Today is the one-month commemoration of Rafiq Hariri’s killing. The organizers of the (heavily anti-Syrian) “We want an investigation into the killing!” movement have been organizing a demonstration today, and according to early press reports have been able to pull together a crowd in Beirut that may equal that pulled together by Hizbullah last Tuesday…
In such a highly-charged situation it’s extremely hard to find reporting, including on the estimated size of demonstrations, that is objective enough to rely on. (The BBC’s website was particularly unhelpful on the size and nature of Hizbullah’s March 8 demonstration–though the BBC World News t.v. feed was pretty good on it. Here’s the latest BBC website report on today’s pro-investigation event.)
My present conclusions from the events of the past month in Lebanon– and from my conversations there last fall, and my preceding 30 years of study of and life within the country– are the following:
- (1) There has been a huge amount of anger in Lebanon at Syria’s meddling in internal Lebanese politics, though not all of this has been a globally “anti-Syrian” sentiment. Much of the anti-Syrian feeling derived primarily from anger at the gross mis-management of the country and the economy by pro-Syrian president Emile Lahoud and his cronies. So last August’s clumsy, over-reaching Syrian insistence on extending Lahoud’s term in office was seen as an outrage. But many leaders of the pro-Syrian-withdrawal movement, including Jumblatt, did not want to see a complete Syrian humiliation; equally, he and many– perhaps most– others in the pro-withdrawal movement never bought at all into Washington (and Israel’s) parallel agenda of combating Hizbullah.
(2) The Syrians now seem fairly serious about effecting a complete withdrawal. They have already started this, and if Terje Larsen is to be believed they intend to finish it pretty soon. This will leave a different political arena in Lebanon– but of what kind?
(3) Deep divisions remain inside the Lebanese body politic, but it’s very important to try to tease apart the complex issue of what these divisions are about. It may be easier for everyone involved to do this once the “lightning rod issue” of the Syrian presence has been removed.
(4) Hizbullah evidently has a large popular constituency that goes somewhat –but it’s not clear how far– beyond the bounds of the country’s Shiite community, which makes up just under 50% of national numbers. If Syria’s heavy political hand is removed from Lebanese politics, Amal– which the Syrians used as a counterweight inside the Shiite community to the more independent-minded Hizbullah– will certainly be weakened considerably; so Hizbullah can be expected to emerge much stronger than hitherto. (I wonder if, during the recent Syrian-Iranian consultations in Teheran, the Iranians effectively urged the Syrians to leave Lebanon, so then Hizbullah could have a freer hand?)
(5) However, Hizbullah is still very far from being able to exercise majoritarian power inside Lebanon. Based on my interviews with H politburo members last November, it seemed evident at that point that they did not seek to do this. Might that have changed since then? I doubt it. They are canny calculators who understand the political dynamics within Lebanon very well, and have been persistent and far-sighted in their campaign to reach out to members of the non-Shia communities in the country.
(6) It’s extremely noteworthy that since the ghastly killing of February 14–and perhaps, indeed, as a reaction to the grisliness of that action itself– the Lebanese people from all political stripes have shown discipline and commitment in not using methods of violence to pursue their continuing political differences. Given how very grievously they suffered from the violence of the civil war, this present insistence on using only nonviolent means of political interaction should be celebrated around the world, and everyone concerned about the fate of the country should commit themselves absolutely to not breaching it.
Today’s mass demonstration thus far looks quite impressive, and evidently represents a constituency of opinion that should be taken very seriously. I’ve been interested to see the reported strong participation of Sunnis in it. It seems that Lahoud’s insistence on renaming Karami as PM may have been politically inflammatory. (I was just reading here that in the municipal elections of last spring, Karami’s bloc was unable to win even in his hometown of Tripoli, which seems extremely lame to me… )
More broadly though, there does seem to be a real crisis of leadership and of community organization within the Sunni community, whose concerns have effectively been brushed aside by the bigger confrontation going on between the Shiites and Maronites…
But I think the bigger story over the weeks ahead will be the twin questions of whether the Lebanese parliament and government can actually organize he parliamentary elections scheduled for May in a way that is recognized by the Lebanese themselves as “free and fair”, and what Hizbullah’s strategy for this electoral period will be.
The first thing we all need to do, then, is refresh ourselves on the arcana of this strange thing that is known as Lebanon’s electoral “system”. This is an excellent source on that.
Okay, class, are you ready? Here is the centrally important part of that description:
- [quote begins]:The unicameral legislature is the National Assembly, composed of the Chamber of Deputies (Majlis al-Nuwwab). The 128 members of the Chamber of Deputies are elected by popular vote for four-year terms. Candidates must be at least 25 years of age. Candidates are elected by a party-list system from five multi-member constituencies, which correspond to the five governorates. Seats vacated in between elections are filled through by-elections. The 128 seats are equally divided between the Christian and Muslim communities. The seats granted to each community are further subdivided between various sects based on their proportions in the Lebanese population. The public selects from among various party lists, each of which conforms to the pre-established allotment of seats among confessions. Voters are free to cross out as many names as they choose from the list. Information on the distribution of seats among religious groups is available to the public, disseminated in many forms, including via the Internet. Citizens vote for all candidates, not just members of their own religious orientation. The country is divided into 13 electoral districts, and in each district there are lists of candidates from the various religious communities from among whom voters may choose, although a fixed number of candidates from each list must be elected. Some candidates belong to various political parties but most of these parties are in fact local, and represent the local political or confessional interests. These groupings then form informal alliances in the Assembly.
