February 16, 2012

Sectarianism in the Eye of the Beholder: Shehadi Responds to Landis

Posted by Qifa Nabki under Lebanon, Syria | Tags: , , , , , |
[59] Comments 

And the hits keep coming. Nadim Shehadi articulates much better than I do the fundamental point of contention with Josh Landis regarding the question of Lebanese and Syrian sectarianism. I’m hoping MESA can be persuaded to host an installment of this very interesting exchange in Denver later this year. See below.

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This is another attempt to divert the debate into a Lebanon vs Syria one and using Lebanon as a ‘bad example’ to in a way justify the situation in Syria. This is similar to the way Joshua uses Lebanon to say that Syria could descend into a civil war like Lebanon, or Iraq for that matter. I am not sure if this fulfils any purpose because we are all agreed now that the regime is in fact gone and there is no need to justify its behaviour.

But I think it is worth going back to Elias’s old theme of sectarianism, the meaning of the concept and the manner in which it is used. This demonstrates a huge gap in thinking between two modes which Joshua puts his finger on as being the process of transformation from dismantled empires to post-colonial states.

One of the most difficult questions in mathematics, economics, politics, electoral law etc… is the method of aggregating from an individual preferences to group preference. In fact the issue is not resolvable. The best illustration of that is the multitudes of electoral systems and laws which are in fact attempts to aggregate from individual to groups. This is probably the bottom line in the debate on sectarianism.

Old Empires recognized groups at the expense of individuals and modern states systems are based on individual preferences or ‘citizen’ at the expense of groups. There are in fact two Turkish models: the Ottoman one and Ataturk’s modern ‘citizenship’ or ‘laicite’ model. The latter is no less oppressive to groups than the former was for individuals. In fact the debate over the relevance of the modern Turkish model to the region ignore the impact the development of this model had on group identities in Turkey: Armenians, Greeks, Arabs, Kurds etc… etc….

The Lebanese model adapts elements of the former Ottoman model to the state, the idea is to to defuse the group representation issue and take it out of the equation in order to allow the space for individuals to act as citizen and think beyond groups towards the state. This at least was the interpretation of Michel Chiha and one can argue till kingdom come about the merits of the system and the extent to which it was either a success or a failure and why.

The main point I would like to make is that crude sectarianism does not really exist on the ground and can be more often found in the eye of the beholder. This is both apparent in the analysis on Syria and the references to Lebanon. In statements like:

It took Lebanese Muslims 15 years to unseat Christian power and it still isn’t complete, seeing as Christians still have an undemocratic 50% of parliament preserved for them and refuse to push for a census.

Let us expand a bit on what this means: in pre-civilwar Lebanon the 99 member parliament was divided between 54 ‘Christians’ and 45 ‘Muslims’ both broadly defined. The post Taif parliament is 64 to 64. Is this how ‘Muslims’ unseated ‘Christian power’? And are Lebanese Muslims still trying to capture the rest of that percentage with Christians still clinging to power and refusing to have a census? Was the Lebanese ‘civil war’ between Muslims and Christians in that crude manner? Is Lebanon still ‘undemocratic’ until there is a census that fine-tunes parliamentary proportions with demographic data?

A statement like the above demonstrates the flaws in a ‘sectarian’ analysis much more than it illustrates the flaws of the power sharing system in Lebanon (and there are many). Joshua’s analysis of Syria suffers from the same flaws. The regime is not ‘Alawite’ etc.. etc… Such an analysis plays on the fears of minorities and as Joshua says manipulates them – and this is probably a good description of how the Syrian regime’s mentality sees Syria now and how it saw Lebanon.

I think a comparison between the Lebanese and Syrian models is useful for an analysis of the future of the region and how states would square the circle between individuals and groups. There is no such thing as a ‘natural’ state or a ‘cohesive’ one either in Europe or in the region and god forbid we should ever try to achieve any, this is what the great European civil war which some people call the 2nd World War was fought about.

In fact it is possible that the colonial powers (bless them), unintentionally did us a huge favour by jumping a step and creating these ‘artificial’ states rather than leaving it to us to follow their example and create them through 400 years of inter-European fighting. If the post-colonial system is being dismantled on the ground, it will probably also gradually wane as an analytical framework too.

QN you owe me a beer or two in Boston and I hope Josh can pass through sometime in April. [QN: Ahlan wa-sahlan. Looking forward to it.]

best

nadim
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February 14, 2012

More on Levantine Sectarianism

Posted by Qifa Nabki under Lebanon | Tags: , , , , |
[20] Comments 

Joshua Landis sent me a response to my post from a few days ago, which I publish below. I think we’re talking past each other in certain ways, but I’ll let the readership sort that out.

