Lebanese scouts, sentries of a fragmented country

The night fell on the heights of Baskinta, about thirty kilometers northeast of Beirut, the capital of Lebanon. Around a crackling fire, dozens of young people in uniform form a silent circle. Light dances on their faces. A song rises, first shy, then stronger, taken up with one voice by boys and girls from all over the country: Maronites, Sunnis, Shiites, Druzes, Orthodox, Armenian. Here, under the stars, the divisions of the Cedar country seem to fade, for a vigil.

They are tens of thousands, from Tripoli to Jezzine, to put on the uniform, to draw up the tents under the cedars, to walk together when the rest of the country flickers. These children and adolescents belong to the 35,000 scouts grouped under the banner of the Lebanese Scouting Federation (FSL). And in a Lebanon plagued by crises, these young people continue to wear an ideal: that of a living together that neither the wars nor the collapses have managed to break.

Frame

Lebanon was one of the first countries in the Arab world to see a scout movement born. It was in 1912. Inspired by the British and French models, carried by the momentum of Christian missions and secular schools, of the pioneers introduced this new ideal: to train young people in the sense of duty, discipline and living together. In a country already rich in its diversity, scouting has found fertile land.

Everyone carries the colors of their community, but all share a common base. In a country where the public school declines, where civil institutions are crumbling, scouting remains a reliable framework for civic and moral training. “It is a safe space where our children learn what school and the state no longer give them,” says Maryam, mother of a young scout of 12 years. Respect, discipline, love of the country … They grow in a setting that protects them. ”

Lebanese scouting is a reflection of the plurality of the country’s communities: each confession finds its place there, and the FSL brings these various movements under a common banner, with shared training and joint objectives.

Link craftsmen

Beyond physical activity and games, scouts are also memory guards. Each vigil by the fire is a moment of transmission. “We tell the story of our elders, we sing for those who have built this country, we remember those we lost,” says Youssef, 17, Orthodox scout. Here, the stories of the civil war, the explosion of the port of Beirut, the great national figures are murmur under the stars.

The places chosen for these rallies owe nothing to chance. Bcharré, in the Qadisha valley, in northern Lebanon, the cradle of the great Maronites figures and setting of the oldest cedars in the country, saw several hundred scouts planting more than 4,500 young cedars, living symbol of Lebanon and its resilience.

Other troops, mixing confessions and origins, go on the march to Qannoubine, a monastic site classified as a UNESCO World Heritage, Mecca Maronite, or to Tannourine (north-east of Batroun, a port city in the North), famous for its millennial cedar, witness to centuries and symbol of continuity. There, spirituality, history and ecological commitment meet.

Initiatives are multiplying: festivals like “L’Écho des Bois”, organized on June 15 in Zouk Mikaël, north of Beirut; Common workshops on reconciliation; Interconfessional camps in Baskinta, where 300 young people shared ten days of hiking, first aid and evening training.

Through these activities, it is a collective memory – that of history, wars, wounds, but also common ideals – that scouts are trying to repair.

“Commitment does not weaken”

The commitment of scouts is also measured in the field of solidarity. After the explosion of the port of Beirut, in August 2020, they were hundreds of all confessions to mobilize: they distributed food, clothing, first aid.
“It is in these moments that I see the strength of the movement,” says Layla, head scout and volunteer nurse. Young people of all confessions that unite to help. Despite fatigue and lack of means, commitment does not weaken. ”

And this commitment goes beyond national emergencies. In October 2024, more than 5,000 Lebanese scouts took part in the Sanad initiative, a humanitarian program launched by the Arab scouting region. Food, shelters, psychosocial support: young people have united their efforts to help the displaced of regional crises.

Admittedly, Lebanese scouting is not free from challenges. Political pressures are very real: certain groups, such as imam al-Mahdi scouts, created by Hezbollah in 1985 and which revolves around the movement since, mix civic education and ideological training. But despite their name, the latter are not affiliated with the Lebanese scouting federation which tries above all to work on national cohesion and living together.

Budgets also tighten. The camps must deal with reduced means. Despite these constraints, resilience prevails. Resources are mutual. The activities continue, with modest means, as in Furn El-Chebbak, in the eastern suburbs of Beirut, where local groups hold good

Lebanese scouting, in its diversity and contradictions, thus appears to be one of the last invisible sons connecting the fragments of a broken nation. In the clarity of songs on the edge of camp fires, in the discipline of young people in uniform, in the solidarity of gestures, remains an ideal: that of a Lebanon which tries, against and against everything, to build a common future.