BEIRUT: Nabih Berri is the speaker of the Lebanese parliament and a member of the Shia Amal party. Due to the complicated religious quota system within Lebanese democracy, he is currently a high-ranking government official as well as a leader of the opposition coalition that was behind several months of street demonstrations that have veered into violence.
He sat down with The Daily Star Egypt to discuss his views on democracy, Israel, and the best ski slopes in the Arab world.
DSE: Lebanon is often called the most democratic country in the Arab world, and has survived many crises. How strong is Lebanese democracy today?
NB: First, there is a historical mistake I would like to correct. Everyone thinks that Lebanon is the first democracy in the Middle East, but really we are the first democracy in the world. In Tyre there are ruins of an ancient parliament, and people even say that Jesus Christ gave lectures there.
But today, there is a problem with Lebanese democracy because it is a democracy based on sectarianism. This is the main problem in our country. We are a small country – there are only four million of us, but there are 18 different sects. And democracy is tied to those sects. We can’t have a president who is not a Maronite, a house speaker who is not Shia, or a prime minister who is not a Sunni. I’m sorry to say that even if a great man like Nehru was here in Lebanon, he could not be a leader of our country!
People always say there is more freedom in Lebanon, but less democracy. Despite the situation we are in, people will always love the democracy, free speech and opportunity we have in Lebanon.
DSE: How do you respond to calls for political reform coming from Europe and the United States?
NB: A lot of people today want to transfer the western model of democracy to the Arab world. But in my experience, democracy is a national industry. You find different versions of democracy in the US, with the Congress and the Senate, than you do in France and the UK. There is no question that there is democracy in all three countries, but if you look at each, not the same kind of democracy is practiced in each one.
To simplify even further, fashion in France and Italy are different from each other and from everywhere else. Designers have different ideas and tastes in each country. If you try to bring those tastes to Asia or Africa or even elsewhere in Europe, people will not accept them the same way.
Democracy is a national industry, so no one can interfere in the model of each country and try to impose the model they want.
DSE: What solution do you see to Lebanon’s current political stalemate?
NB: The Shia and Christian parties in the opposition want a national unity government, but the majority does not want that. From a democratic point of view they have the right to refuse as long as they are in the majority. But they don’t have the right to compel me to be in a coalition government with them.
When you make a coalition, you must give me my rights. Let’s use business as an example. If you have $100 and I have $50, we can form a business together but you must give me a third of the power. If you don’t want to do that, you can go into business by yourself and I will compete with you. The government wants Hezbollah, Amal and the Christian parties led by General Aoun to be with them in the government, but it does not want to give us our rightful share of power. We have 57 deputies out of 128 – that is more than a third, 44 percent. But they want us to have less than a third of the power. So we said no, we will go into the opposition. They are scared because we have the majority in the street and they know it.
DSE: Lebanon has played a role in the Arab-Israeli conflict for decades, often as a theater of war for third parties. How has Lebanon been put in this position? How can it get out?
NB: The first time Israel came to my country was in 1978. They came in with the excuse that they were after Palestinian fighters. They called their mission “the Litani Operation.
America created UN resolution 425 and we accepted it. It called for Israel to withdraw from our country in March 1978. The first American troops came, and we waited for Israel to withdraw. For four years we waited, and then Mr Sharon came to Beirut. Maybe he lost his compass and got lost on his way out of the country. So we resisted. But they created that resistance, they created Hezbollah. Lebanon did not have Hezbollah before the Israelis came
We pay a big price to Israel. They don’t want Lebanon to be a center of banking or tourism. They don’t want Lebanon to be a window to the West. If you go down in the street, most people speak better English than I do, and also Arabic and French. Since the 1920s, the Lebanese have always had an open window to the West. But the Israelis don’t want that, they see the Lebanese as competition.
Why? Because if they have monuments there, we have monuments here. If they have a nice climate, we have a nice climate too. They have the beautiful sea, and we have the beautiful sea too. The one thing they don’t have is good skiing – and they stole the Shebaa Farms from us so that they could have good skiing too. They want to compete with us on everything. The Shebaa is the most wonderful place in all of the Middle East to go skiing.
DSE: After last summer’s war, Israeli Prime Minister Olmert said that he wanted to begin peace talks with Lebanon, but the Lebanese government refused. Under what conditions would Lebanon enter into peace talks and normalize relations with Israel?
NB: There is no way we will have relations with Israel. As long as Israel is occupying one inch of our territory, there is no way. We are very afraid. Some people say that Shebaa is a very small place. But let me ask you – if I am out of jail but my finger is still inside the cell, am I really free?
We have no ambitions or aggression towards others. We never imagined Israel would do what they did to us – in the south now there are more than two million unexploded cluster bombs. Every two days we have a human victim from these bombs, from the ceasefire until today. Even Unifil members are being injured.
We finally pushed the Israelis out of most of our country in 2000, but when they withdrew they kept the Shebaa. That’s why we will not deal with Israel. The government said this place is Lebanese, and Syria says this place is Lebanese. But the Israelis say no, this place is Syria. So now the Israelis want to defend Syria’s rights, at the expense of Lebanon. But if they really care so much, why don’t they return the Golan to Syria? Can you tell my one time when Israel has ever defended the rights of the Syrians? It is all a trick.
If Israel gives the Shebaa to the UN, we will accept that. But if nothing changes, we will resist and they will never know where we will attack next. We will accept it if Unifil puts their hands on this land, but we will keep our right to resist as long as Israel does not leave our country.
They should accept the Saudi plan from the 2003 Arab summit in Beirut. We offered them a full peace, and that is the door they can pass through when they are ready.
