al-akhbar dropping a journalistic bombshell

To those unwilling or unable to follow news in Arabic, the Lebanese daily, al-Akhbar, dropped a journalistic bombshell Thursday. Three journalists from the newspaper had an off the record chat with Walid Junblat. Only al-Akhbar published what Junblat said (the LA Times picked up on this).

Off the record, Junblat said many things. He said he realized what it meant when Rice said that it is the Syrian regime’s behavior they want to change, not the regime itself. But that nevertheless he kept up the provocation because “politics demands it.”

He also said that they have to live with Hizballah’s weapons until regional or international changes allow for Hizballah’s gradual integration into the state and that Ahmadinajad will not give up those weapons until Iran feels secure in its position.

al-Mustaqbal party received the brunt of Junblat’s criticism. He said Hariri Jr. has evolved over the past three years, but those around him have not. He also criticized Hariri Jr. for playing a dangerous game with the Salafis saying it was well that he ended it in good time. Of al-Mustaqbal parliamentarians, he said they are Sunni fanatics even when there are no elections, especially Fatfat and his likes. He also criticized Hariri’s advisors, especially Maher Hammoud and `Uqab Saqr (the latter also behind savior of the Shia, emancipator of the muhajjabat: Meouw Lebanon).

Of the Christian allies, he said they have become a burden. He spoke about the conflicts between the March 14 Christians and the narrow party fanaticism that prevented Nayla Mouawwad and Butrus Harb from becoming ministers, knowing that they would have improved election results. Today, on the record, he jumped ahead of the criticism in what sounds like a prelude to electoral alliances with March 8 in Ba`abda.

And much, much more. al-Akhbar have broken professional protocol and they know it. They said enough to elicit a swift reaction from Junblat and an affirmation of the “deep and historical ties” that bind him with al-Mustaqbal, saying that al-Akhbar has taken things out of context and distorted meanings. al-Akhbar yesterday clarified that it had printed exactly what Junblat said, explaining:

al-Akhbar has enough literary courage to apologize to its readers for being quick in affording them a view into the backstage of political life, even if it came at the expense of professional protocol.

Sensationalist? Maybe. Unprofessional? With sleazy, conniving, narrow-minded, blood-sucking, self-centered, short-sighted, back-stabbing, royalty-on-a-garbage-dump politicians like these, you cannot go wrong. There are many things al-Akhbar can be criticized for – among them their thin criticism of Hizballah and a lack of sharp political analysis, the likes of which Joseph Samahah was able to produce. But with its blend of excellent reporting and unconventional ethics, it is breaking new ground in the pitiful, stale journalistic life of Lebanon. One can only hope that, as election time miracles keep multiplying, there will be more such unethical revelations about the petty considerations that drive Lebanese politics.

 

11 families, 11 banks

According to Information International’s The Monthly publication, the 11 families owning 11 out of 63 banks, control 80% of the total desposits in Lebanon (al-akhbar, Arabic link). They cash in 85% of all profits, a total of $641.7 million a year. The banks are Awdah, BLOM, Byblos, Fransabank, Société générale, Credit Libanais, Bank MED, Bank of Beirut, Bank of Beirut and Arab Countries, Lebanese Canadian Bank, and Banque Libano-Française. The families are Awdah, Azhari, Basil, Qassar, Sahnaoui, Hariri, Assaf, Rufayil, Zard, Abu Jawdah, and Sfayr.

Some have blamed the public debt on crude Niqula-Fattoush-style corruption, others on bad management and exorbitant rebuilding costs. Neither, however, are half as dangerous as the legislated modes of enrichment made possible only by the political-familial-capitalist tripod which stands at the heart of our system. This reached its peak under Rafiq Hariri where government bonds were issued with abnormally high returns – once reaching so much as 37%! The banks gorged themselves – and are still doing so – at the expense of the public pocket.