Are you confused enough yet? Have you noticed that that description says both this:
- Candidates are elected by a party-list system from five multi-member constituencies, which correspond to the five governorates.
.. and this:
- The country is divided into 13 electoral districts, and in each district there are lists of candidates from the various religious communities from among whom voters may choose…
Well, if you are confused, don’t worry. You are not alone! In fact– and here’s the rub!– the entire electoral law including the size and boundary of the constituencies is not fixed at any lasting level (by a Constitution, for example) but is re-negotiated and re-agreed-upon by each sitting parliament, each time.
So we don’t even know at this point whether in the upcoming election the country will be divided into 5, or 13, or any other possible number of multi-member constituencies! That’s one of the things the sitting parliament will be deciding.
Wow. In US terms, this would be like giving each sitting congress the right to redistrict and agree on the entire body of electoral rules for the upcoming election, each time it sits…. Has anyone ever heard the term “the advantage of incumbency”?
But that’s not all! Beyond that, notice this portion of the above description:
- The seats granted to each community are further subdivided between various sects based on their proportions in the Lebanese population. The public selects from among various party lists, each of which conforms to the pre-established allotment of seats among confessions… Citizens vote for all candidates, not just members of their own religious orientation.
Well, in one way this is good. Regardless of the size of the multi-member constituencies, the “lists” presented in each one are always under the present law multi-confessional, so right acorss the country you have Christians and Shiites and Sunnis and everyone else all, every single time, for voting for their choice of a multi-confessional list, which can make for some interesting bedfellows. (Like the fact that one of the members of Hizbullah’s current bloc in parliament is a Christian.)
On the other hand, the current very fine-grained distribution of every single parliamentary seat, in effect, between the no less than 17 different religious sects that are part of the Lebanese system means you end up with–as decreed under Taef– a parliament in which exactly 50 percent of the members are Christian, which given their demographic fragility gives them broad over-representation within the system.
(I see that the rightwing commentator Michael Young has written that the Lebanese Christians “need” this situation: “If you remove the 50-50 ratio, you will have mass Christian emigration, nothing less. The end of what remains of multicommunal Lebanon.” What twaddle! Maybe Michael should try talking to some Druze. The Druze dominated the “Mount Lebanon” political system for many generations until 1859, at which point the Maronites challenged and then ended their dominance, and then established their own. Did that mean the end of the Druze role in Lebanon? No. They still have a fine and much-respected role there, even though they’ve been “out of power” for 150 years. Did it mean–gasp!– the end of multicommunal Lebanon? No. So why should the country’s Christians nowadays be viewed as so “special” that they should hope to hang on in control if they are indeed– as any fairly conducted national census would show– a clear minority within the population? And why should anyone who claims to be a “democrat” support their claim to do so?)
Article II-G of the Taef agreement says that– though the arcane system of dividing up the parliament (and the country’s top political posts) among the 17 different religious sects should be used in the immediate post-1989 period–still, the longer-term goal should be the complete abolition of political sectarianism:
- G. Abolition of Political Sectarianism: Abolishing political sectarianism is a fundamental national objective. To achieve it, it is required that efforts be made in accordance with a phased plan. The Chamber of Deputies elections is [as?] the basis of equal sharing by Christians and Muslims shall adopt the proper measures to achieve this objective and to form a national council which is headed by the president of the republic and which includes, in addition to the prime minister and the Chamber of Deputies speaker, political, intellectual, and social notables. The council’s task will be to examine and propose the means capable of abolishing sectarianism, to present them to the Chamber of Deputies and the cabinet, and to observe implementation of the phased plan. The following shall be done in the interim period:
a. Abolish the sectarian representation base and rely on capability and specialization in public jobs, the judiciary, the military, security, public, and joint institutions, and in the independent agencies in accordance with the dictates of national accord, excluding the top-level jobs and equivalent jobs which shall be shared equally by Christians and Muslims without allocating any particular job to any sect.
b. Abolish the mention of sect and denomination on the identity card.
(That text, btw, is off the website of the pro-Bashir-gemayyal “Lebanese forces”)
Well, I don’t actually know whether both the interim steps ‘a’ and’ b’ there have been implemented yet. I believe ‘a’ has. But more to the point, when will the country’s political leaders be ready to start working to pursue the “fundamental national objective” of abolishing political sectarianism? I don’t know that either.