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Dear Elias,

Please allow me to respond to your earlier post, entitled “Who is Right on Syria?. You write that I incorrectly place Syria in the larger context of minorities in the region. Let me re-iterate by original argument. The following is what will be published in an article for Middle East Policy in a week or two:

“Let us place the regime in regional perspective. The Asads stand atop the last minoritarian regime in the Levant and thus seem destined to fall in this age of popular revolt. When they do, the postcolonial era will draw to a final close.

Following World War II, minorities took control in every Levant state, thanks to colonial divide-and-rule tactics and the fragmented national community that bedeviled the states of the region. It is estimated that, due to their over-recruitment by the French Mandate authorities, Alawis already by the mid-1950s constituted some 65 percent of all noncommissioned officers in the Syrian military. Within a decade, they took control of the military leadership and, with it, Syria itself.

Unique among the Levant states was Palestine, where the Jewish minority was able to transform itself into the majority at the expense of Palestine’s Muslims. Neither the Christians of Lebanon nor the Sunnis of Iraq were so lucky or ambitious. Nevertheless, both clung to power at the price of dragging their countries into lengthy civil wars. The Lebanese war lasted 15 years; the Iraqi struggle between Shiites and Sunnis, while shorter, has yet to be entirely resolved.

The Alawis of Syria seem determined to repeat this violent plunge to the bottom. It is hard to determine whether this is due to the rapaciousness of a corrupt elite, to the bleak prospects that the Alawi community faces in a post-Asad Syria, or to the weak faith that many in the region place in democracy and power-sharing formulas. Whatever the reason, Syria’s transition away from minority rule is likely to be lengthy and violent.

Even though the Alawis make up a mere 12 percent of the total population, the regime continues to count on support from other minorities, who fear Islamists coming to power, and from important segments of the Sunni population, who fear civil war.

The Asads have been planning for this day of popular insurrection all their lives…..”

You write:

I don’t agree with his larger historical reading of why Lebanon and Iraq had sectarian civil wars in the first place. He finds the origins of those civil conflicts in the colonialist legacy. Broadly speaking, the Europeans came along and created these states that are not really states, and put certain sectarian minorities in charge of them. And the wars that eventually came about were the product of the masses revolting against those minoritarian elites.

That model fits Iraq better than it does Lebanon, whose civil war was the product of many different forces. Yes, there was a movement against Christian political superiority, but it was just one of the many factors that created and prolonged the conflict. Let’s not forget about the roles played by the Israelis, the PLO, the Syrians, Saudis, Americans, and others.

I am not sure if we really disagree. You suggest that I am blaming the sectarian strife in the region on the colonialists. I do only in part because it was the French and British who conquered the Ottoman Empire and had the thankless task of trying to turn a multi-ethnic empire into nation states. If the Russians or Germans had divided up the Ottoman Empire, I think they would have failed as well. This is because no “natural” borders and no “natural” nations existed. This process is not unique to the Middle East. European nations have emerged out of the collapse of multi-ethnic empires only after centuries of nationalist turmoil, ethnic cleansing, and compromise and integration. To a large extent, all nations have had to be constructed, as we all know.

Yes, the French and British tried to divide and rule. What other choice did they have? But the sectarian, regional, and family divisions that they exploited already existed. I do not subscribe to the argument that they were “constructed” by the colonialists. They manipulated but didn’t create them.

My intent was not to blame the present mess on the foreigners but on the difficulties of turning empires into nations, which has always been a violent process.

Of course there are many other reasons besides sectarianism for the Lebanese Civil War, as you rightly point out. There are many other reasons for the Syrian revolt than sectarianism. The regime failed to deliver enough economic growth, limit population expansion, limit corruption, etc. We could go on and on.

My point in underlining the common communal struggles of the Levant states is to argue why I disagree with the many analysts who have been predicting a short battle and early collapse of the regime. It took Lebanese Muslims 15 years to unseat Christian power and it still isn’t complete, seeing as Christians still have an undemocratic 50% of parliament preserved for them and refuse to push for a census. Sunnis in Iraq are still battling to get back power from the majority Shiites, eight years after having been flung flung power, which they so brutally abused. Palestinians are still killing Israelis to get back what they insist is theirs. I am simply underlining how difficult it has been for the various religious communities of the Levant to establish a common national political community, where they can work out their differences through compromise and consensus, rather than barbaric fighting. This is, of course, not unique to the Middle East. Americans are guilty of ethnically cleansing the Indians and stealing their land as well as oppressing black Americans.

