Tuesday, July 8, 2008

A New Chapter in Lebanese History: From War to Reconciliation in 12 Days

Sunday night about half past five gunfire, a recently too familiar sound, erupted over Beirut, Lebanon’s capital. This time however it indicated renewal, as 18 months of political stalemate that culminated in the violent clashes of the last weeks, came to an end with the election of president Michel Suleyman. The clashes were the worst outbreak of violence since the countries bloody civil war. The last three weeks have presented the Lebanese people with an exceptional roller-coaster ride that lead the country from political deadlock, to war and finally to the election of a consensus president, whose position has been vacant since last November. Lebanese politicians have called the elections ‘ the turning of a page and beginning of a new chapter’. Yet if this chapter marks true diversion from the countries violent history has to be seen.

The 7th of May, also the 60th anniversary of the creation of the state of Israel marked the beginning of the violent clashes. The day was originally marked out for major labor strikes, protesting the recent rise in food and gasoline prices. Fighting was sparked by a governmental call to dispose Hezbollah (the Party of God) of its internal communication system and lead an inquiry into Beirut Airport’s head of security, who has been perceived to be to close to the party. Hezbollah, an armed, Shia social movement aligned to Syrian and Iran had in 2006 emerged triumphant from its war with Israel. Since Hezbollah, in coalition with other Shia and Christian parties, has presented the opposition to the March 14 governmental coalition that is backed by the West.

Within hours Hezbollah responded to the governments challenge witch force, blocking both access to the port and closing the road to the countries only international airport. In response the army sealed the border with Syria, effectively locking Lebanon inn. RPG fire and violent clashes were reported from Beirut’s Western districts, home to many government officials. Hezbollah secured the, historically resonant Hamra district, a mixed neighborhood of Sunni, Shia Druze and Christians that is also home to many foreign journalists. Both Israelis and Americans had formerly invaded Hamra, a PLO stronghold during the Lebanese Civil War. By taking Hamra, Hezbollah had effectively put Saad Hariri, leader of the March 14, Al Mustaqbal Movement and Walid Jumblat, the Druze leader of the Progessive Socialist Party under house arrest. Armed militias took over the Al-Mustaqbal television station, a voice of the governmental coalition, and burned it to the ground.

When the next day broke, fighting had spread like oil slick all over the country. Violent clashes were being reported from the north, where Sunni fighters confronted Hezbollah, the southern region around Tyre and the mountainous Aley and Shouf areas. Aley, a most strategic position overlooking Beirut and connecting Hezbollah strongholds in the capital with its hinterland bastion of the Beqaa valley saw heavy fighting with Druze gunmen defending their villages. Although Hezbollah did not concentrate its full force on the area, the collective of Druze villages put up a fierce battle and despite calls of their leader Walid Jumblat to keep calm, eventually drove Hezbollah out.

Since the fighting began a pattern had developed under which, Hezbollah would take an area by force and then hand it over to the military. Until the last day of clashes, the military was bound by orders not to engage into direct combat, which would have pushed the clashes over the edge into an abyss of violence and retribution.

Finally on Tuesday the 13th an array of different circumstances led to the dying down of violence. The armies threat to engage with force, coupled with Hezbollah’s relative defeat in the mountains and the arrival of the Arab initiative all aided its ebbing. In a sense Hezbollah had achieved it’s objective, had flexed its military muscle and diverted the governmental gaze from the internal communication issue.

The Arab delegation headed by the emir of Qatar, Sheik Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani, got governmental and opposition leaders to agree to return to the dialogue table and invited them for this matter to Doha. The airport was reopened, and a day later the feuding parties where on their way. On the airport road politicians were greeted by an assemblage of citizens, outraged that their leaders had reverted to violence once again, who chanted: “If you don’t find a solution don’t even come back”.

After five days of negotiations the emir of Qatar, directly addressing this crowd of people, proclaimed: "Some of you took to the streets asking your leaders not to return to Lebanon without reaching an agreement ... I would like to tell you that your leaders have finally agreed and they will shortly be on their way back."