For what it’s worth, when I was talking with the Hizbullah people last fall they did make a point of referring to Taef’s mention of non-sectarianism as the ultimate objective. But they graciously said they did not intend to insist on it right now. I suspect that’s still the case.
… Well, I don’t have time to write more here on the subject just now. Doubtless there’ll be a lot more to write over the days ahead.
There are a few slight inaccuracies within the UNDP site. There are 11 rather than 17 millets represented in the Taif system, seven on the Christian side and four (including the Druze) on the Muslim side. Also, Lebanon has six governorates (although two are apparently united for electoral purposes), and there were 28 electoral districts in the 2000 election. In 1992 and 1996, there were 26 districts with Beirut as a single district; in 2000 it was divided into three. A list of the candidates elected in 2000, broken down by district, is here, although it is dated due to the subsequent death of some MPs and their replacement in by-elections.
The implementation of Part A of the Taif accord is still incomplete. The top military commands are still apportioned (for instance, all the post-Taif army commanders have been Maronite and all the police commanders Sunni), and I believe there’s still de facto apportionment of senior civil service. The apportionment system at this level of politics is becoming less rigid, but it still exists.
Mindful of your comment rules, I won’t get into an extended argument over the Lebanese electoral system here. To some extent, though, I think a consociational system is appropriate in a country where the nation-state is not the primary focus of identity and loyalty. In such countries, majority rule is often an oppressive concept rather than a democratic one, because it results in the majority or plurality group ruling in its own interests rather than the formation of ideologically based majorities and minorities that cross sectional lines. The fact that consociational politics have been introduced as a conflict-resolution measure in polarized countries like Somalia, Burundi, Sudan and New Caledonia tends to support a caution against excessive majoritarianism. One-person-one-vote may be an ultimate goal in Lebanon, but it will have to occur in tandem with the development of an overriding Lebanese national identity; for now, the best course is probably to make adjustments to the consociational system.
In case you or your readers are interested, I’m four parts into a five-part series on the Lebanese political system; I make no claim to expertise, but I’ve been sharing my own learning process with my readers [1, 2, 3, 4]. Part 5, later this week, will discuss adjustments to the Taif scheme.
Jonathan, great: thanks for all your work on this! I’d only read the first of your pieces so I’ll try to get to the other three tonight.
For various reasons we should discuss later I’m not a huge fan of consociationalism. I think the social and political infratsructure is much more highly “developed” (for good or ill…) in Lebanon than in any of those other countries you mention. I really do think the South African, unitary-state solution makes a lot more sense, otherwise those confessional differences can easily get not just perpetuated but also sharpened.
Still, let’s see what the Lebanese can work out amongst themselves, eh? After all, they’ve been studying these issues for, um, about 62 years now…
Thank you for takin the time to put this importive blog on the web.
Best wishes,
Luis
I think the social and political infratsructure is much more highly “developed” (for good or ill…) in Lebanon than in any of those other countries you mention.
This is true of Somalia and Burundi, certainly, but not so much with respect to New Caledonia or Fiji (not to mention Belgium, where the 1993 constitution considerably expanded consociational politics). Also, although Dominic will no doubt disagree, I don’t think the South African situation is analogous. ZA doesn’t have a plurality ethnic group and, more to the point, several generations of shared struggle have created a sense of “South African-ness” in much of the population that is only starting to exist in Lebanon.
You’re right to point out that consociationalism done wrong can sharpen and institutionalize sectional differences. Given conditions in Lebanon, though, I think the solution is to democratize within sectarian groups first, by strengthening ideological structures at the expense of feudal, militia-based or religious ones, and to promote the development of the cross-sectional “gatherings” that have developed since 2000. Once both these processes are advanced, consociational politics may well fall of their own weight (or at least soften into de facto rather than de jure apportionment), but forcing the issue too soon could be disastrous. Fiji 1970-87, and arguably Macedonia now, are cases in point.
And the Lebanese should absolutely be allowed to work things out for themselves, without interference from Syria or the United States. (And they’ve been dealing with these issues for much longer than 63 years – sectarian apportionment dates from the Mandate, and is very possibly an outgrowth of the Ottoman millet system.)
It seems to me to be underreported that the father of Ahmed Abu Adas, the man who claimed he assasinated Hariri, died of a heart attack the night before he was to be interrogated. It’s mentioned in the March 10 Daily Star and in La Repubblica.
Shiites themselves say that they constitute about 38% of Lebanese society. Other independent sources put them at a third (33%).
So where did Helena pull the number 50% out of the hat? Their huge birthrates compared to any ecologically conscious and sane society still does not guarantee them 50%.
Besides Hezbolla got only 9 out of 150 seats in the parliament. They must be awfully unpopular if they constitute 50% of Lebanese society (even if 33%).
Razavipour, where did you hear that 38% figure? Or, come to that, the 33%? On p.9 of my 1984-85 study on the Lebanese Shia I have a population graph thru 1983 with detailed footnotes. As in, you know, sources, which you notably don’t even deign to provide. The “just under 50%” is my present extrapolation, 22 years further on, from those trend lines.
