The "Lebanese" Social Contract by Sherine Elsayed

            Rousseau’s “The Social Contract”, written in the context of the French Revolution, can be considered as a relevant text until today. He defines how freedom should be in a civil society. He states that morality and rationality can only be achieved along with civil freedom in a society.

            Today, Beirut’s manifestations started as a collective behavior regarding the garbage. Now, it is shifting to a social movement; the Lebanese people are using their civil and political rights to state their demands and demand for their civil rights.

Rousseau opposes the natural liberty and freedom to the civil and political liberty. These two terms establish a controversy. As Rousseau states, “Man is born free” (Rousseau 114): a man is born with acquired natural individual rights and a physical freedom including the freedom of speech, the right to share his opinion, to demonstrate, to set up a revolution. The picture on the left shows the manifestation that occurred in the downtown of Beirut on the 22^nd of August 2015. People were demonstrating in the streets of the center of the capital demanding their lawful rights from the government. “And everywhere he is in chains” (Rousseau 114): but these natural the natural right limited by an authority, the government, represented in the second picture by the building of the parliament on the “Place de l’Étoile”, downtown of the Lebanese capital. Rousseau describes civil freedom as a source of “enormous benefits” such as the ability of thinking with rationality and morality (Rousseau 114). But in the case of Lebanon, this civil freedom controlled by the government doesn’t provide the benefits to its people. Furthermore, the situation of the Lebanese people is considered worse than how they would be in the state of nature. The government is representing a misconception of the civil freedom. Lebanese people, through their rational thoughts and ideas, are trying to push the boundaries to be able to achieve and know the true meaning of civil freedom.

Work cited:

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. “The Social Contract” Shifting Narratives. Ed. Zane S. Sinno, Lina Bioghlu-Karnakawi, Dorota Fleszar, Najla Jarkas, Emma Moughabghab, Jennifer M. Nish, Rima Rantisi, Abir Ward. Beirut: Educart, 2015. 113-115. Print.