The 'problem' is that us anti-sectarians refuse to use that 'card' as opposed to actual sectarians who do it all the time while pretending to be anti-sectarian. I've had both my Palestinian-ness and Lebanese-ness/Christian-ness denied because of that.
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The fact that I'm both Palestinian and a Lebanese Christian makes it very difficult for various groups to accuse me of much, so smearing is really all that's left.
I'm either a traitor to [pick your category] or not 'really' Palestinian/Lebanese/Christian because these three categories are regularly weaponised by authoritarians.
I'm either not Palestinian enough or not Lebanese enough, and I'm definitely not a good Maronite/Melkite/Roman Catholic (my family is all of those). You're supposed to 'perform' your identity by adopting whatever's the dominant politics.
To pro-Assad Palestinians, me comparing the SAA to the IDF is the ultimate taboo. To Lebanese nationalists and sectarians, regardless of sects, I'm literally a traitor. I don't believe the Lebanese deserve more rights than any of the other groups of people sharing our lands.
Ironically, it was a (non-Christian) member of Assad's parliament in Syria who once called me a traitor to my sect. And it's a Syrian-Australian extremist who called me a 'Self-Hating Levantine'.
By sheer coincidence - and please trust me when I tell you I'm not happy about it - I can have pro-Israel and pro-Assad propagandists throw the exact same lines at me, so I see through them. They're learning from one another without ever having to acknowledge it.
I am where I am by luck. As I mentioned before, had my Palestinian grandfather not been Christian, I would have never have been Lebanese. I might have never been born actually. So I'm extremely aware of how luck plays into our reality. I loathe rigid, ahistorical identities.
Ultimately, whether it is settler colonialism or racism or fascism or any kind of authoritarian ideology, the Other must be destroyed. He/She/They must be rendered non-human, devoid of agency. It's the only way for these ideologies to survive.
As for anti-Hezbollah Lebanese Shias in particular, the subject of @LunaSafwan's thread, they are in a particularly tricky situation right now, not too dissimilar from anti-Assad Alawis, Christians etc.
Anti-Hezbollah Lebanese Shias have to navigate a world where the dominant hegemonic powers - Iran and Hezbollah - view them as naive at best and traitors at worst.
They quite literally cannot conceive of figures like Nasrallah and Khamenei as being flawed, let alone murderers, which they are.
With this in mind, I highly recommend this excellent essay by Lebanese rapper Bunasser Al-Taffar, one of many Lebanese of the Shia faith who refuse to submit to Hezbollah's authoritarian hegemony daraj.com/en/34789/
Many close friends who happen to be Lebanese Shias have been either shunned or worse. Most worry for their lives if they speak out too much. They've learned to navigate a world of imposed silence. This is something that the sectarians of the diaspora/west will never accept.
The sectarians are either in denial of it themselves or they just don't care. They're not the ones who have to suffer the consequences of going against the religious extremists of your community. They have no idea what it's like.
The same would apply to any sect. It just so happens that one militia in Lebanon is much more powerful than any other. That's Hezbollah's choice, and Iran's choice. These are political decisions. Nothing is written in stone, and this goes way beyond religion.
Regarding how us anti-sectarians talk about sects, it is very different in private than in public. In private, we joke about sectarianism all the time. We mock each other all the time. No one mocks Lebanese Shias more than Lebanese Shias. Same for the rest of us.
We have jokes for Sunnis, for Druze, for Shias and for Christians. We make it a point to make these jokes with one another to reaffirm our rejection of sectarianism. We are the ones who are the most dedicated force against sectarianism.