One of the main reasons for the relative rise of the Muslims, proportionwise, over the past 40 years has been the relatively much larger outmigration of the Christians. It’s been happening to Christian communities throughout the Mashreq, but especially from Lebanon. You can certainly sense it as you drive around the Christian heartland: many of the houses stand empty for 11 or even 12 months of the year–except when they’re rented to Gulfis for the summer.
Hizbullah has a 12-seat bloc in the 128-member parlt: 9 Shiis, 2 Sunnis, and a Christian. The reason they don’t have more is because of (1) the limitations on Shiis representation and (2) the fact that the Syrians have since ’92 insisted on keeping many Shii places for Amal. Maybe if you’d read the post more closely you could have inferred that?
Please don’t come back unless you’re prepared to be courteous and constructive, and to do a bit of careful reading first.
Helena says: Please don’t come back unless you’re prepared to be courteous and constructive, and to do a bit of careful reading first.
I think you are the one who should not come back with this sort of cheap threats. I know you wish to censor me, so now you are setting up for the coup.
An article I read in the fascist pro-Islamic website http://www.atimes.com, by a Shiite Lebanese, was that the Shiite population of 1.4 million translates to 38.5% of Lebanon. No need to extrapolate from your stale 1983 data. The media have consistently used the figure 1/3 (obviously an approximation). But Helena insists it is 50%.
According to the CIA factbook, Christians are 40% of Lebanon. According to Helena, that leaves 10% for Druze, Sunnis, Armenians, and Kurds. LOL
do you think that the momentum building up and the factors stacking up together now not aided by BBC’s disinformation campaign, will lead to civil war again, as concluded in robert fisk’s website?
Razavipour, do you know when the last census was conducted in Lebanon? Perhaps you should find out before you call Helena’s data “stale”.
For your information, and since you cited the CIA yourself, in 1986 the CIA estimated the number of Shi`a in Lebanon at 41%. Given that the Shi`a produce significantly more children than do the Christians, and also given that there has been a significant Christian exodus from Lebanon, it seems unlikely that number has decreased. It seems far more likely, in fact, that the number has increased rather considerably, and is far closer to one-half than it is to one-third.
It is also always worthwhile to consider, when examining Lebanese politics, that alliances do not fall along any Muslim/Christian divide.
“although Dominic will no doubt disagree, I don’t think the South African situation is analogous.
“several generations of shared struggle have created a sense of “South African-ness” in much of the population that is only starting to exist in Lebanon.”
Hi, Jonathan. Thank you for thinking of me.
You’re right, I don’t agree with this “consociationalism” idea of yours.
It’s interesting that you immediately place emphasis on our ostensible shared “South-Africanness”.
Pallo Jordan wrote something about this recently. He says, and I think most South Africans would agree, that we do not have such a sense of common “South-Africanness”. We are trying to build it.
The ANC especially regards this matter as the heart of the “National Democratic Revolution” (NDR), which is how they characterise the present phase of our politics. The SACP goes along with this, although there are mutterings in favour of more emphasis on class struggle. There is to be a Special National Congress of the SACP from 8th to 10th of April which will deliberate on “Class Struggle in the NDR”, inter alia.
Personally, I don’t think national consciousness droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven. The ANC is right that it has to be created in a positive effort. I agree with Helena that a “consociational” set-up is likely to set matters off in the opposite direction, making a virtue of and entrenching confessional and/or ethnic politics. I find your example of Fiji particularly problematic!
Helena – So you agree that Hezbolla has only 9 Shiite seats (in the 128 seat parliament).
What a sorry representation of the claimed 50% of Lebanon Shiite community!!! This only amounts to a miserly 7%.
And further you admit that Syria is illegally manipulating prior elections and representations in the Lebanese parliament, by allocating seats and segmenting the vote.
So maybe you can explain why you support the occupation of Lebanon by the Syrians who have murdered many elected officials and national leaders who do not cater to their line in the past? You have not commented about the Syrian intelligence spies and agents who go and routinely intimidate, kidnap, and torture Lebanese democrats and liberals. Neither have you commented on Syria plans to rig the April elections, and that is why they are dragging their foot in taking their intelligence operatives out of Lebanon.
And then you say “Syrians are fairly serious in a complete withdrawal.” Any evidence?
Hopefully the Lebanese citizenry will come together and put a stop to Islamism and Sharia right here and now. I cannot figure out why anybody in the world would cheer the establishment of a religious and authoritarian state, much less a westerner who takes liberties for oh so granted – and of course, what is good for us (namely western liberal democracy) is just too good for those Arabs and Iranians.
Razavipour – if the majority of the people want either a theocratic state or Sharia, then that is their right! Anything else is NOT democratic. I would hope that people in the Middle East would know from the Iranian experience, that theocratic states do not work, but it is up to the people of the Middle East to build their own democracies. It is not for the West to dictate how their democracies work.
