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Bridging the
divide
By Marianne Stigset
BEIRUT - The political upheaval that has
engulfed Lebanon after the assassination of
former premier Rafik Hariri has given rise to
fears of renewed sectarian bloodshed - and hopes
that it can be avoided.
The upheaval has
resulted in an ongoing standoff between government
loyalists and the opposition movement, a surge in
street demonstrations and a recent series of
targeted bomb attacks on Christian-populated
areas.
A fragile nation still in
the process of rebuilding itself after a
devastating 15-year civil war, Lebanon is at pains to unite
a still-fragmented sectarian society. Members of the
country's 18 different religious factions tend to
group together in settlement patterns which have
changed little since the 7th century, sending
their children to their respective private
religious schools and still predominantly marrying
within their own confessional group.
"We
glued the pieces of the broken glass back together
again after the war, but with the divisions
ensuing from the current political crisis, we
won't be able to do the same - you can't fix a
broken glass twice," says a historian and leader
of a local civil society movement, speaking on
condition of anonymity. "I am extremely concerned
about the present situation, in which no third
parties dare raise their voices, because the
situation has become so tense and polarized."
Despite the fact that both government
loyalists and the opposition movement include
different religious factions, the divide is loaded
with inter-communal undertones, which have played
themselves out more openly in the streets.
Among the leaders of the mass
demonstrations and ongoing opposition sit-in at
Martyrs' Square are a dozen Christian factions,
whose agenda since the end of the civil war now
overlaps with the primary objective of the
opposition movement: rid Lebanon of the Syrian
military presence and political interference.
Other religious groups have participated in the
demonstrations, but the image of the street
movement remains in the eyes of some that of an
enclave of disgruntled Christian activists seizing
the opportunity to regain lost political ground.
"I went down to Martyrs' Square the day
the government resigned, to celebrate with
everybody," an Armenian Orthodox restaurant
manager recalls. "Initially, there was unity, and
everybody was calling out the same things. But
then all of sudden these people started calling
for the return of [exiled Christian former army
commander General Michel] Aoun and the release of
[jailed Lebanese Forces militia leader Samir]
Geagea, and I thought this isn't for me any more."
Mohammed Ali, a 50-year-old Sunni coffee
seller on Beirut's sea front, believes that the
demonstrators are exploiting the assassination of
Hariri to return to power. "They are using the
situation to change the regime and get back into
government, under the excuse of demanding the
truth."
Yet despite misgivings about the
motivations that drive certain groups supporting
the opposition, the divisions created by the
political crisis have not followed the traditional
Christian-Muslim divide.
Most noteworthy
is the Sunni participation in the opposition
movement, led by member of parliament Bahia
Hariri, sister of the slain former premier.
Although relatively few in numbers at the initial
stages of the protests, the Sunni population
showed up in force at the million-man
demonstration commemorating the one month
anniversary of the attack on March 14.
The
event dwarfed all previous demonstrations,
including that of the loyalists led by Hezbollah
the previous week. Many observers point to that as
the catalyst which spurred the Sunnis into action.
Bereaved of its leader, whose killing many blame
the Lebanese and Syrian authorities for, the
community reacted strongly to the show of support
displayed by the Shi'ite Amal and Hezbollah
movements for both the Lebanese government and
Syrian President Bashar Assad.
With Sunnis
and Druze (a people in the region following a
religion similar to Islam) playing central roles
in the opposition movement, the Muslim community
has found itself divided over the issue of the
Syrian presence in Lebanon.
"What we
are seeing now are both old and new divisions
emerging at the same time," says Nizar Hamzeh, a
political-science professor at the American University in
Beirut (AUB). "Both the loyalists and the
opposition camps have representatives from all the
Lebanese factions. On the opposition side you have
Christians, Druze, Sunnis, and the Shi'ites are
not completely unrepresented."
The
loyalist side may be predominantly represented by
Hezbollah and Amal, "but you also have a few
Christians with them", he says. "If any of the two
camps were to lose an entire sect or more, then
the situation might start to look more similar to
1975 [when the civil war broke out]. But at the
moment, this is not the case. Individuals are
rallying around political, rather than sectarian,
issues."
Hamzeh says deep mistrust has set
in between the two opposing political camps. "The
opposition has the support of the European
countries and the US regional policies of
democratization and freedom, which they are trying
to capitalize on. The loyalists perceive this as
an attempt to substitute the Syrian presence in
Lebanon with that of the Americans and the
Israelis. The opposition, on the other side, blame
the government supporters for their loyalty to
Syria, despite everything that has happened. So
you see mistrust on both sides."
The
polarization has spurred concern that foreign
interference is pushing the country toward renewed
civil strife. "In its dogged drive for
implementing the [UN] Resolution [1559 calling for
full Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon] the American
administration is, hopefully inadvertently,
pushing the Lebanese people to the brink of civil
war," former premier Selim Hoss wrote in a
commentary for the Daily Star newspaper. "In case
a civil war should break out, God forbid, there is
nothing that the American administration can do to
help us."
Such warnings have for the most
part been rejected by analysts and political
figures alike, who view them as a tool employed by
government loyalists to stifle popular support for
the opposition movement. "I urge you to resist
loudly those seeking strife, especially officials
who have turned into foreign correspondents who
talk about our disagreements, divisions, fragile
unity and internecine fighting," Bahia Hariri said
in her speech on March 14.
International
relations professor Farid el-Khazen at the AUB
says the elements which led to the Lebanese civil
war are no longer present. "There is no risk of a
war breaking out whatsoever. The conditions which
led to the outbreak of the war in 1975 are no
longer there, neither at the national level, nor
at the international level."
If local
reactions to the three recent bomb attacks which
hit the Christian heartland of Lebanon are
anything to go by, Khazen's certitude seems
founded. There have been no retaliations to the
attacks against Muslim areas so far. Calls are
being issued by both sides for people to exert
restraint, and accusations have first and foremost
been lodged against Syria. The attacks were seen
as an attempt to show that Lebanon will inevitably
slip into chaos if left to its own devices.
"It saddens me when the
international press talks about the risks of Lebanon
falling into civil war again, after everything that
we achieved over the course of the past weeks,"
says Joseph Aoun, a 20-year-old Christian
political activist from Fanar, a town in the area of
the bomb attacks. "Nobody wants this," he says.
"They talk of the Muslim-Christian divide, but
this isn't true. This isn't what is happening. We
won't fight each other again."
At the
political level, members of the Muslim factions of
the opposition movement have been making concerted
efforts to bridge the divide between the two
camps. In her speech, Bahia Hariri lauded the
contributions of both the Amal and the Hezbollah
movements in the fight to liberate Lebanon from
Israeli occupation, and called for the two
factions to come together to build the country's
future.
Druze chieftain Walid Jumblatt met
with Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrullah on Sunday, and
reiterated the opposition movement's stance that
the disarmament of the Shi'ite resistance group -
as called for by UN Resolution 1559 - was not on
the present agenda.
"There are divergent
views both within the opposition camp and the
loyalist camp," says Hamzeh. "What we could
witness is the creation of a third camp, based on
Bahia Hariri's bridge-building efforts, which
unites members of both factions on the main points
that most people agree upon: finding the truth
about who assassinated Rafik Hariri, demanding the
withdrawal of all Syrian troops and intelligence
agents, implementing the Taif accord [which ended
the civil war] and protecting the resistance
movement from threats to disarm them."
(Inter Press
Service) |
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