I wish this process were “so twentieth century” but I fear it is not. I would argue that Lebanon was not so different from Syria. Yes Syria’s Baathist dictatorship resembles Iraq more than Lebanon’s lop-sided confessional arrangement before the Civil War, but I was not talking about political systems, I was talking about the difficulty in unseating the minorities, which had captured the lion’s share of political power in the Levant states. Didn’t Kamal Jumblat demand democracy and “one man, one vote” on the eve of the civil war, a demand which was not that different from those being made by Syrians today? Of course there are many differences between the two uprisings, but some similarities exist between the Levant societies that can help us understand why the present conflict seems so intractable and will probably be long and bloody. Back in May, the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohammed Riad al-Shaqfa stated that Bashar would fall “in the next few months.” The U.S. State Department has called President Asad a “dead man walking.” Israel’s defense minister insisted some time ago that Asad would fall in a matter of weeks.

I was simply trying to point out how absurd such predictions seem if compared to the time-frame for other sectarian power transfers in the Levant.

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A quick comment from me (Elias/QN): I agree with a lot of what Joshua is saying here, but I think my original point still stands: We have to be careful about conflating Lebanon and Syria when it comes to the question of political sectarianism. Forty-two years of Baathist rule  is a different phenomenon from the situation that prevailed in First Republic Lebanon, and sectarianism has a different salience in these two contexts.

If the presence of minorities  mattered more to political dynamics than other historical factors (like the experience of authoritarianism) then one could imagine a very simplistic response to Josh’s argument: “Well, Syria is 75% Sunni, which is closer to Egypt’s 90% than Lebanon’s mix of Sunnis, Christians, and Shiites…” Obviously, that’s a  naive argument, which is my point. Sectarianism, in and of itself, should not be the primary lens through which we view a post-Assad Syria. It has, and will continue to have, political salience but to read Levantine political history predominantly through this prism risks homogenizing two very different contexts.

But what the hell do I know? I’m a medievalist. The forum is open for comment.

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February 10, 2012

Joshua Landis and Nadim Shehadi on Syria

Posted by Qifa Nabki under Syria | Tags: , , , |
[146] Comments 

Two very smart friends — Josh Landis and Nadim Shehadi — had interesting things to say in the comment section of the last post. I hope neither of them mind me bringing those comments up to the main page so that other readers can weigh in. The exchange was touched off by an interview that Josh recently gave on Charlie Rose, where he argued that Syria could be descending into civil war.

Nadim’s response:

Josh is right that Syria could turn into a Lebanon and Iraq but it can also be in the positive sense: in that it could develop a democratic system of power sharing – possibly with a senate but we have to wait till you finish your project before we say that.

It may also be that the logical conclusion of Josh’s argument is that both Lebanon and Iraq need Baath party rule to have stability and this is because of their sectarian divisions and diversity and this is a more worrying conclusion.

Josh was also right in saying from the very beginning back in January 2011 that the revolts would never happen in Syria because the army would stand by the regime and would not hesitate to shoot at the demonstrators, which is in fact what happened.

Violence has always been part of the argument and we have seen this in all the revolts be it Tunis, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, Yemen or Syria. The message there is that any alternative to the regime is much worse that the regime or even too horrible to even contemplate changing the regime. The regime’s power relies on maintaining that illusion and on us not being able to see beyond them.

This is the idea of power that I see Josh trying to maintain in many of his statements on Syria and this has become a genre echoed by others. Nick Noe’s piece is almost a prototype of that argument that many others also make. The aim is to maintain the idea of power, by showing that the regime is indispensable, irreplaceable and that whatever lies beyond it is too horrible to contemplate.

Below is my take on the maintenance of this ‘idea’:

Egypt Crisis: Re-evaluating Risk in the Middle East (Chatham House – Monday 31 January 2011)

Syria: Violence as a Communications Strategy (EUISS – 16 August 2011)

The Syrian ‘opposition’does not have to prove itself (The Guardian,1 October 2011)

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Joshua’s response:

Dear Nadim,

You write: “This is the idea of power that I see Josh trying to maintain in many of his statements on Syria and this has become a genre echoed by others.”

