Its Definition
A group of good will people, scholars, experts in sociology, economy, administration, security and environment, spiritual and temporal officials, and children of hope and openness on mankind being an equal brother for everyone and a member of the global family, met and gathered in a time where the worst crises have plagued the Lebanese society, to look into the social, humanitarian and citizenship situation. Some recent studies and research described Lebanon’s decades- old crisis as a scourge which don’t look like, in its ferocity and its ominous repercussions on life, any other crisis that humanity has experienced in the last hundred years.
After reflecting the absurdity of the dramatic status, deliberating on how to get the homeland back to the routes of development, advancement and resurrection, and believing in better days to come, the group decided to establish a Lebanese Centre for Strategic Planning in order to galvanize the Lebanese society’s accumulated pain, to pull it from the coming hatred, Cainian abolition and destructive co-option, to prevent developing contact lines that limit freedom of thought and to prompt it again, to adopt the spiritual and moral values, and to respect the cultural and religious pluralism as lever for citizenship that lays the foundation for a new state of mind, which copes with Lebanon’s message, and is based on the guidance of faith in God, the human wisdom’s pace, and the fundamental role of religions in building peace in the homeland and around the world in order to maintain the validity of the existential “We”. All of this falls on the basis of the conscious solidarity of religions and knowing interculturalism in order to undermine the system of “To Be Against the Other”, and switch to an approach of “To Be With the Other”, so that the civilization of love, partnership and complete citizenship becomes a desired, honest and firm act.
Its Mission
The Lebanese Centre for Strategic Planning is a roadmap for a project for present and future generations, which is derived from the need of marching and advancing together towards the concept of the “Third Option”*, that is, in the direction of “yeses” to address the massive catastrophic structural collapse by high-end, peaceful and nonviolent means, within the framework of a strategic vision to revive humans, in other words, in the framework of a spiritual, intellectual and humanitarian stream… of life; for an ever- renewable life on the basis of regaining the flavour of the national spirit based on mutual and shared pain, purification of memory, and forgiveness and justice, and towards the assimilation of our humanitarian dimension, all that by scientific and practical strategic planning:
Firstly: Providing an integrated program to achieve the message, which possesses scientific and objective application mechanisms;
Secondly: Developing a new life-cycle approach that pulls out the Lebanese society of its suffering and its relational predicament to activate the principle of “marching together” in the project of paving the road for an honest and complete citizenship in the human state;
Thirdly: Promoting the culture of human fraternity, unlearning religious, ethnic and linguistic intolerance, promoting the culture of dialogue, and converging, cooperating and acquainting among religions, cultures and civilizations to avoid, or at least, to limit the spread of all sorts of tragedies;
Fourthly: Taking measures leading to establish the best encouraging policy to the spiritual land humanitarian dimension;
Fifthly: Introducing the notion of citizenship in the homeland (as in the world) as opposite to the notion of “minority” and “majority”;
Sixthly: Liberation from “the individual ethos’ poison” that is rampant like an overwhelming plague in the national Lebanese environment; and from the poison of the high walls between the Lebanese social components, which was engaged by 27 kinds of wars fare against Lebanon since the 1970s to this day;
Seventhly: Resisting the submission to a hybrid reality forced on Lebanon;
Eighthly: Addressing poverty, deprivation, marginalization, hatred, discrimination,
disintegration of the society, and behavioural apathy, in the absence of a consolidated vision.
Its lines of action
The Lebanese Centre for Strategic Planning sets its mission into effect:
- § A renewable vision to a strategic and creative project at the national, community and spiritual level;
- § Activation of the “Third Option”*: marching and advancing together for Lebanon’s History, and for the spirituality and humanization of the homeland for the next hundred years;
- § Development of a fixed roadmap, and clear route indications for a citizenship in need of redeeming itself after fast-breaking events turned it into a concept with an overt normative that grounds it to adjust to changing developments. As if citizenship is just a term in a state of permanent flow, which is founded on dismantling entities’ communication, eliminating healing components guaranteeing national spirit, dropping the national community well-being in a cycle of change, as if the citizen has no identity and past to be proud of or revert to in order to derive from it the wisdom of experiences and the hallmark of an inclusive homeland for pluralism;
- § Establishment of a Board of Directors, a Council of Elders and a Consultative Committee to take care of the Centre’s path, ensure the activation of its orientation and the execution of its aspirations and decisions, and enable its strategy;
- § Affiliation or participation are two open things to the people of science, religion, philosophy, education, politics, economics, administration, humanities, right, art, media… with the aim of forming an integrated and committed scientific and practical body. Strategic planning The Centre stresses the importance of strategic planning on various living and national issues, and on all levels as a path of salvation to move from the mess of improvisation, and the absence of an overreaching vision for integrated scientific and practical
approaches capable of renewing and transforming the citizenship mind-set for a better life.
Overview of today’s human being in Lebanon and the world:
Lebanon’s human being today is one of the little human assembly (the homeland) and the big one (the world), or the global village: his affiliation to the assembly in general is carried out through compounded consumption, and his identity’s limits is related to his decisions and choices on the one hand, and on the other hand to the deterioration of these decisions due to rapid changes caused by technical, scientific and economic advancement.
