Deep condolences to the family and comrades of the slain lebanese journalist samir Kassir. The fact and manner of his killing were both equally shocking.
Kassir, a convinced leftist activist, probably deserved just as much or more activism at the time of his killing as the late Rafiq Hariri. But the Lebanese “opposition” politicians who created such a successful and telegenic media spectacle after Hariri’s killing have proven (once again) that they do not have the long-term vision and commitment required to build a longterm political movement.
Kassir was buried Saturday. Though some of his comrades called for the ouster of pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud in response, the much wiser Maronite Patriarch, Nasrallah Boutros Sfeir, called for calm in his sermon today. That Daily Star article linked to above quotes Sfeir as saying: “If President Emile Lahoud is forcibly removed, would this truly stabilize political life in Lebanon?”
All this came after the near-total failure of a call the “opposition” launched right after Kassir’s killing, for the country to observe a general strike Friday.
In that Daily Star piece, Leila Hatoum wrote:
- Despite opposition calls for a general strike Friday in response to the assassination of Samir Kassir, life went on as normal in the capital with the vast majority of businesses more concerned about making a living than protesting.
She quoted “Mohammed, a young waiter working at one central district cafe” as saying,
- “The mighty opposition figures think they can control us and play with our destiny, but they don’t feel with us. They have the money and power to last a boycott, but if we the poor stop working for a day, we would not find anything to eat at night.”
Mohammed continued: “Yesterday, a great journalist died, just like many great Lebanese men before him, but we refuse to kill our country by closing it down to please the politicians’ whims.”
Abu Jean, a parking attendant in Gemmayzeh, agreed.
Meanwhile, south Lebanon has today been seeing the voting for the region’s 23 parliamentary seats. Six of these seats saw no contest. The races for the others saw, according to this article in the Daily Star, great successes for the joint Amal-Hizbullah list.
Reuters reported that, “Interior Ministry sources said turnout among the 675,000 eligible voters was 45 percent.” That was noticeably higher than the voting for the Beirut-area seats last week.
Today’s poll was the second of the four weekly rounds of voting in the parliamentary election.
If you read only the mainstream US media about developments in Lebanon you probably would not have known about the failure of the opposition’s call for a general strike Friday. And you might have thought there were some politically viable Shiite canidates in the election there who were not associated with the Hizbullah-Amal list.
For example, in this piece in today’s NYT, Hassan M. Fattah wrote:
- For many Lebanese, while Hezbollah retains much of its draw, the patina of heroism that it earned in the 23 years of Israelis occupation of the south has dulled as the group has been forced to make alliances and operate like any other party.
Ibrahim Shamseddine is a widely respected Shiite leader and the son of a leading Shiite cleric. Bushra Khalil is a well-known lawyer from a prominent Shiite family who proudly admits she is on Saddam Hussein’s defense team. Riad al-Asaad is a cousin of the multibillionaire Prince Walid bin Talal of Saudi Arabia and sees himself as a reformer. All have taken on Hezbollah candidates.
Okay, Fattah then immediately admits that, “Most independent candidates admit they have slim chances.” But I think his analysis that the party’s political support has waned as it has entered Lebanon’s parliamentary system is just plain wrong, and wrong-headed.
Hizbullah decided to enter parliamentary politics back in 1991, and has done fairly well ever since then. Its moment of greatest national support came in 1996, and of greatest national glory in May 2000, when it demonstrated its remarkable ability to force a unilateral Israeli withdrawal from the country. But throughout all those years it continued to pursue a very smart policy within the Lebanese political system.
This has not dulled its “patina”. In general, the solid work that Hizbullah politicians in local and national government have done– often in alliance with other parties– has served the people well by delivering decent levels of service to them. Thus, if anything, it has burnished the party’s “patina” with the public.
Is it too difficult to be able to explain these complex aspects of Hizbullah to an American audience? It really shouldn’t be. But I suppose it depends on what your “editors” want you to write…
in fairness to Mr. Fattah, in the quoted article in the New York Times, he goes on to support his thesis that Hezbollah is losing the trees for the forest:
“Hezbollah has sacrificed its incorruptible image and focus on service for political expediency and single-minded defense of its arms, said Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, a professor at the Lebanese American University. “Hezbollah has subordinated its political role to the resistance, and it is just now becoming clear what the cost of that is,” she said.
Shiites are not appropriately represented in Parliament, receive far less development money in their neighborhoods and have generally been isolated from politics. Given the latest political turbulence, they have been especially isolated, she said.”