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The New York Sun
June 22, 2005 Wednesday
Democracy for Lebanon
by Nibras Kazimi
'Lebanon has plenty of freedom, but very little democracy," the adage
goes, suggesting that no one should mistake the holding of
parliamentary elections in that country as a democratic exercise. But
still, there are hopes for better, democratic days to come.
And here's why: Two seismic developments occurred in the last two
staggered phases of the Lebanese elections during late May and early
this month that will eventually set that battered country up for a
real functioning democracy. The first occurred when a maverick
ex-general by the name of Michel Aoun unexpectedly took over the
leadership of the Maronite Christian minority by trouncing his
political contenders in the Maronite bible bubble of Kisrawan, and
putting up a good fight elsewhere in mixed Christian-Muslim
constituencies. The other happened when the traditional and powerful
feudalists lost in the north of the country. Both are indicators that
the Lebanese people are ready to change the old established political
routine.
In Lebanon, the individual is beholden to the luggage of sectarian
identity and history. Individual ambitions have no room for
expression beyond the stringent and narrow categories of what god one
prays to, and who's your grandfather. Even the grand equalizer of
striking it big in the realm of finance translates into communal
leadership rather than national leadership. This system was set in
place by traditional power elites that milked the country - and its
entrepreneurial spirit - for all it had. However, as long as you
don't question the setup, you are free to do as you please.
The French colonial administration that drew up Lebanon as an
enlargement of the Maronite enclave, and gave the Maronites the reins
of power, created a very curious mistake. Those borders also included
Sunnis, Shias, Greek and Catholic Orthodox Christians, Druze, and a
smattering of other minorities. Lebanon became the incubator of a
Middle Eastern contradiction: how to reconcile several thousand years
of history and a multitude of identities that constitute the larger
picture of the Middle East with modern, homogenizing ideologies. Not
one single Middle Eastern country (all drawn up in one way or another
by 20th-century colonial powers) can claim to have a homogenous
ethnic or religious make-up. In such a country, and in such a region,
can all the intricacies of history be dismissed in the face of a
dominant, uniform Arab Islamic identity?
Lebanon paid a price tag of 150,000 dead in its 15-year civil war to
come up with an answer: No. The tension leading up to the civil war,
and still pervading the political atmosphere to this day, was how to
reconcile on-the-ground diversity in the face of the pan-Arab
nationalism sweeping the Middle East in the 20th century. In the wake
of nationalism's decline, a new all encompassing ideology has emerged
in the form of Islamic fundamentalism, increasingly led by Al
Qaeda-type Salafi-Wahhabists and a sympathetic and well-funded
religious establishment in Saudi Arabia. But would such an ideology
succeed where nationalism failed, and where would that leave a
country with the heterodox makeup of Lebanon?
Just north of the heart of Beirut, which is traditionally the bastion
of affluent Sunnis and Greek Orthodox, is the Armenian neighborhood
of Bourj Hammoud that is populated by the descendants of victims of
Turkey's first round of experimenting with nationalism in the waning
days of the Ottoman Empire. Their forefathers and mothers had escaped
the wrath engendered in response to Armenian nationalism that sought
to create a homeland in eastern Anatolia during the First World War.
They ended in slums then situated on the outskirts of Beirut's
coastline. Today, in that neighborhood, there is a very curious
sight: the local branch of the Arab Bank has its marquee up in
Arabic, English, and Armenian.
A little farther north of Bourj Hammoud, the steep ridges of mountain
ranges interrupt the coastline and abruptly descend into the sea at
the Dog River. Over the millennia, many visitors to Lebanon have
remarked on this geographical statement, and conquering armies, from
the Babylonians through the Crusaders and down to the French, have
left markers to show that they had passed through this point. Beyond
it lies Kisrawan, where the visitor is immediately welcomed by a
giant, arms-outstretched statue of Jesus Christ.
Southward along Beirut's coast, one runs into the Shia shantytowns
teeming with those that escaped the fighting between the Israelis and
the Palestinians three decades ago in their southernmost heartland of
Jebel Amil, where Shi'ism had been holding on against many oppressive
odds since the schism that divided the early Muslims into Sunni and
Shia some 1,400 years ago. Keep going along the coast, and then take
a sharp turn left up the Shouf Mountains, where the Druze, a
secretive sect of Muslims that went beyond the accepted bounds of
orthodoxy a thousand years ago, hide out among enchanted forests of
pine and a few surviving cedars, the latter needing a couple of
thousand years to reach maturity.