Essentially the agreement met some of Hezbollah’s key demands. It granted veto power to the opposition, a point of conflict that had spurred the political deadlock in the first place in December 2006 and approved reform to the electoral law that would carve up the country in new electoral districts. But most importantly it bound the parties to agree on a consensus candidate for the vacant presidency and emphasized that no side would use violence in the future.

The negotiations, quite deliberately, failed to address the issue of Hezbollah’s weapons, the internal communication system or the airport security. A Guardian of the Cedars – a political party aligned to the government, statement read: “One must not be very optimistic, for there is a wide difference between a solution and a settlement.”

Yet interpreting the agreement as a defeat for the government coalition misses the point. Over the past weeks the single reason d’etre of the government was to avoid war. A full-blown civil war would have relinquished the government for good. It would have suffocated the, relative sovereignty of the democratic state, brought havoc on the country and would have made any future initiative to address Hezbollah’s weapons impossible. Within hours of the agreement the opposition dismantled their tent city, which had paralyzed Beirut’s central district in strike for over a year.

The Lebanese met the agreement with a mix of euphoria and skepticism. It was as if the whole country had held it’s breath for the past weeks and with the settlement was finally able to exhale. In a spectacle of renewal, Lebanese television showed hour-long dispatches from the presidential palace, where gardeners finally mowed the presidential lawn and maids dusted Greek statues, preparing the palace for the arrival of Lebanon’s new head of state. Occasionally pictures would change to Beirut’s Martyr’s square where 2000 white balloons were released in celebration. The pictures flickering over the television screen seemed even more surreal because just days before the same television stations showed dispatches of militias controlling large parts of West Beirut, crowds that descended on the dead bodies of their enemies and public torture of combatants. The Lebanese, not unaware of this contradiction, allowed themselves the celebration while being aware of the fragility of the situation.

Everybody seemed to agree that it will be a good summer. Lebanese stocks skyrocketed and the Daily Star proclaimed that 75.000 tourist were expected for this summer alone. Nobody however wanted to look further than three months ahead, as for that matter the Lebanese know their own history too well. Sadly the country has failed to learn its lessons and rather than departing from the vicious circle of intermittent violence that it teaches, it has developed powerful coping mechanisms against it.

As the recent developments have shown, violence never rests long enough to fully heal the deep wounds of the past in Lebanon’s social body. Wars are fought from and over history and new frontlines are drawn over the washed-out divisions of bygone days. At the beginning of the World War II a Lebanese schoolteacher wrote: “ I saw acute pain rise in the breasts of the generation that had lived through the catastrophe of the First War…. work stopped, and business dwindled as a wave of profound pessimism engulfed the country”. This pain and lethargy of war was again a major feature of the last weeks. It is a vicious mix of emotions that steals peoples future, suffocates their ambition and leaves them stranded in limbo. Having been caught in civil strive, characterized through war, violent clashes and political assassinations, since ever the country was created, these emotions have integrated into the Lebanese psyche.

It is most notable in the Lebanese ability to deal and to a degree ignore the violence around them. The July war of 2006 was full of stories of young Lebanese moving the hedonistic center of their capital to the surrounding mountains. There, they could slurp extra dry vodka martinis while watching the destruction of their country from a prime spot. This attitude was epitomized in a photo that won the 2006 World Press Photo Award. It showed a group of young, stylish and well tanned Lebanese driving through a completely destroyed neighborhood in their red convertible. Nobody, however who is not part of thread of history that has seemed countless military uniforms can ever understand this contrast or is able to judge it.

The struggle for Lebanon is not over but for now it is off the streets. Yet for the country to move from a series of extended cease-fires to lasting peace it has to confront its history and seek true reconciliation. Lebanese politicians have to stop down the road of narrow self-interest and sectarian paternalism. They have to make a real effort to stop foreign powers from meddling with their country, according to their own agendas.

Each new war puts the predicament of power in Lebanon into public debate; it opens up new arenas of conflict and accommodation and calls political institutions and practices into question. It was such a window of opportunity, opened through WWII that allowed Lebanon to gain its independence and it might be again such a window that allows Lebanon to finally escape the captivity of its own history.

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