Pitiful Politics of the Levant

I thought the situation in Lebanon would simmer down a bit after the Israeli invasion of the once upright Mediterranean nation during the hot summer that was hot for many reasons. Instead, I wake up to see, right on the morning news, turmoil. The (assassination of the Maronite cabinet minister Pierre Gemayel could not have come at a worse time. And now, instead of Lebanon uniting, we get fingers all over the place, pointing in all sorts of directions... with your friendly neighborhood Sa'ad Al-Hariri - who wouldn't amount even to my younger brother in his "maturity" - prattling on the same Bush-style B.S. about a lover of freedom who was killed in Beirut. Granted, I deplore the death of Gemayyel, but exploiting the death of one politician for the gains of another is just... typically political.

Well, you get the idea, not that I'd like to see Sa'ad Al-Hariri fall off from a two-meter stage and break his leg. But the thing is, why the heck do we have someone like Nasrallah now inciting protests against the government? I had a feeling that something like this was going to happen, especially since sectarian tensions flared during AND after Pierre Gemayyel's funeral. As two of my dear Lebanese friends put it, this is simply a case of "democracy gone wrong". According to Al Jazeera,

Christian leader Michel Aoun said that the Lebanese opposition would escalate its protests if the government failed to accept demands for a national unity cabinet. "If the prime minister and his camp continue to monopolise power, there will be an escalation of popular pressure," Aoun told Associated French Press. "We will paralyse the government ... we will force it to go into a deep coma."

I hate to break it to Aoun and other Lebanese officials, but I personally think that they are all sufferring from a coma at the moment: they are obviously not aware of the almost extremely disunited state that their nation is in. Unless they wake up, Lebanon will remain a divided nation. Also,

The Organisation of the Islamic Conference urged Lebanese leaders to act with "the highest degree of self-restraint, wisdom and responsibility in order to save the country from slipping on the inevitable slope of confrontation". Lebanon's Maronite church also weighed in, urging an early presidential election, an tribunal into the killing of Rafiq al-Hariri, and the formation of a new "government of accord" to end the political deadlock. The opposition, made up of Shia and Christian factions, has held demonstrations since Friday outside the offices of Fouad Siniora, the Lebanese prime minister,in central Beirut where he and several ministers have been holed up.

Poor Siniora... I wonder how it's like to be holed up inside a parliament building for days on end. My rather sarcastic sympathies aside, I have to outline something: Siniora isn't the sharpest bullet around. He's the former finance minister and held this position for a short while. Before that, he was a businessman. And what better businessmen to be politicians, especially in the Arab world? Ok, now seriously, let's reflect on the Maronite Church's position. The "government of accord" clearly caught my eye: it's seemingly the same demand being echoed by the opposition protestors who are camped outside the Lebanese parliament building.

But then again, something else caught my eye. Returning to the story regarding sectarian tensions making sparks especially after Gemayyel's funeral, one mourner, who goes by the name of Fadi Jalakh, said something that I am most definitely in cahoots with:

"Those who killed him don't want the Lebanese to unite. Anything after this is going to make things worse."

This is not to necessarily say that he's right: what is it was a personal vendetta? What if the murderer did want the Lebanese to unite, but in his/her own sick, perverted way? Many a man has been murdered since Hariri, among them politician Gibran Tueni, his colleague and a prominent journalist Samir Kassir (whose book, Being Arab, I will be talking about later), former Lebanese Communist party leader George Hawi, and now Industry Minister Pierre Gemayyel. It's relatively easy to see why all fingers have been pointed at Syria: all names mentioned have been vocal critics of the Syrian political intervention in Lebanon (and rightly so). One might speculate that because they opposed Syrian presense in Lebanon, they were killed. Another might say that others are seeking to sow discord between Arabs, and frame Syria in the process. Or it might have just been some strange political bickering... but whatever it was, Lebanese politicians all over were exploiting the deaths of these men.

To be honest with you, reader, I don't know what to make of this mess. On one hand, the protests have so far been "peaceful and civilized". On the other hand, they're still going on, and who knows when they'll end. I honestly don't know who to trust: Nasrallah and Aoun, or Siniora and his government. It's quite obvious, however, that they're still being political: Nasrallah, in a televised address, claimed that he and his supporters would lead a non-violent resistance and not encourage any sort of tension. Siniora, however, remains holed up, and he and his colleagues, including Jumblatt, whose demeanor speaks truly of his lacking intelligence, keep parrotting demands for dialogue with concessions and formation of a government "with accords". Of course, Nasrallah tries to lend credibility to his argument by stating, on Al Manar,

"We insist on our demands, for the formation of a real government of national unity... because it is the only means to prevent any foreign tutelage on Lebanon, so that we have Lebanese decision-making."

I'm not sure if I am to take his word on this one. I mean, clearly, politicians these days tend to be less concerned about the gains of nations and more concerned about their own selfish gains and influence in the region. This, of course, has to do with power, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Bush definitely lead this adage by example; look what he did to Iraq. I wonder if the other politicians are smart enough not to fall into the same manhole.

I think it's best that these politicians follow my plan for political reform in the Arab world, because if they don't, they'll find themselves ripping each other apart. Nasrallah's Hizbullah faction clearly shows, for example, favoritism for the Shi'ite south. The same goes for Nabih Berri's Amal faction. The Lebanese Forces of Samir Geagea, yet another politician I have absolutely no respect nor love for, are almost purely Maronite-leaning, as are the Phalange/Kataeb of Amine Gemayyel, the father of the slain Pierre Gemayyel. What the Lebanese need is a party that favors Lebanese, and addresses the rights of other minorites in Lebanon who are not Lebanese in origin, just like any just nation would do.

Identifying the problem is the first step to the solution. And as long as the leaders themselves have personal vendettas that they just can't seem to shove aside, then I propose that these leaders be deposed in favor of a generation of new statesmen (NOT politicians) that has no (familial) association whatsoever with any of the sectarian/feudalist politicians in the Lebanese parliament. Either that, or all parties should drop their personal grudges and work towards rebuilding the nation that was once known as the "Paris of the Middle East"...

But who am I kidding? I have no hope for politicians who waste parliamentary sessions fighting over the most trivial of issues.

Salaam, from Saracen