While Syrian control of Lebanon has always often been damaging to the Lebanese, it is also true to say that without the Syrian intervention, Lebanon might well have still been involved in a civil war between confessional militia.
As a citizen of a European Liberal Democracy, I know how many brutal wars religion has caused in the past in Europe. These wars lasted off and on for about 1500 years.
Ho blowback – you are absolutely wrong. The majority cannot tyrannize the minority.
Liberal democracy is founded on human rights and individual liberties. You cannot take somebody’s freedom of religion away by a simple majority vote. Even if you get a supermajority vote of 75%, you cannot take away his liberties.
Human freedom is an socio-ethical precept that is independent of majority political rule.
In addition to that, there are minority rights which protect minorities. You cannot have 51% vote to enslave the other 49%. This would be Islamic democracy and that is why it is the laughing stock of the world all over.
Finally there are certain constitutional matters which require supermajority vote, e.g. 75% or 66%.
So this simplistic Islamic battle cry that we are 53% and hence we can tyrannize the rest of the country and they have to cater to our wishes and we can force what we please, including religious theocratic laws on them, is illegitimate and non-factual.
So it is NOT the right of a majority to have Sharia. Because that infringes on the basic human rights of the minority.
Please study the European Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms. The constitution must conform to these socio-ethical precepts. Majoriy has no right to take away freedom of religion or freedom from religion.
The previous Civil War in Lebanon was partly caused by the PLO, a trigger factor that is not involved in domestic Lebanese politics this time. This indicates the chances for peace and democracy are greater than in 1975.
Razavipour,
My apologies for turning your ‘supermajority’ into my ‘hypermajority’ in my comment on a previous posting of yours. A ‘super-‘ something would be less than a ‘hyper-‘ one, I guess the difference, say, between 75 and 66 percent, both of which substantially exceed a mere 51 percent.
In your post I also missed the fact you talk about a ‘supermajority’ being needed ‘in all civil societies’ to elect the president, which I misconstrued as a reference to the formation of a parliamentary government, prime minister and cabinet: so again I’m muddle-headed. You give Turkey as your example: a two-thirds majority is required to elect the president. But one country is not equivalent to all ‘civil societies’, by which you apparently mean democratic governments. I would be happy to hear the names of some other countries which do the same. Did Chirac need a two-thirds majority to become president of France? I doubt it, though I’m often wrong. Of course this definitely does not apply to the U.S., with its different system, though you might not consider the U.S. a ‘civil society’. The U.S. imposed two-thirds clause on the formation of the actual Iraq government (not president!) is a rule I have not come across anywhere else, but of course I’m only an amateur political observer. Does it hold for other countries? How do the Turks arrange the formation of the actual government then: do one or more parties need a two-thirds majority in that case too? I’m very interested in finding out. In Europe a simple parliamentary majority of one seat is enough, I’m sure. Regarding the head of state I know little, although France may contradict your statement. I need an education, according to you, so educate me. In relation to Iraq, Cobban and Cole are apparently talking about the formation of the government (prime minister and cabinet), for which the two-thirds majority rule is creating particular difficulties , at least up to now. If I’m not mistaken, the two parties involved have already agreed the appointment of the president, whose role is largely ceremonial, as they say. Tomorrow the Iraq parliament convenes and, who knows, maybe a prime minister will emerge.
Personally, I don’t think national consciousness droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven. The ANC is right that it has to be created in a positive effort.
Granted. On the other hand, there are only two ways to create a national identity ex nihilo: cooperatively and coercively. ZA is lucky in that it has a multiethnic umbrella organization, the ANC, that is taking the lead in nation-building. There’s no group right now to fill that role in Lebanon.
Hizbullah certainly isn’t such a group, and won’t be unless it makes radical changes to its ideology (for obvious reasons, Islamism won’t work as a basis for consensual nation-building in a country that is 30 to 35 percent Christian). The Qornet Shehwan agenda might be the basis for a consensual national identity, but right now there isn’t any well-organized group promoting that agenda, and it also won’t work unless the Shi’ites can be persuaded to sign on. If cross-sectional political formations continue to develop, then there may be a basis for cooperative nation-building in the future, but over the short to medium term, the only realistic choices are a consociational state, a coercive Kemalist state or a pretend unitary state that is in fact ruled for the benefit of the group in power (e.g., Guyana or Syria). Of the three, I’d argue that consociationalism is the least flawed.
I agree with Helena that a “consociational” set-up is likely to set matters off in the opposite direction, making a virtue of and entrenching confessional and/or ethnic politics.
This isn’t what happened in the Netherlands; the pillar system there mediated tensions between social sectors until the country outgrew the need for it. Consociationalism often goes wrong (look at Cyprus 1960-74) but that’s more a problem of management than an inherent problem.
I find your example of Fiji particularly problematic!
