Home  Opinion The Hariri Legacy |
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The Hariri Legacy |
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Written by Mideast Monitor
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Although Western journalism has long had a spotty track record in Lebanon, no subject has been more misrepresented than the legacy of the late Prime Minister (1992-1998 and 2000-2004) Rafiq Hariri.
Many elements of the myth are true, of course. He was a man of humble origins who struck it rich and lavished money on charitable causes for two decades before becoming prime minister. A great many Lebanese - including some of his fiercest political opponents - genuinely liked him as a person and grieved when he was brutally assassinated in February 2005. Nevertheless, the reality was "more complicated than the fairy tale," as Anna Ciezadlo aptly observed, and "not as easy to report." [1]
During the 1990-2005 Syrian occupation of Lebanon, mainstream American and European media regurgitated a quasi-fictitious narrative of Lebanon's postwar economic and political revival marketed by Hariri. They showed little interest in the darker sides of Beirut's glittering reconstruction, such as steadily widening income inequalities, rampant corruption, and the devastating impact of unregulated Syrian labor exports (which benefited Hariri and other Lebanese construction tycoons) on the poor. The steady erosion of civil liberties during Hariri's first tenure (a necessary adjunct of his economic policies) was largely downplayed.
Sugar coated press coverage was driven less by inscrutable complexities of the subject matter or conscious intent to distort facts than by a profound reluctance to acknowledge problems that have no easy solution and heartfelt support for a political establishment that many Westerners saw as the only viable bulwark against extremism and internal disintegration. While Western media coverage of Hariri during his lifetime was slanted mostly by omission, it veered toward blatant misrepresentation after his February 2005 assassination and the subsequent withdrawal of Syrian forces. As the March 14 coalition, headed by the Hariri family and Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, narrowly won a parliamentary majority and assumed the reins of power, an even more grandiose Hariri myth was born and reproduced verbatim in the Western media.
Hariri, who never once publicly criticized the Syrian occupation, was recast by The New York Times as a towering nationalist "known as a fierce opponent of Syrian domination."[2] Variations of this claim have been ubiquitous in Western media reports on Lebanon. The Los Angeles Times and the BBC prefer the phrase "vocal opponent,"[3] while Agence France Press is partial to "outspoken opponent."[4]
While Hariri is known to have secretly encouraged outside pressure on Syrian leader Bashar Assad not to extend the presidential term of Emile Lahoud (his political archrival) in 2004, his aim was simply to win a greater share of the spoils within Syria's orbit. Even after the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1559 calling for an unconditional Syrian withdrawal and began deliberating over how to implement it, the prime minister spent weeks trying to convince Assad to grant him a two-thirds veto-proof cabinet majority before eventually resigning. Being killed by the Syrians (presumably) does not retroactively make Hariri a "fierce opponent" of Syrian domination, even if his death inspired many others to demand an end to the occupation.
Other aspects of the late Hariri's legacy are routinely misrepresented in the Western media. Hariri did not, as The New York Times reported, "broker an end to the civil war in 1991."[5] He played a role in persuading (and, it is widely rumored, bribing) parliamentary deputies to sign the 1989 Taif Accord, but the terms of this accord were handed down by the Saudis, with non-negotiable clauses legitimating the Syrian military presence. In any case, the agreement did not bring an end to the war (none of the combatants were even present at the negotiations) - it brought a beginning to internationally sanctioned Syrian hegemony in Lebanon.
The Economist recently reported that "a lack of foreign aid and high reconstruction costs" after the war account for Lebanon's crushing debt burden today.[6] In fact, Lebanon was one of the world's largest per capita recipients of foreign aid during the occupation. The problem was that billions of dollars in bilateral and multilateral grants and soft loans were grossly misspent. A 2001 UN-commissioned assessment report on corruption in Lebanon estimated that the country had been losing $1.5 billion in graft annually (almost 10% of its GDP).[7] This was why Lebanon was saddled with "high reconstruction costs" and why it now has a massive debt burden.
Whether Hariri "drove the country forward often by sheer force of his personality," as The New York Times recently reported,[8] is perhaps debatable (since the Syrians were appointing Lebanese prime ministers, the alternatives could have been worse). However, modest economic growth at the expense of generating one of the largest per capita foreign debts of any country in the world doesn't normally win plaudits from Western journalists. These results might well have been the best possible in a country under Syrian occupation, but if so that only highlights that the occupation might well have collapsed under the weight of its own contradictions had Hariri and his Saudi financial backers not stepped in.
The rehabilitiation of Hariri's legacy has greatly benefited his political heirs and allies in the March 14 coalition (where is name is invoked more often than American Republican politicians talk of Ronald Reagan) have inherited much of the media's fawning coverage. Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, a close associate of Hariri who ran the finance ministry of occupied Lebanon longer than all others combined, was described by The Financial Times as "a career banker accidentally thrust . . . into the top job" after Hariri's assassination.[9] In fact, this government stalwart was chosen after careful deliberations within the Hariri family and the March 14 coalition.
The Western media's misrepresentations and glorification of Hariri's legacy constitute one of the most startling anachronisms in journalism today. Elsewhere in the Middle East (and the world), Western journalists intensively scrutinize governments, empowering their disaffected constituents and enhancing the international community's understanding of impediments to democratic change. Lebanon remains very much an exception.
Notes
[1] Anna Ciezadlo, "Sect Symbols," The Nation, 5 March 2007.
[2] "U.N. Delivers Plan for Court In Hariri Case To Lebanon," The New York Times, 11 November 2006.
[3] "U.N. Raises Pressure on Syria Over Killing; The Security Council tells Damascus to fully assist in Hariri inquiry or face consequences," The Los Angeles Times, 1 November 2005. UN team investigates Beirut blast, BBC, 24 February 2005.
[4] "Hariri assassination probe underway: Annan," Agence France Presse, 16 June 2005.
[5] "A Father's Shadow Clouds His Son's Rise in Lebanon," The New York Times, 3 October 2007.
[6] "Debt and destruction; Lebanon's economy," The Economist, 2 September 2006.
[7] The report was conducted by Information International, and commissioned by the United Nations Center for International Crime Prevention. "Lebanon loses 1.5 billion dollars annually to corruption: UN," Agence France Presse, 23 January 2001; The Daily Star (Beirut), 27 January 2001.
[8] "A Father's Shadow Clouds His Son's Rise in Lebanon," The New York Times, 3 October 2007.
[9] "Ceasefire leaves tensions between Beirut and Hizbollah simmering," The Financial Times, 9 November 2006.
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