trabulsi - the lebanese impact
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7/28/2019 Trabulsi - The Lebanese Impact
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The Lebanese Impasse
Author(s): Fawwaz Trabulsi and Elias KhourySource: Middle East Report, No. 242, The Shi'a in the Arab World (Spring, 2007), pp. 20-22Published by: Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP)
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The Lebanese Impasse
OnNovember1,2006,the ix hi'iministersn he ebanese overnment,ffiliatesfHizballahndthe malmovement,efthe
cabinetn rotestftheirolleagues' ejectionftheiremand or governmentf "nationalnity."ucha governmentouldgive
the hi'ipartiesnd theirhristianlly, he ree atrioticovement fGen.MichelAoun,greater epresentationn he abinet.Themajorityn he abinetrgued hatebanese ad lected heirovernment,n he ay-June 005parliamentaryontests hat
came nthe eels f he ssassinationfformerrime inisterafiql-Haririndthe eparturef yrian roops romebanon. n
December ,Hizballah nd its lliesmountedtreetemonstrationsn owntowneirut,hile he abinetfPrime inister uad
Siniora rderedhe aingovernmentuildingsordonedff ith azorire. hedemonstrationsapidlyettled own ntostanding
tentity ousinghousandsfrelativelylacid rotesters,ostly romeirut'southernuburbs. heHizballah-ledppositionow
demandshat he overnmentield onewparliamentarylections.iniora, acked yWashingtonndParis, enounces his all
as an "attemptedoupd'etat." tpresstime,he tandoffontinuesithnoend in ight. s during revioustages fLebanon's
tumultincethessassinationfHariri,eft-leaningebanese ritics averespondedith ifferingnalyses. wo uch riticsre
the mportanteftistntellectualawwazrabulsindEliasKhoury,novelistndcolumnist,nd key iguren he emocraticeft,
longssociated ith ppositiono theSyrian presence"n ebanon. heir iscussion f the ebanese mpasse,osted yNew
York niversity'sagopKevorkianenter or earEasterntudies, as recordednJanuary2,2007,onedaybefore general
strikealledbyHizballahnd its llies, he ounists ndAmal.We presentere nabridgedersionfthe iscussion.
Moderator: Let's begin by asking each ofyou foryour view of
the current situation.
FawwazTrabulsi: In thepresent situation,we see the impactof two events: the 2005 Syrian withdrawal and the 2006 war
between Israel and Hizballah.
The Ta'if agreement [thathelped end Lebanon's 1975-1990
civilwar] had within it the idea of an overseer?the Syrian
regime inDamascus. Whenever Lebanese political leaders
had a quarrel with each other, theywent toDamascus to
help them settle it. I don't mean thatwe should bring this
system back. But, without this outside arbiter, Lebanese
politics has two major problems. First, there are three
leadership postswith quasi-equal prerogatives: theMaronite
Christian president, the Sunni prime minister and the Shi'i
speaker of parliament. There is a very tense relationship
among the three posts, and among the communities they
represent. The other problem is that theLebanese constitu
tion is based on two rather contradictory principles. The
first is republican parliamentary democracy, or majorityrule.Effectively, elections produce amajority, which chooses
a prime minister, who chooses his cabinet, and then, in
theory, themajority rules. On the other hand, because of
the confessional system, inLebanon you can always defend
the case that rule cannot be majoritarian, and that govern
ment must always have room for theminority. So, today, the
government emphasizes its legitimate election by thepeople
as a majority, whereas the opposition says that a major sect,
the Shia, is outside the cabinet and, consequently, the
minority has the right to veto power over the decisions of
the executive. Most major cabinet decisions have to pass
by two-thirds vote, which means thatwhen the opposition
represented byHizballah and the Free Patriotic Movement
demands veto power, they'redemanding to have a third of
the cabinet seats, plus one. Now you have a double bind:
amajority would be at themercy of aminority that could
announce a veto of themajority's decisions.
The 2006 war entered into this equation inmore than one
way.Most importantly, izballah, having borne the burden of
thefightingagainst Israel, opted foramajor share indecision
making in the cabinet. They sought to do thisby increasingthe cabinet seats of their electoral coalition from 2005.