There has to be a different kind of ideology that makes sense of a
country like Lebanon, and provides a workable model for the rest of
the Middle East, and that can only be democracy. One indigenous
Lebanese model, called the National Covenant of 1943, was a verbal
agreement among the traditional leaders of the various communities to
share power: the presidency for the Maronites, the premiership of the
cabinet to the Sunnis, and the speaker's post of the parliament to
the Shias. And what goes for the top posts devolves down the chain of
bureaucratic hierarchy; even the 30 jobs at the fire department of
Beirut International Airport are divided up along similar sectarian
patterns. Should one need a job in government, and even if a remote
village needed asphalt for a road leading to it, then the only place
to go is to the respective leader of one's community, which suited
the traditionalists just fine and cemented the power that they sought
to inherit to their sons.
But this model is a farce and is continually challenged and
reformulated when the demographic trends of the various populations
change. There are fewer Maronites as a proportion of the population
than there were 60 years ago, and more Shias. The Lebanese need to
come up with something different or they will always be beholden to
the legacy of strife and civil war, something that turns incredibly
messy and bloody within its natural and historical patchwork of
communities.
The journey toward democracy involves moving away from disparate
sectarian identities into a unifying Lebanese one. The language for
that is oddly encapsulated in the Ta'if Accords of 1989 that brought
an end to the civil war. It calls for the annulment of sectarian
politics and power-sharing and provides the first step: a new
electoral law that allows the Lebanese to vote on nonsectarian lines
for the parliament. The signatories of the Ta'if Accords were the
ossified icons of the old way of doing business, the traditional
leaders, and they conveniently kept this clause on ice. Now is the
time to bring it forth and use it to cajole the Lebanese into taking
their first steps toward both freedom and democracy.
President Bush could help by appointing a special presidential envoy
for democracy in Lebanon. He should pick someone of Lebanese descent
(there are an estimated 1.5 million Americans who fill this category)
and untainted by the past "status quo" policy of dealing with the
Middle East. General John Abizaid of Centcom would be the ideal
candidate, or otherwise the yardstick. The task of this envoy would
be to sit down with the new parliament and get them to pass laws that
facilitate the emergence of a new Lebanese identity. For example,
there are about 150,000 households in Lebanon of mixed marriages
between sects. In order to get a marriage license, a mixed-marriage
couple needs to go to Cyprus or Europe. They are prevented from doing
so in their own country. Legalizing same-citizenship marriages should
not be such a hurdle and would find a supportive constituency.
A new electoral law needs to be cobbled together that takes into mind
the sensitivities of the traditionalists but charts the path forward.
The Ta'if Accords suggest the formation of a House of Lords where all
the sectarian chieftains can hold court and put on airs but not
disrupt or corrupt the functions of government. New electoral
districting can be drawn to map out enclaves of sectarian uniformity,
thereby ensuring that those who get elected actually represent their
sectarian communities, which is not the case under the current law.
In order to get the ultra-insecure Maronites on board, the Lebanese
Diaspora still holding on to Lebanese citizenship - overwhelmingly
Christian - should be allowed to vote, and that costly logistical
process could be underwritten by American financial aid. The Shias
who are increasingly transforming themselves from a dispossessed and
marginal sect into the comforts of the bourgeoisie, and who are
closely watching the Shia-American alliance in Iraq, must be
encouraged to give up their support for Hezbollah by allaying their
fears of armed Palestinians, usually seen as the shock troops of the
Sunnis. Saad Hariri, now leading the Sunnis, should be tasked with
getting the U.N.-mandated disarmament of the Palestinian militias
done as a prelude to disarming the Lebanese Hezbollah.
General Aoun has illusions and aspirations of being a national leader
and can deliver the Maronites at this stage. In an effort to
dismantle the sectarian edifice of government, he can be allied to
the smattering of democrats who defeated the traditionalists in the
north. This is a golden opportunity coming out of a creaking and
unsustainable structure, and the beginning of a grassroots challenge
to the arcane traditional idea of a "free yet undemocratic" Lebanon.
There is a lot more to be done, but only America can re-enter the
Lebanese scene to push democracy forward. If democracy succeeds in
Lebanon, then the rest of the Middle East has an answer as to what
form of government and spirit of governance would suit their
multidimensional and confusing region. Otherwise, Islamic
fundamentalism becomes the only contender for a future vision.
America would have to attempt to intervene on behalf of all the
Lebanese, rather than following the model of the French, Saudi,
Syrian, and Iranian interventions and getting involved on behalf of
one Lebanese client community. If America can help make a success
story of a thriving democracy out of a contradictory and wounded
country, then the rest of the people of the Middle East will take
notice as they grapple with similar questions.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
June 22, 2005 Wednesday
Democracy for Lebanon
by Nibras Kazimi
'Lebanon has plenty of freedom, but very little democracy," the adage
goes, suggesting that no one should mistake the holding of
parliamentary elections in that country as a democratic exercise. But
still, there are hopes for better, democratic days to come.
