You keep contradicting yourself. I am using your own quotes here to try and understand these apparent contradictions.

For instance: You say it’s up to the state to fix itself and improve how it treats the Shia (or any disenfranchised group really). So far we agree.
Then you also say that HA needs to go about it on their own, because the state has failed the Shia. Ok. Let’s assume that makes sense. For the sake of this argument.
How do you figure the state could fix things (let’s assume it wants to) when HA unilaterally goes about things it’s own way? (your quote “the Shia have a right to maintain their own power” i am quoting you verbatim!) I am not really understand how you hope to achieve A and B here when A and B are clearly diametrically opposites.

Another quote of yours that I agree completely with: “The state cannot claim sovereignty only to oppress”.
We agree.
Now, how do you reconcile that one with HA having the right to exercise their own power? Wouldn’t that, by its very definition, be oppressing to the other sects in Lebanon? Or would you have HA break up the country into a Shia state (where they can rule without being oppressors, since it’s their constituents) and a non-shia Lebanon?

Do you see why I am having trouble following your logic? You say things that I agree with, then you tell me HA has the right to power, etc. Which seems like a complete contradiction to the first thing.

I don’t get it.

you said:
“Or you’re working towards imposing an HA/Shia dominance over the other sects. Right?”

Stuff like this is why I assume you must be either a moron or a child.

(Im going to assume, for the sake of argument, that you are not a bigoted fanatic. even though that is an open question)

Just think about what it means when someone says something like this. Say, put yourself in the position of a black South African hearing an Afrikaner saying something similar. When anyone in a dominant social position makes a remark about a historically oppressed people like that, it just reinforces the fact that the Shia are right to be skeptical that anything has changed. If your goal of incorporating Hizbullah into the government is just to emasculate the Shia for your own benefit, go to hell. This is essentially the mentality of zionist colonialists looking selfishly at themselves while ignoring the needs of those they oppress. and you wonder why hizbullah is skeptical of granting the government power over the Shia? it’s laughable.

If you agree that the Shia have overthrown the state, we most likely differ on why that happened. Because if you recognize the same reason I do, you would agree that the Shia have a right to maintain their own power. You simply can’t subject them to your demands when it is convenient for you and inconvenient for them. That was the whole reason Hizbullah developed in the first place.

And we finally come to the meat of it. After much mental gymnastics.

The quote above, from Joe, is one I agree with, and one that most of us here would agree with. The difference is that Joe believes the above-quoted outcome is acceptable as a Lebanese, whereas I (and others) believe it is not.

In short, the above quote translates to secession of the HA-dominated parts of Lebanon into an HA/Shia state.

Now, there are 2 ways an HA state can go:
1) Physical secession of South and East Lebanon, leaving the rest of Lebanon to the remaining sects.
2) Overtaking the whole of the territory of Lebanon.

What Ghassan means when he says you can’t have it both ways is that if you choose option 2 (HA taking over all of Lebanon, in terms of control and state), then it means the Shia (for better or worse, we’re equating HA to the Shia) are now imposing their vision of a state on the Sunni, Druze and Christian. Which is exactly what Joe was complaining about the Sunnis and Christians doing to the Shia in the past. In other words, you’re no better, for someone who complained about inequality of how the Shia were treated.

One would almost prefer seeing the Shia going at it on their own (option 1) and leaving the remaining sects to have their own country.

I frankly don’t know which of these two scenarios is worse for Lebanon. But neither one is good. And why anyone would aspire to either of those is beyond me, mental gymnastics aside.

I mean, after all this talk of “but we were oppressed!” and “but the state didn’t defend us!” in the end, what you (Joe) are preaching, once you boil it down, comes down to one of the 2 options I just stated: You either are working towards a Shia/HA state in parts of Lebanon. Or you’re working towards imposing an HA/Shia dominance over the other sects. Right? I know you don’t think of it that way. I get that. But that IS in reality, what your aims end up getting us.

And i don’t see how you reconcile a Shia dominated and controlled state as ‘democratic’. And before you bring up your complaint about the current state not being democratic. I think we all agree it isn’t. But it sounds like the one you’re proposing isn’t either.

