5
may 2006
Three
sectarian negations cannot make a nation
Almost imperceptibly, in recent days three events
have sharply drawn the parameters of Lebanese communal politics, showing how urgently Lebanon needs a new social contract. However, if you're expecting broad nationwide agreement over even the most
basic principles of such an
understanding, then you might have to be patient.
On Sunday, Druze leader Walid Jumblatt escalated his conflict with
the Syrian regime by receiving a delegation from Syria's Muslim Brotherhood at his Mukhtara
palace. The same day, a group of Christian politicians
from the March 14 coalition
met at the home of Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea
in the Cedars, only hours after
Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah
Sfeir had lamented the disunity
within the Maronite community, which he contrasted with
the situation in other communities. On Monday, Hizbullah's secretary
general, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, at a farewell reception for the Iranian ambassador,
praised Iran, saying it wanted "only good things"
for Lebanon (echoing Saad
Hariri's recent paeans to his
chaperones in Saudi Arabia). Nasrallah underlined that Tehran "has done nothing but enjoin unity in the Shiite sphere, the Islamic
sphere and the national sphere."
Each episode said more about communal
relations than met the eye. In the past
weeks, Jumblatt has expressed fear that a majority of Christians, led by Michel Aoun, would succumb to the temptation of an alliance of minorities between the Maronites and Shiites in Lebanon and the
Alawites in Syria. Such an
alliance, Jumblatt believes,
would be primarily directed against the Sunni
majority in the region and against
growing Sunni Islamism. In an interview last week
with the ABN station, the Druze leader advised Aoun to banish such thoughts,
even as Jumblatt's enemies started floating that he, or his
father Kamal, had toyed with the
ambition of creating a pan-Druze
statelet between Lebanon and Syria.
Jumblatt was probably overstating
his fears to better leverage them in future negotiations. While the notion of an alliance
of non-Sunni minorities has
been circulating among pro-Syrian Maronites in the North for some time, it doesn't appear
to be a priority for Aoun. In
fact, if anything has made the Maronites more likely to radically overhaul their policies in recent years, it
is Jumblatt's hardnosed
manipulation and containment
of the community, a cornerstone of his power. This was shown most
forcefully during last year's parliamentary elections, organized according to a law that Jumblatt saw
as essential in breaking Aoun's momentum.
How does
Syria's Muslim Brotherhood
fit into this? Jumblatt and the
Druze are vulnerable in Lebanese
communal maneuvering. The
Druze leader has managed to remain
on good terms with Aoun and Hariri while both are locked in unbecoming wrangling, but Jumblatt knows that the
Sunnis and Maronites would push him
aside if they could do so, or had to. That's why his opening to the Brotherhood appears to be more than just a threat
against Damascus; it is Jumblatt's bid to garner Islamist
cards to better enhance his position vis-ˆ-vis the Saudi regime
and any domestic
Lebanese alliance that could lead to his
political elimination. He figures that if Syrian President Bashar Assad can
persuade the Saudis to defend his Baath regime by threatening them with Sunni
Islamists, then he can use the
Brotherhood to stay
relevant in Riyadh and Beirut.
On the
Maronite side, things are a
different. The Cedars meeting was an effort to consolidate the Christian camp at a time when the office of the presidency has lost all meaning; and, more specifically, to concoct a united front against Michel Aoun,
who was not at the conclave. Aoun's absence ensured that Sfeir's fears of more inter-Maronite schisms will be
realized. The Maronite community has historically been
all fissures and fractures, if also
lively pluralism in lieu of
suffocating unanimity. Both Aoun and Geagea
at different times during the
1980s tried to eliminate their foes, and
ended up, predictably, tearing each other
to pieces.
The problem with the
Cedars meeting is that Aoun retains the support of most Christians, and the greater the
communal polarization, the greater his appeal.
This may seem a paradox, with the
general claiming to be the least sectarian
of politicians. But he also offers no new project for communal relations: He
can't stomach the post-Taif Constitution, in whose name he was
evicted from Baabda; but he can't endorse the alternative to the united Lebanon
that Taif outlines, namely transformation
of the country into a confederation of sectarian mini-states. This would smack of
partition at a time when
Aoun insists he is the incarnation of Lebanese nationhood.
So what you get
with the Aounists is a hybrid:
The general's supporters
are no less sectarian than their adversaries
inside the Christian community, or those Lebanese outside, and no less the
prisoners of a psychological
ghetto; but at the national
level their leader
continues to peddle a fiction that
he is the
grand unifier, Lebanon's own Bismarck, even as he allows
his followers to persuade themselves that he is really
one of them.
Then there is Hassan Nasrallah. He adroitly
speaks of Shiite unity and national unity in the same breath,
but his party's weapons make illusory
any serene discussion of a
new national pact, because no one wants
to bargain with someone armed to the teeth. What
is Hizbullah's vision of communal relations? What type of Lebanon can be built
under the grim countenances of Ayatollah
Ali Khamenei and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,
regardless of the "good" Iran desires for the country? What Lebanon can we
expect when the best Hizbullah has to offer by way of a social model is permanent armed resistance against its enemies?
Lebanon's dilemma
is that its
communal leaders and communities
can't even agree how to disagree. Will the country's future political system rely on full implementation of Taif, with its clauses on deconfessionalization, or on something
different that will only harden
the communities' sense of separation? Whatever the answer,
Jumblatt's maneuvering, perhaps
motivated by fear of
extinction, Maronite discord, and Hizbullah's Kalashnikov-envy are only widening the communal divide. Almost no one dares ask what
type of state most people want,
even as everyone somehow needs everyone
else so there
can be balance in the system.
This reality
alone is why war is
further away than the skeptics
imagine. With everyone mistrusting everyone else, who will
be allied with whom, against
whom? Lebanon is still caught
in a vacuum left by a 15-year war
and a debilitating 29-year Syrian presence that denied any
cross-sectarian political cooperation. It will take time for the society to emerge from this void,
but it would be nice to see
someone capable of leading the process.
*Michael Young is
opinion editor of THE DAILY STAR.