That this particular, if not unique, blend of capitalism and familialism which is older than Grand Liban itself has its tentacles deep in the political system is evinced by the number of politicians hailing from those families – the latest welcome having just been extended to Awdah, minister of Foreign Affairs and Emigrants. It is further evinced by the fact that almost half the public debt ($17.8 billion) we owe to these 11 families.

The banking system in Lebanon, that miraculous basis of our service economy, is said to have amazed Paul van Zeeland, the Belgian economist and advisor to the Lebanese government around 1950: “I don’t know what makes the economy work, but it’s doing very well and I wouldn’t advise you to touch it” (quote, possibly apocryphal, from Carolyn Gates’ The Merchant Republic of Lebanon, xv). Others have dubbed it “the Lebanese miracle.” The only miracle about Lebanon is that with such short-sighted and narrow-minded management, it still holds together… just.

 

45 days and 45 nights

During the last 45 days of labor, all the ideological crap and the window dressing about two camps and two irreconcilable visions for the future of Lebanon have fallen to reveal the one tenacious political practice that will always bind us together: pie sharing.

Sanioura finally makes some sense when he calls the national unity government 100% Lebanese. The Doha agreement set the rink – even specifying the composition of the government – and left it to the Lebanese to sort it out. And sort they did! After several weeks of punching it out between pro- and anti-government coalitions, the last period was spent bickering over the division of seats within the same political coalition, namely March 14, in what can best be described as family feuds between Hariri’s Christian allies. But of course, when these feuds cross the religion line, we start calling them “politics.”

Other hanging points (such as Murr and Qanso) were concluded with the usual vacuous “everyone’s a winner” for the sake of meeting the “Club Med” deadline and, although I am not sure this was even a priority, evading more bloodshed. Even when that much is evident, some Hariri spokesperson insists on insulting our intelligence by justifying Hariri’s diligent work in smoothing among his allies the acceptance of Ali Qanso, prototype Syrian ally, as minister:

There is an intention to send Sulayman to France without a government, such that the discussion in the French capital between the French and Syrian sides would be derailed into how Damascus can help facilitate the formation of a government instead of looking into the core issues that the international community is asking of the Syrian leadership regarding its relationship with Lebanon.

Apart from the obvious re-emergent friendliness in the emphasis I placed above, how short does one’s memory have to be to forget that “helping facilitate” the formation of a government was one of the “core issues” the international community was asking of the Syrian leadership? And who, pray, intended to send Sulayman to France without a government when both the Syrians and the French are obviously planning to move on? The famous fifth column, no doubt! Syria’s allies, by virtue or vice of their being allies of Syria, cannot be blamed for their coherence in allying with Syria – in the strict logical sense, that is. But to interpret Hariri’s (seeker-of-truth) facilitation of Qanso’s appointment as anything but scoring a brownie point with Assad, who will be sitting ostrich-necked and self-satiated – with one more Lebanese achievement under his belt – next to Sarkozy on 14e juillet, means inbreeding has really gone too far in Lebanon.

To end on a merry note, here is Jean Aziz describing the new government based on a literal translation of the names of its ministers:

جميلة جداً مصادفات الأسماء والألقاب الوزارية في حكومة الوحدة الوطنية. فهي حكومة دفاعها مرّ وداخليتها بارود. صحتها خليفة وطاقتها طابور. تربيتها بهيّة وثقافتها سلام. عدلها نجار وماليتها شطحٌ. بيئتها كرم، ولمهجريها… عودة.

The coincidence of ministerial names and titles is truly beautiful in the national unity government: Its defense is bitter and its interior is gun powder. Its health is in-born and its energy is in queue. Its education is splendor and its culture is peace. Its justice is carpentry and its finance is gone astray. Its environment is generous and to its emigrants… a return.

