Tag Archives: politics

The Lebanonization Of the SNC?

Posted on by Mustapha

Hanin Ghaddar:

The Syrian National Council is suffering from March 14 syndrome. The obsession with power and media attention ruined their ability to stand up for the people, who are the main reason the revolution still has momentum. Exactly like March 14, the SNC still cannot agree on what kind of state they want after Assad leaves power.

Although I see her point, I’m not sure this is a fair characterization of what ails March 14 and the SNC. These parties don’t have a vision problem: They both envision a democratic country with a level playing field where one party cannot impose its will on the other with weapons and physical violence. The problems they’re facing are execution and the temptations of vanity and power.

Also, it is unfair to compare March 14 to the SNC. When there was an big, obvious injustice committed against the Lebanese (assassination of a prime Minister), the people united and got together in the form of March 14 and faced the threat. When the injustice became more subtle and less visible (Hezbollah’s long-term threat to the Lebanese state), the unity gave way to politics as usual. It is unforgivable that the SNC is behaving now –as the Syrian people is being bombed to smithereens– like March 14 are behaving after a long bout of fatigue and politics-as-usual.

❊ March 14′s Giant Leap of Faith

Posted on by Mustapha

Ex PM Saad Hariri at Biel today:

Lebanon is headed towards a new political phase due to the Arab Spring and the beginning of the end of the Syrian regime [...] I will bear the responsibility of my solidarity with the Syrian people.

With these words, Mr. Hariri thrust into the spotlight the greatest political gamble of March 14′s life.

– We’re in this together –

In essence, the group previously known as the “anti-Syrian camp” is now betting its future on the demise of Assad, expecting it to bring a transformation in Lebanon that will bring back normalcy to political life. (i.e a situation in which Hezbollah can no longer dictate its terms based on the power of its arms). Pick your metaphor: They’re burning the boats, they’re betting the farm, they’re not looking back, they’re taking the plunge…You get the idea.

I’m not sure how I feel about this. On one hand, I can’t see any way in which the Assad family will survive in power. March 14 might as well back the regime’s opponents and reap the political dividends of the change at the top. Moreover, the perception of inevitability could by itself help tip the balance, and most Arab governments, Arab media, the west and even Walid Jumblat have already thrown caution to the wind and burned all their bridges with the Syrian regime.

On the other hand this can be a very risky move. The situation in Syria is far from clearcut and could get messy for a really long time. Does March 14 really want to stake everything on a neat outcome in which one Syrian side triumphs over the other? What if things dragged on and got really grubby? Let’s assume that after the elections of 2013 March 14 get a thumping majority and form a government while Assad is still in power. Would it back its rhetoric with action, abandon Lebanon’s current policy of dissociation and allow the country to become a safe haven for the Free Syrian Army? What if Syria got divided into statelets? What if Syria had a power-sharing agreement in which the NSC’s relationship with March 14 will have to be sacrificed? Can March 14 guarantee that Lebanon won’t be dragged into the conflict in all its ugliness and chaos?

It might sound like I prefer Mikati’s current non-alignment policy, but I really don’t because I believe it’s not an honest policy and that it is a front for a discreet pro-Assad bias. I just hope that the strategists of March 14 are preparing contingency plans for the various potential outcomes in Syria. This is a dangerous game and the future of our peace and stability is at stake. I hope they know what they’re doing.

❊ Why I Liked Hariri’s Interview Yesterday

Posted on by Mustapha

I’ve been harsh on Mr. Saad Hariri before, but I think the man had a very good interview yesterday. This is not an analysis post, just a quick what-went-through-my-head-while-watching thingy.

I’m sure Mr. Hariri left a lot to be desired, but here are a few observations on why I think he did a good job:

  • The anger is gone. He feels more relaxed and less spiteful in tone, body language and talking points. He was even coy when he was asked about the possibility of a future electoral alliance with PM Mikati in Tripoli. The bitterness, it seems, is something he decided he’s better off without.
  • He gave Nadim Koteish and Paula Yakoubian a lot of leeway in asking tough, sometimes embarrassing questions. Yakoubian was almost harassing him towards the end and Koteish maintained a skeptical attitude and countered Hariri’s responses with good comebacks questions. Of course, we’re not talking about a hostile interview (after all, he handpicked the people who did it), but kudos to him for coming as close as possible to a “real” TV interview.
  • He was forthright and honest with issues like his family finances and the ski incident. I think he handled those questions very well.
  • He admitted errors and wrongdoings, without losing grace.

I’m not saying Mr. Hariri is an angel. He’s a politician after all, and for all we know most of what he said was rehearsed and focus-group-tested by PR agencies. What I’m saying is that he’s starting to sound more like an effective politician: Calm and approachable yet strategic and quick on his feet. This can do wonders to the moral of his supporters and political allies, and this is why I’m calling yesterday’s interview a successful one.

