Tribes

A few days ago, I ditched my Arabic lessons and flew from Cairo to Beirut. There had been a presidential election scheduled for November 10th. Trouble was looming, and I wanted in.

The only thing I knew about Lebanon was that it had the most convoluted politics in the Middle East. It's an alphabet soup of religious groups and paramilitaries: Christians, Druse, Sunnis, Shi’ites, Palestinian refugees- each in turn broken down into smaller factions and subfactions.

This alphabet soup was stirred into a maelstrom during the 1975-1990 civil war, in which Lebanon literally descended into a Hobbesian state of nature. The tribes fought each other and fought themselves. They fought the Israelis, who invaded in 1982 to kick Arafat’s PLO out of Lebanon; they suicide-bombed the US Marines who showed up to impose democracy by the gun. The Syrian army marched in to “keep the peace” in its “little sister Lebanon”- and then refused to leave. Tom Friedman’s “From Beirut to Jerusalem” contains a passage that captured a sectarian conflict so tragic that it was almost comedic. Friedman quoted an Israeli film, in which a veteran soldier explained Lebanon to a new arrival:

“It goes like this. The Christians hate the Druse, Shi’ites, Sunnis, and Palestinians. The Druse hate the Christians. No. Right. The Druse hate the Christians, Shi’ites, and the Syrians. The Shi’ites got screwed by them all for years, so they hate everyone. The Sunnis hate whomever their leader tells them to hate, and the Palestinians hate one another. Aside from that, they hate the others. And they all have a common denominator: they all hate us, the Israelis.”

Today, Lebanon’s tribes fight instead with words in the halls of power. Central Beirut, a morass of crisscrossing barricades, barbed wire, and bombed-out buildings during the civil war, has been rebuilt into neat boulevards lined with neoclassical buildings housing bustling shop-fronts and crowded European cafes.

But there are skeletons and guns hidden in every closet. It pains me to quote the Lonely Planet, but I can’t best this line: “Everybody has lost a loved one, and behind every corner lurks a scar.”

For every pristine rebuilt boulevard with pretentious echoes of the Champs d’Elysee, there is a slum street lined with posters of destroyed Israeli tanks. For every ultramodern, neon-lighted club with walls of pricey liquor and gyrating Princess Jasmine clones, there is a bombed, blackened shell of a building that has yet to be safely collapsed. Statues and buildings hide bullet-holes- some less discreetly than others. In Beirut, the scars of war sit luridly and unnervingly amidst the bright bustle and modern chic- ignored, yet unignorable.

You could say the same thing about the people. Behind the calm normalcy of the Beirut rat-race lies something intangible and ominous. I can’t put a finger on it, and no one will give voice to it. Again, from the Lonely Planet: there’s a “sense of collective amnesia”. I can’t get anyone to talk about the current election here. Blunt questions are stonewalled with an abrupt change of topic; subtle probing is parried with smooth misdirection. I certainly don’t dare to ask about the civil war. If asking about the election is picking at the scab, mentioning the civil war would be reopening the wound with a steak knife. Everyone I meet has fought in the civil war, known someone who has, or lost someone who has.

But as in every great novel, I’ve learned more from what isn’t said than from what is. And when you read between the lines in Lebanon, you find a minefield of hatreds half-buried beneath a layer of self-imposed silence. The Lebanese have become weathervanes, spinning with the winds of war and fortune. They pack their guns and memories away in times of peace, locking them behind tight lips, bright smiles, the most hard-partying attitude I’ve ever seen, and a desperate determination to milk every last drop of normality. But what will happen if the wind turns yet again?

So here I am, buying sandwiches, asking directions, seeing sights. And all the while, I can’t help but feel that the clean streets and calm civility are a façade for something dormant. I can’t help but feel that I’m shaking hands with Dr Jekyll; that I’m staring at the polished veneer of Pandora’s box.

