6
July 2006
Preparing a path to Christian disillusion
There were three reasons why former Minister Suleiman
Franjieh compared Archbishop Youssef Beshara to Judas, accusing him of having betrayed
Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Boutros Sfeir.
The first and most obvious one is that it allowed
Franjieh to strike at Sfeir without suffering the backlash, particularly in his
native Zghorta, of a direct assault on the prelate. The patriarch remains the
last serious cornerstone of opposition to Syria in the Maronite community, at a
time when Franjieh has teamed up with Michel Aoun to advocate improved ties
with the regime in Damascus. Sfeir's isolation is a paramount Syrian
objective, only underscored by the criticism the patriarch recently voiced
against Hizbullah during his trip to the United States, where he is expected to
meet with the American president, George W. Bush.
A second reason for Franjieh's outburst was that Beshara
is considered a favorite to succeed Sfeir. If the archbishop can be
sufficiently tarred as a divisive Maronite figure, the former minister probably
believes, that would lessen his chances of one day becoming patriarch.
Franjieh's comrades in Damascus have long sought to play Maronite Church
politics, and he is giving them a new opportunity to do so. As overseer of the
late Qornet Shehwan grouping, Beshara wore his antagonism toward Syrian
hegemony on his sleeve. Neither Syria nor its Lebanese satellites cares to see
another Sfeir in Bkirki when the matter of succession arises.
A third reason is more convoluted, and has to do with the
fact that Franjieh believes the Maronites can only be saved through a
regional alliance of minorities - namely with the Shiites and Alawites -
against the Sunni majority. It was no coincidence, in that context, that he
denounced Beshara as being a lackey of the Hariris. This dovetailed nicely with
the fact that the main Aounist rallying cry in recent months has also been open
hostility to the power of the Hariri family - a circuitous means of denouncing
purported Sunni domination.
Franjieh was peddling the alliance-of-minorities line
when the Syrians were still running Lebanese affairs. It was a convenient way
of justifying his fealty to an Assad regime that had systematically dismantled
Maronite influence, leading to the community's political seclusion for much of
the postwar period. However, far more bizarre has been the attitude of Aoun,
whose exile was a major step in this Syrian effort at communal eradication.
Franjieh stoutly supported Aoun's earlier removal and humiliation, and for a
brief time after Aoun's return last year the general latched on to a sensible
idea: Because Christians were on the decline, it made no sense for them to take
sides in the Sunni-Shiite struggle over Lebanon's future. Christians would
always be second fiddle, and suffer, in the event of a conflict between the
two; and they would pay a high price if Sunnis and Shiites were in accord while
Christians were outside the consensus.
Then something changed and Aoun took sides. He chose to
establish a weird alliance with Hizbullah (one which hardly protected Christian
neighborhoods from Shiite wrath after a satire show on LBC television made fun
of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah). The agreement brought Aoun almost no gains, not
even implementation of a relatively modest stipulation that Christians who fled
to Israel in 2000 might be able to return. It did, however, hand Hizbullah a
valuable political life raft by widening the rift in the original March 14
coalition. It also allowed the party to reassert itself under the umbrella of a
revived Iranian-Syrian partnership.
Why Aoun's sudden about-face? Inconsistency is the
general's middle name, as anyone who looks back at his wretched efforts between
1989 and 1990 to liberate Lebanon from militia rule, then from Syrian rule,
then again from militia rule, can conclude. One interpretation is that Aoun's
omnipresent son-in-law, Jubran Bassil, is friends with Franjieh, shares
his alliance-of-minorities theory, and persuaded the erratic general to go
along. Whether this is true or not, Aoun's decision to side with the Shiites
against the Sunnis is as foolish a scheme as the contrary would be. If there is
one thing Lebanese minority relations have shown, it's that religious
communities can build up strong ties with other communities, but that things
become trickier when they focus their actions against other communities.
As for Franjieh, his salvoes against Beshara were exotic
in that if anyone has hoodwinked Sfeir, it was the former minister. Last year,
before parliamentary elections, Franjieh alighted in Bkirki with elections
expert Kamal Feghali in tow. Their aim was to persuade the patriarch that the
2000 law, agreed between Saad Hariri, Walid Jumblatt, Hizbullah, and Amal,
marginalized the Christians. The real intention, however, was to discredit a
law that would almost certainly defeat Franjieh; but also to heighten sectarian
polarization in order to break the Sunni-Christian-Druze alliance that was the
basis of the anti-Syrian opposition.
The patriarch, understandably infuriated that Christians
had been left out of the deal-making between Jumblatt, Hariri and the Shiite
parties, bit on the bait. His protests pushed Christians to mobilize behind
Michel Aoun, whom voters somehow regarded as a "strong Christian" and
who had already decided to campaign against his former March 14 allies.
Franjieh's duping of the patriarch would have made Judas blush.
There has been a misconception among Maronites that when
the community is divided, it is weak. That may sometimes be true, but usually
in the past when the Maronites avoided putting all their hopes in one leader,
they came out of conflicts stronger, because alternatives emerged to replace
those who were defeated. In 1952, Beshara al-Khoury's resignation led to a
smooth transition to Camille Chamoun. Fouad Chehab was able to fill the vacuum
left by Chamoun's departure in 1958. Because the Maronites had several rival
power centers, the community did not face the full force of a principal
leader's failure.
In October 1990,
Aoun showed what happened when that wasn't the case. After hijacking the community and
discrediting Sfeir, he was chased out of Baabda and ceded the Maronites 15
years of limbo. Only the patriarch was left behind to pick up the pieces.
Aoun is taking his coreligionists toward new disillusionment if he believes
there are legs to a fanciful, absurd alliance with the Shiites and Alawites.
That's why the general's ties with Franjieh only bring Maronites more harm. But
deep down Aoun cannot bring himself to renounce his Northern associate. The
general resents that Sfeir is the most stubborn barrier standing between him
and the presidency. That is why Aoun still imagines that he will be
strengthened communally if the patriarch is weak.
Michael Young is opinion editor of THE DAILY STAR.
Copyright (c) 2006 The Daily Star
Sat, 08 Jul 2006 17:27:44 -0400 (Eastern Daylight Time)
From: "Naim S. Mahlab" <nsm@videotron.ca>
It pains to say
that I think the Christian community in Lebanon is doomed. Its last hope for
survival died with Bashir Jemayel who was, oddly enough, murdered by a
Christian.
With the rise of an aggressive Fundamentalist Islam,
religious minorities throughout the
Moslem world have a very bleak future to look forward to. The Coptic Egyptians
may stand a chance of some sort of survival because of their large numbers, but
the Christian communities of Irak, Syria and Lebanon will be decimated,
especially if the internecine rivalry between Sunnis and Shiites turns into a
full fledged civil war.
When you consider that the Lebanese Christians have never
been able to speak with one voice in the defense of their
community, and taking into account the very large number
of Christians who have emigrated from
Lebanon, I do not see how they can mount a strong enough defense against the
onslaught of Fundamentalist Islam.
Another religious minority that may survive is the
Zoroastrian
community of Iran because the ruling Mullahs appear to
accept them as representatives of Ancient Persia.
Naim S. Mahlab
Montreal