Military against Whom
Lebanon's Missing Republic
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Original Title: 'Askar 'ala Meen: Lubnan al-Jumhurriah al-Mafqoudah Author: Samir Kassir Publisher: Dar Annahar Publication Date: 2004 Language: Arabic Pages: 211 Preface International and Arab circumstances had it that Lebanon ends its long war during the era known as "democratic transformation," which made several Third World Countries rid themselves of military dictatorships and build the foundations for modern democratic experiences some of which saw remarkable success like in Brazil, South Africa as well as other countries in the African Continent. Even in the Arab world, a retreat in the security grip and an improvement in freedoms was recorded and reached the extent of rotation of authority like in Morocco where the traditional socialist opposition took over the government. Even while states of the single party, especially Iraq, Syria and Libya, maintained their static positions, the general environment of the 1990s allowed the foreseeing of an end to their military coups d'états. No one, whoever, could predict that this end would take the bloody shape that we see now dominating Mesopotamia as a result of American occupation. In this general Arab context, which saw important institutionalization in a number of countries, especially in Qatar, Bahrain and Jordan in addition to Morocco and Algeria - after the end of civil strife- and that was reinforced by the new phenomenon of Arab satellite television channels and the Internet revolution, Lebanon lived a painful irony. Instead of following suit with the democratic transformation around the world that would result in the revival of the Lebanese republican tradition - despite its odds - Lebanon faced a reversed transformation as it gradually lost its democratic and republican principles, which could have healed the wounds of the war and paved the way for a renaissance of national reconciliation. Instead of seeing the [Lebanese] political elite reinforced by changes in the Arab world, the [Lebanese] authority that was established after Taef - or more correctly that was established after the coup d'états on Taef - and had wedded itself to the power of money, symbolized by Premier Rafic Hariri, started copying the tyrannical behavior that has been controlling the [Syrian] state, which has been sponsoring this [Lebanese] authority. Instead of reinforcing the "Lebanese exception," since it stopped being an exception in its Arab environment, the exception erased itself and stuck to the "Syrian exception." The irony reached its climax after the military came to the forefront of political life with General Emile Lahoud, former Army Commander, reaching the presidency. The experience of the government of Premier Salim Hoss during the beginning of the [Lahoud] term came to reassure everyone that Lebanon has become under the rule of a new type of power separation that has not been mentioned in the constitution: The real authority seemed to be out of the hands of the cabinet - as Taef has stipulated - and in the hands of the intelligence agencies with their judiciary and administrative encroachments. This way, the reform that Premier Hoss and others on his team and even those before him had called for, became a policy of rivalry that reinforced corruption under the banner of fighting it. This double-faced policy went on after the return of Premier Rafik Hariri to governance, as he looked as if he were the hostage of a policy that he could not control and that besieged him. This blockade was enforced by the president of the republic and his tendency to go back on the Taef reform regarding the prerogatives and operation of the executive branch on the one hand, and the expansion of the security and intelligence agencies on the other. This expansion could never be limited but by another expansion, that of the Syrian intelligence. The worst result of this duality was the paralysis of the Lebanese political life, except for the crisis bubbles that those in the authority caused among each other. As for the attempts of the opposition forces - that are themselves scattered - to get the political life back on track; such attempts were either directly repressed or penetrated and weakened by intelligence agencies. This was also the case with the media people who tried to revive their professional tradition. Therefore, complaints against the dominance of the military and the intelligence community is not only a matter of principle as the consequences of this dominance have become clear before the eyes of everybody and include, first, the absence of transparency, the lack of responsibility and thus the prohibition of accountability. Second comes the continuous play on the law, or say corrupting the spirit of the law itself and undermining all probabilities of reform. And despite the motto on some banners - which security agencies write and hang and which call for the establishment of the "State of Law and Institutions" as a reminder of the speech that President Lahoud gave when under oath and that is simply known as "the inauguration speech" - the components of the active authority in Lebanon are still above the law and beyond the republic. Some might rush to consider the collection of a number of critique articles that had appeared in Annahar earlier and that had dealt with democratic deterioration in Lebanon, falls under the campaign against the extension of President Emile Lahoud's term. The truth is that the issue goes beyond President Lahoud. What we are facing in 2004 is not the danger of extending the term of a person at the expense of the constitution, but the danger of the extension of the term of a whole ruling class that has, for the past 13 years, worked hard to thwart the renaissance of the Lebanese republic. The systematic destruction of the basis of the republic since 1998 has reached its climax at the hands of an intelligence authority that is barely masked. This fact does not exempt those who preceded this intelligence authority in power or those who agreed - even if temporarily - to share power with it. This is what made me add, to the articles on this intelligence authority, other articles that I had written during the term of [former] President Elias Hrawi and the era of the "Troika" that he formed with his two partners Speaker Nabih Berri and [Premier] Rafik Hariri. Anyway, the reader will find out through the kind of selected articles and the way they were classified that the main incentive that made me transform the articles into a book was not settling scores with the authority or one of its branches, but rather the hope that the Lebanese could - in the near future - retrieve their lost republic that has been lost twice: Once under the pressure of the Baathist mandate rule over the authority (which were tackled in the articles that were published in another book called the Democracy of Syria and the Independence of Lebanon), and the second time at the hands of the domestic crew mandated to run its affairs. This aspiration was better reflected, as I have said earlier, in the classification of the book according to subject and not according to the date of publication of articles. However, I still took chronology into consideration, first as evident inside each category and second through the coverage of political and security events that accompanied the period with which news about making General Lahoud president started and until the beginning of 2003. This can be seen in the first three categories [of the book]. These are The Arrested Republic, Authorities against the State and A War of Gangs. Then, I retrieved the happenings of the domestic political life in the sixth category, Extension, Renewal and Freezing, for I preferred - before reaching the battle of extension - to highlight two basic sides of the Lebanese crisis: on the one hand the liberation of the south, which category four, The Magic of Liberation, deals with due to the importance of this event in the Lebanese history in general and in the official version that the current rule tells about itself, and on the other hand the limiting of the freedom of press that has been the topic of the fifth category, The Allowed Visual. Lebanon has recorded a retreat in the economics of media and this has been the best indicator to the irony that Lebanon has been living since the end of its war as it has lost the original aspects of its power while the Arab world has discovered free media. Yet, the media retreat was not restricted to the tenure of President Lahoud for the crack down on media was the first one of the achievements of the security agencies in an understanding with the different branches of the authority during the term of President Elias Hrawi. This was what made me include in this category articles that date back to before 1998. I did the same in the seventh and last category, Dreaming of a Republic, for I knew that the repeated effort to empty the republic of its meaning has accompanied the exit of Lebanon from its war and its entrance into the cage of "special relations" with the Baathist rule of Syria. This effort reached its peak and even its goal once the political life in Lebanon took on its "military" course. Does that mean nothing is left of the republic but dreaming of it? The answer is not with me or with the "military" that I have talked about or those who look like them. The answer is with the citizens who have become sick with their lost republic and their lost future.
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