Fiji is problematic in quite a few ways, but the particular problems I had in mind were those that occurred during the Westminster, unitary-state period of 1970-87. Far from mediating ethnic differences between indigenous Fijians and Indo-Fijians, the attempt to paper those differences over (among other things) led to the simmering of tensions, the 1987 coup and the subsequent installation of a government of racial supremacy. This government ultimately gave way to the consociational constitution of 1997 which, while unwieldy in many ways, seems to be more of a good-faith attempt to fix what’s wrong with the country than either of the previous constitutions.
What do you mean exactly by consociational ? English isn’t my mother tongue and I don’t see to what kind of political model this terms is refering ?
TIA
Hi Jonathan,
And thank you for your long reply.
It’s enough to force my Communist hand. I have to confess my conviction that the modern nation-state is a product of the class struggle of capital against feudal and other earlier forms of class domination.
The basis for national unity is bourgeois in the first place. A “consociational” state has to be a hybrid, neither satisfactory to the anachronistic power, nor to the bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie, being stronger, will in fact rule behind the scenes unless and until it decides or is obliged by circumstances to sweep away the remnants of earlier class dictatorships.
Bourgeois revolutions have always (and the Netherlands was the first) preferred to stop short and compromise with royalty, tribalism, and occasionally even slavery. It is the action of the proletariat that tends to force the hand of the bourgeoisie towards the purer forms of bourgeois democracy, namely one-person-one-vote in a unitary state.
The matter is complicated today by the existence of capitalist imperialism, which proposes the abandonment of the Westphalian sovereignty that has secured the bourgeois nation-state in law. The world bourgeoisie cannot refrain from creating this monster, but neither can it abandon its natural haven, the bourgeois nation-state. The war in Iraq is the product of this contradiction: it is a bourgeois-on-bourgeois war.
The solution pursued by imperialism is to ally itself with the anachronistic remnants, whether tribal or feudal, fragment the polity of the target state, and build a client power that will frustrate the modernising bourgeois and proletarian forces located in the towns. For a full exposition of this idea see “Citizen and Subject” by Mahmood Mamdani. Maybe you know it already. Mamdani’s data comes from Africa, but Fiji would do just as well, I suspect.
Razavipour – go check Merriam-Webster for the definition of democracy:
1 a : government by the people; especially : rule of the majority
b : a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections
Does it say anything about human rights and individual liberties. No! The only right implied in a democracy is to take part in periodically held free elections.
All your words about supermajorities are irrelevant in a democracy as they would be part of any constitution rather inherent in democracy.
BTW, it is not just Muslim countries that have used ‘democracy’ to oppress minorities. For example, look at Northern Ireland.
Finally, while I support the European Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms, it is not for Europeans or anyone else to impose it on other countries. How would Americans feel if we tried to impose it on them? The American constitution does not conform to the socio-ethical precepts in the European Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms. Democracy existed for many years prior to 2000 when the the European Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms was implemented.
Dominic:
It’s enough to force my Communist hand. I have to confess my conviction that the modern nation-state is a product of the class struggle of capital against feudal and other earlier forms of class domination.
As you’ve probably figured out, I’m not a Marxist, and I suspect that this is at the heart of many of our disagreements. Among other things, I don’t share your apparent view of the malleability of group identities. I certainly agree that sectional and national identities are constructs, but they are constructed at least in part by their members, and as such are both organic and resistant to change. Altering or replacing them takes a great deal of time and effort, and unless one is prepared to use Kemalist methods of coercion, it’s often more effective to democratize within the sectorial system while the process of building cross-sectorial alliances is incomplete.
I have great admiration for organizations like the ANC, or even to some extent Nyerere’s Chama Cha Mapinduzi, that have managed to conduct successful cooperative nation-building projects. At the same time, I don’t think the conditions for such projects are as favorable everywhere – and certainly not in Lebanon – as they were in ZA or Tanzania. (And as you probably remember from our earlier conversation, this is also why I consider a unitary Israeli-Palestinian state unfeasible.)
BTW, I’ve read Citizen and Subject as well as Mamdani’s book on the Rwandan genocide; needless to say, I don’t entirely agree with Mamdani’s worldview, but his writing has influenced my opinions on Africa.
Christiane:
What do you mean exactly by consociational?
There’s a working definition of a consociational state here. (Hint: you live in one.)
Dear Jonathan, I had not mistaken you for a Marxist!
Just to clarify on my side, I don’t think group identities are malleable. Nor do I think they are of over-riding power. Only when they are a proxy for class conflict do they become antagonistic.
I don’t think South African or Tanzanian “conditions” have been as determinant as the subjective political factor, which is the key to everything in my view. It’s all about freedom!
I wonder if you have read another crucial book, called ‘The “Death of the Subject” Explained’, by James Heartfield. (Different kind of “Subject” from the one Mamdani is writing about). The point is to change the world, as the 11th Thesis on Feuerbach has it.
Johnatan,
Thanks for the link. I had a pressentiment that Switzerland would be classified as such a state. However Wikipedia isn’t very specific as to what makes a state consociational.