 

babel in syria

During the course of my research, I happened upon a journalistic piece written by Salma al-Sa’igh (1889-1953) in 1923. Salma’s parents were originally from Hasbayya, but left after the 1860 massacres to settle in Beirut, where Salma was born. She was educated in Wata al-Musaytbah elementary school and Zahrat al-Ihsan. Like many educated women of her time, she made her living as a teacher, teaching in Maqasid, Kulliyat Beirut lil Banat, and the Lazarite school. She got married in 1912 only to divorce a few years later. In 1939, she traveled to Brazil to look for a long lost brother and she ended up living in Sao Paolo for eight years when World War II broke out. There, she joined the Andalusian League and translated contemporary Brazilian literature to Arabic. She also has translations from French to English and numerous articles some of which were collected by the journalist and indefatigable supporter of women’s rights, Jurji Niqula Baz, in the book al-Nasamat (Beirut: al-Matba`ah al-Adabiyah, 1923).

The following comes from the collection. Although this humorous and observant excerpt comes from a very different time, Salma points out to patterns of thought and a level of political immaturity that has many parallels today – the dependence on an ‘outside,’ even in complete independence being the most salient.

بابل في سوريا
كنت اعد – علی اصابعي – لئلا اغلط بالعد فيضيع الحساب
عددت:
حزب الاستعمار الانكليزي
حزب الاستعمار الفرنسوي
حزب الاستقلال مع الوصاية الانكليزية
حزب الاستقلال مع الوصاية الفرنسوية
حزب الاستقلال مع الوصاية الاميركية
حزب الاستقلال التام الناجز بلا وصاية
حزب الضم
حزب الفتح
حزب التجزئة. والساحل. ولبنان الكبير. ولبنان الصغير. ولبنان الاصغر
قلت: أفٍ ! يكاد نفسي ينقطع
فقال جليسي وكان ضليعاً في السياسة:
استقلالنا سناخذه تاماً. تاماً… لا رقابة ولا وصاية. نريد ان نستجلب من اوروبا اختصاصيين لتعليمنا طريقة الاحكام. اختصاصيين بالاجرة من اي صقع ومن اي قطر نريد
من بلجيكا وهولانده وسويسرا واسوج والدانمرك
وكاد يقول حتی ومن داهومي
قلت في نفسي هذا حزب جديد اعده مع الاحزاب اما اسمه فسيكون حزب بابل او التبلبل او البلبلة…
ما شاء الله…
ولم اتمالك نفسي فغضبت غضب رجال الصلاح ونفثت من اعماق روحي نفثةً احملها منذ اربع سنوات وتكاد ان تقتلني
قلت له: ان الشعب الذي لا يعرف ان يقول لا اريد لا يحق له ان يقول اريد…
سنون اربع اذابت منا الشحم واللحم، افنت الاعصاب، ودقت العظم ونحن وقوف نتفرّج ولا نعرف ان نقول لا نريد
لا نريد ان تستبيحوا اموالنا
لا نريد ان تشلّوا تجارتنا
لا نريد ان تميتوا اطفالنا جوعاً

Babel in Syria

I was counting – on my fingers – so as not to miscount and lose my place.

I counted:
The party for English colonialism
The party for French colonialism
The party for independence with English guardianship
The party for independence with French guardianship
The party for independence with American guardianship
The party for complete independence without guardianship
The party for subjugation
The party for objectification
The party for division. For the coast. For Greater Lebanon. For Smaller Lebanon. And for an even smaller Lebanon.

I said: Uff! I am losing my breath.

My companion, who was an expert in politics, said to me: We will take our indepedence and we will take it completely. Completely… Without mandate or guardianship. We want to bring experts from Europe to teach us governance. Paid professionals from any area and any region we want. From Belgium and Holland and Switzerland and Sweden and Denmark.

He almost said ‘even from Dahomi.’

