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<p class=MsoNormal><b><i><font size=5 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:16.0pt;font-weight:bold;font-style:italic'>Lebanon</span></font></i></b><b><i><font
size=5><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-weight:bold;font-style:italic'>'s
meaning in the wider Arab context</span></font></i></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>by Rami G. Khouri | Advisory Release: 15 March 2005</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Something very important to the Arab world continues to take place on
the streets of Beirut, and it is not primarily about being pro- or anti-Syrian.
Neither is it mainly about political anthropology -- the counting of
headscarves, bellybutton rings, beards and designer shoes among the street
demonstrators, in order to note their ethnic, religious and ideological
identity.</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Having attended all the demonstrations, I am convinced that Lebanon these days represents a historic, unprecedented, drive for national
self-determination by Arab citizens. The Lebanese seek to define three crucial
aspects of their national identity and power structure that no Arab citizenry
has ever done in the past eight decades or so of nominal Arab independence: a)
the nature of their sovereignty and political configuration; b) the nature of
their relations with neighboring states and foreign powers; and, c) the
relationship among their own military/security sector, the average citizen, and
the institutions of governance.</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>The Arab people for the most part have never enjoyed the opportunity to
define their most basic attributes of sovereignty and statehood. In several
ridiculous cases last century, retreating European colonial powers defined the
concepts, drew the borders, and hand picked the rulers of novel Arab countries
that were formed primarily to serve European colonial interests.</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>This is history, for sure, but one whose enduring impact still drives
events in tortured Arab lands today. This is partly because major Western
powers that now champion Arab freedom and democracy for half a century
installed, anchored, armed and assuaged the stubborn autocrats whose long
reigns have made the Arab world the globe's last non-democratic region. More
and more Arabs now explicitly challenge the economic, security and political
control mechanisms of this flawed modern order. Lebanon is the first serious
example of spontaneous, indigenous Arab political activism to challenge and
replace the ugly power structures that have plagued this region for nearly a
century.</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>The particulars of the Lebanon case also reflect the core elements of
national self-determination that apply to all other Arab countries. The key
issues in Lebanon are:</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'> </span></font></p>
<ul style='margin-top:0pt' type=disc>
<li class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>the nature, legitimacy and durability of the
governing security- and Syrian-associated elite headed by President Emile
Lahoud, which is increasingly widely challenged and politically weakened;</span></font></li>
</ul>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'> </span></font></p>
<ul style='margin-top:0pt' type=disc>
<li class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>how the popular Hezbollah party can move from its
heroic genesis of liberating the south from Israeli occupation to an
expected new future political role, given its status as Lebanon's single most formidable political party;</span></font></li>
</ul>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'> </span></font></p>
<ul style='margin-top:0pt' type=disc>
<li class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>whether the emerging powerful coalition of
opposition forces can channel its massive popular appeal into an effective
political strategy that goes beyond the anger at Rafik Hariri's murder and
the successful push to secure a Syrian military withdrawal from Lebanon;</span></font></li>
</ul>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'> </span></font></p>
<ul style='margin-top:0pt' type=disc>
<li class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>whether an opposition-Hezbollah national alliance
representing the vast majority of Lebanese can quickly agree on the next
steps to form a credible government, hold clean parliamentary elections,
redefine good neighborly, close Syrian-Lebanese relations, bring the
security-military systems under civilian control, and launch urgently
needed economic and political reforms; and</span></font></li>
</ul>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'> </span></font></p>
<ul style='margin-top:0pt' type=disc>
<li class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>how a self-determinant, reconfigured, democratic
Lebanon can define mutually beneficial relations with non-Arab powers like
Iran, Israel, the U.S. and others.</span></font></li>
</ul>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>These Lebanese issues mirror broad political principles and individual
human aspirations that are common throughout the Arab world, where citizens
more openly challenge numerous old, stubborn, security-focused,
externally-designed, tattered and discredited Arab governance systems. The new
governance systems that Arab citizens design will be determined by the
consensus that emerges from the political negotiations that have been initiated
by the street demonstrations by the principal groupings.</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Securing a Syrian pledge to leave Lebanon proved to be rather easy, in
retrospect, given the Lebanese, Arab and international consensus on this.</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>The more difficult task now underway requires a new social and
political compact among the Lebanese people to establish a better, more accountable
governance system that ensures citizens individual and collective rights, and
accommodates their varied ideological, ethnic, religious and social values.</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Lebanon</span></font>'s dueling demonstrations are not really very
confrontational, and in fact are rather compatible in their core demands. There
is acknowledgement and consensus on the facts that: Syria is leaving Lebanon,
the Hariri murder must be investigated fully and those responsible brought to
justice, a clean parliamentary election in May must accurately reflect the real
balance of political forces in the country, Hezbollah must maintain its current
armed resistance and political party status until Israel signs peace treaties
with all neighboring Arab states, and, a new government in Lebanon must affirm the equal rights of citizens more than the security of a privileged,
non-accountable, and often imposed elite.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'> </span></font></p>
<div style='border:none;border-bottom:solid windowtext 1.0pt;padding:0pt 0pt 1.0pt 0pt'>
<p class=MsoNormal style='border:none;padding:0pt'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>These enormous challenges
reflect the epic valor and complexity of national self-determination for any
country or people, as Lebanon contemplates the potential reconfiguration of its
entire national power structure. Half a century ago, Lebanon briefly and
incompletely offered the Arab world an intriguing model of parliamentary
democracy that soon was swamped and disfigured by the combined weight of the
cold war, the Arab-Israeli conflict, its own civil war, and the stultifying
modern Arab security state. Today, Lebanon may again lead the way for other
Arabs who covet the same personal and national goals of normal statehood, a
decent and accountable government, and reasonably equal opportunities for all
its citizens.</span></font></p>
</div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal align=right style='text-align:right'><i><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-style:italic'>Rami G.
Khouri is editor-at-large of the Beirut-based Daily Star newspaper,<br>
published throughout the Middle East with the International Herald Tribune.</span></font></i></p>
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