BEIRUT — Lebanon is in the peculiar situation of having to rebuild after the 34-day war between Hizbullah and Israel while it is still in the process of rebuilding after the 15-year-long civil war of 1975-89. Will this time around be different, and not lead to another war in a few years? Will the political balance between Lebanon’s 18 officially recognized confessional and sectarian groups regain sufficient equilibrium and stability to drive a long-term economic revival anchored in serious political reform?
To find out, I went to the person who has literally written the book on this subject. By coincidence, as the latest war broke out I was finishing a recently published book about war and economics in Lebanon by Dr. Samir Makdisi, the respected Lebanese economist and American University of Beirut professor, who also served as minister of national economy in 1992.
I asked him if this summer’s war had caused him to reconsider any of his conclusions from the civil war experience. He said that this war, and the political events that had preceded it, only reconfirmed the central thesis of his book: Balancing the needs of all citizens in Lebanon’s multi-confessional system requires serious political reforms that can generate better governance and a new political culture. And these, in turn, would allow Lebanon to tackle the significant challenges it faces in fields like environmental degradation, debt, unemployment, corruption, public sector inefficiency, and shortcomings in urban and rural planning, to name only the most obvious.
Makdisi’s book, The Lessons of Lebanon: the economics of war and development (I.B.Tauris, London and New York, 2004) provides a valuable combination of political and economic analyses of Lebanon before, during and after the civil war years. The dual focus on technical issues of finance, trade, regulatory systems, exchange rates and growth, alongside the larger social and political context of Lebanon in the half century from the 1950s to 2000 is especially useful now — because Lebanon’s post-war capacity to overcome adversity again relies heavily on progress on both the economic and political fronts.
Makdisi’s prognosis is mixed. In his book, he notes that local sectarianism and constant foreign influences were two reasons why Lebanon’s central government never achieved the sort of diligence that is so evident in the private sector and civil society in this country. After the civil war, these factors led to “the absence of a coherent long-term national policy that focused on the public good.”
“Whatever its merits,” he wrote, “the finely tuned sharing of political power among Lebanon’s religious communities is inherently discriminatory.” He called the political system a “constrained” democracy that is imbued with potential instability. This inherently unstable system always required external hands to stabilize it, the most recent one being Syria until last year.
The consequence of such a system is “an unstable political equilibrium” that will continue to prevail unless its underlying reasons are properly addressed. Among the consequences of this, he wrote a few years ago, are two things we have since witnessed in recent years: Many talented young Lebanese will leave the country to find work abroad; and, a system that swings between stable and unstable periods will always need external hands to balance it.
The post-Taif era “has not witnessed the creation of genuine political stability or, for that matter, better governance,” he wrote, presciently adding, “open national dialogue on how to resolve major political and economic issues学hich seeks broad political consensus has not been a Lebanese tradition.”
I asked him if the national dialogue that was launched earlier this year by the speaker of parliament, Nebih Berri, corrected this flawed legacy. He replied that the dialogue may not have made major gains because it was conducted by leaders who had vested interests in the “consociational democracy” system as it has long operated — sharing the spoils among sectarian groups according to established patterns of weight and influence.
The national dialogue will succeed only when it does what the Europeans did in the 1980s — bring in others in society (private sector leaders, academics, technocrats, activists) whose expertise can help generate a truly new system that is at once more stable, equitable, prosperous and sustainable.
The events of the past two years confirm many of the key points Makdisi makes in his book. These are more relevant than ever today, as Lebanon once again faces the reality that successfully rebuilding economically demands a parallel political reconfiguration.
“One lesson of this year’s war,” he told me, “is that Lebanon cannot be totally at the mercy of outside powers, whether from the east or the west, or else we risk inviting civil war again. We must work for a new political understanding that acknowledges the dangers of external interference. Iraq sadly is a good example of what can happen when solutions are imposed from the outside.”
What should the Lebanese do now, as rebuilding defines the land once again? He replies: “Our response should be a greater effort to manage our readjusted sectarian and confessional system in the short run, so that in the long run it moves towards a truly secular, liberal, and democratic political system. Such a system must safeguard the rights of all citizens equally, and not sacrifice the public interest for private interests.”
Sensible thoughts, from a seasoned son of the land itself.
Rami G. Khouri is an internationally syndicated columnist, the director of the Issam Fares Institute at the American University of Beirut, and editor-at-large of the Beirut-based Daily Star.
Copyright ｩ2006 Rami G. Khouri / Agence Global
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Released: 05 September 2006
Word Count: 880
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