Michael Young in Ottawa: Mixing narratives on Lebanon and the 'Arab Spring'

Summary from video:

Lebanon in 2005 wasn’t probably spark for the Arab spring but there are ingredients that are the same from what we are seeing in other Arab countries now and before 2011.

What happened in 2005?  Iraqi elections, Lebanon’s Beirut Spring.  No one mentions now these two events when speaking about Arab Spring.  But many of the features of these two events are present in the Arab Spring.

In 2005, ten and hundred thousands occupy Martyr Square demanding the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon, the resignation of the government and the security apparatus. Syria was a key actor in the assassination of Rafik Hariri.

Syrians pulled out of Lebanon after 29 years of continuous presence.  Lebanon earned this.  It wasn’t a revolution, it was an emancipatory movement.

Those who went to Martyr Square represented all walks of Lebanese society except the Shias.

In investigating this moment Young finds in it 4 major salient issues:

1.     Use of public space

2.     Demand for overhaul of instruments of repression

3.     Role of foreign intervention

4.     Aftermath

These 4 salient issues can be found in current Arab revolutions.

1.     Use of public space: The need to secure a public space with symbolic and geographic relevance, under the eyes of media.  In the case of Lebanon, Martyr Square was an easy location, green line, place of reconciliation and the place where Hariri was buried.  It is next to the old city that Hariri built and to An-Nahar newspaper building.  The public will come to visit the tomb of Hariri.  The security cannot prevent them from doing so.  They assemble after the visit and the place becomes difficult to clear, under the watch of the media.  There was a replication of this in Arab revolutions: Tahrir, Pearl roundabout, different and rival squares in Yemen, a whole city in Libya, Benghazi, where a rival government was established.  In Syria revolts proliferated in many cities but took hold in Hama, Homs and Kurdish area.  Public space occupation becomes a tent city and who occupies a tent city?  Young people.  Idealistic, convinced of their position.  It is in this context that frustration is high.

2.     Instruments of repression:  In 2005, senior security chiefs were removed by the government under popular pressure. It doesn’t happen often that security personnel leave office under pressure from street.  When Jamil el Sayyed  was removed, Young called Qasir to congratulate him because of his editorials against the security apparatus but Qassir was assassinated 15 days later and Young is convinced that the two events are connected, the removal of El-Sayyed and the death of Qassir.

Security apparatuses are difficult to change or remove.   Lebanese protesters in 2005 played the differences and the competition between different tools of repression, security apparatus and army, playing on the nationalism of the Lebanese army who avoided attacking protesters.  The army also was playing it both ways, implementing order but not firing on crowd.   The value of any revolution in the aftermath is by the severity order is imposed.

In Egypt and Tunisia the army didn’t fire on the crowd. 

In Libya, it is the balance of power between two armies that was responsible for order.  No accountable security force in Libya, same in Syria, it is the balance of power.

3.     Foreign intervention (outside intervention).  Lebanon didn’t get its due in 2005.  Chirac was for foreign intervention but Bush came late to it.  The trend in the Arab world was against foreign intervention, not against Hezbollah and Syria.  Lebanon's revolution was seen as Bourgeois revolt (Prada revolution).  Those who could protest were relatively rich and educated.  Liberals in the west were more pro-March 8 because they felt the movement was more popular.  In the Arab world today, foreign intervention is being accepted in Libya, in Syria.  Now it’s OK.  It is not what it used to be for Iraq and Lebanon back in 2005, there is no more opposition in the Arab world to foreign intervention.    We shouldn’t underestimate the role narratives play in the acceptance of foreign intervention.  In the narrative, you have to make people (natives) part of the foreign intervention, mix narratives, and inside one meant for the outside, hence the importance of placards in English, and an outside one meant for the  inside.  Make people on both sides want to be part of it.  In Lebanon narratives played an important role.  Here Young mentions the ad agency role in Lebanon's revolution.  Symbolism and colours created a narrative that was both mobilising on the inside and easy for western audience to understand what was going on.  

Lebanese understood how the west wanted them to be!

There is symbolism in Tahrir, in Benghazi.

One thing that became important in Lebanon is the STL functioning under a Canadian prosecutor.  It is the first time the UN investigates in other countries and it will be replicated.  Young said he was disappointed with the STL, accused Brammertz who he called the second prosecutor of derailing the investigation, but says that there might still be possibilities for other indictments, Syria.

