a word or two about the new government

As most followers of all things Lebanese know, a unity government headed by Saad Hariri has been formed after five months of… well, formation. Ziad Baroud is going to retain his position as Minister of Interior (president’s share) and that is good news. But there is even better news: The Free Patriotic Movement has chosen no other than economist, activist, and intellectual Sharbil Nahhas for the post of Minister of Telecommunications. To those of you not familiar with Sharbil Nahhas, his website (trilingual) gives a good idea of his qualifications. Nahhas is a reformer in spirit with a fundamental critique and understanding of our sectarian system. Over the past two decades, Nahhas has put together several proposals, such as a strategy for social development and a law proposal for a pension scheme, that, needless to say, never made it through the system. As the inside man, there is reason to hope a little.

Other than Baroud and Nahhas, there are actually some good choices in this makeup (by “good” I mean people who are actually into “governing” while in government). Rayya Haffar al-Hassan (Future Movement) came in as first Lebanese female minister of Finance ever and one of two women in the unity government. No fundamental change is going to come from these quarters. She has been schooled by Hariri and Sanioura and, as she herself has declared, she intends to follow similar financial policies. But to be realistic, she is competent and one can hope this will reflect on the ever ballooning public debt. Fadi Abboud (FPM, tourism) and Hassan Mnaymnah (Future Movement, education) are also promising choices. As for Amal, Hizballah, and Junblat, they have mostly exhibited characteristic lack of creativity in their choice of ministers.

There has also been a lot of focus in the media on Hariri’s snub to the Kataeb. The Gemayyel party has been dealt what is regarded in Lebanon as a third rate ministry, namely Social Affairs. There are two things to note here. The first is that far from being a shock, this comes as the culmination of the problems Kataeb has been having with March 14, not just Hariri. The second point is summarized succinctly by Khaled Saghiyah in today’s al-Akhbar: “The government to Hariri is like the weapons to Hizballah; you can support it as an ally but you cannot partake of it.”

Next on the agenda, a Hariri pilgrimage to Damascus to be followed by a Junblat chaser.

 

Walid Junblat is a bottle of champagne

Walid Junblat’s defection from the March 14 camp has attracted the attention of many friends and sympathizers outside Lebanon. From a wide-ranging history that moves from freedom fighter to war criminal to garbage man in New York to neo-con and back, people as different as Lebanon “expert” Lee Smith and UN’s Michael Williams have decided to freeze Junblat into how they like to see him and how they have seen him over the past four years. Smith and Williams have more in common when it comes to Junblat, as both refer to him as “Walid Beik.” After embracing his quasi-feudal status, both men also excuse Walid Beik’s move as a political exigency necessitated by the special position of his clan in Lebanon. And are not all Lebanese clans “special,” I wonder?

But I agree with Lee Smith on one thing: Walid Junblat is no weather vane. He is no cynical know-it-all who coldly calculates his every move and strikes without others knowing what hit them. After all, March 14 has been deadwood for more than a year now. And Walid Junblat did not complete his turn suddenly; he has been preparing his people for it since early this year. Nor was he the only one to soften up over the last year. The heat before the elections was a necessary sectarian galvanization to capture the vote. But apart from that, the rhetoric has gone down a few decibels over the past year.

No, Junblat is no weather vane. The composition of the government (15-10-5 by most accounts) has already been agreed on by Saudi Arabi and Syria. Some say as early as late June/early July. The “S-S,” as the two are referred to these days, have smoothed many ripples lately and the mutual  flirtation between Saad al-Hariri and the Syrian regime right after the elections was evidence of that. So much flirtation, in fact, that there was a hue and cry among Hariri’s Christian allies when the idea that he might visit Damascus before the government was formed was floated around.

With the outcry against Junblat’s “betrayal” fading away, perhaps it can now be assessed more calmly. Saadallah Mazraani has done exactly that in an overview of the Beiks historical turns. But a short term effect of Junblat’s latest turn has not received much attention: With Junblat’s daramturgy, Saad al-Hariri’s task suddenly became easier. Hariri’s visit to Damascus is no longer discussed in terms of “if,” but rather in terms of “when.” That is not the function of a weather vane. I would venture and say that, as far as the relationship between Damascus and Hariri goes, Walid Junblat is, in fact, a bottle of champagne. Cheers!

