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There is a more detailed account of the general historical background in the talk given to our group in 2005 by Abdul Latif, available here A selection of David Morrison's articles on Lebanese politics may be found here
First, I want to emphasise that I don't claim to be an expert on Lebanon or Hezbollah. In the past few years, I have been trying to write about the ongoing interference by America and Britain in the Muslim world. To do that, I have had to acquire a modicum of knowledge about the history and politics of the region in order to make sense of what is going on. The British media is a far from adequate source of such knowledge. It is not as if lies are told continuously about events in the Middle East, but coverage in the British media is so lacking in context that a false impression of events is commonly given. This is particularly true of television and of the BBC. To turn to Lebanon, the most important fact about Lebanese politics is that the Shiite community is grossly under-represented within the Lebanese political system. But, I will be surprised if you have heard that fact mentioned by the BBC. I certainly haven't. America and Britain constantly salute the so-called Cedar Revolution in the spring of 2005, after the assassination of former Prime Minister, Rafik Hariri. Then, we are asked to believe, a democratic revolution occurred and the present Lebanese government, under Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, must be defended to the death, since it is the product of that democratic revolution. But, the so-called Cedar Revolution never addressed the most important democratic flaw in the Lebanese political system the gross under-representation of Shiites, who should have many more seats in the Lebanese Parliament - and a far greater share in the Lebanese government. The Shiite community, which is Hezbollah's electoral base, is under-represented in the Lebanese Parliament and if the Shiite community were fairly represented it is odds on that Hezbollah, and its Shiite allies, would both have many more seats - perhaps double the number of seats. Needless to say, the champions of democracy in Washington and London keep quiet about this unfairness. They keep quiet about it because if it was corrected the Parliament and Government of Lebanon would be less favourably disposed towards Washington and London. If the boot was on the other foot - if the unfairness operated to reduce Western influence in the Parliament and Government of Lebanon - it is a racing certainty that we would never hear the end of it from Washington and London and from the BBC. * * * * The area occupied included Mount Lebanon, which had been a semi-autonomous district within the Ottoman Empire with a mainly Maronite Christian population. Under pressure from the Maronites, France extended Mount Lebanon to include territory that had formerly belonged to the province of Damascus to form what they called Grand Liban (Greater Lebanon), which later became the Republic of Lebanon. In 1922, the League of Nations recognised France's redrawing of the boundary by granting it separate mandates to rule Syria and Lebanon. The people in the territory added by France to Mount Lebanon were mainly Muslim, and the resulting state contained approximately equal numbers of Christians, mainly Maronites, and Muslims, many of whom neither wanted to be ruled by France, nor to be in an autonomous Lebanon, but to be in a larger Syrian or Arab state. So Lebanon was, from the outset, an unnatural state artificially carved out of Syria by imperial France. Today, it is a state of three minorities Christian, Sunni Muslim and Shiite Muslim plus over half a million Palestinians living in camps and excluded from the economic and political life of Lebanon. As you will appreciate, maintaining a functional state in that environment is a difficult business. * * * * The key points in the pact are:- 1) Christians were to accept Lebanon's
"Arab face" - and its obligations to co-operate with
the family of Arab states - and promise to resist seeking help
or interference from the West. There was no provision made in the National Pact for altering any of this to reflect demographic changes (which is why Shiites are under-represented today). Indeed, so sensitive is the issue within Lebanon that there hasn't been a national census since 1932. The fact that the political system had not been changed to reflect demographic changes, in particular, that the Christian proportion of the population was believed to have fallen well below 50%, was a factor that led to civil war breaking out in the mid 70s. This system was altered slightly by the Taif Accord in 1989 when the Christian allocation in Parliament was reduced. The Taif Accord also declared that "abolishing political sectarianism is a fundamental national objective" and specified