4.     Aftermath.  In Lebanon: parliamentary elections, political acrimony, 2006 Hezbollah-Israel war, domestic conflict leading to almost armed conflict.

The aftermath tend to shape the perception of the revolution.  It is a mistake to interpret things with such an absolutism and only from the point of view of the aftermath.  The outcome shouldn’t delegitimize the initial impulse if it fails.   Such delegitimisations go like this: ‘if Islamists win, then revolution is undemocratic’  This is currently the problem at the center of Arab revolts. It is a shame to adopt these interpretations because they fall into Arab dictators argument ‘either them or us’.  ‘I am not religious, but Islamists are legitimate, they’re 60% in Tunisia’.  We shouldn’t assume that if Islamists do well then the initial revolt failed.  Instruments of repression are important in the aftermath.  The aftermath won’t be like the Canadian system but at least could have some accountability.  The accountability of the instruments of repression is a question that the west has to ask (and answer?)

Conclusion of the talk:  there is a recurring pattern between 2005 and 2011.  2011 is the second impulse.  We can find some authenticity in this recurring pattern.  Lebanon in 2005 is as authentic as Iraq in 2005 as Tahrir in 2011.

Authenticity bestowed from outside, the tag of inauthenticity for Lebanon in 2005 was made by Arab world.

There are 20' questions at the end of the video.  Questions and answers are interesting.

Special Tribunal for Lebanon: A Prosecutor's "Tunnel Vision"

Al Akhbar English, strong aletrnative to non Qatari non Saudi media, is out.

This is a link to the latest article on the Special UN Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) from Omar Nashabe.

The STL is the first international tribunal to indict someone for a terrorism crime. Instead of targeting suspects affiliated to internationally recognized terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda, the first terrorism indictment is aimed at Hezbollah, a Lebanese resistance movement. This does not come as a surprise for those who monitor events in the Middle East. Hezbollah represents a threat to the security of Israel, something unacceptable to the United States and other Western powers. The investigation into the assassination of Hariri may have been a golden opportunity to undermine Hezbollah.

Lebanon: A Tale of Two Governments And Two Visits (part II)

Part I

My father had died last January leaving each one of us, me and my brothers, few parcels of his land in the north. I was in Lebanon for his funerals back then and I came back this summer, this time with my family, to visit his land.

My father worked hard to acquire and maintain his land. He inherited some of it and bought the rest. He had a spiritual connection to his land. Before the Lebanese civil war he was unemployed for two consecutive years and the land saved us. With the usual olive harvest, he planted tobacco and was able to pay for our private school and maintain our living standards. During the civil war, he became unemployed again and we lived from the land. Even though we were children, we learned to acknowledge the material security the land afforded us.  In Lebanon's rural communities, the house and the land are what define persons first, no matter how much this person earns and no matter what her social position is. My father was proud of his land and he made us participate in the olive harvest every year. During the civil war he refused to sell and leave the village and Lebanon alltogether. He stayed in the village during its darkest hours while we were in safety away from him. He later sent my brothers abroad for fear of indoctrination by the militia. Even though we all ended up living and working outside Lebanon, we kept the land and the house, my father taught us to love the land.

I have vivid memories of my father's land. I remember accompanying him to the tobacco field and marveling at the sight of the morning dew hanging on the furry tobacco leaves. I remember the olive harvest, the delicious meals eaten under the olive trees, the itinerant seller of sweets wandering from one field to another and announcing his arrival with a bell and chansonnettes. I remember the donkeys carrying olive bags and children at the end of the day, the family meal of the evening with the Syrian workers who used to help in the harvest. I remember my father working late into the night after dinner to separate the olives from their leaves and the sight of olives rolling on a board to achieve this process. I remember the end of the harvest season, the goodbyes, and the sadness that settled afterward with the coming of the cold season, a sadness that would go only at easter time when the flowers came back to their trees promising another harvest. All these images were rolling in my head while we were driving from Beyrouth to the north this July.

It took some time to leave Beirut. The traffic was heavy and we were told that this was nothing. 'Wait until the gulfies show up'. Beirut was waiting for tourists from the gulf and unsure whether they were going to show up. And we learned that they did show up after all. Because of the traffic inside and around Beyrouth, the city keeps well its visitors. During our one week stay there we hardly left the city, only once for the Chouf area and another time for Kesrouane. Leaving Beirut for good this time was liberating.