 

shooting blanks and the popular vote

An "invalid" ballot: "Shit on you and on these elections. 'Banana republic.' Signed: A decent citizen." (Source: www.al-akhbar.com/ar/node/140198)

Since I have nothing to do but write a dissertation, I spent last night trying to make some sense of the numerical aspects of the elections. This year, thanks to Minister of Interior Ziad Baroud, blank votes were counted separately and not together with invalid votes. This went down well with eleven thousand one hundred and ninety-seven voters, or 0.82% of cast ballots (Sean has a table with the breakdown of blank votes per district). It might not seem much, but one has to keep in mind the voting conditions at various polling stations and that this is the first time a distinction between “blank” and “invalid” votes is implemented. Given that in Lebanese elections no one is ever sure how many of the eligible voters are actually alive or around, abstaining from the vote in protest might be misinterpreted as, well, death. That is why I think the blank vote is important — it not only protests the lack of choices, but it also asserts a presence, both physical and political.

My other perfect excuse for procrastination was “the popular vote.” Hassan Nasrallah brought it up in his speech last night when commenting on the election results and Al of Ex Oriente Lux picks up on this issue. Nasrallah said the opposition probably has the popular vote and that he will leave it to the professionals to figure it out. According to a study cited by al-Akhbar (bottom of the page), the opposition received 54.5% of the popular vote, whereas the ruling coalition received 45.5%. I find it funny that the total adds up to 100%. As far as I know, we have not succumbed to the two-party system yet and there was a visible amount of votes cast for people not running on either lists, especially in Hizballah and Amal’s backyards.

Now I am no professional, but here are the numbers I got when, instead of taking the voters as blocks of with or against, I added the total number of votes cast for the total number of candidates in three categories: opposition 50.4%, ruling coalition 46%, and other 3.6%. I only did the numbers once and I might have missed an affiliated independent or two, but not any with a considerable number of votes attached.

These numbers are, of course, distorted on many levels, one of the main distortions being the opposition within Sunni and Shia turfs. This is particularly significant in majority Shia areas where the ruling coalition presence is weak, the “existential” confrontation is low priority, and the challenge comes from friendly quarters. Such was the case in Baalbak-Hermel and Hasbayya-Marji`yun where opposition competitors received some 10% of the vote.

As Ibrahim al-Amin points out in the al-Akhbar article linked to above, had there been a system of proportional representation, a bloc representing a substantial number of the Shia would most likely emerge. Which is why, all calls to the contrary notwithstanding, Hizballah has no interest in improving Shia representation — and I have posted on this before. That is why I find that Hassan Nasrallah’s passing comment on the popular vote has little to do with rights or justice. I see it instead as a performative utterance that indulges the feelings of underrepresentation that the Shia (rightfully) have and tickles the demographic fear the rest suffer from. All the while papering over the more complex realities that assure the indefinite continuation of the status quo.

 

citizenry in “the sectarian madhouse”*

Like everyone else, I have seen this year’s elaborate electoral programs being waved in opponents’ faces on TV and I have heard candidates calling them “civilized,” but I have not seen them widen the debate. There has been another less advertised move towards issue- rather than identity-politics this year: Lebanese Parliamentary Monitor (LPM). In its “A`mal al-nuwwab” section (from the main menu to the right) you can research MP’s to find out what they have been up to in parliament since 2005. The idea is that as a citizen, I can use this resource to hold politicians accountable for their performance. A wonderful idea, no doubt.

But there is another insidious aspect to this project that turns it into little more than an exercise in futility. The NGO behind the project, “Towards Citizenship” (Nahwa al-muwatiniyah), starts with a mistaken premise: that it is lack of political education and awareness that generates the system we have in Lebanon today. Taking “enlightenment” as a starting point, the NGO has several projects pursuing education, dialogue, and advocacy as means towards convincing Lebanese (with a focus on youth) that citizenship — rather than religion, clan, etc — should be the primary principle of identity in Lebanon.

The envisioned end product — a parliamentary democracy with all its trappings — has yielded positive results in some countries. But to pinpoint ignorance as the root cause of this product’s failure in Lebanon is misguided at best. People I know who make their political decisions based on sect are fully “aware” of what a parliamentary democracy is. Their sectarian politics is a choice and an ordering of priorities, not the result of some false consciousness. Moreover, pursuing the path of “enlightening the masses” dismisses the resilience of sectarian identity as the primary principle of modern identity in Lebanon. Temporally and institutionally, its roots in Lebanon go at least as far back as “citizenship.”

