Lebanon: Politics
Unnatural Selection
by Brian Whitaker June 13, 2005 [The Guardian]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,7792,1505416,00.html
What happened, I sometimes wonder, to all those Lebanese flags? Earlier this year they were everywhere in Beirut; draped from balconies, fluttering from cars and motorbikes, and waved by demonstrators in their hundreds of thousands.
Perhaps they are stowed away now in cupboards and drawers as mementoes of an extraordinary time, but there are scarcely any to be seen.
Four months after the bomb that killed former prime minister Rafik Hariri and sparked the so-called Cedar Revolution that led to the withdrawal of Syrian troops, an air of normality has settled once again over Lebanon.
Beirut (at least for those with money to spend) is back to its hedonistic ways. The red-and-white posters proclaiming "Independence 05" have mostly gone and there are new ones on the walls promoting "IndepenDANCE" - an all-night rave featuring DJs from Britain and the US. Tickets range from $25 (£14) to $100.
Lebanon is now three-quarters of the way through its month-long parliamentary elections - the first in decades without the Syrians acting as ringmasters. This was supposed to be an historic occasion but already people are bored and disillusioned. They ask if anything has really changed.
It is clear now that the Cedar Revolution, whatever President Bush may have imagined, has not brought a brave new world in Lebanon. Its buzzwords - freedom, sovereignty, national unity, independence - were all directed against Syrian hegemony. In essence, it was an old-fashioned nationalist revolt.
Even so, this particular nationalist revolt was remarkable in several ways. For a start, its target was another Arab country, not a western power, and by the standards of the Arab world the mass demonstrations were unprecedented, both in their scale and their scope - which may yet inspire others elsewhere in the region.
Most remarkable of all, though, is that a nationalist revolt could happen in Lebanon. In comparison with many other countries, the Lebanese sense of nationhood has never been strong: in terms of identity, sect or faction tend to come first, and country second.
Before the anti-Syrian demonstrations started, national flags were rather less common than the flags and symbols of Hizbullah, Amal, the Lebanese Forces, etc.
When the protesters set up their tents in Martyrs' Square, however, that changed. Although each of the many parties involved had its own tent, a decision was made that no party symbols would be displayed. The only flags allowed were Lebanese flags, creating a sense of unity throughout the camp.
Among those astonished by the flag phenomenon was Turkish-born Timur Goksel, a former UN official who has worked in Lebanon for many years.
"Never once [before the demonstrations began] did I see a Lebanese flag hanging from a building," he said. "For the first time, people began feeling like they are Lebanese."
He continued: "At the start, half of them didn't know the words of the national anthem - you could see them mouthing - but now everyone knows the words."
This was not just on the anti-Syrian side. Hizbullah's demonstrators also waved Lebanese flags and sang the national anthem, though their nationalism was directed mainly against the United States and Israel, not Syria.
The unanswerable question, at present, is whether the sense of national identity generated during the demonstrations will survive now that the Syrian troops have gone.
Lebanon remains a deeply sectarian society, with 18 officially recognised religious categories and everyone obliged to belong to one of them. The president must be a Christian, the prime minister a Sunni, the speaker of parliament a Shia. Parliamentary seats are allocated in advance to the various sects, in agreed proportions.
This is what political scientists call a consociational system, and it can be found in various forms in countries where divisions run deep.
The aim is to protect ethnic or religious minorities by ensuring that no single faction can gain the upper hand - thus compelling the various groups to tolerate each other.
In theory this sounds very nice, and some people have suggested the Lebanese model would be a good solution for Iraq, but it is neither very democratic nor egalitarian. While protecting minorities, it also deprives them of some rights. Lebanon cannot have a Shia president or prime minister, even though the Shia are the largest religious minority and account for roughly 40% of the population.
This operates at other levels too, where people get posts not because they are best-qualified but because maintaining the religious balance requires the appointment of someone from a particular sect.
The problem in Lebanon is that confessionalism has very little to do with individual religious belief, or whether people actually practise the faith: which of the 18 categories you are registered with is basically an accident of birth.
It can also be argued that consociational politics does not really safeguard religious rights in Lebanon but instead prevents change by protecting vested interests. Religion has become a smokescreen for a baronial system where the sects are represented by a series of grand families who maintain their power through patronage and, when necessary, threats. Wealth and leadership pass from father to son, and no one can hold them accountable.
One exception to this is Hizbullah, whose leader, Hassan Nasrallah, does not come from a baronial family. But Hizbullah understands the patronage game too and plays it with a vengeance.
This helps to explain why so many people are dispirited by the parliamentary elections (or "selections", as some prefer to call them).
While the EU monitors go around dutifully checking that ballot boxes are properly sealed and voting cards are in order, everyone knows that the barons have already stitched it up among themselves, disrupted only by the maverick antics of Michel Aoun, the Christian ex-general who was peeved, on his return from exile, at not being welcomed into the club.
Of course, the Lebanese have talked of ending sectarianism for years. In 1989, as the civil war ended, the Taif accord stated that "abolishing political sectarianism is a fundamental national objective", but it has proved difficult to eradicate - not least because the barons benefit from it.
Again, there is talk of political reform once the elections are over. The talk, though, is mainly about the voting system and electoral boundaries, and this may simply allow some of the barons to consolidate their power at the expense of others in the light post-Syrian realities.