You are correct that I have since the beginning believed that there is “no soft landing” for the Assad regime and that it would fight the kind of war that it is now fighting. This is what I wrote in the first article I published about the uprising, and, in fact, in a book review of Nikolaos van Dam’s second edition of his book in the 1990s for the International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, when I first used the phrase, “there is no soft landing for the Assad regime.” This is what I understood van Dam essentially argued in his book, which I concurred with at the time. Here is how I concluded the review:

Van Dam is not optimistic about the prospects for meaningful economic reform in Syria or the possibility of a Velvet Revolution in the future. He points out the Asad’s anti-corruption campaigns have been ineffectual because the President refuses to discipline his security chiefs, many of whom are the worst offenders. He doubts that the country can make a peaceful transition to a post-Asad government, because Asad has allowed his regime to become ossified. No purges have been carried out and few top personnel have been changed in the last 25 years. Consequently, no new generation has been groomed for power or schooled in the art of government. Only the President’s son, Bashar, seems to be in line to inherit authority from his father. Other members of Asad’s inner circle have likewise been grooming their sons to succeed them. He notes that the Sunni majority has not given up its “negative attitude towards Alawi religion and Alawis in general,” and adds that he finds it “very difficult to imagine a scenario in which the present narrowly based, totalitarian regime… can be peacefully transformed into a more widely based democracy.

The key to Asad’s success has been his ability to rule through his metaphorical village. Whether the dynastic principle that Asad and his men have been pushing will catch on in Syria is an open question. Van Dam gives us little reason to believe that Syria is developing either the political institutions or broader national identity that may someday replace the parochial loyalties and narrow prejudices which now define politics in Syria.

My bleak view of the situation in Syria has guided my analysis from the beginning. I suspect the war that is now beginning to grip Syria will last some years before it is over. So far, I believe my pessimistic view has unfortunately been justified.

Many have suggested that my analysis is motivated by some “idea of power” that I am trying to promote or belief in the regime’s goodness. I would argue the opposite. It is because of my understanding of the regime’s use of patrimonial loyalties that I have been frightened of the outcome. Others have suggested that my marriage to an Alawi (which was well after I wrote the book review quoted above) changed or guided my views. I would suggest that my ideas were well established before falling in love with Manar and that my subsequent intimate knowledge of the Alawi community only confirmed by belief that Syria’s sectarian problems were deep and not easily finessed. Of course living in Lebanon for years during the civil war as Christian and Muslim killed each other laid the foundation for my understanding of identity politics in the Levant. I was living in Damascus during the Hama uprising and brutal suppression of the revolt, which also colored my views.

At this point, there is no going back for the opposition and I do not believe that the regime can right itself, as I explained in my – “The Regime is Doomed” — article.

I have tried to explain from the beginning how I believed events will unfold. If they are scary, it is because I think they are scary and will be scary and unhappy for some time to come. You are right to point out that I misjudged Syrians when I argued that I thought the Arab Spring would not blossom or take root in Syria. I can only hope that in the end things will work out for the best. Syria needs a new form of government. You note that my faith is weak, and in that, I confess, without pride or smugness, you are correct.
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February 8, 2012

Who is Right on Syria?

Posted by Qifa Nabki under Israel, Lebanon, Syria | Tags: , , , , |
[33] Comments 

Greetings from dissertation-land. I’ve tried my best to keep my head down over the past few weeks, hence the long spell between posts. Since the comment section is stirring with a discussion about the events in Syria, though, I thought I’d throw a quick post up with some of the most interesting bits and pieces from the news from the past few days.

The NY Times had one of its “Room for Debate” roundtables yesterday, with contributions from Rime Allaf, Sharmine Narwani, Andrew Tabler, Anne-Marie Slaughter, and Ed Husain.

Nick Noe advocates a bargain with the devil, also in the NYT.

A reporter from Al-Akhbar interviews members of the Free Syrian Army in Lebanon.

Josh Landis speaks with Charlie Rose, Fouad Ajami, Anne-Marie Slaughter, and Tom Friedman.

A very quick note about one of Josh Landis’s points, in the above interview. Josh often says that Syria could turn into another Lebanon or Iraq, and I think he’s right, in the sense that we could see a full-blown sectarian war there, depending on which outside powers get involved.

However, I don’t agree with his larger historical reading of why Lebanon and Iraq had sectarian civil wars in the first place. He finds the origins of those civil conflicts in the colonialist legacy. Broadly speaking, the Europeans came along and created these states that are not really states, and put certain sectarian minorities in charge of them. And the wars that eventually came about were the product of the masses revolting against those minoritarian elites.

That model fits Iraq better than it does Lebanon, whose civil war was the product of many different forces. Yes, there was a movement against Christian political superiority, but it was just one of the many factors that created and prolonged the conflict. Let’s not forget about the roles played by the Israelis, the PLO, the Syrians, Saudis, Americans, and others.