Lebanon faces other important problems that are continu
ally put aside in the name of independence or a fight againstexternal enemies.We are a country of fourmillion bearing a
debt equivalent to that ofEgypt, a country of 70 million. The
Lebanese are sufferingfrom a drastic decrease in their livingstandards.The government iscorrupt,and in theopposition youhave themajor mafia leader [SpeakerofParliamentNabih Berri]who represented corruption under the Syrianmandate.
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\-*.
'\
UIMIFILbservers fromGhana man a checkpoint ina southern Lebanese village. CHRISTOPH BANGERT/LAIF/REDUX
Against this backdrop, the government and the opposition have both raised the stakes so high that they don't
have a fallback plan. The opposition seeks the downfall ofthe government, which is refusing to leave and isdefinitelybacked by theUS and France. At the same time, the government is talking about controversial economic reform.Add
to themix the long history of the sects of Lebanon believing
they can empower themselves against their local rivals by
resortingto external forces. Inasmuch as local actors are inca
pable of reachinga settlement, one can expect a
protracted
crisis?one thatmight not be devoid of violence.
Elias Khoury: The Syrian regime, under both Hafiz al-Asad
and his son, has a
very interestingpoint
ofview that I call the
tragedy ofAbraham. You know the story:Abraham alwayshad sheep he could sacrifice instead of sacrificing himself.
So Asad sacrificed the Lebanese National Movement, the
Palestinian resistance and theChristians. I've always thoughtthat the storyofHizballah was anAbrahamic tragedybecause
they, too,would be sacrificed one day.After the summerwar, Iwent to the destroyed villages at
the border and discovered something amazing. Hizballah
fightershad achieved all thatwe leftists reamed of [duringthe 1978?2000 Israelioccupation of south Lebanon]: theyhad
made the south into aVietnam of theMiddle East for Israel.
The Hizballah fighters' technique was a typicalViet Cong
technique. Ifyou go to the south,youwill not see anyHizballah
fighters.They are there and not there; they are nowhere and
everywhere. That is, the fighters are from the villages, not
from outside.Well-structured, trained, theyfought theGolani
Brigade, the elite troops of the Israeli army, and proved that
theyare the only elite brigades inLebanon.
After this experience, I realized how sad the situation of
Hizballah is.The tragedyofHizballah comes from the struc
ture itself:The party is simultaneously bigger and smaller
than Lebanon. It is apan-Islamic party and it is a confes
sional Shi'i party. In 2000, after Israelwithdrew, Hizballah
was not able to do what every liberation movement in the
world had done. Ifyou liberate the
occupied
territoriesof
your country, you take power. This happened inVietnam,
thishappened inAlgeria, ithappens everywhere. But since
Lebanon is in themodality of confession, Hizballah couldn't
take power. It's smaller than this small country.
This is the genius of Hafiz al-Asad. Nobody remembers
now that assassinations inLebanon did not begin with the
assassinations of Samir Kassir and George Hawi in 2005.
Assassinations took place in the 1980s, when the cadres
of theCommunist Partywere assassinated in the siege of
Beirut. In destroying the Lebanese National Movement,
and turning the task of resistance to Israel over to an
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Islamist party,Hafiz al-Asad was clever. He realized that
this resistance movement, if itwas to win victory against
the Israeli occupation, still could not take power. Itwould
be under Syrian control, available to be used by the Syriansin internal Lebanese politics.
Hizballah likes to call the conclusion of thewar a "divine
victory." Because we are not defeated, it is victory. But
remember, the compromise thatwas Resolution 1701 isnot a
victory forHizballah. It created a strategicproblem, because
Hizballah has lost the liberty to reinforce itspositions alongtheLebanese-Israeli border, and so theborder cannot be used
any longer.Therewere also all theproblems of reconstructingthe destroyed areas of the southern suburbs of Beirut and
elsewhere. So, even though SayyidHasan Nasrallah became
the idol of resistance all over the Arab and Islamic world,
Hizballah leaders found themselves feeling that theyhad to
do something.At thatmoment, this stupid idea came to theirmind: They
could topple thegovernment through democracy.What has
happened since December 1, 2006 is a repeat ofMarch 14,2005?down to the slogans, the rituals and the people
sleeping in tents. Hizballah thought that, any moment,
their coalition with Gen. Aoun would be able to topple the
government through sheer moral stature.What actually
happened was the reverse:The moment Hizballah took to
the streets to press their demands, there was a reaction from
the Sunni community. At thatmoment, I thoughtHizballah
found itselfhelpless: They could notmove forward and theycould not move backward.
