Abstract
In Lebanon, civil society organisations engaging youth in interreligious activity face a twofold challenge: how to build a rich, sustainable, socially engaged religious pluralism based on mutual empathy and trust among young people, and how to do so against a backdrop of often-ossified post-war identities, geographies and patterns of living. This chapter contributes to the academic literature on interreligious engagement in Lebanon by presenting a snapshot of the most recent youth work of two of the most active organisations in this area: Adyan and Dialogue for Life (DLR). We argue that these organizations help to build a third way between calls for the re-confessionalisation and de-confessionalisation of Lebanese politics. A challenge remains of how to translate values of emotionally engaged religious pluralism, cultivated in ‘spaces apart’ within civil society, into both everyday life in Lebanon and into the state’s institutions.
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Notes
- 1.
The Ta’if Agreement 1990, Section II, Political Reform, Clause G—http://www.presidency.gov.lb/Arabic/LebaneseSystem/Documents/TaefAgreementEn.pdf [accessed 4 June 2019].
- 2.
Interview 7/2/2018.
- 3.
Interview 7/5/2018.
- 4.
Interview 7/4/2018.
- 5.
Interview 11/9/2018.
- 6.
Interview 7/03/2018.
- 7.
Interview 7/3/2018.
- 8.
Interview 7/10/2018.
- 9.
Interview 7/5/2018.
- 10.
Interview 19/7/2018.
- 11.
Interview 19/7/2018.
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Gutkowski, S., Larkin, C., Daou, A.M. (2019). Religious Pluralism, Interfaith Dialogue and Postwar Lebanon. In: Bock, JJ., Fahy, J., Everett, S. (eds) Emergent Religious Pluralisms. Palgrave Studies in Lived Religion and Societal Challenges. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-13811-0_5
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