This may sound like hair-splitting, but I think it’s important to choose our words carefully when we talk about the prospects of sectarian violence, and how to avoid it. If Syria resembles either of these nightmare scenarios, it would be Saddam’s Iraq, not pre-civil war Lebanon. The preponderance of power held by the state, the large and relatively powerful army facing ragtag (but gradually more organized  and foreign-funded) militias, the legacy of authoritarianism, the Baath party, etc… these are all commonalities shared by Assad’s Syria and Saddam’s Iraq, not 1970s Lebanon.

Lebanon, past and present, is a cautionary tale in many respects. But not, I would argue, for the current situation in Syria.

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December 28, 2011

Syria’s Defecting Bloggers

Posted by Qifa Nabki under Arab Politics, My articles, Syria | Tags: , , , , |
[240] Comments 

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)
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October 14, 2011

Tunisia’s Upcoming Elections: Lessons for Lebanon?

Posted by Qifa Nabki under Elections, Lebanon, Reform | Tags: , , , , , |
[70] Comments 

Lebanon's various electoral maps (courtesy of IFES, see report below)

The Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED) has published an excellent primer on Tunisia’s upcoming elections. It is succinct, well-written, and will bring you up to speed on all of the most important players, issues, and questions in about twenty minutes. I highly recommend checking it out (download the PDF here).

Speaking of elections, Lebanon’s Interior Minister Marwan Charbel unveiled a new electoral draft law a couple of days ago. It contains several positive elements, such as a 30% gender quota, pre-printed ballots, and an open-list proportional representation system, but disappoints in other ways — several small districts, no independent supervisory commission.

The big debate over the law will focus on the question of how many electoral districts to include. Unless the districts are large, proportional representation will not generate the major benefit that its advocates ascribe to it, namely a diverse representation of political parties. For some background reading on the subject of electoral districting in Lebanon, here is another excellent primer, this one by the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (whose work we have highlighted on many occasions).

Thoughts on electoral reform issues are welcome in the comment section.
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October 7, 2011

Divided Societies

Posted by Qifa Nabki under Free Patriotic Movement, Hezbollah, Lebanon, Reform | Tags: , , , , , |
[78] Comments 

A journalist called me yesterday afternoon for a comment on the recent news that Mitt Romney had appointed Walid Phares to his foreign policy team. As is well known, Phares was a member of the Lebanese Forces’ Executive Committee during the Lebanese Civil War, and the news of his appointment provoked a few expressions of surprise and dismay among DC-based Mideast policy wonks.

After getting off the phone, I did a quick search through the news archives and turned up a 1995 article in the Jerusalem Report, describing an initiative launched by Walid Phares in the mid-90s called the Leadership Committee for a Free Middle East. The committee brought together “top officials of the Zionist Organization of America, the Jewish Action Alliance, Americans for a Safe Israel and Likud America, along with groups claiming to represent Lebanese Maronites, Egyptian Copts, Iraqi Assyrians and South Sudanese Christians.” Here’s the part to read:

The groups have natural common interests, said Manfred Lehman, a member of the ZOA’s national executive and an organizer of the coalition. Christians in the Middle East are often persecuted by Muslim governments, he said, and are threatened by Islamic fundamentalism.

The initiative for the committee came from Walid Phares, the Maronite founder of the World Lebanese Organization. “For us, the conflict in the Middle East is not Arab against Israeli, but Arab against non-Arab,” he said, arguing that the Maronites, and most other Mideast Christian groups, are not ethnic Arabs, but descendants of Christian peoples who lived in the region before the Muslim Arab conquest in the seventh century.

Phares’s own history points to further motives behind the new coalition. A former official with the Lebanese Forces, a Christian militia, he fled to the United States in 1990 after Syrian troops crushed the last Christian resistance in Beirut. His group has branches in several countries and in Israel’s security zone in South Lebanon, which he says is “for us the last free enclave for Lebanese Christians.”

The Leadership Committee for a Free Middle East seems to have had a short-lived history, but the few hits that Google turns up include this little gem from Manfred Lehmann’s website

We had a nice minyan for all Shabbat services, including a Sefer Torah from a neighborhood synagogue. I did not attend any of the Shabbat sessions, but was told that the most sensational presentations was rendered by Professor Walid Phares, head of the World Lebanese Organization, who co-chairs with me the Leadership Committee for a free Middle East. He showed how the Moslem Arabs in the Middle East are invaders, conquerors and occupiers of land that was owned by the original Christian populations — the Copts in Egypt, the Maronites and Phoenicians in Lebanon, the Assyrian/Chaldeans in Iraq, etc… They all look upon Israel — the only country that regained its historical land — as their own only hope to regain their own political and religious independence. He also explained something absolutely fundamental. The main reason the Arabs hate Israel is that they fear exactly this re-awakening of the original inhabitants of the lands they have usurped. While Israel exists, the Arabs must fear that the original populations will make a comeback and evict the Moslems from the lands conquered by them. Hence the close love by these Christians for Israel and their feeling of total interdependence. Eighteen million Christians are affected by this situation — the most important and powerful group of allies Israel has, which until now it has ignored and neglected!