I said to myself: There’s a new party to count with the other parties. As for its name, it will be the Party of Babel or Babbling or Babelation.
Praise be to God…

I could not hold myself back and I became angry with a righteous anger. I exhaled from the depth of my soul a breath that I had been holding for four years that it almost killed me. I said to my companion: The people who do not know how to say ‘we do not want’ do not have the right to say ‘we want’.
Four years have melted the fat and flesh off our bodies, frayed our nerves, and hammered our bones. And we just stand there, watching, not knowing how to say ‘we do not want’.
We do not want you to squander our money.
We do not want you to paralyze our trade.
We do not want you to starve our children to death.

(N.B. I have tried to capture the plays on word in the translation, but I think they can still be improved on. I would appreciate any suggestions).

 

electoral farce reforms

The Doha meetings were less of a “shock treatment,” as they have been called, and more of a placebo – no doubt brought about by regional occurrences whose contours are yet to emerge. If I have been harping on obsessively about the electoral law, it is because if the other aspects of the agreement have momentarily brought us back from the brink, it is the electoral law that will serve to reproduce the political class that will take us back to the brink.

Notwithstanding, al-Akhbar alone has picked up on this issue. One article cites an unnamed Beiruti parliamentarian who believes that the electoral law is the only real event in Doha, since the unity government will only be able to fulfill a caretaker role in preparation for the parliamentary elections next summer.

In addition to the farce of pre-allocating seats to be “elected” (see my previous post), the parliamentarian adds that the law presupposes the sectarian division of the districts. Therefore, its success, as far as the political elite is concerned, depends on keeping the high degree of sectarianism ongoing for the next year. The media, as usual, is playing and will continue to play its dutiful role.

According to another al-Akhbar article, the two main accomplishments of the new electoral law are (1) Future Movement does not feel defeated in Beirut and (2) the Christian voice has been reinstated. Abdo Sa`d, director of the Beirut Center for Research and Information, criticizes the law for not following proportional representation. This, again according to Sa`d, blocks the emergence of a new Sunni political elite, leaving hegemony to the Future Movement. Given Abdo Sa`d’s political inclinations, it should come as no surprise that he fails to mention that the relative majority system (a.k.a. first-past-the-post) blocks the emergence of any alternative, Sunni or otherwise.

All this is truly heartbreaking. It is all the more heartbreaking because all the work has been done. A guide to the proposed draft law can be read here (pdf). The suggested reforms are summarized here by Paul Salem. (both in English)

If I were into conspiracy theories, I would say the political elite engineered the whole crisis to reproduce themselves the way they did in Doha. But this is not a conspiracy. It is a farce. If it is making many Lebanese happy, it is because the only alternative they are being offered by their leadership is even worse.

 

my kingdom for a horse!

The Doha debates have reached an agreement on electing General Michel Sulayman as president, to be followed by the formation of a national unity government giving the Opposition veto power. Given that these were foregone conclusions in case of an agreement, it was the electoral law which constituted the final bargaining chip. Initially, the Opposition had suggested using the 1960 law, but the ruling coalition wanted a change in districts to reflect changing demographics. Hizballah categorically refused any changes in the south, leaving Beirut as the gordian knot in the negotiations.

According to the 1960 law, the Christians would compete over 8 seats in district 1 (Ashrafiyah, Rmayl, Mdawwar, Sayfi, Marfa’, and Mina al-Husn); 3 seats would be open to contestation in district 2 (Zqaq al-Blat, Bashurah, `Ayn al-Mraysah); and the Sunnis would get 5 seats in district 3 (Ras Beirut, Mazra`ah, and Msaytbah).

The ruling coalition’s proposal was to include Mdawwar and a majority Sunni area in district 2 and change the seat allocations to 5 (district 1), 8 (district 2), and 6 (district 3). This would have meant effectively that 14 seats, including 2 of 4 Armenian seats, would have been “elected” by a majority Sunni electorate in districts 2 & 3. This would have forced the Tashnag to broker a deal with the Hariris in order to save their hide in Mdawwar, which, in turn, would have constituted a blow to Aoun by depriving him of the Armenian vote. District 2, thus, became the bone of contention.