It's a fairly safe bet that whatever they change it will not make the barons, as a whole, more accountable. The real Cedar Revolution still looks a long way off.
by Brian Whitaker June 13, 2005 [The Guardian]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,7792,1505416,00.html
What happened, I sometimes wonder, to all those Lebanese flags? Earlier this year they were everywhere in Beirut; draped from balconies, fluttering from cars and motorbikes, and waved by demonstrators in their hundreds of thousands.
Perhaps they are stowed away now in cupboards and drawers as mementoes of an extraordinary time, but there are scarcely any to be seen.
Four months after the bomb that killed former prime minister Rafik Hariri and sparked the so-called Cedar Revolution that led to the withdrawal of Syrian troops, an air of normality has settled once again over Lebanon.
Beirut (at least for those with money to spend) is back to its hedonistic ways. The red-and-white posters proclaiming "Independence 05" have mostly gone and there are new ones on the walls promoting "IndepenDANCE" - an all-night rave featuring DJs from Britain and the US. Tickets range from $25 (£14) to $100.
Lebanon is now three-quarters of the way through its month-long parliamentary elections - the first in decades without the Syrians acting as ringmasters. This was supposed to be an historic occasion but already people are bored and disillusioned. They ask if anything has really changed.
It is clear now that the Cedar Revolution, whatever President Bush may have imagined, has not brought a brave new world in Lebanon. Its buzzwords - freedom, sovereignty, national unity, independence - were all directed against Syrian hegemony. In essence, it was an old-fashioned nationalist revolt.
Even so, this particular nationalist revolt was remarkable in several ways. For a start, its target was another Arab country, not a western power, and by the standards of the Arab world the mass demonstrations were unprecedented, both in their scale and their scope - which may yet inspire others elsewhere in the region.
Most remarkable of all, though, is that a nationalist revolt could happen in Lebanon. In comparison with many other countries, the Lebanese sense of nationhood has never been strong: in terms of identity, sect or faction tend to come first, and country second.
Before the anti-Syrian demonstrations started, national flags were rather less common than the flags and symbols of Hizbullah, Amal, the Lebanese Forces, etc.
When the protesters set up their tents in Martyrs' Square, however, that changed. Although each of the many parties involved had its own tent, a decision was made that no party symbols would be displayed. The only flags allowed were Lebanese flags, creating a sense of unity throughout the camp.
Among those astonished by the flag phenomenon was Turkish-born Timur Goksel, a former UN official who has worked in Lebanon for many years.
"Never once [before the demonstrations began] did I see a Lebanese flag hanging from a building," he said. "For the first time, people began feeling like they are Lebanese."
He continued: "At the start, half of them didn't know the words of the national anthem - you could see them mouthing - but now everyone knows the words."
This was not just on the anti-Syrian side. Hizbullah's demonstrators also waved Lebanese flags and sang the national anthem, though their nationalism was directed mainly against the United States and Israel, not Syria.
The unanswerable question, at present, is whether the sense of national identity generated during the demonstrations will survive now that the Syrian troops have gone.
Lebanon remains a deeply sectarian society, with 18 officially recognised religious categories and everyone obliged to belong to one of them. The president must be a Christian, the prime minister a Sunni, the speaker of parliament a Shia. Parliamentary seats are allocated in advance to the various sects, in agreed proportions.
This is what political scientists call a consociational system, and it can be found in various forms in countries where divisions run deep.
The aim is to protect ethnic or religious minorities by ensuring that no single faction can gain the upper hand - thus compelling the various groups to tolerate each other.
In theory this sounds very nice, and some people have suggested the Lebanese model would be a good solution for Iraq, but it is neither very democratic nor egalitarian. While protecting minorities, it also deprives them of some rights. Lebanon cannot have a Shia president or prime minister, even though the Shia are the largest religious minority and account for roughly 40% of the population.
This operates at other levels too, where people get posts not because they are best-qualified but because maintaining the religious balance requires the appointment of someone from a particular sect.
The problem in Lebanon is that confessionalism has very little to do with individual religious belief, or whether people actually practise the faith: which of the 18 categories you are registered with is basically an accident of birth.
It can also be argued that consociational politics does not really safeguard religious rights in Lebanon but instead prevents change by protecting vested interests. Religion has become a smokescreen for a baronial system where the sects are represented by a series of grand families who maintain their power through patronage and, when necessary, threats. Wealth and leadership pass from father to son, and no one can hold them accountable.
One exception to this is Hizbullah, whose leader, Hassan Nasrallah, does not come from a baronial family. But Hizbullah understands the patronage game too and plays it with a vengeance.
This helps to explain why so many people are dispirited by the parliamentary elections (or "selections", as some prefer to call them).
While the EU monitors go around dutifully checking that ballot boxes are properly sealed and voting cards are in order, everyone knows that the barons have already stitched it up among themselves, disrupted only by the maverick antics of Michel Aoun, the Christian ex-general who was peeved, on his return from exile, at not being welcomed into the club.
Of course, the Lebanese have talked of ending sectarianism for years. In 1989, as the civil war ended, the Taif accord stated that "abolishing political sectarianism is a fundamental national objective", but it has proved difficult to eradicate - not least because the barons benefit from it.
Again, there is talk of political reform once the elections are over. The talk, though, is mainly about the voting system and electoral boundaries, and this may simply allow some of the barons to consolidate their power at the expense of others in the light post-Syrian realities.
It's a fairly safe bet that whatever they change it will not make the barons, as a whole, more accountable. The real Cedar Revolution still looks a long way off.
posted by Roguentin at 6:42 AM
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