What I find most interesting about the Phares story is, sadly, not the fact that Romney appointed him to his Mideast advisory committee, but rather how bizarrely out of sync Phares’s views are with mainstream Christian politics in Lebanon today.

The Lebanese Christians have a “close love” for Israel? They regard the Muslims as “invaders”? If Walid Phares ran for political office in Lebanon today, how good would his chances be, do you think? I’d put them somewhere in Antoine Lahad territory.

This is not to say that there aren’t Lebanese who share Phares’s oddball views about the ethnic origins of the Maronites and their secessionist aspirations, and some of them may even hold public office today. But these views are no longer part of the mainstream Christian discourse, just as Hassan Nasrallah’s calls for the creation of an Islamic state in the 1980s are now regarded as an embarrassment by the party (and were anyway disavowed by Nasrallah himself as early as 1995).

My point here is that while much is made of Lebanon being a divided society — as reflected in its confessional politics and civil conflicts — it is also true that over twenty years have passed since the end of the civil war, and whatever Lebanon is today, it is not what it was in the 1970s and 1980s. Certain things have changed, for better or worse.

The Maronite Patriarch’s defense of Hizbullah’s weapons is only the most recent example we could point to. Beshara al-Rai took a lot of heat from some Christians for his statements, but he also gained sympathy from many others who support the FPM’s alliance with Hizbullah. And speaking of which, who could have imagined such an alliance between the Aounists (whose views were not that different from those of other right-wing Christian parties) and Hizbullah, twenty years ago?

Yes, there is plenty of opportunism and cynicism in play. But let’s not brandish silly terms like “stagnation” and “feudalism” as a substitute for real engagement with Lebanon’s complexities. Our society remains divided, but the fact that the views of Hassan Nasrallah (circa 1985) and Walid Phares (circa 1995 and perhaps still today) are largely out of place in contemporary Lebanese political discourse is a reminder that divisiveness is not hard-wired into Lebanon’s society or its politics. To insist otherwise is, in my view, a symptom of intellectual laziness.

This post started out about Mitt Romney and has sort of morphed into a response to the friendly criticisms of my recent post about Lebanon and the Arab Revolutions. In that essay, I made the simple argument that the reason Lebanon has not witnessed massive popular protests as we’ve seen in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Bahrain, and Yemen has little to do with our “social divisiveness” or “political immaturity” and everything to do with the absence of authoritarian conditions and a single, hegemonic, universally reviled “regime”.

I also argued that Lebanese democracy activists have relatively fewer formidable challenges to contend with than their counterparts in countries where the remnants of a once-powerful regime are effectively dictating the course of events in the post-revolutionary period. This is not to say that Lebanese activists do not have their own cast of reactionary forces to face off with, but let’s be honest: there is a difference between Nabih Berri and Field Marshal Tantawi (who is targeting civil society groups with greater ruthlessness than Mubarak did).

The point of this argument is not to get into a pissing match about which Middle Eastern countries are more suited to democracy (especially given that different democratic models may work for different countries). Rather, my underlying point was the following:

If one is willing to make a case for cautious optimism regarding the possibilities of reform in countries like Egypt and Libya, then there’s no reason not to be similarly optimistic with a case like Lebanon.

Some of you remarked that Lebanon does not need a revolution of the streets, but rather a “revolution of thought”, a change in mindsets and orientations. I would suggest that such changes are already taking place gradually, under the surface, and we would be better served by recognizing them and trying to bolster them rather than sitting around and waiting for a “revolution of thought”.

Let me close by reiterating that this essay should not be read as a defense of the status quo. If there’s a purpose behind Qifa Nabki, it’s to think critically and aggressively about the problems of governance in Lebanon. Doing that effectively means, in part, being clear-eyed about the true nature of the challenges facing the country, the opportunities available for reform, and the resources that can be drawn upon to effect progressive change.

