The anti-Sanyura protests and class struggle in Lebanon

Most of the time, Lebanon is portrayed as a sectarian country divided along religious and ehtnic lines and this is true. However, since the reconstruction of the country after the 15 year civil war, a new divide emerged between communities fueled by the increasing debt of the country and the absence of a real economic project for the Lebanese society, both brought by Hariri father who wanted to make Lebanon a country like Monaco or switzerland where Arab gulf states and Saudi Arabia can spend their money, spend, not invest. Consequently, the service sector increased while corruption reached incredible highs inside the state apparatus. An ambitious young professional friend of mine working for an NGO in Beyrouth during the Hariri years when Sanyura used to be minister of finances told me he was offered a high profile job but refused it because the corruption and incompetence in the government would have made any other professional move for him impossible if he would have accepted such a job.

The grim economic situation has reached now Christian communities who were usually relatively wealthy and the new economic divide is helping bridge old religious sectarian divides. Lebanon is traditionally an agrarian country. People possess their land and when they aren't able to have a job and a salary they could at least exploit their land and live in dignity. This is how it used to be. However, shiites were prevented from this dignified life, even before the civil war, due to the Israeli hostilities against Palestinian camps in the south and Israel's frequent invasions of the south since the seventies. Southern Lebanon could not sustain its villagers because of the perpetual state of war against which the Lebanese government did nothing, shiites being poorly represented within the government and the state apparatus. Shiites migrated to Beyrouth's southern suburbs and were the poorest in the country when all other communities enjoyed a relative wealth.

The civil war, its economic impact and the disastrous debt brought by Hariri, whose companies were heavily involved in the reconstruction of downtown Beyrouth, have contributed to the extension of economic distress to Christian communities. When I visited Lebanon in 2005 I was struck by the Disney land character of the new Beyrouth, a well reconstructed area that only the rich can reasonably access. Everything was expansive. I had promised my children, who were visiting for the first time, to take them to one of those ambulant restaurants on the seaside where we used to eat bountiful sandwishes of shawarma and falafel before the war but there was none. We had to walk to Raouché, a popular seaside, also invaded by Saudi money and a movenpick resort, to find only Kaak sellers (Lebanese bread with sesame), but there were no meals to eat on the go and one had to sit inside a restaurant to get some food. Everthing was so expansive, even by Canadian standards. I wondered how could poeople, whose salaries don't match those that are practised in a liberal economy, make ends meet ? I was told that Lebanese were living on their savings, working two to three jobs, borrowing and families were sticking together in a collective sort of household economy.

When we were children, my father used to say that those who did not possess land are those who are poor even if they had big salaries and big money in the bank. This is why, despite us living outside Lebanon for more than twenty years now, we kept the land there, olive orchards land which is being exploited by other people who barely send us olive oil and who keep shrinking our share in the harvest out of greed. We kept the land out of respect for my father. My father used to tell us also that those who sell their land are those who are in great financial need. Even though selling the land and investing this money in the west could have brought us a fortune, we didn't do it out of respect for my father and his values which were and still profound Lebanese values. In 2005, I realised that many people from my village have sold their land in order to send their children to school and universities. The cruel irony in this is that the Lebanese economy, which Hariri built after the civil war and which was not human resources oriented but Las Vegas style oriented, was not able to meet the expectations of young educated Lebanese. Lebanese traditionally value education and higher education and in 2005 I met many young people educated at the university who were desperate because there were no well paid jobs or no jobs at all for them in the country.

This new economic context brought to us by Hariri and his mentors, the Saudis, has managed to install an additional divide in Lebanon, the rich and wealthy on one side and the poor and needy on the other. Lebanon has become a land of opportunity more and more for a restricted oligarchy and much less for the majority of its population. Along these lines, the March 14th movement that installed Sanyura as head of the government is the movement of rich sunnis and christians. Their protest against Syria in 2005 was called the Gucci revolution because women who marched were dressed with couturier wear and accessories and marched with their Sri Lankans maids. The alliance between Christians who support Aoun and the shiites of Hezbollah is the aliance of the disgruntled, of the people for whom the new lebanese economy brought poverty and more uncertainty about the future.

Recently, many analyses start pointing to this fact and to the fact that the Sanyura government and its supporters are treating these protesters with contempt...Read the following links:

Link 1

Link 2

Link 2 has its source in an LATimes article that requires a registration.