2nd  Session of

BEIRUT

The second session began with giving a lecture by Dr.Jawad Kazem al-Baydani, in the Faculty of Arts, University of Baghdad Department of Philosophy of History and Information official of the Directorate General of School Buildings in the Ministry of Education of Iraq on the topic of "Religious and Class Resistance Against the Central Civil System in the Middle East".

Al-Baydani started his lecture by welcoming the audience and stressing that the meeting of these prominent writers, intellectuals and politicians from various countries in the Middle East is a good sign of bringing together views on the region's various crises and seeking suitable solutions or discussing the main causes of crises.

Al-Baydani said: "The theory follows the place and time. In Iraq, its social, living and geographical conditions are different from another country, and in societies characterized by a different fabric that witness wars and battles and reflected on the reality of life in the peoples of the Middle East. If we take the dimension of history, we see that religions spread in environments prepared for example Christianity is a reaction to the suffering of the people at that time, including the wars of the Roman and Jewish and the religion of Christianity went out to call for tolerance, love and peace in an attempt to restore life to stability, all religions, including the Islamic reaction, which came on the appearance of classes between the Arab peoples and the spread of injustice, slavery and other abuses against humanity, and the environment is ripe for the emergence of Islam and the people attached to them and see them as a protector for them."

Then the doctrine of retirement in Islam emerged to put an end to the compulsory adopted by religions and the acceptance of all the verses in the absence of the realization of reason and research, and here different doctrines emerged calling for reason to establish their religion and their slogan was "the Mind Is the First Evidence" and this is a direct resistance to religion.

He pointed out that the Yezidi religion, which resorted to the mountains to preserve their religion and faith from wars and annihilation to their holy sanctity of religions and these are also considered to be resistant to the preservation of religion and belief.

Al-Baydani also referred to the resistance of the people from their countries and land, and was an example of the Iraqi people's resistance against the various occupation forces, but the governments were not responsible and caused the collapse of society and subjected Iraq to a setback that still continues to this day.

Lebanon's historic role in the region and its current crisis

The Secretary-General of the "Permanent Conference of Federalism" Alfred Riashi gave the second part of the lecture, which entitled "Lebanon's Historical Role in the Region and its Current Crisis, and How Can Lebanon's Crisis Be Solved to Enable it to Play an Effective Role in Addressing the Issues of the Region?"

Riashi began by talking about the events of Lebanon from the period of the emirate and reaching the second republic, and touched upon the events that Lebanon experienced for more than two decades of civil war that led to a complete collapse in all areas of life. The war also involved several Israeli incursions into Lebanese territory in intermittent periods, ending with Israel's occupation of a border strip in southern Lebanon called the security belt, and was forced to withdraw from it on  May24, 2000.

In 1975, civil war broke out in Lebanon following the exchange of operations between the Christian Right and the Palestinian factions in Lebanon. The Lebanese battalions accused the Palestinian forces of attacking a church in the same area. Lebanese leftist parties supported the Palestinians.

The fighting continued despite the fact that the Arab League had imposed a truce in Lebanon.

Lebanon's civil war continued in 1977 and Arab states failed to reach a truce or any solution to the war. Lebanon signed an agreement with the Palestine Liberation Organization stipulating the withdrawal of the organization from southern Lebanon.

He pointed out that the project of federalism can be seen as a solution to the Lebanese crisis and its conflicts. But what is more important is to seek to develop the people culturally and to make them believe in brotherhood and coexistence.

The solution is a federal system that takes into account the specificities of all peoples and embraces them all on the principle of coexistence and rejection of racism and differences based on sectarianism or racial basis.

A number of attendees emphasized that the national and religious systems proved their failure because they were unable to contain the diverse social, national and ideological diversity of the Middle East and even in Europe, pointing out that European countries recently It became aware of this dilemma and turned to the unification of their countries to escape the node of nationalities and beliefs and that these unions created stability in Europe in modern times.

Some of the interventions also confirmed that the rival political government in Lebanon can no longer even form a government compatible with it because of the lack of the concept of managing diversity. This creates and deepens crises rather than finding radical solutions, resulting in a political, social, service and other crises.

The second session concluded by pointing out that the Democratic Autonomous Administration project for North and East Syria, which was able to unite diversity within the concept of the democratic nation derived from the ideology and philosophy of Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan, which proved successful on the ground in northern and eastern Syria.

A.H

ANHA