You have to hand it to the Lebanese they’re arguably the world’s greatest survivors. This tiny Mediterranean country has battled against all odds for decades — sectarian conflict, invasions, war with Israel, assassinations, a refugee influx — but, somewhat mysteriously, succeeds in carrying on regardless.
The Lebanese people are stoic faced with adversity; they shrug off problems that would traumatize others and often bury their fears in favor of living for today. I’ll never forget the laid-back attitude of my landlord in Beirut to an explosion in the apartment block next door. While my heart was pounding, he leisurely emerged from his apartment clad in a silk robe and leather slippers puffing on a cigar. “Calm down,” he said. “My building has stood tall for 150 years and it’ll still be here when we’re gone.”
However, the Lebanese need more than courage and bravado to withstand current pressures. They’ve been successful in pulling back from the brink of disaster on multiple occasions but nothing is forever. Put simply, Lebanon needs advice, major reform and material assistance from its friends, now more than ever.
A major roadblock is the absence of political consensus, which won’t be solved in the foreseeable future because the two major political blocks — the Hezbollah-dominated March 8th and the Hariri-led March 14th Alliance — hold widely divergent world views and are at odds over Hezbollah’s decision to send fighters to Syria to face-off against anti-Assad opposition forces. The country muddled along for 10 months without a functioning Parliament or government until “a Cabinet of national interest,” bringing together the two sides in an uneasy truce, was born in February.
But with President Michel Sleiman’s term ending, Parliament will conduct a presidential election on Wednesday, in which candidates must be Maronite Christians according to the country’s outdated confessional system. The result could either elicit a storm of protest or produce a stalemate resulting in yet another power vacuum.
The frontrunner is former warlord Samir Geagea now head of the Armed Forces, who’s a forthright critic of Hezbollah and has long pressed the Shiite organization to disarm. On Friday, the March 8th bloc announced it would only rubber-stamp a candidate that supports the resistance. The sole potential candidate fitting that bill is the equally controversial Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun who signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Hezbollah in 2006.
It’s rumored that Amine Gemayel, who served as president from 1982 to 1988 is poised to step forward. If so, he could be a compromise candidate accepted by all sides; otherwise, it’s exceedingly unlikely that any presidential hopeful can garner the mandatory two-thirds of parliamentary votes. What stands out to an interested onlooker is the fact that the political scene is still dominated by the same old faces and dynasties and is bereft of new strategies and fresh ideas.
Whoever rides in to power on the ballot, he would need a miracle to solve the country’s problems not least the economy, which is crippled by public debt and a growing fiscal deficit. Tourism and investment from Gulf states has dwindled mostly due to Hezbollah’s involvement in Syria but also because of sporadic bombings, civil unrest and strikes by employees seeking higher wages.
But Lebanon’s most pressing problem is without doubt the huge numbers of Syrian refugees fleeing across the border. Over one million are registered with the UN but there are thought to many more fending for themselves and those are beginning to be resented by local people for taking Lebanese jobs. With an additional 500,000 expected to flock-in before the year’s end, the Acting UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in country has appealed to the international community to help “bear the brunt of the pressure on Lebanon.” Some prominent Lebanese politicians are advocating the repatriation of refugees to “safe” areas of Syria. That might sound harsh but it’s understandable that the Lebanese, who’ve provided refuge to 500,000 Palestinians for many decades, are feeling swamped.
Lebanon will crack at the seams unless it implements necessary political/fiscal reforms and receives global financial assistance to smooth the way ahead. That said those measures are merely a band aid to stop the bleeding. Unless and until the Lebanese come together with one voice and put sectarian differences aside to shun meddling foreign entities it will never be more than a proxy plaything for geopolitical gamers.
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