The day we left Beirut, there were news that the long anticipated indictments of Hezbollah members were issued by the STL. These news appeared barely two days after rumours that the Hezbollah approved Mikati government had reached an agreement on its position of principle on the STL, and that the newly formed government was going for a confidence vote in the parliament. This positive denouement for the Mikati government was not anticipated by Hezbollah's political rivals, Hariri and March 14th. Nor did they anticipate before that Lebanon would find a Sunni politician to form a government, after the ousting of Hariri, and that Mikati would be able to form a government. The only thing March 14th and hariri could count on to cloud the political climate for their opponents were the STl indictments and here they came, divinely timely to throw suspicion at Hezbollah. However, the reality among Lebanese, relatives and non relatives, from all political backgrounds, would unravel in a different way. Nobody among Lebanese we encountered during our subsequent two weeks stay would care about the STL. The indictements, along with other measures taken by the US to criminalise Hezbollah and its members, are not affecting Hezbollah's standing in Lebanon. But then they are maybe targeting the wider Arab public opinion. This is the most relevant context within which to interpret the current campaign to criminalise Hezbollah as the battle is ongoing to control the Arab spring and transform it into a cold Sunni-Shia war.

On our way to north Lebanon, we stopped at my aunt in Kesrouane. Lebanese customs obligent, the conversation veered toward politics very quickly. My aunt and her grown up children are all for the general (Aoun). Past governments mismanaged the country, made Lebanese poor, bought Beirut downtown on the cheap, sold it to gulf money, estranged Lebanese from their city downtown by making it look like any gulf rich city center. They used the shock doctrine to implement neoliberal policies that wrecked Lebanese traditional subsistance economy and way of life. Before my two visits this year to Lebanon, the last time I was there was in 2005. And I could see that the economic situation of the people and their way of life have greatly deteriorated. Lebanon is far from being self sufficient for its energy needs. Every household pays for the electricity twice, once for the state owned electricity company and once for a private provider. The state provides barely 12 hours of electricity per day. Add to that the soaring price of gaz and you have Lebanese with good jobs scrambling to make ends meet.  Only the super rich are not affected. Talking to my aunt, I realise how much Aoun's populist discourse has touched nerve among Lebanese. My aunt's household is an integrated economy, all inhabit the same building that they own, each one has a floor in the building and share everything from meals to transport to maids...They are four adults working good jobs to make ends meet, for a family of seven in total.

My parents' house in the village, a traditional white stone house, needs extensive renovations. We had booked two locations in the Qadisha valley for our two weeks stay in the north. During this time we were going to shuttle between the village and the two locations, visit the beautiful Qadisha valley, maybe Tripoli if all is well, Byblos, and walk the cedar reserves as well as small sections of the LMT, especially the ones that follow the old trails used to connect people and animals between the mountain villages of the north.

During my stay in the north I watched parts of the parliament sessions preceding the vote of confidence and an interesting interview with Dennis Kucinich on Al Jadeed TV after he had a three hours meeting with Syria's Assad.

Part III and final to follow...

The Special Tribunal For Lebanon: Justice For All Or Justice For The Cedar Niggers?

Days after the nth leak, the Special Tribunal For Lebanon (STL) announced his indictments on July 2nd accusing, what we now know at least since 2009, four members of Hezbollah. The announcement coincides with the new Lebanese government's statement of principle on the STL going for a confidence vote in the Lebanese parliament soon, and with the positive developments for Assad in Syria coming after an intense diplomatic and political activity in which the Syrian president met with representatives from the US and the UK, and in which the regime and the internal opposition seem to be willing to find a way out of the crisis.

Hezbollah reacted immediately yesterday with a speech from its leader Hassan Nasrallah aired on major Lebanese tv channels.

Nasrallah's speech after the indictment.

The STL has been biased and politcised from its inception and a tool against the Lebanese resistance. It is no coincidence that he first leaks pointing to a possible Hezbollah role in the assassination of Rafiq Hariri were published in the Figaro just after Israel's defeat in the 2006 war against the Lebanese resistance. This was an indication that the tribunal became very quickly a tool for the US and Israel to achieve against the Lebanese resistance what they were not able to achieve with the July 2006 war.