that a national council be established to work out a phased plan to bring about its abolition. This "fundamental national objective" was written into the Lebanese Constitution (in Article 95) but it doesn't seem to have progressed beyond that. Today, 50% of the 128 seats in the Parliament are allocated to Christians, and 50% to Muslims (including Druze and Alawite). These allocations are further sub-divided for Christian and Muslim sects. In total, seats are allocated to each of 18 sects. Nationally, the 64 Christian seats are allocated as follows: Maronite 34, Greek Orthodox 14, Greek Catholic 8, Armenian Orthodox 5, Armenian Catholic 1, Protestant 1 and Others 1; and the 64 Muslim seats are allocated as follows: Sunni 27, Shiite 27, Druze 8 and Alawite 2. So, in total Christians have 50% of the seats, and the Sunni and Shiite communities just over 20% each. Let me emphasise that this means that it is impossible for Shiites to get more than 27 seats in Parliament, that is, 21%, no matter what proportion they are in the total population. Nor can they get less. Today, it is generally believed that the Christian population is less than 40%. It is generally believed that the Shiite population is larger than the Christian. There is little doubt that with their share of the electorate they should have at least a third, and perhaps as much as 40%, of the seats. In the election in May-June 2005, Hezbollah won 14 out of the 27 Shiite seats. But if Shiites had had their proper allocation, Hezbollah might have had 25 or 30 seats, and together with its Shiite allies might have upwards of 50 seats, that is, well over a third of the total number of seats in Parliament. * * * * First, Article 95(3) of the constitution requires
each confessional group to be represented "in a just and
equitable fashion in the formation of the Cabinet". So,
if Shiites were fairly represented in Parliament, they would
be entitled to over a third of the Ministries in the Cabinet. In other words, if Shiites had fair representation in Parliament, then, most likely, Hezbollah and its Shiite allies would be in a position to block any government decision on important issues that wasn't to their liking. This is central to understanding what has been going on in Beirut since last November. Bush and Blair tell us, and the media dutifully repeat, that Hezbollah is trying to overthrow the democratically elected Lebanese Government, that democracy is under threat from terrorism in Lebanon. It's not quite like that. First, as I have pointed out, neither the Parliament, nor the Cabinet reflect fairly the size of Shiite population today. Second, Hezbollah is nor seeking to overthrow the present government under Prime Minister, Fouad Siniora. Nor is it seeking a bigger share of the Cabinet for itself, or for its fellow Shiites, or for any pro-Syrian group. On the contrary, it is seeking to create a government of national unity, with Fouad Siniora continuing as Prime Minister, by including in the government the only bloc in the Parliament that isn't currently included. This is not an unreasonable demand in the context of Lebanon, where inclusive government taking decisions by consensus is the ideal prescribed in the constitution. The only bloc currently not included is the one led by Michel Aoun's Christian Free Patriotic Movement. Aoun is the one Lebanese politician who has never been pro-Syrian - he waged war against Syrian occupation in 1989, lost and retired to France, returning in 2005, when Syria withdrew its remaining troops. Hezbollah entered into a "memorandum of understanding" with Aoun's Free Patriotic Movement in February 2006, an alliance that survived Israel's assault on Lebanon last summer. Remember this is an alliance between Shiites and Christians, which, to the best of my knowledge, hasn't happened in this form in Lebanon before. Hezbollah and Aoun are seeking to get over a third of the Ministries for themselves and their allies, in order to be in a position to rein in the pro-Western attitudes of the present Government. Since altogether they have 56 out of the 128 seats in the Chamber of Deputies, that is, over 40%, it is not unreasonable that together they should have a blocking third in a government of national unity, but Siniora and his allies, with the encouragement of the West, have refused. * * * * Hezbollah made life so difficult for Israel that it finally withdrew from Lebanon in 2000. Last summer, Hezbollah accomplished the amazing feat of surviving a ferocious attack by the greatest military power in the Middle East with its military capability largely intact. For the first time in the existence of the Israeli state, an Arab military force had survived a frontal attack by Israel. What is more, Hezbollah has demonstrated that Israeli cities are no longer immune from attack. As the former BBC correspondent Tim Llewellyn wrote after the war last summer: "Israel has made itself the least safe place in the world for a Jew to live, a terrible reflection on the calamity of Zionism for its own people and others." America and Britain like to portray Hezbollah as a tool of Iran and Syria. But that is far from being the case. Hezbollah is an entity which is specific to the Shiites of Lebanon. Its leadership openly acknowledges its debt to Iran and Syria, for their military and financial support. But it is not their poodle. It is an indigenous Lebanese organisation which, as far as I can see, takes its own decisions. What is more, it has not used its military capability against other groups inside Lebanon, certainly not in the recent past. It has only used its military capability against Israel. For that, it has won the admiration of at least some of the Sunni and Christian population. What about the future for Hezbollah and for Lebanon? There is a definite possibility that it will fall apart again as it did with awful loss of life in the 70s and 80s. The difficulty of maintaining a viable state in an area where there are three minorities cannot be overestimated. Imperial France bequeathed the Lebanese a poison chalice. The closest parallel in this world is Bosnia - also divided into three main blocks defined by religious/national identity. Bosnia is held together by outside intervention, in this case under the auspices of he United Nations. Hezbollah seems to be determined to make Lebanon work. It is not making extravagant demands for the Shiite community. It is not demanding the 40% or so of the seats that the Shiite community should have by rights. Instead, it has made an alliance with an element of the Christian community and pitched its demands at the lowest level, keeping within the spirit of the Lebanese constitution that encourages consensus between the various sects. However, the future is unpredictable. The Lebanese Government, with encouragement from the West, has refused to entertain these modest demands. The next important event is the election of a president next month to replace Emile Lahoud. He is elected by the Parliament and has to be a Christian. The government has the majority to force the matter and elect their own man.
DISCUSSION A number of points were raised in discussion including: 1) whether or not Hezbollah could be said to have provoked the Israeli attack on the Lebanon in Summer 2006. The assault followed on Hezbollah's siezure of two Israeli soldiers in an attack in which three other Israeli soldiers were killed. Despite initial confusion as to who was violating whose territory it now seems clear that the attack took place in Israeli territory. Since the Israeli withdrawal in 2000 there have been very few incidents of this kind, though there have been continual Israeli violations of Lebanese airspace. Hezbollah insists that its military activities are entirely confined to Lebanese interests despite its obvious sympathies with the Palestinian cause. The Israeli soldiers were siezed in an effort to secure the release of Lebanese citizens who still remain in Israeli jails from the time of the occupation. It was an attempt to complete a major swap of prisoners, hostages and bodies that had taken place in January 2004. 2) Are Hezbollah seeking a 'national unity government' (in which the opposition would have a blocking mechanism) in order to further Syria's interests and obstruct the UN investigation into the murder of the former premier Rafik Hariri? A team led by German magistrate Detlev Mehlis had been appointed by Kofi Annan to investigate the assassination and had published a report accusing Syria of probable involvement and of lack of co-operation. The team is now run by the Belgian prosecutor Serge Brammertz who has been much more cautious in what he has said in public. The Lebanese government had wanted to establish a tribunal to try the issue but the process would have required ratification by the Lebanese Parliament. According to a well-estabished convention (it is not specified in the constitution) the Lebanese Parliament can only meet if it is called by the speaker, who is by convention always a Shi'i, in this case Nabih Berri of the Shi'ite Amal movement which supports the oppositon, so the Parliament has not met since November 2006. In these circumstances the government has appealed to the United Nations Security Council which has agreed the appointment of a tribunal along lines similar to the tribunals for Rwanda and former Yugoslavia. Hezbollah claims that it is in favour of the issue coming to trial but argues that the UN appointed tribunal (which has a specified right to override the findings of any Lebanese tribunal) is a violation of Lebanese sovereignty. If Syria is responsible for this and subsequent assassinations then the Syrian government can only be characterised as idiotic since they have done immense harm to Syria's political interests. |