At the end of July, President Bashar Al-Assad of Syria and King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia visited Beirut together in what was widely perceived as a successful attempt to quell yet another artificially inflated Lebanese political crisis. Apart from the jarring sight of Syria’s president in Beirut for the first time since he withdrew his troops in 2005, the significance of the visit rested on the fact that the leaders were seen as being indispensable in reining in their respective Lebanese allies for the umpteenth time, underlining the lack of national cohesion in that deeply divided country
But such an explanation is also a cliche that plays into the hands of the traditional political leaders, both in Lebanon and in the region. Lebanon’s all too real current fractiousness and its civil war history are being manipulated cleverly by those who have an interest in maintaining the status quo, or more accurately, who have an interest in maintaining their own status, politically and economically. With its weak state and deeply divided nature, Lebanon is a prime example of the clientelist model that holds sway across the region. The traditional strongman rules his own patch and dispenses favors, contracts, jobs and money as it suits him, and in the other direction the chain reaches all the way to the national and international level, hence the joint Syrian/Saudi visit.
This apparent fealty to regional or international overlords leads to many misconceptions. Just about the only thing that unites many Lebanese is a consensus that most, if not all, of their troubles are manufactured outside their own borders. It is an old and cherished myth that may have made life more tolerable in times of real hardship and conflict but even inside Lebanon is starting to be challenged. Some in civil society and a few politicians claiming to represent a "third way" now hold the sectarian structure responsible for the country’s many shortcomings, particularly for the lack of national cohesion and for its openness to outside manipulation.
But even this does not address the real underlying issue, which Lebanon shares with its Arab neighbors near and far. Some of the symptoms associated with this were excoriated in the UNDP’s Arab Human Development report for 2009 that signaled a dismal disconnect between Arab citizens and their states. The report emphasized that Arab states simply fail their citizens in almost all the important categories, i.e., providing security, economic opportunity, education, etc., etc. "Large and frequent shortfalls in these areas often combine to turn the state into a threat to human security, instead of its chief support," was one of the conclusions.
What this points to is that Arab states are vehicles for their leaders rather than for their citizens. The state is part of a zero sum game in which one group, sometimes a tribe, sometimes a sectarian grouping, sometimes an army clique, divides all the spoils and holds all the cards while the rest of the country lives by the grace of the rulers. Not a big surprise then that when the tables turn, as happened in Iraq, the previously downtrodden group seizes its chance and starts acting in much the same way.
There is only one relative bright spot in all this. Even at its most depraved, the clientelist system may recognize some rules of efficiency. The principal one is that at the end of the day accommodating different groups, even in a minimal way, may be more cost effective than endless confrontation. Such a realization does seem to have taken hold at some level in post-civil war Lebanon. The leaders of the different communities have decided that they’d better find a way to share the spoils rather than some or all of them risk losing their privileged positions.
But like elsewhere in the Arab world, Lebanon’s citizens are not well served by this travesty of a system of government. It is, after all, designed to serve the leaders and not them. By maintaining the weakness of the state, by creating intermittent crises and by emphasizing divisions, the leaders cement the need for their own existence. A community under threat rallies behind a strong leader and is less likely to question his decisions or behavior. And the defense of the community or sect takes precedence over the desire to improve the institutions of the state or build a more stable, equal and rewarding society.
Around the Arab world, leaders have seized on or even created crises in order to justify self-serving policies that do not serve their citizens. Lebanon is among the most egregious examples, favored as it is with a relatively educated populace and an entrepreneurial spirit that facilitates interaction in the global economy, as evidenced by its successful diaspora. Many people in Lebanon, and indeed many across the Arab world, know better and would dearly like for things to be different. But vested interest is a formidable obstacle, in the Arab world at least as much as anywhere else, and even in Lebanon, sadly, the momentum for change simply seems not yet to have been reached.-
Ferry Biedermann is a Beirut-based journalist. This commentary is published by DAILY NEWS EGYPT in collaboration with bitterlemons.org.