Nasrallah spoke of the flaws in the investigation at lenght and provided new disturbing material about the corruption, politicisation and the infiltration of the tribunal by Israel and the CIA. here are some points:

1. The lonely trail of the investigation or the mono rail.  While Brammertz, the second UNIIC chief prosecutor who came unde fire fromm March 14th, pursued more than one trail of investigation, the focus of the investigation of the first and third prosecutors (Mehlis and Bellemare) was alternatively on Syria and Hezbollah.  They never pursued the business trail and never considered seriously that Israel might have interest at throwing the country in civil war again.  This is despite the fact that Hezbollah provided evidence that Israelis were monitoring the site of the bomb that killed Hariri and his daily route days before and on the day of the assassination. The evidence was judged circumstancial and was not investigated.

2. The tight cooperation between Israel and the tribunal. Not only Israel was not investigated but the tribunal sought information from Israel. It also tranferred its computers and files through Israel when it moved its operations center from Lebanon to the Netherlands, instead of transferring them through Beyrouth airport. This last information was obtained thanks to Hezbollah intelligence and Al-Manar aired a picture of the Israeli customs authorisation as a proof. Israel has its footprints all over the tribunal up to its president, Antonio Cassese, 'a great friend of Israel'. Al Manar aired a video in which one of cassese colleagues was paraising him as a great friend of Israel at the 2010 annual Herzilya conference where Cassese was due to attend.

3. The role of foreign western intelligence agencies in the investigation, unsavoury characters. Hezbollah, once again, was able to gather information on some key individuals who worked for Daniel Bellemare, the chief prosecutor at the STL. There is Najib Nick Keldas, australian, ex CIA, had a role in the massacre of Bir El 'Abd (one has to be aware here that most western sources consider Imam Fadlallah, the target of the bomb that killed more than eighty, erroneously as the spiritual guide of Hezbollah, which is not true, Fadlallah was the spiritual guide of the Shia community in Lebanon). Than there is Robert Baer, the much talkative ex-CIA, who was a special agent assigned to track Mughniyyeh and failed to kill him. Mughniyyeh was a high ranking Hezbollah operative who was later killed in Damascus. Baer also had a role in Bir El Abd Massacre. Then there is Michael Taylor, who worked for Scotland Yard on Islamist terror. Dorede Bcherraoui (Lebanese living in France), who had a role in the false witnesses who previously misled the tribunal to accuse Syria and the four Lebanese generals. And finally, Darrel Mandir, who continues to work for the CIA.

4. The corruption of prominent members of the tribunal. As in the case of the Israeli customs document, Nasrallah's speech was interrupted with a video showing Gerhard Lehman, deputy to ex chief prosecutor of the UNIIC, a UN commission for the assassination of Hariri on which premises the STL was created, taking bribes for solding files, infos and documents produced by the UNIIC. It is known in Lebanon that some of this material was sold to local TV stations. The STL is also famously known for its leaks, many of which were sold to the media. This was a damning moment for which the March 14 parliamentary minority in lebanon who were behind the creation of the STL had nothing else to say to the media after the video was aired other than the video only showed that Lehman was being bribed but it did not show who was bribing him! Then there was the false witnesses testimonies. It was very damaging to the UNIIC and made the STL irrelevant. It was the first scandal to be widely known by the Lebanese public. It is since this scandal and ensuing video aired by New TV showing Saad Hariri, the son of the murdered, discussing one the false witnesses testimonies in the presence of Gerhard Lehman that Lebanese started to look at the STL with great suspicion. But this did not affect the current chief prosecutor of the tribunal, not only he did not investigate the false witnesses but he also prevented personally the tribunal form prosecuting one of them, Zuhair Siddique.

5. The non confidentiality of the investigation and the politicisation of the tribunal. Every leak in the press concerning the indictments, and there were many, were timed to influence local politics. There were leaks by members of the tribunal for money, there were leaks by March 14th in order to attack Hezbollah and other Lebanese parties who are not members of their coalition, and there were leaks by the STL, the last of them being the release, days before the official indictment, of the complete names of the accused. The last leaks and the indictment were timed to hinder the confidence vote in parliament for the new Mikati government which put March 14th, for the first time since the assassination of Rafiq Hariri, out of the government and in the opposition.  Initially, March 14th thought that the Miakti government will not reach a consensus on how to deal with the tribunal, but when the consensus was reached and the new government was heading for a confidence vote, the accused names appeared in full and the indictment was issued promptly days after the leak. Where is justice? There were leaks in 2009 before the elections, and then during the formation of Saad Hariri's government where Hezbollah were asking to be officially recognised as the national resistance. There were leaks when Saad Hariri's government fell. All these leaks served politically one party in Lebanon, March 14.

