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Written by New Straits Times
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IS the crisis in Lebanon an expression of new-found "people power" or a dangerous reversion to type? So far, the "tent city" of mostly peaceful demonstrators in Beirut pressing for the ouster of the government of Prime Minister Fuad Siniora looks more like Manila in 1986 than the outbreak of civil war in 1975. There are other reasons not to expect the worst. The Lebanese are tired of fighting, economic ruin and of being bounced around by outside powers. They want their sovereignty back and a restoration of what was once the "Switzerland of the Middle East". Collaterally damaged by its closeness to the vortex of the world’s most volatile region, the country’s myriad denominations have rearranged themselves, so that the current impasse is less about sectarianism than democratic display.
Except, that is, for the political assassinations, such as the shooting of Pierre Gemayel on Nov 21. On one side of the deadlock is Siniora, who has the support of Sunni Muslims (30 per cent of the population), half of the Christians (20 per cent) and most of the Druze (about eight per cent). Ranked against the so-called March 14 Movement, an alliance of anti-Syrian parties which won a majority in the parliamentary elections of May-June 2005, is the Hizbollah-led coalition backed by most Shias (who number as much as Sunnis) and the other half of the Christian minority. The anti-government factions want a more representative Cabinet and, more controversially, the right of veto. Both sides have traded lethal-sounding insults; one is accused of being a stooge of the West and Israel, the other of being under the pay of Syria and Iran.
With the country split so messily down the middle, the temptation for meddlesome foreigners to tip the balance is constant. Syria’s departure after a quarter century of overlordship last year not only upset the apple cart of Lebanon’s contending sects but left a vacuum large enough to usher Israel’s disastrous invasion in the summer. A United Nations-sponsored inquiry into the murder of former prime minister Rafik Hariri, which its opponents claim is a plot to finger Damascus, remains a lightning rod of the country’s rupture. The Siniora government, despite its constitutionality, is perceived as too pro-Western for Hizbollah, whose star has risen since its stout and solitary resistance to Israeli aggression. A lasting solution may have to wait for a modus vivendi in the Middle East. But if Lebanon is to have a chance, foreigners will have to leave it alone.
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