Johnatan,
Thanks for the link. I had a pressentiment that Switzerland would be classified as such a state. However Wikipedia isn’t very specific as to what makes a state consociational. We prefer to say that we have a federalist, consual and direct democracy. The fact that we have a large coalition of parties, from far right to left, present in the executive is more an effect of direct democracy than of the presence of linguistic and religious differences. Partisan loyalties are higher than regional ones and prevails in most decisions IMO.
Hello Quentin – your very graceful replies are quite commendable (unlike yours truly).
France is an elected presidency – directly through plebiscite. As in the US. So it is not a parliamentary system like in most other European nations (Germany, England, Canada, Spain, EU, etc.). Iraq, Lebanon (I believe), Turkey, and most newer and modern democracies are parliamentary systems which are considered superior to the presidential system.
Italian Constitution: “Presidential elections, conducted by secret ballot, require a two-thirds majority of the assembly.” http://www.oefre.unibe.ch/law/icl
So pls. do not confuse head of state (President, Monarch, etc) with head of government (Prime minister) in a parliamentary system.
The government (prime minister) is generally through a simple (50% + 1) majority. This is also the case of Iraq. So if Cobban and cole are saying that the prime minister is being prevented to be appointed by the parliament, then they are inventing it up and are unknowledgable. The prime minister in Iraq is appointed by the president to be confirmed by simple majority (50+1) by parliament.
So let them not fool you that anybody is holding up the government. These people have an ax to grind – and truth and facts are just second fiddle for these people with an agenda. Generally their agenda is not to see these 3rd world countries progress and turn into developed and free and democratic societies. Their agenda is to bash the US, and if that means a theocracy or dictatorship for the Arabs or Iranians, so be it, as they dont deserve to have liberties and democracy.
Razavipour, some questions:
So, you say it is the President who will appoint the PM of Iraq under the current system? Only one person gets to make this appointment? Then who is this president? Can you name him?
Dominic – as a late comer to your debate, let me add my 2 cents. Class identity is extremely weak in traditional societies like Iraq or Iran or even Lebanon. Class identities develop at later stages of capitalistic development, and is very much a by product of capitalism. During the Iranian revolution of 1979, the battle cry was not lets bring down the bourgoisie and do away with private capital. The battle cry was either nationalistic (lets get that damn puppet of Americans) or was religious (lets get that damn atheist). On top of this you had a myriad weave of ethnic and tribal and clan conflicts. Then add the gender gap to this brew.
One must not confuse class consciousness of the advanced capitalistic societies with the low-level political consciousness of these 3rd world societies. (In fact it even seems that class consciousness in today’s postmodern capitalistic societies is becoming a rare commodity.)
That is why it is imperative that these 3rd world societies go through capitalistic development, even though that will happen only at great cost to society. There is no way around this. Anything else is utopian, idealistic, and non-scientific. You cannot shunt the phases and try to smarten up a short cut. Marx was wrong about determinism in many ways. But Marx got it right in the most critical one – namely in the determinism of capitalistic production – meaning that this is a stage that MUST be admitted whether you like it or not.
And that is why anti-globalization is pro-capitalism (and not anti-capitalism).
Shirin – the office of presidency in Iraq requires 2/3 majority (supermajority) vote of the parliament.
Just like in Italy. Just like in Turkey.
This is designed to arrive at a broad concensus of the body politic, and to prevent the tyranny of the majority over a dissenting minority. Pluralism and concensus is the essence of democracy, and not imbecile “51% want Mohammedan totalitarian one-man rule, so its legitimate to shaft the other 49%”.
Again, a law arrived by majority decision is always subject to human rights, and may not violate the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms (aka Bill of Rights) of the nation.
Do not confuse a parliamentary system with an appointed president (Iraq) with a parliamentary system with an elected president.
blowback – I am talking about (liberal) democracy and not Islamic so-called democracy or other forms of despotic rule of rigged electioneering masquerading as democracy in name.
Liberal democracy correctly assumes that liberal ethical precepts are of HIGHER ORDER than constitutional or political precepts. Just like in Islam where the Sharia is subject to the Koran, in the liberal democratic system of governance, as practiced by all western democratic societies, the political will is subservient and must conform to the socio-ethical will.
I suggest you go beyond a half-line convenience definition of democracy and study the SYSTEM behind it and the intentions behind its founding in the first place. Democracy is a very complicated system, and there are shades of it, etc. But you cannot have a system that negates individual rights and liberties, and supports rigged and concocted elections, and call it a democracy.
Neither can you have a system which allows a majority to subvert it and terminate democracy on others and their children forever, and on themselves BTW, and then call that a democracy to begin with. Can a democracy allow itself to be terminated? Or does a democracy have to subscribe to higher precepts, namely human rights?
Please do not try to revise the definition of democracy (better known as liberal democracy). Such postmodern and oppressive projects are going to fail and are a waste of time.
blowback – human rights is a universal condition. Pls. study the UN UNIVERSAL declaration of human rights. There is nothing tribal or ethnocentric about human rights. Americans would never object to European standards of human rights. In fact we already have our own charter called the “Bill of Rights” as part of our constitution. These two documents are essentially similar and certainly universal.