Bonus: Half way through the show, I found out that PM Najib Mikati is also having a live TV interview at the same time as Mr. Hariri. Make no mistake about this, this is not a coincidence. I looked back with amusement at what I wrote three month ago: “PM Najib Mikati has a strange habit of raining on [Mr. Hariri's] parades”.

Do we Need a Lebanese Senate ?

Posted on by Mustapha

Elias Muhanna (a.k.a Q.N.) on why Lebanon needs an upper chamber in parliament:

The classical benefits are in a country like Lebanon where you have minorities that are construed as confessional, you have a weak center and communities that are concerned about the loss of their freedoms, their ways of life. The idea is that the senate provides a check against all of that. You basically open up the Parliament so that it’s one person one vote so it’s equal suffrage across the country. [...] Anything that bares on confessional issues [has] to be passed through the senate as well. So that way every community no matter how small has a say in the affairs and destiny of the country.

This is great in theory but there’s a big catch: As the standoff between PM Mikati and the FPM demonstrates, the sectarian problem in Lebanon is not simply one of representation, but also one of patronage. The Various sectarian zaims want to have their people represented in the official bureaucracy.

Put another way, imagine an extreme situation of one-man-one-vote suffrage that results in a parliament of 100 Muslims and 28 Christians. The question to ask is: If a Shiaa block has 50 MPs and the Druze only have 5, can you make an argument for equal quotas for the Druze and Shiaas in the high posts of government, even if they’re equally represented in the Senate?

Besides, we already have a sort of defacto Senate. These are the various religious bodies (the council of Maronite Bishops, the higher Shiite council, Dar el Fatwa..etc) which traditionally get up in arms and mobilize the faithful whenever an issue is perceived to threaten the influence of their faith.

❊ The Predictable, Silly and Insanely Pointless Spectacle Between P.M. Mikati and the FPM

Posted on by Mustapha

— Some distance is good –

They will eventually kiss, make up and put their daggers behind their backs again, but the flare-out last night between Prime Minister Najib Mikati and Minister Gebran Bassil revealed once more the depth of tension and enmity that exists between these two parties.

It all happened when Prime Minister Mikati nominated A Christian judge to head a disciplinary body that traditionally reports to the Prime Minister. Since it is a Christian position, PM Mikati decided to let President Michel Sleiman file a nominee, and so Judge Elie Bekh’azi was proposed.

Minister Gebran Bassil then asked to put that nomination on hold, until he can find out if M.P. Michel Aoun blesses it. Mr. Miqati’s reaction to that took everyone by surprise:

I feel that there is insistence on blocking everything to disrupt the government’s work and you bear the responsibility and no one else. This I cannot accept. It is now clear to everybody who is blocking the work of the government and this will no longer be tolerated

Then, in a logic that can only be described as surrealistic, he decided to suspend the government’s work in protest against the FPM’s suspension of the government’s work, claiming till the very end that this is the only constructive thing to do.

But then Minister Bassil decided to double down and play nasty sectarian politics:

A certain group of Lebanese has gotten used to treating another group badly, that won’t happen on our watch and we will change this habit and restore balance to the council of Ministers.

Translation: Christians will no longer accept Sunni dominance, and the FPM will make sure to restore Christians back to their rightful position in the government.

This standoff between a weak Prime Minister and a cocky and aggressive party is a silly spectacle, but it is also a pointless one. Because in the end Hezbollah, the real power behind this government, will make sure that everyone gets back in line. The party of God will first allow this conflict to play out a bit, since a public fight between these two is politically beneficial for both. But in the end things will go back to where they were before last night.

❊ Historical Dissociation

Posted on by Mustapha

– Can you erase one of the world’s most documented events from history? –

Culture Minister Gaby Layyoun on the inclusion of the phrase “Cedar revolution” in Lebanese history books:

We cannot keep such a phrase in the curriculum … [It] is sensitive to many in the country and it might create problems between people

Let’s call that the “dissociation” school of historical revisionism. Shying away from any historical detail that might cause awkward feelings in people living in the present. Who cares if half the Lebanese took to the street if the other half finds that fact inconvenient? By that standard world war II should be removed from German history books and the entire slavery chapter should be scraped from American ones.

Defenders of Mr. Layyoun say that the debate is simply about semantics, that the revolution itself is thoroughly discussed in the book, but not its American-made moniker. But to me the interesting question is this: If history is always written by the victors, how does a country with “no victors and no vanquished” write its history?

The problem with Mr. Layyoun’s statement is not that it is a egregious distortion of events (after all, distortions like this happen all the time when victors write history books). The problem is one of overreach and overconfidence: An assumption by one party that its opponents have no life left in them, and that they can simply be erased away.