And here's why: Two seismic developments occurred in the last two
staggered phases of the Lebanese elections during late May and early
this month that will eventually set that battered country up for a
real functioning democracy. The first occurred when a maverick
ex-general by the name of Michel Aoun unexpectedly took over the
leadership of the Maronite Christian minority by trouncing his
political contenders in the Maronite bible bubble of Kisrawan, and
putting up a good fight elsewhere in mixed Christian-Muslim
constituencies. The other happened when the traditional and powerful
feudalists lost in the north of the country. Both are indicators that
the Lebanese people are ready to change the old established political
routine.
In Lebanon, the individual is beholden to the luggage of sectarian
identity and history. Individual ambitions have no room for
expression beyond the stringent and narrow categories of what god one
prays to, and who's your grandfather. Even the grand equalizer of
striking it big in the realm of finance translates into communal
leadership rather than national leadership. This system was set in
place by traditional power elites that milked the country - and its
entrepreneurial spirit - for all it had. However, as long as you
don't question the setup, you are free to do as you please.
The French colonial administration that drew up Lebanon as an
enlargement of the Maronite enclave, and gave the Maronites the reins
of power, created a very curious mistake. Those borders also included
Sunnis, Shias, Greek and Catholic Orthodox Christians, Druze, and a
smattering of other minorities. Lebanon became the incubator of a
Middle Eastern contradiction: how to reconcile several thousand years
of history and a multitude of identities that constitute the larger
picture of the Middle East with modern, homogenizing ideologies. Not
one single Middle Eastern country (all drawn up in one way or another
by 20th-century colonial powers) can claim to have a homogenous
ethnic or religious make-up. In such a country, and in such a region,
can all the intricacies of history be dismissed in the face of a
dominant, uniform Arab Islamic identity?
Lebanon paid a price tag of 150,000 dead in its 15-year civil war to
come up with an answer: No. The tension leading up to the civil war,
and still pervading the political atmosphere to this day, was how to
reconcile on-the-ground diversity in the face of the pan-Arab
nationalism sweeping the Middle East in the 20th century. In the wake
of nationalism's decline, a new all encompassing ideology has emerged
in the form of Islamic fundamentalism, increasingly led by Al
Qaeda-type Salafi-Wahhabists and a sympathetic and well-funded
religious establishment in Saudi Arabia. But would such an ideology
succeed where nationalism failed, and where would that leave a
country with the heterodox makeup of Lebanon?
Just north of the heart of Beirut, which is traditionally the bastion
of affluent Sunnis and Greek Orthodox, is the Armenian neighborhood
of Bourj Hammoud that is populated by the descendants of victims of
Turkey's first round of experimenting with nationalism in the waning
days of the Ottoman Empire. Their forefathers and mothers had escaped
the wrath engendered in response to Armenian nationalism that sought
to create a homeland in eastern Anatolia during the First World War.
They ended in slums then situated on the outskirts of Beirut's
coastline. Today, in that neighborhood, there is a very curious
sight: the local branch of the Arab Bank has its marquee up in
Arabic, English, and Armenian.
A little farther north of Bourj Hammoud, the steep ridges of mountain
ranges interrupt the coastline and abruptly descend into the sea at
the Dog River. Over the millennia, many visitors to Lebanon have
remarked on this geographical statement, and conquering armies, from
the Babylonians through the Crusaders and down to the French, have
left markers to show that they had passed through this point. Beyond
it lies Kisrawan, where the visitor is immediately welcomed by a
giant, arms-outstretched statue of Jesus Christ.
Southward along Beirut's coast, one runs into the Shia shantytowns
teeming with those that escaped the fighting between the Israelis and
the Palestinians three decades ago in their southernmost heartland of
Jebel Amil, where Shi'ism had been holding on against many oppressive
odds since the schism that divided the early Muslims into Sunni and
Shia some 1,400 years ago. Keep going along the coast, and then take
a sharp turn left up the Shouf Mountains, where the Druze, a
secretive sect of Muslims that went beyond the accepted bounds of
orthodoxy a thousand years ago, hide out among enchanted forests of
pine and a few surviving cedars, the latter needing a couple of
thousand years to reach maturity.