We have seen how political programs were easily transformed in the hands of sectarian politics into a charade of sorts. Any ambitions of moving beyond the stagnant instability of current politics and of taking alternatives beyond a fringe group of dissatisfied members of the middle classes needs to begin by taking sectarian identity seriously rather than relegating it to ignorance or historical residues. Otherwise, we might very well end up with the trappings without the democracy. In the mean time, the LPM is an invaluable source and it remains to be seen whether the statistics will be shaken up over the next four years. I, for one, do not have to make any difficult decisions this Sunday: the results in my electoral district are a foregone conclusion.

* Borrowing “العصفورية المذهبية” from journalist Ali Hamadah and Omar Karami. I am not sure who coined it, but it has a nice ring to it and it evokes the “gilded cage”.

 

grading politician performance

Today’s al-Akhbar had an interesting article about the results of a survey conducted by Kamal Feghali (reproduced in table form above). Respondents in the 18 electoral districts were asked to grade politicians’ political performances on a scale of 0 to 10. Sulayman received the highest marks, followed by Baroud (only Baroud’s highest and lowest scores are given in the article). The remarkable thing is that despite “bir-rouh bid-damm” most other political leaders, both zu`ama and neo-zu`ama, do not fare as well. Another interesting result, pointed out in the article, is that Nasrallah is ahead of Hariri in majority Christian districts and even ahead of Aoun among the Christians of Akkar, Zahleh, and Baalbak. In addition, Jubran Basil reaps better results than Aoun in 13 of the 18 districts.

This all leads the article to conclude that the Lebanese value the performance of the “active minister” and thus show a bias in favor of the state and neutrality.  That is quite a jump! The scores respondents gave performances may have political relevance if one were to assume that political performance actually impacts political choices. And in Lebanon, I do not see what one has to do with the other. Still, respondents of all sects were able to point out a common set of achievers and grade them accordingly. That such a value system might exist, as the survey suggests, alongside the other set of considerations that ultimately shape political choices is in and of itself intriguing.

 

the right to be without a sect

I have been swamped with teaching, so I have not been really paying attention to the news lately. So when I learned that I now have the option to actually remove my sect from my personal status register (Nufus) I had to rub my eyes and pinch myself. How did that happen?

Apart from increasing my respect for minister of interior, Ziad Baroud, even more, this is probably the only piece of news coming from Lebanon over the past few years that I find worth celebrating. As the atheist product of a mixed marriage, I take this personally. As a student of late Ottoman and modern history, I find it phenomenal.

Over the past 150+ years, the tendency in proto-Lebanon and Lebanon has been towards increasing institutionalization of sectarianism and the increasing intertwinement of the idea of citizenship with sect. This can be traced back to the contradictory 1856 Islahat Fermani, which, in the same breath, affirmed the sameness of the citizens of the Ottoman Empire while addressing them as nations/sects (millet). The various stops on the way — the 1860 Mount Lebanon war, the French Mandate reforms, the national pact, Taef, Hizballah’s political turn, etc — all in a long term perspective served to further entrench and institutionalize this intertwinement between citizen and sect.

Now this comes, a counter intuitive surprise considering the overall trend. It is, of course, nothing like a magical wave of the wand which undoes sect. Clearly, the parliament, voting system, and our “representative” “democracy” can continue along the same lines even if the very last citizen were to remove his sect from the register. Particularly when they are all based on a census whose population no longer exists.

But that is precisely why the option to remove one’s sect from the register is so phenomenal: the burden of responsiblity rests with me, as a person and citizen, to go tomorrow early morning and remove my sect from the Nufus register. And therein lies the challenge. What will become of it will only be a viable discussion once the widespread rejection of sectarian citizenship becomes fact. So, I find myself wondering, how many will do it? And how many will ask themselves: who am I if not my sect?

 

heart of darkness

One of  Slavoj Žižek’s recent pieces in Le Monde Diplomatique has nothing to do with Lebanon… and everything to do with it. It is about the war in Congo, but — like this previous post — it is also about how seemingly archaic forms of civil strife are actually embedded in their “modern” conditions and about the banality of trying to separate the one from the other. It is also about why Africa receives less attention in the media than places like Lebanon or Palestine: the more “tribal” the conflict seemingly is, the more “natural” its violence is perceived to be.

