Lebanon: Civil Peace

Abstract

This chapter discusses the visions of peace held by Lebanese civil society peace workers. The interviewees from Lebanon work on three visions of peace, none of which is a political goal per se. Rather, they stress the importance of civil peace (silim in Arabic): the quality of the relations between the different groups that make up Lebanese society. Or, moving even further away from peace as a political phenomenon, they say that they work on peace as a personal endeavour: what every individual can do to maintain peaceful interpersonal relations. The few peace workers who do have a political view of peace stress that they see peace primarily as a method (non-violent activism), with ‘justice’ as its goal.