Ten years ago on March 8, more than half a million Lebanese, mostly supporters of pro-Syrian political parties and their families, descended on the Beirut Central District. They were there to show their support for the regime in Damascus, which three days earlier, on the back of intense international pressure, announced a staggered withdrawal of its troops from Lebanese soil.
The world was still angry at the assassination of the former prime minister Rafik Hariri and was convinced that the Syrian government had a hand in the killing. The March 8 demonstration, which would eventually give its name to the pro-Syrian parliamentary bloc, was billed as a thank you to Syria for its role in ending the civil war and supporting the Lebanese resistance during the 17-year Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon.
Those of us who welcomed the end of 30 years of Syrian occupation, a period that involved rampant corruption and political oppression, were worried that the spontaneous show of support might embolden the Assad regime to stop short of a full withdrawal. But the event merely inspired an even bigger demo one week later on March 14, which not only spawned an opposing political bloc, but also convinced the international community to make sure the Syrian president Bashar Al Assad kept to his promise. It worked. One month later they were gone.
Damascus had ruled Lebanon via what was effectively a proconsul, a senior intelligence officer who could summon prime ministers and presidents to his villa to issue orders, approve government appointments or simply bang heads, when the fractious Lebanese couldn’t sort out their own problems.
In 1991, at the end of the Lebanese civil war, the late brigadier general Ghazi Kanaan, the then resident of that Anjar villa, uttered these chilling words of caution and no doubt encouragement to the Lebanese via the local media.
“You Lebanese, you are shrewd, creative and successful merchants … Create light industries. Engage in trade and commerce. Indulge in light media, which does not affect security. Shine all over the world by inventiveness, and leave politics to us. Each has his domain in Lebanon: yours is trade; ours, politics and security.”
Tragically Kanaan’s supremely arrogant assessment of our strengths and weaknesses has been in part at least shown to be true.
The million Lebanese who flocked to the Martyr’s Square on March 14 to counter the effect of the previous week’s demo, not only wanted to live in a fully fledged democracy with the state as the ultimate authority, but they also wanted Lebanon to realise its full economic potential. They believed that the parties that would go on to make up the March 14 bloc would develop a credible road map for prosperity.
We expected existing industries such as banking and tourism would be strengthened and developed; neglected areas such as agriculture and light industry would be revived and nurtured, while nascent sectors like IT and software development would be made a priority. With Syria in charge, we had been playing with one hand tied behind our back, and the national debt had, by January last year, reached US$50 billion with a debt-to-GDP ratio of nearly 150 per cent. As the new darling of Middle East people power, we would “shine” even brighter.
But 10 years on, nothing much has happened. We had three, maybe four, good years from 2007 to 2011 but that was built largely on GCC largesse, fuelled by the rocketing price of crude oil. ut institutions were not strengthened and there was no real effort from any political party to create a sustainable economic model.
We were still operating with our bazaar mentality and when the Syrian civil war went viral, the wheels fell off. We Lebanese are hard-working traders, bankers, doctors, engineers, academics, restaurateurs, hoteliers designers and entertainers, but our political class is simply too dysfunctional to run a country.
Sometimes I can’t help but wonder if we really deserved our moment in the sun.
Michael Karam is a freelance writer who lives between Beirut and Brighton.
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