2) In respect to your latter point, were you complaining when the state refused to defend the Shia from Israeli occupation, or refused to provide equal representation to the Shia, or equal resources? Why should the Shia submit to a state that has done nothing to defend or empower them in their time of need? To answer you directly, I am not arguing that Hizbullah has the right to oppress anyone because they were mistreated, but they have the right to self-empowerment because they have been left for dead.

For the most part, Hizbullah has revolted and removed the state’s power over the Shia. I prefer integration and equality (between the state and Hizbullah) on the basis of deep democracy. But to have that, the state must show itself to have legitimacy. Im just saying that the state must deserve the right to rule, up until now, it has lost that right.

Just to clarify, I never said that Hizbullah would happily submit to the authority of the state. I said that the method that should be used to get Hizbullah to integrate into the state is by making the state more democratic and just. And that over time things would work out. But an illegitimate state making wild demands on a legitimately popular and effective socio-political org like Hizbullah is just a non-starter.

Last, I am not as familiar with Lebanon as I should be (especially considering that I have family members living there), but I will say that literally every Shia Lebanese I know has extremely deep respect for Hizbullah and claims that Hizbullah has vastly improved their lives in direct and material ways. I know it is only anecdotal, but it says a lot to me when i speak to someone and they begin crying at the thought of how much Hizbullah has helped their family come out of poverty and oppression. And that is my general experience (even outside my otherwise natural tendency to support Hizbullah because of their opposition to zionism) talking to lebanese Shia. I know of no other socio-political organization that can claim a similar level of success.

The system may have been more representative in 41 but representation does not equal power. Furthermore, in the day, the President and PM had so much power between them that parliamentary representation was practically meaningless.

And I think it would be a disservice to your readers to not represent Lebanon’s confessional state in context of the preceding years (centuries) mostly characterized by the sustained and brutal suppression of the Shia by the Mamluks and the Ottomans (oh the irony of the fact that Keserwan used to be a Shia town!). In fact, as a great example of history repeating, when the Shia fought back and established semi-autonomous regions in the South, they were accused of, yup you guessed it, having a state within a state.

So in 41, the Shia already occupied the lowest rungs of society; It was the Shia that did much of the agrarian jobs and it was the Shia that rushed to the slums of Beirut in the 50′s to do the menial industrial jobs.

Therefore, their representation was as weak as they were as a sect and minority.

And to say the lack of investment in Shia communities is not because “the state” has failed but because of the socio-economic balance in the country makes no sense. If the state cannot provide for a part of its people because of the system then until that system changes where does anyone get off telling those people they cannot provide for themselves?

Nevertheless, one only needs to drive north of Beirut and compare the level of investment in infrastructure and compare that to a drive South, even today. The fact is that no matter what the reason, it is state money that has been invested or not invested.

I think that the picture you are presenting of Lebanese history and the relations among different sects and the state is a little too simplistic.

Is the current system unrepresentative? Absolutely. When it was established in the 40′s, it was much less so. And yet, the Shiites of Lebanon remained “disenfranchised”, not so much as a result of structural problems of misrepresentation in government, but because the economic power in the country was held primarily by Christians and Sunnis.

It’s not quite right to say that “the state” has worked for Christians, Sunnis, and Druzes while ignoring the Shi`a. The state has not really worked for anyone over the past several decades (and arguably since the beginning of the republic) because of its fundamental weaknesses. Tribal, confessional, communal, sectarian, and party-based groupings have been more powerful than the central state authority, and if certain tribes, confessions, communities, sects, and party-based constituencies have been better off, it’s not because “the state” has looked kindly upon then, but because of the socio-economic balance in the country.

What we are faced with today is the prospect of beginning to actually strengthen the central state authority at the expense of all these other sub-state authorities. The question is: how?

You are confident that Hizbullah would happily “submit to the authority of the state” if the state could provide more services to its constituents. I’m not so sure about this.

Instead of debating them, you chose to call me a 2-year old. The irony there is amusing.

Good for you.