This is the atmosphere of the lead-up to the presidential election, which had been scheduled for November 10th. Posters are everywhere, depicting the heads of Lebanon’s noble houses: Hariri, Chamoun, Geagea, Gemayal, Jumblatt, Berri, Lahoud. Sheikh Nasrallah of Hezbollah figures prominently in the Muslim slums of West Beirut. Sandwiched between glass-fronted buildings and gardens are barricades and checkpoints manned by soldiers with M16s, in anticipation of civil unrest.

Some background.

Lebanon’s president is elected not by popular vote, but by the parliament- at the best of times a den of thieves and liars comprising the leaders of Lebanon’s tribes. President Emile Lahoud’s term of office runs out late this month. If a president agreeable to all the tribes is not named by then, Lebanon will be plunged into a political vacuum. At best.

Why? Lebanon’s parliament has been simplistically broken down by the Western press as an anti-Syrian majority supported by the US, the West, and most of the Arab world- up against a pro-Syrian minority backed by Iran, Syria, and the Shi’ite (terrorist) organization Hezbollah. According to an unspoken agreement dating from the 1930s, the president of Lebanon must be Maronite Christian, the largest and most powerful of the Christian sects.

The anti-Syrians, made up of Sunnis, Druze, and various Christian groups, have put up four candidates, each of them a relative no-name. The pro-Syrians represent other Christians and the long-suffering Shi’ites- Lebanon’s largest religious group that was all but abandoned by the Lebanese government until the rise of Hezbollah. They have only one nominee: Michel Aoun, who led a bloody and defeated Christian insurrection against the Syrians in the 80s. Now returned from exile, he has shockingly formed an electoral alliance with Shi’ite militias backed by Syria.

The anti-Syrians vehemently despise Aoun. Hezbollah’s Shi’ites and Aoun’s Christians feel the same way about the other side. The Syrians, Iranians, Americans, and Israelis are watching their proxy war with itchy trigger fingers and worried faces. The best option would be a “consensual” candidate that everyone can agree with, but there are none.

Well, so what? You might say. It’s an election. The MPs vote, a nominee is elected, and the rule of law prevails. Right?

Hah. This is Lebanon. There are no rules. If you don't like a politician, you can ignore him... or kill him. Four MPs of the anti-Syrian bloc have been blown up in their cars since 2005- acts attributed to Syria.

If an anti-Syrian nominee comes to power, he’d best take the bus to work. If Aoun comes to power, he’ll be deadlocked against a parliamentary majority that won’t work with him- if he doesn't buy a farm of his own. And if the parliament can't choose a president, it's likely that Lahoud, the current pro-Syrian president, will extend his own term of office until further notice. Lahoud is about as popular in Beirut as a skinhead in a synagogue, and if he extends his term again- for the second or third time- the anti-Syrian bloc may well set up a rival government.

This may have a lot of popular support, with the potential to split Lebanon into rival cantons. A lot of people- mostly Christians and Sunnis- resent three decades of Syrian meddling in Lebanon. Among the blown-up anti-Syrian MPs was Rafiq Hariri, a popular Sunni former PM who had been spearheading the rebuilding of Beirut since the end of the civil war. His death in 2005 sparked a mass outcry of hundreds of thousands- the “Cedar Revolution”- that forced the Syrian army to leave Lebanon for the first time since they entered in the late 70s. What will these Lebanese do if they feel that Aoun's ties to pro-Syrian groups tarnish his credentials? What will they do if a rival government challenges a constitutional Aoun or Lahoud presidency? What will they do if an anti-Syrian candidate is elected... and is prompty blown up by Damascus?

On the flip side, there are the very numerous Shi’ites. They support Syria because Syria supports them. Funding for schools and social services, and weapons to use against Israel come from Iran through Syria. If an anti-Syrian candidate came to power, or if there is a parallel government, the Shi’ites will look to Sheikh Nasrallah for cues- and the old man is holding his cards close to his chest.

So there could be wrangling in the parliament and muttering in the streets. There could be mass rallies in front of the government palace and in Martyrs’ Place. There could be political killings. There could be civil unrest. There could be civil war.

No one knows. But I look forward to finding out.