Lebanon: between improbable reforms and impossible revolution?

First, there was a night of popular protests––largely spontaneous demonstrations throughout the country––followed by days of massive strikes and mobilization. Citizens claimed back their dignity, overcoming their political affiliations and showing unprecedented courage in attacking the symbols and leaders of their own communities. This coalition of the country’s discontent, disenfranchised and neglected people made the Lebanese political system wobble. Then, we saw televised speeches, both candid and falsely naive, that could hardly hide the state of panic overtaking Lebanese officials.

Gebran Bassil and Saad Hariri are the main architects of the “Grand Bargain” that, following two years of institutional vacancy, allowed for the election of a supposedly “strong president” and the formation of a supposed “government of national unity”. Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah is the leader of Hezbollah, a movement which has been part of the government. They addressed the Lebanese nation one after the other. They wholeheartedly asserted that they empathized with the people and claimed that they perfectly understood the popular demands. But they also raised the usual specters, resorting to the politics of fear, hoping that the angry crowds would quickly grow tired.

" Bankruptcy Trustees"

What initial lessons can be learned from these recent events? First, far from being the government of national salvation that Lebanon needed, the current executive authority was actually, from day one, nothing more than a “ Bankruptcy Trustee ”, whose only real roadmap was to perform an inventory before the liquidation of the last family jewels. But this hotchpotch called the ‘government of national unity’ has even failed in this mission of " Bankruptcy Trustee ": No genuine reforms were enacted, CEDRE’s promises were severely compromised, and the captains are missing in action.

Then, there can be no democracy without turnover and alternation in power: the very principle of a government gathering together all the political forces is a heresy that has gone on for 30 years. Seeing members of the same government continuously and openly accusing their colleagues of corruption and offloading the burden onto the other has reached ridiculous proportions. This approach is preventing accountability and diluting all responsibilities.

Much more than an economic and financial crisis, Lebanon is going through a deep regime crisis, an institutional crisis, a spiritual and a moral crisis unprecedented since the end of the war. Now is not the time for patch ups and superficial reforms aimed at fooling some international donors and gaining a one or two-year reprieve. The time has come to lay down the foundations for radical, structural reforms of the political, economic, social and environmental system in Lebanon.

"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” Lebanese leaders could benefit from pondering over these words pronounced by President John F. Kennedy. If we have reached this point, it is because Lebanon remains, in 2019, as Georges Naccache described it in 1949: allergic to any reform, resistant to any modernization, prey to "the low thievery of the ruling cliques". One only needs to remember the violence with which the traditional political class attacked President Fouad Chehab and his attempts to create a state that would be above sectarian and private interests.

Ingeniosity in malfeasance

If Lebanon is a country where reform is difficult, it is also a country where a full-fledged revolution is impossible. Sectarianism is “the last refuge of the scoundrel”, and any fight against corruption is impossible under the shadow of the existing system. The maestro and godfather of that system, Nabih Berri, acknowledged it in 2015 during the garbage crisis when he said, in essence, that "if there were no sectarianism, all the leaders’ heads would have ended up at the end of a stick".

"Every revolution, just like Saturn, ends up devouring its own children” wrote the then 22-year-old Georg Büchner in his powerful drama : Danton's Death. This was the case with the French Revolution of 1789 and with the “Arab spring” of 2011, whose main figures are now imprisoned, exiled, depressed, and angry, like Wael Ghonim, icon of the "Revolution 2.0" that made Egypt dream before it fell back into an even more ferocious dictatorship. In Lebanon, more than anywhere else, any revolution runs the risk of being kidnapped, confiscated, diverted from its initial objectives. "Those who launch the revolutions are always the cuckolds of history," said Daniel Cohn-Bendit, the figurehead of May 1968. The initiators of the revolutions are almost never in power five years later. The risks of deflections are all the greater in a country that is a field of confrontation and proxy wars between regional powers that have other priorities than social justice in Lebanon and couldn’t care less about what would be a fair tax system for the ill-fated Lebanese people.

Far from being amateurs or fools, Lebanese leaders have shown, over the years, a real cunning and ingeniosity in malfeasance. The ruling system is perfectly well oiled. The Lebanese denounce it as a "system", but one only needs to scratch the surface to discover that many still have affection, and sometimes even demonstrate a real cult of personality, for one of the sectarian leaders who offer them protection, subsidies, patronage networks. These leaders have particularly dexterous and expert hands in both tapping into the state’s coffers as well as stirring –shamelessly – the sectarian and identitarian instincts that keep their supporters in a permanent state of dependency.

Make Way for the Emergence of a New Elite

However, the Lebanese army, which is supposed to be the guarantor of national unity and territorial integrity, cannot be – as some are already wishfully expressing on social media – a political solution. Lebanon must not yield to the attraction of authoritarianism. Lebanon does not need a "strong president", a "savior" or a "providential man". All that Lebanon needs is a strong and impartial state. Nothing is permanent if it is not based on institutions. Yes, the army is an indispensable institution, but to believe that it can substitute for others, even temporarily, would be a dangerous illusion.

A technocratic government is also not a panacea. Expertise is necessary, but far from sufficient. Lebanon does not need technocrats so much as it needs a new political class that possesses the necessary technocratic skills to exercise power. Technocrats who would not have the least independence vis-a-vis sectarian leaders and oligarchs, who would not have the courage to confront private interests, would instead offer an alibi to a system in distress. We should not put knowledge and expertise at the service of the current system, but bring together technocrats and independent figures who have some popular support and would bring out a new elite and a new system, both of which would be responsible for an in-depth rethinking of institutions.

Any recourse to violence would ruin all the hopes of liberals, progressives and reformers. It would only benefit the militia thugs from all walks of life and risk bringing Lebanon back to the darkest hours of its history. It is an illusion to think that a collapse of state institutions would benefit "civil society" or bring "technocrats" to power. This collapse would only be beneficial to sectarian "asabiyas", reinforce tribalism, clanism, and fanaticism. It would only lead to a new fragmentation of the country and to the law of the strongest.

But there are reasons to hope; despite everything. The Lebanese have learned from their past mistakes. The reformers are beginning to organize themselves. Civic associations are beginning to make their voices heard and to put real pressure on a system that is gasping for air. They are managing to impose a certain measure of transparency on sensitive issues such as oil, gas and electricity. They are pushing for judicial reform. The Lebanese diaspora is more mobilized than ever and ready to support independent and reformist figures. At the same time, there is the emergence or revival of secular and reformist political parties, wanting to do away with corruption, blind partisanship, sectarianism, feudalism and clientelism. Synergies are appearing between all those who aspire to finally create a Lebanese sense of citizenship and a direct link between this citizen and the State.

"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise ", wrote F. Scott Fitzgerald. This should be our national leitmotiv.

Karim Emile BITAR is the director of the Institute of Political Science at the Saint Joseph University of Beirut (USJ). He is the co-Founder and member of the Board of Directors of Kulluna Irada, a civil organization for political reform in Lebanon

(This is an updated translation of a commetnary published in French in L'Orient-Le Jour on the 19th of October)