If Mr. Layyoun had truly read the history of Lebanon, he would not have made such a rookie mistake.

❊ Rusty Nabih Berri Begins Difficult Turnaround Process

Posted on by Mustapha

– Can he pull it off? –

There are many things that Walid Jumblat and Nabih Berri have in common. Both are warlords who benefitted from the Taef agreement. Both are Machiavellian figures who play off larger powers against each other to remain relevant. Both secretly despise absolutists like M.P. Aoun and Sayyed Nasrallah, but both won’t think twice before allying themselves with them to maintain their hold on power.

Most importantly, both are political survivors who have kept up with the darwinian world of Lebanese politics despite being relative political midgets. Soon though, Mr. Berri’s skills at political reinvention will have to be tested, as the events in Syria present the combination of threats and rewards that typically precede political turnarounds.

Mr. Berri could play a key role in the rolling back of Hezbollah’s influence in a post Arab spring Levant. He can be the pro-arab Lebanese Shiaa who helps reduce Iran’s influence in Lebanon. But to get from here to there, he will need a transformation of Jumblatian proportions. This is a very delicate dance that will take months to pull off. It’s fraught with danger and it will take time for people to completely understand the magnitude of the strategic shift that will take place once Assad falls.

Can he pull it off? Unlike Mr. Jumblat, Mr. Nabih Berri hasn’t been having much practice in the dark art of extreme political repositioning. His alliance with Hezbollah has been stable for a while and he is yet to prove that he can still reinvent himself. Luckily, the smooth operator of Mukhtara is offering him some lessons. The most important one of all is: Always start small..

About That Syrian National Council’s Goodwill Message to the Lebanese

Posted on by Mustapha

Michael Young is cautiously optimistic that the message by the Syrian National Council is “potentially, a highly significant moment in the uneasy Syrian-Lebanese relationship”, but he acknowledges the skepticism:

There continues to be a perception in Lebanon, perhaps justified, perhaps not, that whoever controls Syria will pursue some form of hegemony over its smaller western neighbor. Long before the Baathists came to power in Damascus, defenders of this thesis argue, Syria had designs on Lebanon, and that won’t soon change.

So why should the message of goodwill be anything more than jaw-jaw, i.e. the natural act of ally-building weak parties typically engage in before getting to power and seeing Rome from above? Here’s Young’s best shot at an argument for optimism:

a large number of those suffering during [the lebanese civil war] tens of thousands killed, injured, maimed, kidnapped or humiliated by Syria or its epigones—did not merit their fate, nor were they ever consulted about what Lebanon’s affiliation with Syria should be like.

That is why the initiative of the Syrian National Council is so necessary. There is baggage to clear away, as well as myriad misperceptions on both sides. Lebanese and Syrians must overcome the insufferable sense of contempt they still frequently display when talking about each other. Syria risks today what Lebanon faced three and a half decades ago, so destructive sectarianism is not solely a Lebanese curse. Yet as more Syrians suffer and become refugees, the Lebanese should recall how greatly they welcomed the empathy, and indulgence, of outsiders in their times of need.

To grossly oversimplify his point, he’s basically saying that now that the Syrians understood what the Lebanese went through, we could be bound by a common victimhood toward a better, more respectful relationship.

Perhaps. But if I were a betting man, I’d still bet on the next Syrian leadership attempting to pull strings in Lebanon (after all, in this region, who doesn’t?). Young himself wrote about the temptation of Lebanese factional leaders to interfere in Syria once the Assads are gone. The new leaders in Damascus might very well want to pre-empt such meddling and decide to do what Syria has done very well for a long time: Playing off the Lebanese against each others.

How Much Should the Life of Victims be Worth?

Posted on by Mustapha

How much was that life worth?

I’m noticing on my timelines in facebook and twitter that people are railing against the $20,000 the government has decided to pay as a compensation to the victims of the collapsed Ashrafieh building. “Cheap”, “insulting” and “demeaning” are words that I kept reading.

The question is: How much would you pay if you were the Lebanese government? Are you saying that the government shouldn’t pay anything at all? Or are you saying that the government should pay say $1 million per head? If it’s the latter, why would $1 million be closer than $20,000 to the value of a priceless life?

It should be a given, on a personal, moral, philosophical and even legal basis, that life is priceless, and that one extra day of life is worth more than any money in the world. But there are many situations especially in government and medicine, in which an exact quantitative measure is regularly placed on lives. There’s an entire science behind it that bases the “value of a statistical life (VSL)” on many factors, including age, productivity and other measures.

Now of course I’m not saying that our government used a scientific method to come up with the $20,000 figure. Far from it; the amount probably came out of thin air. What I’m saying is that our moral indignation against the act of compensation itself could be toned down a bit.

Update: More on this by Angie, who actually spoke with the people responsible for such things in Lebanon.