Conclusion:
The human today, is living in a volatile existential environment, is facing significant changes anxiously and reluctantly, and is feeling ephemeral as if he lives in a world that has no plan and became a child of a globalization that wasn’t merciful in its persistent elimination of his privacy’s components.
The Lebanese Centre for Strategic Planning is adopting a project that is about something of oneself, and that its meaning might be closer to the famous Latin saying: “I believe because what I believe in don’t make sense”.
The Centre considers the human a central value which its strength is from the heart and the mind. Itis a value that the “Third Option”* reflect it in:
- § Dismissing the idea of God being the product of delusions or the product of deception;
- § Refusing human slavery in the name of God and religion, and throwing it in the ghetto of religious affiliation that is beyond salvation and society;
- § Making the central value a “humanitarian” orientation, ensuring that religion does not become a question of “extinguishment” or a state of undernourishment to compensate for a shortage of people;
- § Seeking to an understanding position between those who squander the idea of God and those who bet their lives and values on the divine dimension, so the planned call is to open up to religions so that they do not turn into marginalized
are put
§
§ §
§ §
forward:
Emphasizing the relativity of the expression of God, in the “belief” of the Centre that no culture, philosophy or ideology can monopolize the understanding of God and express it in an absolute way;
Insisting that the absolute truth is neither limited nor confined;
Understanding that the non-authoritarian spiritual project are the human beings if they are united by love;
Encouraging the human being to live for the meaning that resides in him and to appear in this sense in the space of existence;
Calling to build a modern structure to “march together”, so that the defunct systems may be replaced by the commandment of love and service.
populist accumulations that do not present a new model.
Taking care of the sanctity of the human being, in its spiritual and mental dimensions, constitutes a starting point for long-term strategic planning in which the following
Therefore:
- § Working diligently to make the “Third Option”* the basis for an existential project in which the principle of generational spirituality and humanization of politics is advanced;
- § Working on promoting justice based on compassion;
- § Working on the philosophy of the Lebanese presence, and learning from the philosophy of the National Charter and constructive sectarianism;
- § Issuing the Code of Citizen Essential Presence and enshrining the concept of participation;
- § Collaborating with the relevant centers and with the institutions supporting the founding idea of the Lebanese Centre for Strategic Planning;
- § Organizing conferences, lectures, seminars, dialogue seminars, live testimonies and debates to achieve the first goal, which is to study the general mood of the Lebanese people in understanding the issues of citizenship in a scientific, logical, critical and conscious manner, to build on the results, which helps the Centre to define the term
citizen,
§ Promoting the work of conferences in several languages so that the Centre looks at
the world with a thought that is a Lebanese product, as a legacy for the younger generations and for subsequent generations.
History of the idea
From the depth of anguish, from the pain of jingle, from that instinctive violence, from the repercussions of successive absurd wars, from all forms of fear that Lebanon has known since the 1970s and that it is still lurking for today at any moment, the idea of a humanistic message saw the light of day, in1993, to be close to the youth and the poor, then in 1999, the association with recognition was founded, and in 2006, the canonical group carried out the mission of life – Mission de Vie, at the initiative of its founder, the Father Wissam Maalouf, to be a flame of love and life, to contribute to alleviating the burdens of pain for the Lebanese and non-Lebanese human being based in the homeland, and to preserve the dignity of every human being without any discrimination.
Since the Association’s struggle has exceeded 25 years in serving the poor, the needy, the marginalized, the vulnerable, people with special needs and the elderly,
Whereas the concern is constantly linked to a work issued by a clear vision and scientific and systematic planning to achieve the desired goals effectively and objectively,
When things went into a state of unprecedented collapse,
Based on his firm conviction of the importance of the human being as an absolute central value, the founder of the association and the canonical group “Mission de Vie” has grown up the idea of establishing the Lebanese Centre for Strategic Planning, with the aim of expanding the scope of work at the national, community and spiritual levels.
The establishment of the Lebanese Centre for Strategic Planning was the result of the initiative of the founding father Doctor Wissam Maalouf to crystallize the project – the goal, from a basic intellectual and spiritual background that is considered an extension and a culmination of a long path of giving, to become an “open” oasis for the act of change within the framework of a comprehensive strategic plan.
The theoretical part of the Lebanese Centre for Strategic Planning is accompanied, at a later
stage, by individual and collective initiatives, to develop work programs, capable of translating their intellectual, humanitarian, and spiritual depth in reality, and transforming into another life approach.
In terms of talking about the mechanisms of work and application, the founding father confirms full cooperation with the scholars, both spiritual and temporal, to transfer ideas, initiatives, and options to programs within the strategic planning framework of the Centre.