This is a very one sided, politicised tribunal controlled by Israel and the US and aimed at one party in Lebanon, the resistance. The tribunal is presided by Antonio Cassese, 'a great friend of Israel' who consider the resistance as terrorists. How justice can be done with such a tribunal?

The Israelis now are saying that Lebanon is in the eye of the tempest. That's their hope and the hopes of some in March 14th that Sunnis will fight Shias, that by accusing a Shia group, Hezbollah, of the assassination of a Sunni prime minister, Lebanon will descend into civil strife. But there will be no such a strife. Lebanese want to live in peace. They have more urgent priorities, the economy that was neglected by the former corrupt government, jobs, electricity, basic needs. The Siniora and the Saad Hariri governments are obsessed by Hezbollah and put this obsession first as their government priority at the expense of more urgent priorities. Hariri could not even tolerate alternance in Lebanon, he sees himself as PM for life.

Hezbollah does not recognise the legitimacy of the STL and will not let this corrputed and politicised government arrest his accused members. March 14th should not ask the current government to deliver the accused to the STL, they could not ask from the Mikati government what they cannot ask from themselves. Saad Hariri signed a document recognising the special status of Hezbollah as the national resistance. Even a pure March 14th government could not comply with the STL's demands. The Mikati government should be given the chance to work for all Lebanese and Lebanon, and Lebanese should be protected from civil strife. The STL is just a stage in the war waged at the Lebanese resistance and at the Arab resistance in general since 1948. When the Lebanese resistance was created in 1982, it was small and without allies. Today the resistance is strong. Lebanese should not worry.

Indeed, the reactions to the STL indictments were only seen among March 14. Lebanese are busy fighting a difficult economic situation and the STL has been discredited in their eyes a long time ago. There was no surprise when the indictments were announced. Lebanon's debt is equivalent to Greek debt, a debt created by Hariri father and son, and Siniora who is a member of their Future movement, who ruled the country while enriching themselves. This is while the cost of the STL payed for by the Lebanese government is projected to be around the 200 millions and counting, millions that serve as a tool in a war waged by the enemies of Lebanon.

The STL is a farce. If it were to operate in the same way in any other country it will be judged differently under different judicial standards. It will be scrutinised. So why the UN and USrael want this kind of justice for us? Who do they think we are? Cedar niggers perhaps.


"Pffft" went the UN special tribunal for Lebanon

Friday Lunch Club summarising the Special Tribunal for Lebanon.

March 14 to the US, Gulf states: Help us regain power in Lebanon through the STL (this link as well as links to screen shots in this post were produced by FLC)

UPDATE: More proof of the transfer of the tribunal documents through Israel.

UPDATE: Omar Nashabe (Al Akhbar) speaking on the STL at the LSE in Januray 2011.
UPDATE: Robert Parry: Troubled History of the Hariri probe

Flash update: follow the latest developments about the Hariri tribunal (STL) on my twitter account.

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The tribunal of discord

The killers of Lebanon, its economy and its population, before, during and after the civil war, were never brought to justice. They were freed and pardoned and elected to parliament in the name of national concord and unity.

From the beginning, the STL was a political instrument and an instrument of discord, because it accepted 'doing justice' to one man, while forgetting the many victims of those who are claiming justice for this man.

If Saad Hariri wants unity and peace for Lebanon, so he must shut disavow the tribunal. If the international community wants justice for Lebanon, so it must bring total justice, not partial and misguided justice.

Lebanon's 'unity' government falls.

Shut down this tribunal!

Lebanon, The STL, And The Civil War Amnesty

If the current government of Lebanon wants to go ahead with pressing charges through the STL than for the sake of decency it should follow Peru's example and revokes civil war amnesty.  That's the least we should expect from an impartial government and from a non politicized tribunal.

If Peru can do it, we should be able to do it.