and the growing costs of reliance on weapons—especially after the latest Israeli war—a quiet, self-evident question emerges: How can dignity and security be safeguarded through a just state, rather than through parallel channels?

Jabal Amel: A Memory of Knowledge and Community

Jabal Amel was a hub of religious and literary scholarship, and a stronghold of cultural and social life. Its villages balanced between agriculture and both religious and civil education. The region witnessed successive waves of migration to cities and to the diaspora (Africa, the Gulf, and the Americas), which fed into a broader economic and intellectual cycle.

This scholarly and social legacy, alongside networks of communal solidarity, fostered a distinct civic spirit: schools, intellectual debates, local newspapers, and strong connections with scholarly centers in Najaf, Qom, and Beirut.

In this sense, the original Shiite narrative was not primarily political or military—it was cultural and social, seeking an honorable place within a nascent state and a pluralistic society.

From the Mandate to the State: Gradual Representation and Developmental Gaps

In the post-independence state, the growth of Beirut’s southern suburbs coincided with the marginalization of South Lebanon and northern Bekaa, left on the fringes of infrastructure and services. Extreme centralization, and the transformation of the south into a permanent frontline, produced a chronic sense of spatial injustice.

By the late 1960s and early 1970s, Imam Musa al-Sadr’s discourse of fairness emerged to openly demand social, developmental, and political rights. He laid the groundwork for organized representation (the Supreme Islamic Shiite Council), and eventually for a wider political and social movement.

Armed mobilization did not emerge suddenly, nor was it purely an ideological choice. It developed in layers—first as a regional reality imposed by external actors in a war-and-border environment, then into a sustainable structure with religious, social, and political arms. But the accumulating costs generated isolation, human and economic exhaustion, and constant tension with state institutions and other Lebanese communities, making the limits of this wager increasingly clear.

The climax of this collision was the so-called “Support War” in October 2023, followed by Israel’s full-scale war on Lebanon, which brought defeat and destruction.

Contrary to the reductive image centered only on weapons, war, and victims, Lebanese Shiites historically contributed significantly to national life:

Scientifically and culturally: schools, magazines, writers, theater, music, and supplying universities with academic and professional cadres.

Economically: agriculture, small industries, trade, free professions, and an active diaspora that sent remittances, expertise, and built business networks.

Civically and socially: active participation in unions, municipalities, and student movements, with the rise of women and youth in the public sphere, especially since the 2019 uprising.

This contribution, at its core, was a Lebanese civic contribution before being sectarian. It is from this solid ground—not from a vacuum—that the Shiite narrative can be renewed.

Between Parallel Security and State Security

Experience shows that security outside the state produces localized safety but weakens comprehensive national security, and it burdens the relationship of Lebanese Shiites with their surroundings. By contrast, state security without realistic border guarantees may revive the anxieties of different groups. The task, then, is to strike a calm balance: to restore the state’s security authority with transitional arrangements that protect borders and people while taking into account the sensitivities of recent history.

This means that the approach to the “Lebanese Shiites” must stem from seeing them as a foundational component of a state of equal rights, not as an “anxious minority” nor as a “permanent frontline.” It also means that deterring aggression is a sovereign responsibility managed through professional state institutions, declared defense strategies, and democratic oversight under the authority of the state.

Toward a State of Citizenship

Addressing the Shiite question means investing in quality public schools, decent healthcare, infrastructure, and job opportunities in the South, the Bekaa, and the suburbs, while connecting with the capacities of the diaspora. On the spiritual level, it means reclaiming religious values, for those who wish, as a moral and spiritual compass: reclaiming the symbolism of Karbala in its ethical meaning—justice and dignity—not as fuel for armed mobilization.

Karbala occupies a deeply rooted moral place in the conscience of many Lebanese Shiites, and this meaning can be embodied in civic terms: supporting the oppressed through an independent judiciary, and preserving dignity through laws applied equally to all. In this way, symbolic language is transformed from a tool of situational mobilization into a compass of values that allows for a broader national meeting point.

From a sense of responsibility and a concern to stop the “bleeding,” the Lebanese grassroots association Dawruna—concerned with political empowerment—has launched a series of articles under the overarching title “Our Turn to Speak”, in collaboration with Daraj Media.

This is an attempt to address the Shiite question in its relationship to the project of building a Lebanon free of weapons, but also a Lebanon that gives its communities the confidence that a strong and just state can reassure them and rebuild a national identity in which they are central, not marginal.

This reading does not call for denying history or erasing sacrifices, but for investing them in a new social contract: from fragmented protection to unified protection; from a clientelist economy to a productive economy; and from chronic tension to security managed by accountable institutions.

Through this calm return to the roots of Jabal Amel—knowledge, work, and solidarity—and through an organized transition toward a state of citizenship, Lebanese Shiites can reclaim their natural role: as a force for renaissance, civility, and partnership, not a force for war. Here, dignity is safeguarded, reassurance is built, and Lebanon’s story grows wide enough to include everyone.