Therefore, yes human rights IS TO BE IMPOSED on other nations, and by force if necessary. In the same manner that your local law enforcement can impose by force the rules of society on you, in exactly the same manner international justice can enforce humanitarian rules on all nations and groupings anywhere in the world. In fact your attempt to divide humanity into nations, tribes, and clans in order to deprive them of human rights is the one that is under question.
Human rights is not a religious or cultural construct.
One thing I agree with you is that the socio-ethical precepts embodied in the various charter of rights we see today is a rather modern phenomena and is not universally understood – especially by Europeans who take liberalism for granted to the point of denying it on the lesser fortunates.
A constitution that does not submit to a Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms is not worth the paper it is written on. That is why both the Afghani constitution and the interim Iraqi constitution have incorporated many if not most of the basic individual and collective rights that we speak of.
The short of the discussion is that a state is more than the constitutional or political construct which you call democracy. A state also incorporates a humanitarian and ethical construct.
And most important of all, the humanitarian and ethical construct supercedes and rules over the constitutional and political construct.
Razavipour,
In fact I don’t clearly understand what is going on in Iraq. Maybe you could educate me more. After an election the president (head of state) of Italy or other parliamentary countries appoints someone to form the new government. The first, obvious, customary choice (legally mandated choice?) is the leader of the party which got the most votes, parliamentary seats. I understand the two negotiating factions in Iraq have agreed to a president (a Kurd, name forgotten by me). So why don’t they present him to parliament, where he will get two-thirds of the vote (as in Italy, Turkey, etc.), and let him ask the Shiite coalition, who have the majority, to form the new goverment. They are doubtless sure of gaining simple majority approval in parliament.
The problem always seemed to me that TWO-THIRDS of the parliamentarians must also approve the new government, prime minister with cabinet. That’s where the obstacle lies and, to my understanding, that’s the perverse legacy of the U.S.
I’d appreciate a short, direct answer: do two-thirds of the Iraq parliament have to approve the government or not? If so, the U.S.-imposed system cannot be compared to Italy and other countries because they do not require two-thirds approval for the formation of the government. And I am still very interested in how you define the term ‘civil society’, which, as you must know, become a fashionable code word to denote ideology: always on the right and always tacitly in contrast to the unamed ‘uncivil societies’, which are of course threatening and scary. The usage is very closely linked with Bush and associates. Ten years ago you would not have come across it as you do today. Anyway the word ‘civil’ always reminds me of the manners of U.S. white plantation society.
Razavipour,
Kindly stop blowing smoke into my eyes and simply answer my questions.
Is it one person, this president, who will chooose the PM of Iraq? Who is this president? Does he have a name?
Quentin goes on:
Razavipour, Now you are going to say I misunderstood you again. Right? But in the case that only a simple parliamentary majority is needed to form an Iraq government, as you state in your answer to me above, how can you conclude that the faction (party), the Shiite one, which would then have the right to govern because it has a majority, is not being unjustly prevented from doing so? I would then say Helena Cobban is right. The Shiite and Kurd factions have agreed on the president: so let the process move on to the parliament. Or are the Kurds making misuse of the situation by stalling the process at the presidential level? If so, I would say they are overplaying their hand. They might need Baghdad to live well in the future, being surrounded, after all, by three countries which might want to meddle with them.
I had a pressentiment that Switzerland would be classified as such a state […] We prefer to say that we have a federalist, consual and direct democracy. The fact that we have a large coalition of parties, from far right to left, present in the executive is more an effect of direct democracy than of the presence of linguistic and religious differences. Partisan loyalties are higher than regional ones and prevails in most decisions IMO.
Consociational distributions of power can occur between political parties as well as between ethnic or religious groups. From what I understand (correct me if I’m wrong), all Swiss governments for at least the past half-century have been made up of the same four parties and cabinet seats have been distributed according to the same formula, regardless of election results. It’s this sort of accommodation that makes a state consociational (although, as you say, the Swiss system is moderated by the relatively strong powers granted to the cantons).
Razavipour – America is in contravention of its Bil of Rights by torturing people, holding people without trial and rendering people to third parties. Therefore, according to you, the rest of the world should use force to make the US conform to its Bill of Rights.
BTW, in the UK, the police can only use reasonable force to enforce a law. Is it reasonable for the Americans to kill 100,000+ Iraqis to force Iraq to become a democratic state? What about the rights of the 100,000+ dead?
Helena,
1. I must agree with Razavipour that your number does not add up logically. It is true that Christian, particularly Maronite, have a lower birthrate and a higher out-migration rate. But the Sunni and Druz should at least have the same birthrate as the Shiites.
2. The Lebanon Civil War was worsen by Syrian involvement (and every ousider involvement). Syria switched side between factions, hence prolonging the war. I wonder why are people are surprise when the Lebanese want nothing to do with the Baathist tyranical regime.
BTW, the fifth and final part of my Lebanese series is now up.