Home  Opinion An Open Letter to Saad Hariri - Don't Forget the Christians |
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An Open Letter to Saad Hariri - Don't Forget the Christians |
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Written by Lebanese Political Journal
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Representative Saad Hariri:
You made a wise decision when you and your advisers named Fuad Siniora prime minister. We knew he would continue your father's plan to create a prosperous and peaceful Lebanon. We knew he would be a good managerial steward, putting the government in order after years of Syrian neglect and gross mismanagement. We didn't know that he would become Lebanon's most respected representative globally. We didn't know that he was so skilled at holding the country together during months of war and years of crisis.
Siniora held the Lebanese government together as the country was being bombarded by Israelis, by political assassinations, and by terrorist organizations. He held together the government despite immense pressure - domestic and international - for a governmental restructuring. He held together the 14 March Coalition, building commaraderie between the cabinet ministers.
Now, the Lebanese government is in solid working order, and it keeps getter stronger and more effective.
But it appears that the 14 March Coalition, the base of the prime minister's power, is fragmenting. We hear that Siniora's political party, the Future Movement - the party you lead, is fracturing.
Just at the moment when Lebanon is ready to take the next step; just at the moment when so much of what we have fought for is realized in the creation of the International Tribunal to try your father's assassins; just when we are fighting the terrorists before they can bomb and assassination us, our alliance is falling apart.
Unfortunately, most of us - and particularly our Christian brethren - blame you. We've put up with your inarticulate and not particularly intelligent speeches. We've not only aided you in achieving your political agenda, we've placed your agenda far ahead of our own.
Some parties - like Hezbollah and the Free Patriotic Movement - refused to follow your lead. This was for many reasons, which include:
1) a dislike for your father's agenda and his personal acquisition of so much of our country;
2) a sectarian distrust;
3) anger at your Saudi-style appeasement of Islamic psychopaths, especially when they harm foreign consulates and throw rocks at churches;
4) anger at your drive for absolute dominance in the 2005 elections, even alienating members of your own movement (like the Yassar Demokrati) by pushing them aside in favor of your people;
5) not only did you not reach out to members of your own coalition (more ordering them into line than accepting them as equals), you refused to reach out to other sects to create a true spirit of national unity. You, thus, reinforced all of the negative sectarian stereotypes about you.
Siniora's recent performance heartened our affection for the current government, but we have not forgotten how the 14 March movement died, and how you refused to push the movement forward.
Now that you've gotten what you've wanted from the international community, you're willing to sell out the rest of your coalition. This is particularly offensive to your Christian allies, who've pushed your agenda and kept their mouths shut in the face of post-2005 political assassinations of their - and only their - leaders, and random bombings, which until recently targeted only their communities.
We know that Walid Jumblatt and Samir Geagea have blood on their hands and are willing to solve problems through thuggish means. Siniora made us believe that you and they were aspiring to be liberal democrats. However, now we see you becoming as thuggish as them.
Brigands roam the streets of Hamra (the neighborhood in which you and Siniora live) stopping people on the street. These thugs are members of your political party - not representatives of the Lebanese state - who have no business harassing civilians. Your youth representatives are reminding neighborhood residents of their sectarian identities and of the civil war, when the same kind of people strolled through the streets of Hamra.
Yes, this is the way Walid Jumblatt does business. Yes, he is a good guide to political maneuvering in this region. But this kind of militia-minded thuggery only further ensconces you in the minds of other sects as a purely sectarian leader of the cheapest kind - an uninspiring and average young man who inherited what Daddy built after years of cocaine abuse in foreign capitals.
Not only are you breaking up the 14 March Coalition, but you're dividing your own community. We don't like hearing your thugs say, "Let him pass, he's Sunni," when they stop us in the streets. We don't like taking orders from Daddy's boys who would get beaten in a third grade speaking competition. We don't like inheritance taking precedence over competence, which Siniora obviously has. We don't like listening to a guy who will just run off to Saudi Arabia or France when he gets scared, or who will listen to a foreign king instead of listening to his people.
Even worse, many of your supporters only support you because there isn't another Sunni leader to support. They don't love you. You're providing wasta and some cash, but you don't have nearly the amount of adoration from your own community as Hassan Nasrallah or Michel Aoun.
And as the Sunni watch the 14 March Coalition break apart, and as they feel greater insecurity, many are thinking about what will happen after the collapse of the government and of the Future Movement. A Sunni friend of mine in the derek told me just such a thing the other day. He doesn't speak his mind very loudly because he knows that backing you up isn't a definite path to success for his future in Lebanon. His support for you is perfunctory.
Despite what your father may have taught you, Lebanon is not your personal fiefdom.
We've been quiet for a long time, Saad. We've put up with you. You don't seem to realize how hard it's been for us.
I should be cheering right now, but I'm not, because despite getting what I've wanted, Lebanon is becoming a worse place. Even harder to take than this, the source of the problem is no longer Hezbollah or terrorists; it's the engrained sectarianism and ineptitude that has become ever more apparent in your political party and is about to destroy a coalition that deserves power far more than Syrian proxies and sectarian militias.
POSTED BY CHARLES MALIK
Lebanese Political Journal
http://lebop.blogspot.com/
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Madness takes over Lebanon.
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23 November 2007
Lebanese President Emile Lahoud left the Baabda presidential palace without handing over the power to a new president. This is the first time since independence in 1943. |
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