I have not been able to find the original article, so some of the subtleties might be lost in this translation of a translation, but Žižek’s main point is this:

We can discern the contours of global capitalism under the facade of ethnic conflict. After the fall of Mobutu, Congo no longer existed as a unified, operational state, especially not the eastern part which is a patchwork of territories ruled by local warlords each controlling their own patch of land with an army which normally includes doped children. All the warlords have business contacts with foreign companies or industries who (mainly) profit from mining the riches of the region. This arrangement works well for the partners: the businesses receive exploitation rights without being burdened with taxes or other inconveniences, the warlords get money… The irony is that many of these [extracted] metals are used in high-technology products like laptops and mobile phones. In short, this is not about the local population’s primitive customs: if we remove the high-technology companies from the line, the entire structure of ethnic civil strife driven by old hate will collapse.

You might not agree with the final conclusion about the collapse — and Žižek is prone to theatricals — but the heart of the argument holds in the concluding sentence, a play on Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness:

There is definitely a lot of darkness in the dense Congolese jungle, but its heart is to be found elsewhere, in the illuminated head offices of our high-technology companies.

 

(sectarian) citizen and (sectarian) state

A couple of weeks ago, I was at a seminar where Geir O. Pedersen was main speaker. Pedersen is shifting from UN special envoy to Norwegian foreign ministry employee, which is why I suppose he felt more comfortable talking freely about the situation in the Middle East (although he did categorically refuse to comment on the suspected nuclear activity in Syria). I was pleasantly surprised to hear the man speak, elegantly and intelligently, on Lebanon and its various players.

He said what many understand by now: that the tension in Lebanon can only be resolved through diplomatic efforts on the Israeli-Syrian front and the Iranian-American front. His opinion was that Obama should strike the weakest link — Syria-Israel — and things will have a better chance to unfold. As far as Hizballah is concerned, he said two things. One, that they really did not expect Israel’s reaction in 2006 and, two, that Hizballah are the only ones who mean something in Lebanon (from the international politics point of view, as I understand).

Notwithstanding, I thought his analysis had a severe limitation that primarily had to do with where he comes from: a UN and a “statist” perspective. At one point, he characterized Lebanon as a place of contradictions between, for example, a modern democracy and a clanish/feudal system. My historical understanding of the clanish/feudal system is that it is part and parcel of our form of modern democracy and that is precisely why it is so difficult to get rid off.

Then, discussing Hizballah’s weapons, he explained that he had said to Hizballah (waving a disciplinary finger): you cannot decide in matters of peace and war, it is the government who should (not verbatim). The main question here is: is it possible to talk about “government” as if it was a neutral arbitrator of the affairs of the people? When sectarianism is so ingrained in the system, is the government not a sectarian player or conglomeration of players? Is this not at the heart of the problem of why the only “appellation” (to crudely use the already crude Althusser) that people collectively respond to is sect? Is it even possible to speak of politics in Lebanon without speaking of sects?

I see the two problems — of seeing sectarianism as a historic residue and of thinking of the government as neutral arbitrator — as related. Pedersen indirectly acknowledged that when he went through the different players in Lebanon: the Christians, the Sunni, the Shia. No government there. That he then moved to speak of “the government” in the case of Hizballah’s weapons is an indication that he does not grasp the depths to which sectarianism is rooted in our so-called democracy and that the two forms — of sectarianism and democracy — comfortably inhabit the same space.

 

celebrating 65 years of independence

The following excerpt is from a book by Tawfiq Hasan Abi Nadir al-Shartuni written in the good ol’ tradition of returning Lebanese migrants. Though not devoid of nagging, it still contains some astute observations emanating from an inside/outside position which a returning migrant occupies. The book, al-Hayah fi Lubnan, was published in 1927 and I recommended it if only for the sheer reading pleasure. If, as a side effect, the feeling of “plus ça change, plus ç’est la même chose” causes indigestion, independence day is the best time to honor this curious blend of emotions — pleasure and indigestion — that comes with feeling some sort of attachment to Lebanon:

الزعامة والاحزاب
لا زعامة في لبنان الكبير ولا في سوريا فما وجدت رجلاً يدعوه الشعب زعيماً بكل معنی الكلمة او بالاحری يحصل علی كل صفات الزعامة واما الاحزاب السياسية المنظمة فهي غير موجودة في البلاد ولم ارَ ما عدا الاحزاب الطائفية سوی بعض احزاب شخصية. وقد كنت بالامس اتجاذب اطراف الحديث واحد المأمورين المعروفين فقلت له الی اي الاحزاب تنتمي في سياسة شؤون البلاد فاجاب علی الفور انا من حزب فلان مسمياً لي شخصاً من ابناء لبنان المعروفين فسألته ما هي مطاليبكم الاساسية وما هو بروغرامكم الذي تعتقدون من ورائه باقالة البلاد من عثرتها فارتبك في الجواب اذ لا بروغرام ولا اساس مكين لسوء الحظ لاحزابنا ثم اردف هذه العبارة لا احد يقدر ان يُنهض البلاد من انهيارها سوی اعجوبة ربانية فعندئذٍ فهمت ان الاحزاب السياسية في لبنان وسوريا ليس من شأنها السعي وراء سعادة الوطن ورقيه بل للتربع علی كرسي الوظائف لا غير

