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.

20 MIDDLE AST EPORT42 SPRING007

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\-*.

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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

MIDDLE AST EPORT42 SPRING007 21







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.

22 MIDDLE AST EPORT42 SPRING007





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Trabulsi - The Lebanese Impact