Sectarianism and politics in Lebanon

Scan page 6

COULD YOU begin by telling us about yourself.

I have been active in Lebanese politics for more than 25 years.

Until it was unofficially dissolved after the Israeli invasion last year, 1 was a member of the Executive Committee of the Lebanese National Movement, one of the seven independent personalities' that sat on the Executive. Now I'm an independent Muslim politician.

To explain what this means requires explaining something about the sectarian nature of Lebanese politics.

When I say 'Muslim', , 1 am not referring to any dictionary definition, less still to any set of of religious ideas. Where there is a problem between the majority of Muslims and the majority of Christians in Lebanon, it is not religious in the doctrinal sense. It is a conflict of political ideas and interests.

Understanding this helps us understand the current situation in Lebanon, the political groupings, and how the state has operated since 1943.

The system is based on an unwritten confederation of sects. The loyalty of the Lebanese is not between an individual and the state directly. It has to be mediated through the sect.

The services that an individual enjoys are usually the services supplied by a sect, whether Maronite, Sunnite, Greek Orthodox or whatever. A Maronite baby, for instance, will usually be born in a Maronite hospital and as he or she grows up will go to Maronite schools. The state made no real effort to create national services and foster a national identity.

And it doesn't stop when a child goes to school: when a Lebanese looks for a job, he or she needs the backing of a religious or political leader linked with his or her sect. This job has to be available to the sect, and the backing has to be there. But this arrangement is not part of the official constitution.

That's right. The National Convention which established the sectarian arrangement in this form was part of the programme of the first independent government in 1943.

At the time - a time when the Diary bp 40p | more for 2 Empl Sout Rye SEI:

Muslim communities were already probably in a numerical majority — we were told that we were going to have a sectarian system but that it would only be temporary.

Behind the deepening of sectarianism lie the interests of local Lebanese leaders - both Muslim and Christian - and external powers. You see, these leaders, the sectarian 'princes' as we call them, provide these powers with an easy tool with which to manipulate the situation. • Naturally this leaves its mark on, the party system. This is even true of the leftist parties like the Independent Nasserites, Morabitoun, which is predominantly Sunnite, or the Progressive Socialist Party, which is overwhelmingly Druze and whose political coloration is very much a reflection of the Jumblatt family's politics. How is it then that several leftist groups and unions have Greek Orthodox leaders?

This is because there is an unusually large number of Greek Orthodox intellectuals.

And Amal doesn't seem to fit into this picture: it is a Shi'ite [Muslim] group which has, from time to time, allied with the Christian Right.

The development of Amal is in fact a good example of the way Lebanese sectarianism and class politics interact.

You see, from about 1969 onwards the influence of the PLO grew and pan-Arabist feelings became very widespread among Muslims - particularly after Black September 1970, for a single co per copy for! 5 or :, and 30p per copy 10 or more, fri om loyment Un it, hwark CVS, I Lane. Lond Dn 5. Cheques pay ¡abl 1 7e:m0O when so many Palestinians Jordan for Lebanon.

As in 1958 - the time of the last US intervention. - the growth of pan-Arabist feeling tended to increase the attachment of the Muslims to the leftist forces.

majority of the leftist parties:

The leaders of the • Shi'ite community therefore feared that class politics would dominate over the struggles between sects. They created a Shi'ite party in order to draw their community back into the sectarian framework.

This party was Harakat el Mahroumin, the Movement of the Underprivileged, which today is Amal.

This is why class politics have not been able to come out clearly in the struggle.

But surely there have been periods when class struggle politics were clearly visible?

Yes, that's true. In certain periods the class struggle was very strong.

In the late 1960s the Arab and Lebanese Left emerged as a strong force. In Lebanon it was able to organise Muslims and Christians alike. There are, after all, underprivileged and underpaid among both.

We have a saying which describes the economic relations of these communities: "A rich Muslim is politically a Christian and a poor Christian is politically a Muslim". The majority of the underprivileged are Muslim.

Then there is the trade union movement. It is one of the great achievements of the Lebanese working class that the trade unions have kept their unity throughout the period of the civil war.

The unification of the nine different federations that previously existed - each of which had its various sections - was one of the most important products of the working class movement of the late sixties.

Services The unions are, as you might expect, more strongly organised in the larger units of production and services. An indication of their strength is what happened shortly before the Israeli invasion.

Then the government tried to impose its estimate of the rise in the cost of living as the index to be used for wage increases. The General Confederation of Labour's figure was much higher and they threatened to call a Just before the strike was due to taxe place, the government caved in and agreed to revise its figure upwards.

About six months ago the goveries: sas sudsing a new decer ta sould unireeze rents. Obviousis this Fould mean a big attack on the working class and the unions opposed it. Both Phalangists and the leftists were on the side of the unions against the government.

Though the Phalangist Party, the Kata'eb, drew inspiration from Európean fascism in the thirties and forties, and it is a mass party of the petty bourgeoisie and some workers, not

----- pull-quotes -----

Marcher of a People's Her polities were kept out * Peoples March ÀVAILABLE AT LAST

by Satvinder Singh and Tony Purtill Introduction by Jeremy Cort yn, MP 50p

Mohammed Kabbani, a left wing Muslim politician from Lebanon, spoke to Andrew Hornung

The majority of the poor are Shi'ites, and they made up the