The compromise reached gives Hariri 10 seats, leaving the other 9 open to competition:

• District 1 (Ashrafiyah, Rmayl, and Sayfi), 5 seats: majority Chrisitian voters.
• District 2 (Bashurah, Mdawwar, and Marfa’), 4 seats: majority Christian, mostly Armenian voters, with a balance of Sunni/Shiite backup.
• District 3 (Mazra`ah, Msaytbah, Ras Beirut, Minah al-Husn, Dar al-Mraysah, Marfa’), 10 seats: majority Sunni voters.

Hariri insisted on that last, face-saving 10th seat in district 3, which gives his list a majority of Beirut’s seats regardless of the results of his Christian allies. “A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!” he cried.

In other words, Hizballah has translated its military action into a political victory (they got their third in cabinet and a new electoral law) in return for pandering to Hariri’s injured pride and sense of ownership over Beirut. al-Akhbar reports that Hizballah convinced Aoun to drop his demand for 8 seats in district 1 by proposing forming a coalition list, bringing together pro-government and opposition candidates, to run in district 2!

That would leave 5 out of 19 seats to be acutally elected in Beirut and we still have a year to go. Given this riveting start, I cannot wait to see their electoral programs!

 

in war as in peace

To follow up on yesterday’s post, the Doha debates on electoral districts see some light of day. Notwithstanding Atef Majdalani’s confidence that al-Mustaqbal would win Beirut regardless of the electoral divisions, the Hariri team proposed a division that provoked the ire of many  - whose exactly depends on your news source.

The central issue has been dividing Beirut. According to al-Safir, the Opposition suggested a tripartite division of a Sunni, Christian, and mixed/Shiite area which includes minorities and Armenians. The Hariri group insisted on including Mazra`ah, Musaytbah, or Ras Beirut in the last district, which would have the effect of adding more Sunni supported seats to their foregone gains in the Sunni district. al-Akhbar has more details, adding that Christians in the Opposition also objected to the Hariri suggestion. al-Nahar, quoting Akram Shuhayyib, says the Opposition rejected the ruling coalition’s division, but does not explain why.

Not to go into too many details, this conflict shows how war and peace in Lebanon complement and complete each other. As the front lines in Beirut take form in electoral pie-sharing, it becomes yet another reinforcement of the divisions that would become a reality on the ground should a party decide to use military means for political gains, as Hizballah did just recently. The illusion that things get better when there are no clashes is just that: an illusion. As long as the political system serves to reproduce the same politics and political class, the transformation of peace time politics into war time conflict is just a matter of time and setting.

 

let the rat race begin!

The Doha talks have led so far to one agreement: the adoption of the 1960 law with amendments. The pro-government coalition’s push to put Hizballah’s arms up for discussion has been sidelined. Some progress has been made on the issue of forming a national unity government, but the significance of such a government dwindles by the minute as the 2009 parliamentary elections approach (hence the possibility of making progress in the first place).

In other words, Lebanon’s political leaders return to doing what they do best: gerrymandering. Jumblat’s man and part of the six-member committee on the election law in Doha, Akram Shuhayyib, has literally said that the election law is the entry point to discussing other hanging issues.

Translated into human talk, this means that if one thing is to come out of the Doha meetings, it will be an agreement on the election law. This follows logically since if there is one principle that unites the Lebanese political leadership, it is the principle of muhasasah (dividing the pie).

Everyone remembers how in the 2005 parliamentary elections the imaginary anti-Syrian/pro-Syrian divide unraveled in an alliance bringing together Hizballah, Mustaqbal, Nabih Birri, and Walid Jumblat. With this alliance, the Syrian election law of 2000 served the same purposes it was meant to serve under the Syrians: engineer the results.

Prepare for such surprises as the political leaders put their differences aside. The racegun has resounded and the rat race is about to begin.