Founding logic
The launch of the Lebanese Centre for Strategic Planning is a critical juncture in the path of the “Third Option* for the following reasons:
Firstly: It allows to address the dilemmas that plague Lebanese society with constructive objectivity, thanks to a clear scheme based on the essential on to logical components of the Lebanese national fabric, and then looks at the local and regional political and social environment, the balanced given sect in the Lebanese political system, and the deep disparity in the digestion of the concept of full citizenship;
Secondly: It clearly stresses, with the responsibility of the superior of safeguarding human beings today and tomorrow, the need to find all possible means and mechanisms of application and innovation when needed, linked to the integrated and visionary program, to serve the ultimate goal of consolidating sustainable social development, and a clear and mature identification of the Lebanese identity, to cross from radiation and dispersion to belonging to the national family, and from it to the global family and the common human house that embraces all humanity;
Thirdly: It awakens the conscience on the absence of stability from the national and global arenas, on the tyranny of those with influence over vulnerable peoples and the looting and plundering of their rights, on their control of major material interests at the level of the global village and their competition in the accumulation of weapons of mass destruction, on the disruption of the ethical standard, and on the sorting of the inhabitants of the earth into two contradictory societies: the developing and scientifically, technologically and industrially developed society, and the society that is faltering in its growth and development; and urges the Lebanese society to contribute to repairing this turbulent image of national and global space through the means and mechanisms observed in strategic planning;
Fourthly: It is aware of the act of “holistic” development as an opener of rapprochement and fences, and contributing to the spread of community and human peace, it seeks to provide the requirements for the development of “every” human being in his various physical, psychological, spiritual, cultural and moral dimensions, in a way that promotes true personal development, develops citizenship in its strategic depth, and fortifies its behaviour in the spirit of solidarity, to march together “towards a better and more humane tomorrow”;
Fifthly: It is eager to achieve the leadership of Lebanese society to be rehabilitated among the nations of the world based on the central conviction established in the desired strategic planning.
For such an overwhelming desire, the Centre seeks to establish a kind of messenger education that helps the rising generations to position, to demonstrate the spirit of truth, and to live together at the heart of the Centre’s strategic vision, so that it can address all forms of deviations it faces, at home as well as abroad, so that generations write a “new” history befitting the Lebanese human path at the national and global levels.
Fundamental orientations
The Lebanese Centre for Strategic Planning is inspired by the core of the concept of citizenship, emerging from within the Lebanese national and cross-sectional fabric, and other literature, and studies, research and documents related to the Centre’s strategic goals, both Christian and Islamic, especially those related to the concept of citizenship and peacebuilding, and to education for communication and openness, and to replace the saying “coexistence” with the saying “living together”, but rather the saying “living full citizenship”.
In this strategic planning workshop, the Centre draws on religious, philosophical, right- based, literary, historical, artistic, economic, administrative, educational, environmental, social, anthropological and other non-religious works, Arabic and non-Arab publications in this field, and from each scientific reference that strengthens the role of the Strategic Centre as a founding factor for a new mind-set that strengthens the convergence between the two religions, Christian and Islamic, in Lebanon and in the Arab and Islamic world, as well as the cultural sense of civilization to promote open and tolerant convergence between civilizations and cultures. The Centre is keen to adhere to the complementarity between faith
and reason when approaching any problematic in the life of society.
Advisory Body
The “Lebanese Centre for Strategic Planning”, under its chairmanship, is a high-level advisory body, composed of local and international specialists, to support the Board of Directors in endorsing the desired intellectual fronts and embodying them into multiple projects and activities.
Network of cooperation
The “Lebanese Centre for Strategic Planning”, together with meaningful academic bodies, cultural organizations, social institutions, local, regional and international, and donors in Lebanon and the world, weaves a broad and solid network of cooperation to promote its objectives. From the moment of the inauguration of the “Lebanese Centre for Strategic Planning”, the Centre becomes a cornerstone of cognitive and applied work in the service of the human being.
Society of Strategic Planning
The Centre makes, as a vital resource for its aspirations and sustainability, the “Combined Strategic Planning”, which is a radiation space and expansion of the Centre’s mission, and a source of talent and capabilities in the service of achieving the desired goals.
The “Combined Strategic Planning” consists of scholars, spiritualists and educated civilians, as well as forums, organizations, research centers, intellectual and research observatories, political, right-based, regional, religious and statistical, from Lebanon, and in the world of proliferation, in neighboring and friendly countries.
Endowing Bodies
The founding Committee and the Administrative Board of the “Lebanese Centre for Strategic Planning” in cooperation with its advisory body, seek to conclude cooperation agreements with various donors in Lebanon and the world in support of the goals of the Centre.
1 The “Third Option”* is the new concept that establishes a different meaning that is oriented towards the essence of human existence and seeks to create a scientific, spiritual and objective path that addresses the highest dignity of the human being.
Founder, Initiator and Idea Owner Father & Doctor Wissam Maalouf
Founding Members
Professor Hoda Nehmeh
Doctor Paul Jelwan
Professor Scarlet Sarraf Engineer Doctor Joseph Rahmeh Professor Roula Zoubian
Signature
Signature Signature Signature
Signature Signature
** Prof. Hoda Nehmeh, in deference to the wishes of the Constitution Drafting Assembly, worked on drafting the fundamental instrument of the Lebanese center for strategic planning. Members of the assembly also participated by adding their observations where the need arose and finalizing the final text.
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