Za`amah and parties
There is no za`amah [political leadership] neither in Greater Lebanon nor in Syria. I have not found a man called by the people za`im in all the meaning of the word or rather with all the characteristics of a political leader. As for organized political parties, these do not exist in the country and I have only seen in addition to confessional parties, a few personal parties. Yesterday, I was having a conversation with a well-known official and I asked him: “What party do you belong to in the management of the affairs of the country?” He answered immediately: “I am from the party of filan,” naming a prominent Lebanese man. I asked him: “What are your political demands and what is the program with which you intend to lift the county out of its crisis?” He fumbled for an answer since there is unfortunately neither program, nor a stable basis for our political parties. He then added: “Only a divine miracle can lift the country from its collapse.” I understood then that political parties in Lebanon and Syria are not concerned with the happiness of the homeland and its advancement, but are solely concerned with attaining posts.

Source: Tawfiq Hasan Abi Nadir al-Shartuni, al-Hayah fi Lubnan: Yatadamman mabahith tarikhiyah wa-ijtima`iyah wa-adabiyah wa-akhlaqiyah. Beirut: al-Matba`ah al-Adabiyah, 1927.

 

teachers strike a sensitive chord

Yesterday, all branches of the Lebanese University (public), private and public schools, professional and technical schools, as well as the general administration participated in a teachers’ strike. About 100,000 teachers educating 1 million students. The strike was accompanied by a well-attended sit-in in front of parliament. Press coverage was mostly pathetic, consisting of a few lines (as in al-Nahar), discussing primarily Fatih al-Islam under the heading of the strike (as in al-Balad), or covering more of Bahiya al-Hariri, Minister of Education, than the strike itself (as in al-Mustaqbal).

No surprises there. The strike is not interesting because this time it is not “political,” in the only definition of “politics” that finds resonance in Lebanon. i.e. The teachers are not being used as a mule by one political party or other in the pursuit of larger goals, such as the vagaries of identity, resistance, or democracy. The demands are, simply, their wages and retirement plans.

Given that their demands are not “political”, do not expect Ghassan Ghosn, head of the General Labor Union, to come out in support. According to Ghosn, the Union “mobilizes according to a set agenda.” It would have been a more honest, non-roundabout justification to say “mobilizes according to someone’s set agenda.” In an irony of ironies, president Sulayman called upon Ghosn to put an end to the divisions and unify the efforts of the workers.

Do not expect Hizballah, defender of the weak and liberator of the oppressed, to shut down the country on their behalf either. Do not expect “their” parliamentary representatives to take up the issue (only one parliamentarian was at the sit-in). And do not be surprised that Nabih Berri, Muhammad Shatah, and Fuad Sanioura have not even deigned to reply when the teachers’ unions tried to schedule a meeting. Bahiya al-Hariri responded the day before the strike was planned. Everyone is busy with much more important things, like David Miniband, Jimmy Carter and whoever else constitutes the real, rather than imagined, constituency of Lebanese parliamentarians and ministers.

The most audacious justification for not joining the strike came from the Workers’ Liberation Front. According to `Ismat `Abd al-Samad, “The political situation is comfortable, let it continue like this. Why would anyone want to unsettle it?” Which makes for a very interesting argument since if such a strike was to take place when the political situation is unsettled, then it would be termed a “political mobilization.” Ihtarna ya qar3ah min wayn badna n-bousik! (You have confused us, oh, squash, were to kiss you from).

Although the teachers’ unions made clear that this move comes at a time when there is a unity government and, therefore, does not play into party politics, there have been countless self-serving moles calling their demands “political.” No one heeded these sabotage attempts as calls for the strike were answered across Lebanon — in the south and Beqa` as well as Tripoli, Sidon, Kurah, and Matn. There is nothing more threatening to the complacency of Lebanese politicians than these strikes when the sectarian divisions they build their popularity on are momentarily forgotten. The frustration is that in a mess of complex, contradictory, and multifaceted identities the Lebanese like to wear, when the only accepted and narrow definition of “politics” rears its ugly head again, only the sectarian identity comes to the fore.