Okay, back to the dissertation… *sigh*
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September 26, 2011

Lebanon and the Arab Revolutions

Posted by Qifa Nabki under Arab Politics, Lebanon, Syria | Tags: , , , , |
[96] Comments 

Several months ago, I found myself in a group discussion on Facebook about the Arab revolutions. Egypt and Tunisia had recently toppled their dictators, and the freedom train seemed poised to roll into Yemen, Libya, Syria, and beyond.

It escaped no one during this season of political transformation in the Middle East that Lebanon was a strange study in stability. Usually a magnet for civil unrest and ideological fervor, the country felt oddly insulated from the waves of popular dissent that threatened to fashion a new Arab political order in the space of a single year.

True, Beirut had witnessed the odd ragtag anti-sectarianism march, but no sign of the enormous public demonstrations seen in Benghazi or Cairo. This was evidence, so my Facebook interlocutors suggested, of Lebanon’s political immaturity, its parochialism and fractiousness, and perhaps even the artificiality of its claim to nationhood. While the people of Egypt and Tunisia had demonstrated remarkable unity and bravery by standing as one to break their shackles, the Lebanese remained hopelessly mired in a rut of sectarianism and petty divisiveness.

Something about this reading struck me as simple-minded. This is not to say that I subscribed to the chauvinist ‘been-there-done-that’ argument that one regularly encountered among many Lebanese (who gestured gallantly toward the events of March 2005 by way of explaining why Lebanon had no need to partake in any revolutionary activities in 2011).

Rather, what I found problematic about the discussion on Facebook was its assumption that Egypt and Tunisia had reached the finish line in their struggle for democracy and self-determination, when it seemed fairly straightforward that these two countries (like the rest of their regional compatriots, the Lebanese included) were still very much at the starting line.

There’s certainly no question that Lebanon’s politics are crippled by sectarian institutions and the false idol of consensual governance. However, sectarianism is surely not the only flavor of social divisiveness that can undermine democratic processes and institution building. Economic inequalities, ethnic and tribal divisions, religious fundamentalism, etc. represent other major challenges. As inspiring as the events of the last year have been, they hardly represent a litmus test for the viability of a national identity, much less a certificate of sovereignty and self-determination.

I was reminded of this discussion recently by an excellent article in The New York Review of Books, by Hussein Agha and Robert Malley. They argue that the Arab revolutions have been effectively overtaken by the Arab counterrevolution, the primary agents of which include entrenched economic elites, military leaders, former regime operatives, and foreign powers, all of whom are now seeking to shape events in their favor (and are largely succeeding).

The essay is worth a close read, but I thought I’d draw your attention to an excerpt that struck me as relevant to the question of Lebanon’s membership in the Arab Spring club.

“Revolutions devour their children. The spoils go to the resolute, the patient, who know what they are pursuing and how to achieve it. Revolutions almost invariably are short-lived affairs, bursts of energy that destroy much on their pathway, including the people and ideas that inspired them. So it is with the Arab uprising. It will bring about radical changes. It will empower new forces and marginalize others. But the young activists who first rush onto the streets tend to lose out in the skirmishes that follow. Members of the general public might be grateful for what they have done. They often admire them and hold them in high esteem. But they do not feel they are part of them. The usual condition of a revolutionary is to be tossed aside.

“The Arab world’s immediate future will very likely unfold in a complex tussle between the army, remnants of old regimes, and the Islamists, all of them with roots, resources, as well as the ability and willpower to shape events. Regional parties will have influence and international powers will not refrain from involvement. There are many possible outcomes—from restoration of the old order to military takeover, from unruly fragmentation and civil war to creeping Islamization. But the result that many outsiders had hoped for—a victory by the original protesters—is almost certainly foreclosed.“

I am very rarely optimistic about Lebanon’s short-term political prospects. We seem to go from one election to another pinning our hopes on the notion that the next crop of plutocrats will not be as feckless as the last. However, reading over Agha and Malley’s prognosis, I could not help but think that Lebanon’s problems seemed somehow more manageable than its neighbors’.

Consider the fact that of the three major players shaping the future of the post-Arab Spring states, only one (the members of the old political class) possesses any real political muscle in Lebanon. The army enjoys widespread  support but is not a major political and economic force, as it is in places like Egypt and Turkey, or in Iran, where the army controls entire industries and maintains its monopolies with the assistance of the state.

Lebanon has Islamists, but there is no mainstream movement calling for the creation of an Islamic state. A recent Pew Research poll found that only a small minority of Lebanese Muslims (second only to Turkey) were in favor of harsh punishments for adultery, theft, and apostasy.  Meanwhile, it is rare that one meets a Maronite today who believes their country should be a Christian homeland in political and spiritual communion with France.