For someone likeme, who reallyfeels solidaritywith those
very brave fighters, there is a problem within their ideology
and with theirpolitical structure.They cannot be separatedfrom theSyrian strategy nLebanon, and theycannot separatethemselves frombeing the Iranian ideological instrument. In
this sense, theyare condemned to remain representatives of
the Shi'i community alone. That, in turn,means thatall their
avenues toward takingpower can lead nowhere except to civil
war. And a civilwar will mean the destruction ofHizballah.
So we are at a dead end.
It is a dead end not only forHizballah, but for thewhole
Lebanese political structure.The whole country isbecoming
totallydominated by the confessional structure. There isno
more space for people who are secular,who are a little bit
different.This confessional structure cannot survive on itsown. Inmy analysis, not only have the Lebanese confessions
decided to ally themselves with foreign forces, but they
only became political powers through these alliances. The
Shi'i community did not become a real confession before
the Iranian revolution. Now the Sunnis are becoming a real
confession led by the Saudis, who are frightened by Iran
and about what's going on in Iraq. Rafiq al-Hariri was giventhe domain of his confession by the Syrians, but (as a Saudi
citizen) hewas also a representative of the Saudis. Now there
isno Syrian-Saudi compromise. This cannot work.
For the firsttime,we are in a civilwar that isbeing fought
only verbally. Lebanon always does invent things. So maybenow we are inventing a civilwar that takes place only on
television,where nobody is ready togo fight.There isnowayout of thisdead end, except for the leaders of theLebanese
confessions to realize that it's time for them to become
Lebanese. They have fought for a country, and theymust
govern the country together.
Moderator: Itwill be helpful to talk about the Shi a, socio
logically as well as politically. The Shia have become this
category hurled invarious directions by commentators?a
sort of demonic bugbear.
Elias Khoury: Psychically, the Shia of southern Lebanon
and the Bekaa Valley lean toward the southern suburbs of
Beirut and thepoor parts of the cities. But thingshave begunto change, with major injections ofmoney into the south
from Shia working inAfrican countries. Development took
place in the 1960s and 1970s,with public schooling, andso
what we think of as the poorest community in the country,that is the Shia, is stillpoor but notmonolithically so. The
Shi a are no longer special in this sense.Hizballah isamajoractor in the redistribution ofwealth and isamajor economic
power, not just amilitary power. A lot ofmoney was spenton themilitary buildup in the south.
The rift in the country is no longer what our leftist
comrades once thought?a class struggle disguised as a
confessional struggle. It's a confessional struggle. It's based
upon the structure of communities that have become politicized through the Lebanese political system,on theone hand,
and alliance with foreign forces, on the other.
Fawwaz Trabulsi: There is nothing called the Shi a or
the Sunnis, especially when we're talking about political
parties. Iwant to emphasize thatHizballah is a typical
populist party, as is theFree PatrioticMovement. Hizballah
represents a large section of the Shi'i middle class. Look
at the syndicates of the professions, and you'll see that
theMuslims aremainly represented byHizballah and the
Christians by the Free Patriotic Movement. So you have
a marginalized middle class, which has never benefited
from any link to the state. Hizballah ismarginalized
twice: Itwas the only force fighting, and also it ismainlya
private-sector party. You can say the same about the
Free Patriotic Movement. They represent a large sector of
the new bourgeoisie, people who send a lot ofmoney to
Michel Aoun. They are the ones who have been financinghis television station, which takes in tens of millions of
Lebanese pounds.
So we're nottalking about those Shia who are outside,
we're talking about twopopulist
movements that are
quite influential. They are the proof of how closed and
impermeable the Lebanese political system is.
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