In other words, the recurrent Lebanese desire for harmony - the very same that followed the March 14 demonstration - has more often than not been frustrated in our recent history, leading to widespread disillusionment based on an unwillingness of Lebanese to grasp that their system rests on the insistent articulation of differences.

Two things can be said about this: a system of negations can be far more resilient and steady than people imagine, so that the absence of unity that followed the parliamentary elections last year was regrettable, but par for the course with respect to national stability. The sectarian system, precisely because of its acknowledged shortcomings and the anxiety it produces among Lebanese, is one also one where, in moments of crisis, sectarian representatives fall into line and play their allotted roles in re-establishing an equilibrium. That's what happened after the recent rioting in Christian areas, and it's what happened after every random bomb blast last year, all of which occurred in predominantly Christian areas, so that the political costs to the perpetrators soon surpassed the advantages.

A second aspect of the general disappointment with national disunity is that it shows there is a platform on which to build unity - if only politicians displayed audacity. Sectarianism won't dissipate in a night, or a decade, but more can be done to weaken its worst aspects. If March 14 showed anything, it was that that the death of someone like Rafik Hariri could alter age-old sectarian reflexes. Other developments, short of death, might too. Everything from introducing civil marriage to creating a civil category where citizens are identified not by their religious sect, but as members of an officially recognized secular community, must be tried.

The mechanisms of the sectarian state are cumbersome, and demoralizing when the political murder that the Lebanese are commemorating today seems to radiate much discord amid the concord. But Lebanon's "arrangement" has its assets, which we should bear in mind while mentally reviewing the past year. Hariri and all the others surely didn't deserve to die, but the system remains greater than the sum of its parts, and the sum of its deaths.

The most compelling argument I've encountered this year about consociational institutions in Lebanon is Samir Khalaf's "Civil and Uncivil Violence in Lebanon." In this book (Princeton, 2002), he argues that institutional power sharing did not cause the war, and that those who claim that it did (and thus disparage Taif for only modifying the principle of power-sharing without full deconfessionalization) are taking a short view of history. Instead, he presents what I found to be considerably compelling evidence of at least 5 different institutional agreements (each with a different confessional balance) that were applied to CONTAIN conflict. In effect, for Khalaf, skewed representation (at one point, Muslim overrepresentation, then Christian overrepresentation, etc...) is the required cost of civil peace.
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I guess this means that what I would say, were I asked, would be something like, "we can adjust ratios and we can deconfessionalize much of the civil service, but the core confessional agreement is there to protect us all."

The models to which Lebanon might look in representing the secular population include not only Fiji but New Zealand. The New Zealand political system has consociational elements in that the Maori are entitled to separate electoral representation, but individual Maori can choose for themselves whether to register on the communal roll or the general roll. The number of Maori electorates is, in turn, determined by the number of voters who register on the communal roll. In Lebanon, voters could likewise be permitted to choose whether to register as members of a confessional group or simply as Lebanese, with open parliamentary seats being distributed in proportion to those who make the latter choice. This would enable the Lebanese to choose the pace at which to implement non-sectarian politics, which is itself a long-term goal of Taif.

But the communal factor can also act as a force that makes democracy more viable. The parties and groups that communities organize to represent their interests within the arena of democratic political competition are likely to be far larger and stronger than the existing tiny nongovernmental organizations and individual intellectuals who currently serve as the most visible advocates of reform within Middle Eastern societies. If and when these large parties and groups begin to grasp that they will need to make deals among themselves in order for each to have the best chance of securing its own interests, the temptation to grasp after total power will become less intense and the pluralism and tolerance that representative government requires will take root.

Yet a pluralist jostle of communalist groups, each seeking to promote each its own vision of life and set of interests, could become not an impediment but actually an avenue toward the growth of democratic modes and orders in the Arab world.

The most dangerous kind of political pluralism is the collection of closed, complete "units" [i.e., unitary poles]. And the worst kind of consensual democracy is "consensus" on what is imposed by a strong party. What we are implementing today is the most dangerous and the worst, in a very critical stage.

National dialogue, for it to be democratic, does not mean "everyone agreeing on everything." This is impossible humanly and systemically. Besides, it almost paves the way to estbalishing a totalitarian, i.e., dictatorial, system.

Each Christian party has its position and role, and this kind of diversity is normal. The domination by one faction of a whole confessional community would be an abnormal situation. The communities are today lacking in equilibrium.