Many people think of Hezbollah as Shia-Talibans. But while Taliban wanted to impose their own law over all Afghanistan, Hezbollah people do not seem to have any such plan. While they are obviously strict in following their interpretation of religion, they prefer to be called a Lebanese resistance group, rather than a Shia resistance group.
This is why they have support of all factions of Lebanese society, including Sunnis, Druze, and Christians.
I find such an idea encouraging for our own country. This is the kind of pluralistic approach we need. Everyone should have freedom to follow their religion, but no one should impose their own interpretation over others.
This is a difficult course to follow, but this is also the best course for the interests of a multi-religious/ multi-cultural society.
http://www.la-croix.com/afp.static/pages/061202165107.bgmxn63j.htm
Christian protesters are smaller in number than their Shiite Hezbollah counterparts in Lebanon’s anti-government rally, but both sides are playing down their differences amid some unusual displays of religious unity.
As a throng of protesters in Beirut’s Riad Solh Square chants and waves Lebanese flags to the beat of a Hezbollah war hymn, a Muslim woman veiled head-to-toe in black strides by toting a toddler whose head is wrapped in a vivid orange bandana.
Nearby, another woman has covered her hair in a black scarf and tied a thin orange scarf around her neck, the color of Christian opposition leader Michel Aoun’s movement.
“Everyone was proud of me for wearing the orange scarf, and I was happy to see people from Aoun’s movement here,” says Mariam, 30, a Shiite from southern Lebanon. “This protest has united us.”
Such symbol-swapping is less evident in the predominantly Christian part of the rally, located further away from the government offices on a patch of terrain where tangerine T-shirts, baseball caps and bold plastic earrings are the fashion of the day.
But Ralph, a 22-year-old Christian student and Aoun supporter, says he did sleep in a tent on Friday night with “five Christian guys and six or seven Hezbollah guys, and it was fine.”
“To be honest we have our differences, mainly religious differences. But in this case we don’t talk about religion at all. We only talk about the government change we want to make,” he says.
Abdullah Harfoush stands in a circle with several pals. They sling large Lebanese flags over their shoulders as a man in a yellow Hezbollah baseball cap pounds stakes into the ground to secure another flimsy tent.
“We arrived today because a lot of press was saying that this is Hezbollah’s movement,” says Harfoush, an 18-year-old Christian. “This is a national opposition, not a religious opposition.”
Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah called on followers to bring only Lebanese flags to the rally, and the overwhelming majority obeyed “so that you can’t tell who is Muslim or Christian,” says Majud Hamzi, 30, a flight instructor and Hezbollah supporter.
“The Christians are our partners in this country,” he says. “We are brothers in this war. We have to start living together.”