A Day in Lebanese Politics

(Written in Arabic National Dialogue, taken from Annahar)

Jaajaa

So, as I said a lot, each faction highlights an epoch of history which serves their current political argument and scapegoats the other. It was very “nice” to remind the Lebanese how the Communists sacrificed a lot, and everybody had a butchery on the members of the Lebanese Communist Party (LCP) and the Order For Communist Work (OCW), but he neglected to mention how he was part of the military link-up with the Israeli forces in 1982. The 1982 witnessed the siege of the PLO and the Left-Wing (along with the residents of West Beirut) whereby the grand Zionist butcher Sharon bombed the hell out of that area, of course, in order Bashir Gemayel would become President. I highlighted this fact to argue that none of the war criminals deserves to be outside prison. Moreover, Jaajaa didn’t notice that it was AMAL movement doing the real butchery on the LCP and OCW. Hezbollah warriors then targeted the members of the Syrian Social Nationalist Movement.

The Shallow President

Moreover, our illegitimate groundless President, Lahoud, participated in the Democracy Forum, hosted by the Qatari prince, problem is the Qataris (assumed to be 20% of the overall population) never really practiced real democracy, as the al-Thani dynasty has to have shareholders in everything, and of course, in the end, it is the Prince Hamad bin Khalifa who decides everything. All those processes of introducing democracy to the nation, in fact are meaningless, just to say “Qatar is modern”. Despite the fact females can wear anything they want over there; the local Qataris are forced to wear their veil.

Rafi Madayan

The most interesting feature yesterday was Rafi Madayan when he appeared on NBN in the morning/noon. The points he tackled were several and most intriguing, specially towards the end of the program, Hussam Hussam (the supposed Syrian masked witness for the Tribunal) talked with him via the phone live. Rafi’s points were interesting, and I was surprised that the interview didn’t appear in the newspapers, these were the following points (based on what I remember):

1) 14th of March was a movement that was supposed to kick out the Baathi Syrian presence in Lebanon. Now 14th of March are moving Lebanon from the Syrian Mandate to the US mandate. (although I still insist the day 14th of March was spontaneous mostly).

2) Rafi argued that 14th of March wasn’t supposed to have an economical platform. He finds it amusing that during the Doha round in 2002 all the 3rd World Nations were opposing privatization, while Lebanon wants to adopt privatization as a means of reform.

3) Rafi discussed the Presidential Candidate of 14th of March, and how almost every 6 months a new candidate replaces the older one. He argued that last he followed up, it was Ghattas Khoury, which was the Future (Harriri Family)’s own candidate. Then it became Nasseeb Lahoud, who made a powerful candidate. The problem was that King Abdullah himself wanted him nominated. This burnt Nassib Lahoud, and Madayan suspects that the Harriris did that on purpose in order to push for Ghattas Khoury again.

4) Rafi continued in his critique on the presidential chair, and argued that the problem of 14th of March, that all the Maronites within that coalition are candidates to the presidency.

5) Rafi talked about a potential transition period, whereby sadly there will be two governments, which will make this division among the Lebanese constitutionally legal. Aoun would probably head one of the two governments. This transition is similar to the forging of the Taef Accord.

6) 14th of March failed to oust President Lahoud because they became weak to oust him (nevertheless strong to face the opposition’s demonstrations).

7) Regarding his father’s assassination (George Hawwi), he was very critical. First, he complained how the Security Forces are leaking their find-outs to the media when it comes to Syria. Second, he begins to speculate that others had a hand in it because no way an assassination of such gigantic size (Harriri’s) without the US have an idea about it. Third, he argued that the US satellite archives can display everything (simiar to Google earth). Fourth, the circumstances that George Hawwi was assassinated was different than Harriri’s, in a sense, George Hawwi was on strong relations with all parties, including Hezbollah, and his campaign was not 14th of March, rather dialogue between the Lebanese, and dialogue between Lebanon and Syria. Fifth, the appearance of the Syrian Hussam Hussam was not sent by the Syrians, rather by the Lebanese Information Bureau, which made him suspect that the Lebanese on purpose sent him on that fateful day (Hawwi’s death) to appear in the Media and escalate things against Syria. To Madayan there are more people involved than one party. (We are not sure if 14th of March though if they gave him a proper place, he would have escalated). Nevertheless the points he mentioned are rather interesting.

8) There are plenty of interesting points, but I can’t seem to remember them, but it ended that Rafi’s lawyers will meet with Hussam Hussam to attain evidence that Hussam was being a tool or not and by which side.

Hezbollah

Another interesting idea we see about how Hezbollah are issuing orders on who to run for elections, and who doesn’t. The issue is very intriguing. Qassem would say that if the President was not 2/3 elected by the Parliament, then the new president will be persecuted as a traitor. Fine, but that was the case with Lahoud, obviously when you see all the mobilization taking place against the President, it clearly shows that more than 1/3 oppose Lahoud.

Furthermore, Nasrallah’s allegiance is towards the Wali-el-Faqih, who currently is Ayatollah Khamenei. Khamenei probably has no clue what democracy is all about. For this, we will take a look at the Presidential electoral system in Iran. The Wali, ie the Supreme Leader of the Revolution, and his guardian council bar out nominees that run for elections if they turn out not to be Muslim enough, and no woman was allowed to run. The Guardian Council also checks on all Parliamentary decisions if it is according to the Sharia’a or not. Khatami was so crippled to the extent that his block passed a bill in the parliament against the hard-liners which said that the Guardian Council has no saying in the people’s decisions, only to be rejected by the Council and followed by arrests and demonstrations from the pro-Khamenei hooligans (al-Ansar-e Hezbollah: different than Hezbollah over here). The Supreme Leader is also the head of Lebanon’s Hezbollah’s Shora Council. May be, Qassem should check with Khamenei why his party’s Supreme Leader is not democratic.

Civil War and History: What Ought to Be Done

Last but not least, I would like to tackle what Antoine Zahra said about opening investigations of the Civil war till 1975. I would like to say why the politicians are imposing a bad case of amnesia on the Lebanese whereby only this part or that part of the history is highlighted. Either the whole history is open, because we have the right to know (to borrow Saatchi & Saatchi’s logos) what happened then. Despite the academic research of a lot of people, and the opening of the US archives of the early war years, there are more to be known, we need to know the “what happened”, “how it happened”, and the “why it happened” with all the details. It is already shameful to see people like Aoun or Junblatt not being put on Trial, but it is more disgraceful not to know every single detail of what has happened during the war. All the parties or personnel who participated in the history have those dark spots. For example, I wouldn’t mind hearing Adwan yelling loud and clear he was the first Lebanese to contact the Israelis, Joseph Abu Khalil (Bashir and Pierre Gemayel’s convoy to Israel) had the guts to spill out everything. I wouldn’t mind seeing Amin Gemayel talking about the clashes with his brother. I wouldn’t mind hearing Berri how he opened fronts from 1984 to 1989 almost on all present parties (Palestinians – Junblatt’s Socialists – Communists – the rest)…and what his party (in fact all parties including the LCP) did.

There is a famous song that goes: “Welcome to the Jungle”. Anyone else fed up from Lebanese politics ?

MFL