Finally, even our politicians, as odious as they are, hardly constitute a unitary and hegemonic “regime”. For all of Lebanon’s problems — a weak central authority, political and economic corruption, clericalism, foreign influence, sectarian structures and mindsets, patronage networks, etc. — it remains a multi-polar arena, with all the “self-regulating” mechanisms that such a structure engenders.

Would I trade this brand of dysfunction for the challenges facing reformers in Egypt, Libya, or Syria? I don’t think I would. I’ll take entropy or centrifugality (or whatever physics-inspired euphemism one might use to put a positive spin on our chaotic system) over the deeply rooted political, military, and economic structures of a post-dictatorial regime.

Thoughts?
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July 29, 2011

Western Intelligence and the Arab Revolutions

Posted by Qifa Nabki under Lebanon, Syria | Tags: , , , , , , |
[63] Comments 

As I was perusing some of the latest Wikileaks cables, I came across this little nugget about Asif Shawkat, the former head of Syrian Military Intelligence and brother-in-law of President Bashar al-Assad:

05PARIS6580 (September 26, 2005) — President Jacques Chirac’s Technical Advisor on Middle East/Americas Dominique Boche “reiterated that the content of the final Mehlis report would be decisive. If the report established direct [Syrian government] responsibility for Hariri’s assassination, Boche speculated that Bashar may give up second-tier officials up to the level of Interior Minister Ghazi Kanaan and former [Syrian Military Intelligence] Chief in Lebanon Rustom Ghazaleh, without touching brother-in law Asif Shawkat, in-laws the Makhlufs, or his brother Mahir. Boche added that he could not exclude any possibilities for regime stability after the Mehlis report; there could be a “palace coup,” with other powerful Alawis taking over; the Alawites could lose control to the Sunnis, who lack leaders; or Bashar could seize the moment to consolidate his authority and marginalize others, as he has started to do since the last Ba’th party congress. [French Ministry of Foreign Affairs Deputy Assistant Secretary-equivalent for Egypt/Levant] Besancenot was more cautious than Boche in reiterating to us that the [Government of France (GoF)] did not want a “total destabilization” in Syria, nor did the GoF want isolation of Syria to lead to it increasing its “nuisance capacity” in the region…”

“Boche confirmed that [Syrian Military Intelligence] Chief Asif Shawkat had visited Paris and met with [French intelligence agency DST] head Bosquet and no other GoF officials, before departing France. Boche described Shawkat’s visit as part of long-standing liaison relationship between French and Syrian security services, and noted Shawkat usually visited France twice a year. Boche described timing for the visit as “unfortunate,” and claimed that there was a lack of coordination within the GoF, with the Elysee learning of the visit only after Shawkat had arrived. He added that Shawkat has a sick child, which could have been another reason for the visit. Boche offered no details on the contents of Shawkat’s discussions with the DST.”

Comment

As is clear from the cable, the French were very uneasy about seeing Syria destabilized as a result of the Mehlis Report. If they were that anxious about the political fallout of a humble UN investigation report, I can only imagine what kinds of conversations are taking place today between French and American diplomats about the situation in Syria. For anyone still puzzled about the double standard of the Obama administration on Libya vs. Syria, these cables offer a sobering reminder of the fact that for all the bluster about the Axis of Evil, Hizbullah, Iran, yada yada yada, the prospect of an Assad-less Syria is even more problematic to the West than the “nuisance capacity” of the current regime.

Also, why hasn’t anyone else commented on the fact that Asif Shawkat was visiting France twice a year “as part of a long-standing liaison relationship between French and Syrian security services“? This is Asif Shawkat we’re talking about: the man with no face, the hidden hand of the Syrian mukhabarocracy, etc. Try to find a picture of the guy online and you might luck out with a couple grainy shots here and there. Meanwhile, the French were hosting him on a biannual basis to talk intelligence.

It is well-known that Shawkat (who made Foreign Policy’s list of the Middle East’s Most Powerful Spooks in 2009) also worked with the Americans after the 9/11 attacks to set up intelligence sharing and cooperation, but that this relationship broke down after Syria declined to join the Iraq war in 2003. I guess what I’m saying is that, like Jamil al-Sayyid (whom Feltman outed as an American intelligence asset in another Wikileaks cable), Shawkat is a perfect example of a Middle Eastern strongman whom the West likes to vilify as a public enemy, but who is, in reality, very much a private ally.
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June 23, 2011

Only the Brave

Posted by Qifa Nabki under Syria, The Qnion | Tags: , , |
[100] Comments 


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