There has to be a different kind of ideology that makes sense of a
country like Lebanon, and provides a workable model for the rest of
the Middle East, and that can only be democracy. One indigenous
Lebanese model, called the National Covenant of 1943, was a verbal
agreement among the traditional leaders of the various communities to
share power: the presidency for the Maronites, the premiership of the
cabinet to the Sunnis, and the speaker's post of the parliament to
the Shias. And what goes for the top posts devolves down the chain of
bureaucratic hierarchy; even the 30 jobs at the fire department of
Beirut International Airport are divided up along similar sectarian
patterns. Should one need a job in government, and even if a remote
village needed asphalt for a road leading to it, then the only place
to go is to the respective leader of one's community, which suited
the traditionalists just fine and cemented the power that they sought
to inherit to their sons.
But this model is a farce and is continually challenged and
reformulated when the demographic trends of the various populations
change. There are fewer Maronites as a proportion of the population
than there were 60 years ago, and more Shias. The Lebanese need to
come up with something different or they will always be beholden to
the legacy of strife and civil war, something that turns incredibly
messy and bloody within its natural and historical patchwork of
communities.
The journey toward democracy involves moving away from disparate
sectarian identities into a unifying Lebanese one. The language for
that is oddly encapsulated in the Ta'if Accords of 1989 that brought
an end to the civil war. It calls for the annulment of sectarian
politics and power-sharing and provides the first step: a new
electoral law that allows the Lebanese to vote on nonsectarian lines
for the parliament. The signatories of the Ta'if Accords were the
ossified icons of the old way of doing business, the traditional
leaders, and they conveniently kept this clause on ice. Now is the
time to bring it forth and use it to cajole the Lebanese into taking
their first steps toward both freedom and democracy.
President Bush could help by appointing a special presidential envoy
for democracy in Lebanon. He should pick someone of Lebanese descent
(there are an estimated 1.5 million Americans who fill this category)
and untainted by the past "status quo" policy of dealing with the
Middle East. General John Abizaid of Centcom would be the ideal
candidate, or otherwise the yardstick. The task of this envoy would
be to sit down with the new parliament and get them to pass laws that
facilitate the emergence of a new Lebanese identity. For example,
there are about 150,000 households in Lebanon of mixed marriages
between sects. In order to get a marriage license, a mixed-marriage
couple needs to go to Cyprus or Europe. They are prevented from doing
so in their own country. Legalizing same-citizenship marriages should
not be such a hurdle and would find a supportive constituency.
A new electoral law needs to be cobbled together that takes into mind
the sensitivities of the traditionalists but charts the path forward.
The Ta'if Accords suggest the formation of a House of Lords where all
the sectarian chieftains can hold court and put on airs but not
disrupt or corrupt the functions of government. New electoral
districting can be drawn to map out enclaves of sectarian uniformity,
thereby ensuring that those who get elected actually represent their
sectarian communities, which is not the case under the current law.
In order to get the ultra-insecure Maronites on board, the Lebanese
Diaspora still holding on to Lebanese citizenship - overwhelmingly
Christian - should be allowed to vote, and that costly logistical
process could be underwritten by American financial aid. The Shias
who are increasingly transforming themselves from a dispossessed and
marginal sect into the comforts of the bourgeoisie, and who are
closely watching the Shia-American alliance in Iraq, must be
encouraged to give up their support for Hezbollah by allaying their
fears of armed Palestinians, usually seen as the shock troops of the
Sunnis. Saad Hariri, now leading the Sunnis, should be tasked with
getting the U.N.-mandated disarmament of the Palestinian militias
done as a prelude to disarming the Lebanese Hezbollah.
General Aoun has illusions and aspirations of being a national leader
and can deliver the Maronites at this stage. In an effort to
dismantle the sectarian edifice of government, he can be allied to
the smattering of democrats who defeated the traditionalists in the
north. This is a golden opportunity coming out of a creaking and
unsustainable structure, and the beginning of a grassroots challenge
to the arcane traditional idea of a "free yet undemocratic" Lebanon.
There is a lot more to be done, but only America can re-enter the
Lebanese scene to push democracy forward. If democracy succeeds in
Lebanon, then the rest of the Middle East has an answer as to what
form of government and spirit of governance would suit their
multidimensional and confusing region. Otherwise, Islamic
fundamentalism becomes the only contender for a future vision.
America would have to attempt to intervene on behalf of all the
Lebanese, rather than following the model of the French, Saudi,
Syrian, and Iranian interventions and getting involved on behalf of
one Lebanese client community. If America can help make a success
story of a thriving democracy out of a contradictory and wounded
country, then the rest of the people of the Middle East will take
notice as they grapple with similar questions.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress