I’ve been a little obsessed with the changes in the Arab blogosphere over the past year, and the Syrian blogs are among the most interesting to me, perhaps because I’ve been reading several of these bloggers for years. The shift in perspective as a result of the uprising is remarkable. People like Robin Yassin-Kassab and Off the Wall (and their readers) are elaborating, dialectically, a new meaning of Arab liberalism.
Here are the first few paragraphs from my weekly piece for the New York Times global opinion page, which deals with this subject.
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The images out of Syria this month are gut-wrenching. Two suicide bombers killed dozens of people in Damascus on Friday, an alarming ratcheting-up of the violence in a conflict that some fear is starting to look more like a civil war by the day.
Within hours of the attacks, Twitter, Facebook and the Arab blogosphere were boiling over with claims and counterclaims. Some accepted the Syrian government’s statement that Friday’s bombers were affiliated with Al Qaeda; others, who are sympathetic to the opposition, want to see President Bashar al-Assad fall (see here, here and here).
This highly polarized response is symptomatic of a broader culture war that has recently emerged among Syria watchers. For the first decade of Assad’s presidency, most Syrian blogs I read were fairly supportive of the regime because of its commitment to the Palestinian cause and its opposition to the United States and Israel. But this year has changed everything. (keep reading)
Graphic courtesy of Election Guerilla. Click to enlarge.
Much has already been said about the very peculiar electoral law proposed by the Orthodox Gathering and endorsed by all of Lebanon’s Maronite leaders. Civil society groups say that it further entrenches sectarianism. Michael Young writes that it deepens Christian isolation. Meanwhile, Ziyad Baroud is hedging his bets.
My biggest problem with the proposal is very simple: it leads to enormous inequalities of suffrage. What does this mean?
Imagine a country with a parliament divided into quotas based on colors of hair. For example, 20% of the seats are devoted to blond-haired MPs, 35% to redheads, 20% to brown-haired people, 15% to salt-and-pepper, etc.
Once upon a time, this proportional arrangement of seats matched the actual hair-color demographics in the country, but over time, the blonds (who, as a rule, tend to have more fun) multiplied more vigorously than the redheads, while an unfortunate epidemic of male-pattern balding eviscerated the once healthy ranks of the brown-haired.
The redheads, however, are insistent upon maintaining the old quotas, even though demographics have changed. What’s more, they insist that districts should be drawn in such a way as to guarantee that redheaded representatives are elected by majorities of redheads. Why? Because, they argue, a blond MP surely would not advocate for a redhead’s rights in the way that a fellow redhead would.
This is where the troubles begin. If you draw districts in such a way as to maintain “chromatically pure” majorities, then certain districts will inevitably have a much higher ratio of MPs to voters than other districts. For example, redheaded districts might have 1 MP per 10,000 voters, while blond districts could have 40,000 voters to each MP.
The only way around this problem would be to draw much larger districts composed of voting populations with all kinds of hair color, but then you’d have redheaded MPs being elected by blond voters, which is a big problem for the redheaded politicians.
So small districts remain, for the time being…until, one day, the redheaded and brown-haired leaders get together and decide that the current system is still problematic. Even in their well-coiffed enclaves, there are odd pockets of blond and gray-haired voters who can help swing an election the wrong way.
And so they propose a different approach, a law that is the apotheosis of the principle of hair-color representation, and it goes something like this:
“Let’s dispense with the hassles of gerrymandering and turn the entire country into a single district. Let’s institute a system of proportional representation whereby each citizen is only allowed to vote for a list of candidates who have the same color hair as their own. So, for example, if there are 22 seats in Parliament reserved for redheads, then each redhead in the country would cast a vote for one of several different lists of 22 redheaded political candidates, and the seats would be divided up between the lists according to a proportional formula.”
Under this proposed system, the problem of unequal suffrage that we witness in the current system with the small districts would become even more drastic, because there would be no little pockets of blonds and black-haired voters to “dilute” the redheaded and brown-haired votes. Under the new law, the ratio of MPs to voters is no longer dictated by districting, but rather by the cold hard facts of hair color demographics. A redheaded voter would have more voting power than a blond, purely because of the color of their hair, and not because of the district they live in.
Graphic courtesy of Election Guerilla. Click to enlarge
This is, in a nutshell, the Ferzli proposal. (For more reading on inequality of suffrage, check out this post I wrote last year on the subject).
Let me just conclude by pointing out the obvious, namely that nobody but Najib Mikati and President Suleiman are actually interested in implementing proportional representation. When I met with several of Hariri’s allies, advisors, and representatives last month, they all basically regurgitated the same set of talking points: “If we adopt PR, Hizbullah will be able to win 10 Sunni seats, while we’ll only be able to take one Shiite seat. We can’t have PR until there’s a level playing field, and our Shiite candidates are not intimidated or threatened by Hizbullah.”
Naturally Walid Jumblatt is completely opposed to PR, as is Nabih Berri. The Christians don’t like it because it will require having larger voting districts (12-14 rather than the current 28 or so), which means that many Christian MPs will be elected by Muslim majorities. (This is what makes it particularly nauseating to listen to Amin Gemayel and Michel Aoun going on about restoring “Christian rights” when the system they are championing is so ludicrously out of step with democratic principles and demographic realities. See the second graphic above for a clear proof of just how good the 2009 law is for Christian representation…)
Therefore, the current proposal from Elie Ferzli is probably being supported by the Christian leadership only to guarantee that the end result of the bargaining process over the electoral law will be the 2009 law, warts and all.
Arabic speakers can read an introduction to the actual law here. I’d also like to thank my good friend Election Guerilla for the very helpful graphics above. As he suggested to me in an email: “The proposed system simply flaunts the inequality of confessional representation (and it is perhaps unsurprising that the most over-represented Christian group under the proposal would be … the Greek Orthodox!”
More on this as the story develops…
I’ve written something for the NY Times Global’s Latitude blog about one of Nasrallah’s Ashura speeches last month. In the interest of space, I couldn’t include extensive translations from the speech, so I thought I’d make them available here. For context and the broader argument, check out the original post here.
I’ve been criticized before for my admiration of Nasrallah’s rhetorical skills, but I found the speech in question deeply disturbing (and unfortunately, so did Saida’s Salafists). This is an aspect of Hizbullah that its liberal admirers like to ignore, imagining that the Party of God is far more progressive and non-confessional than its “feudal,” “fascist,” “right-wing,” “clientelist” opponents. I’m always puzzled by this notion, because it seems fairly straightforward that Hizbullah is just as adept at anyone at deploying sectarianism in the service of politics.
I challenge you seasoned Lebanon-watchers to listen to the final segment of the speech (I’ve cued it to the right spot) and tell me that it is not one of the most blatant and unashamed examples of sectarian incitement they’ve heard coming out of the mouth of a Lebanese politician in recent memory. (The relevant section is translated below for English speakers, along with time stamps).
I leave you with this thought. If Samir Geagea were to give a speech calling Nasrallah a modern-day Judas Iscariot, or if Saad Hariri wrote a tweet accusing the Shi`a of being heretical Uthman-killers and Aisha-slanderers, how quickly do you think the March 8th media outlets would be down their throats, calling them bloody-minded sectarian feudal warlords? I’m no fan of any of the individuals attached to the proper names cited in this post, but let’s be serious for a moment and recognize demagoguery when we see it.
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[1:06:38] “When we speak about al-Husayn, we are speaking about his suffering but also his steadfastness. We begin with his abandonment by the people despite the fact that he was the son of the daughter of the Prophet of God… This would cause any human being to suffer.
[1:06:58] For example, you felt, during the July War, that you were on the side of righteousness, and yet you were being killed and shot and [your homes] destroyed, and many people in the world left you, abandoned you, and even blamed you and insulted you. Did this not cause great pain in you?
[1:07:23] Al-Husayn’s abandonment is the first [cause of his suffering]. The second is the treachery of those who swore their allegiance to him and then abandoned him. This is even more painful. There were people who abandoned us and did not aid us [during the July War] but there were others who promised us help and pledged their allegiance to us and committed to us, then defamed us and attacked us… this was also the case of Husayn. At the very least, they could have sat on the sidelines and been neutral, but no: they attacked and killed him. This added to his suffering.
[1:07:51] The constant threat of being killed from Medina, to Mecca, to Karbala: this caused suffering. A severe siege, severe thirst… al-Husayn and his wives and his children and companions were prevented from drinking water for several days before they were martyred… You go to speak to [your tormentors] and they don’t listen to you; this causes suffering. Imagine if you were the grandson of the Prophet… Sometimes one goes through such an experience. Even if you speak for a hundred years or two hundred, it doesn’t matter. Some people are not interested in listening.
[1:09:00] The third thing [that causes suffering] is fighting with few supporters. This choice is also difficult. And finally, the arrival at the stage of martyrdom. Martyrs were falling right in front of al-Husayn. His loved ones, his brethren. Who were these martyrs?
[1:09:18] Some of you are the fathers, mothers, siblings of martyrs. Everyone knows that when one’s son or brother is martyred, one suffers. What if your son is killed in front of your eyes? Your feelings would be different. If people came and told you that your son was hit during the battle, he was killed, he was martyred, etc., you would suffer.
[1:09:51] But when we speak of Karbala, we are always speaking about the highest ceiling [of emotions]. Al-Husayn’s son was killed in his arms, Ali al-Akbar [Ed: I think he meant Ali al-Asghar here]. Imagine if your son was a young man who exceled and fought and was martyred… you would suffer. But this is completely different from one whose son is an infant, a baby, a few months old. You hold him in your arms, and ask for some water for him, and he is slaughtered in your arms. And his blood runs upon you. How much more painful is this?
[1:10:35] We have families who have lost one, or two, or three martyrs over the course of years; their brothers, their children. Those who were killed with al-Husayn at Karbala were his children, in his arms and in front of him. His brothers, all of whom were young. Al-Husayn was himself young, only 57. His brothers were all younger than him. They were killed, along with their children, their cousins; this is all painful. Then the weeping of the women; mothers bereaved of children, widows. When you go into the home of a martyr’s family, with the mother or the wife crying, your heart breaks. Al-Husayn looked all around him and saw these eyes full of tears; the weeping of orphans, from hunger, thirst, and pain. And on top of all that were the wounds inflicted upon him. And in the final moments, on top of the wounds, the screams of women and children, as the warriors attacked the tents and the fires were lit.
[1:11:58] How much pain did this one heart endure? And how much can a human heart endure? And yet, al-Husayn was not shaken, he did not retreat, he did not weaken, he did not stumble, he did not submit, and nor did his companions…
[1:12:41] This is our leader. This is Karbala, from which we learn the lessons of steadfastness, and honesty, and the loyal pledge [Ed: repeated in mid-stride to correct the case from accusative to genitive... amazing]. This is the school in which we sit these days and nights, learning, suffering, crying. You and I are the ones who pledged our allegiance to al-Husayn in our Resistance in Lebanon. We are the ones who went out to fight the occupiers, even though were only a small minority. And we are a minority that is accused of insanity, accused of committing ourselves to ruin, accused of not understanding balances of power, accused of acting with the zeal of immature young men…
[1:14:00] My brethren, on this night… we say to al-Husayn: “If only we were with you at Karbala, so that we could have won a great victory!” As one, we say to al-Husayn on this night, and repeat it on every night, and on the tenth day: “Oh great leader and martyr, we, men and women, in these difficult times, despite all the challenges, dangers, threats, insults, and the determination and trickery of the enemy, and despite the scarcity of our supporters, oh Abu Abdallah, we will not abandon you, or your religion, or your flock, or your Karbala, or your goals, even if we are killed and burned, and our wives and children are captured as yours were. We say to you that we – men, women, children, elderly, young – who were steadfast and withstood the July War, are not frightened by their war, their weapons, threats, and trickery. Just as we were steadfast before, we shall continue, as long as there runs in our veins a drop of your blood, and a breath of your breath is in our bodies, and your strength is in us, and your will, we will remain Husayns and Zaynabs, and we repeat with you until the end of time: “Hayhat minna ‘l-dhilla!”
