Saturday, March 05, 2005
Lebanon after the withdrawal
Notwithstanding continuing dithering on the part of Syria -- Syria "weighs" troop pullback, snarks today's headline -- the Lebanese seem to think that it will happen. Today's Daily Star, for example, has an editorial considering the political structure of post-occupation Lebanon, as if it were all a done deal. From the Star's perspective, Syria's withdrawal, welcome as it is, will require Lebanon to rebuild the structure of its government:
Arab democracy will take many shapes. Some will work better than others, some will succeed by any standard, some will only succeed by local standards and some will fail. The important thing is to keep moving, because a revolution that does not move forward will fall, exhausted.
To plan for this after-life, the political parties that comprise the opposition should hold intensive workshops to construct the mechanisms that will be required to build a new Lebanon. This new Lebanon should be one that is free of the current political system that revolves around the troika - the three-headed parliamentary Hydra consisting of a (Maronite) president, a (Sunni Muslim) prime minister and a (Shiite Muslim) speaker. It is a system that guarantees the sectarian fractures of society are enshrined in perpetuity. It is a system that has outlived its use - if it ever had a use other than a particularly Lebanese perversion of power politics.
Sectarian politics based on religion and ethnicity and region should be, by an act of imagination backed by the commitment of will, be consigned to the garbage bin of history. This kind of politics, which has torn Lebanon apart more than once in its tragic history and which constantly keeps tension simmering under the surface of the sociopolitical body of the nation, is an anathema to civilization.
Arab democracy will take many shapes. Some will work better than others, some will succeed by any standard, some will only succeed by local standards and some will fail. The important thing is to keep moving, because a revolution that does not move forward will fall, exhausted.
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