تجاوزوا الحواجز النفسية الاخيرة... انها الحرب الاهلية

بشير حبيب

Picture: Al-Akhbar newspaper www.al-akhbar.com

هل بدأت الحرب الاهلية في لبنان؟ هل تنفع التطمينات بأنها لن تحصل؟ هل هي حرب اهلية سنية شيعية ام حرب بين مشروع وطني ومشروع اميركي-اسرائيلي للنيل من المقاومة؟

كم تكثر الاجابات على هذه الاسئلة وكم ستتحفنا تطورات الايام المقبلة ببراهين واضحة تؤكد امرا واحدا لمن لا يزال يشكك يطبيعة النزاع اللبناني.

بكل بساطة هي حرب اهلية، كانت حتى اليوم باردة تخللتها منذ عام ونصف العام فترات وجيزة ساخنة، كانت ترتسم بعدها في كل مرة حدود النزاع البارد ومستلزماته وفقا للتعبئة الشعبية من قبل الفريقين الرئيسيين، ووفقا لما يمكن ان يستخدم من ادوات في الفترات الباردة التي تلحق التطورات الساخنة التي كانت تحصل.

مثالا على ذلك، الانتقال من التظاهر السلمي لفريقي 8 و 14 آذار، الى الاعتصام بشكل آخر ودائم للمعارضة في وسط بيروت ما غير قوانين اللعبة التي تقتصر على التظاهر ليوم واحد.

بعد ذلك جاءت احداث اضراب 23 كانون الثاني 2007 واسلوب التعبير من خلال قطع الطرق بالاطاارات المشتعلة من قبل المعارضة ما استفز الطرف الآخر شعبيا وكانت احداث جامعة بيروت العربية بعد يومين والظهور المسلح الاول لانصار تيار المستقبل، ما كسر حاجزا نفسيا آخر باتجاه اعتماد ظاهرة السلاح الفردي كواقع، وعملت الاحزاب الموالية والمعارضة على حد سواء على تسخيف هذا السلاح بالقول ان السلاح الفردي موجود اصلا في كل بيت لبناني.

وجاءت بعد كل ذلك ظاهرة استعمال السلاح ابتهاجا او تأييدا بعد كل كلمة متلفزة يلقيها احد الرموز السياسيين للطرفين، حتى انه تم قطع حواجز نفسية اخرى في هذا المجال وهي استعمال قذائف الار بي جي.

تجدر الاشارة هنا بأنه قبل عام تحديدا لم تكن هذه الظاهرة منتشرة الا في مناطق حزب الله بعد كلام امينه العام حسن نصر الله.

اليوم ليس صحيحا ان الوضع يختلف جذريا عما سبق قرارات الحكومة اللبنانية بتفكيك شبكة اتصالات حزب الله وازاحة رئيس جهاز امن مطار بيروت من منصبه بسبب قضية تنصت قد تكون تجري في المطار.

لقد اخطأ نصر الله بتوصيفه قرار الحكومة على انه اعلان حرب، لان ما يجري ليس الا استكمالا ساخنا لحرب اهلية باردة غذاها حزب الله بدهاء كبير من خلال اعطائه الذرائع لخصومه تدريجيا لاعادة ادخال ثقافة اظهار السلاح الفردي واستعماله عند الضرورة.

لقد بدأت مرحلة ترسيم حدود المناطق في بيروت وغير بيروت. قطع طرق، شبان في الازقة والشوارع الداخلية جاهزون للمواجهة حتى ولو انكفؤوا عن المحاور الرئيسية.

حاجز نفسي جديد تم تجاوزه، فللمرة الاولى منذ نهاية الحرب الاهلية عام 1990 تدوم اشتباكات داخلية اكثر من 24 ساعة.

حتى لو تم احتواء كل ما يجري خلال الساعات المقبلة، وهو امر مستبعد، فان الاكيد ان الحاجز النفسي الاخير قبل الحرب الاهلية الساخنة التي ستدوم قد اجتيز بجدارة وقد تكون المراحل المقبلة تتعلق بادارة العمليات العسكرية.

ولكن بالمناسبة، اين الجيش اللبناني؟

Egypt & Jordan: Where Strikes Fail

Picture Galley: Courtesy of http://egyptianchronicles.blogspot.com/

In some countries, Jordan and Egypt for example, the only way to make a strike succeed is for the State to call for it. Imagine a State calling its workers and citizens to protest against the rise or prices of essential goods. It is conceivable wen the authorities decide to blame “Imperialism” for it.

In Cairo, on Sunday morning, correspondents there reported a “serious” police presence in the streets. A month ago, the relative success of the strike and the incidents of Mahalla where security forces clashed with protesters were followed by a vague of arrests against traditional and virtual activists. Security forces are catching up with creativity by arresting bloggers and facebook users who might be potentially dangerous.
Remember Esraa Abdel Fattah who has been detained for hours last month just because she was behind the facebook page calling for the 6^th of April strike. And remember how the Egyptian police arrested bloggers before even starting to arrest the hundreds of demonstrators. Bloggers in Egypt seem to be perceived as a potential threat to National Security, that’s what I understand from the official Egyptian reaction.

Apparently the preventive actions against activists are the right weapon in the hands of our local tyrants.
In Jordan, on the evening of Sunday’s strike, three members of the Jordanian Left Social Movement were arrested for distributing pamphlets calling citizens to be part of the strike that will only last till 11 a.m. One more detail left, the Jordanian authorities denied arresting anyone… Classical!
Meanwhile, correspondents in Jordan say that facebook has been a tool widely used to diffuse the call for the strike. I am sure it’s a matter of time before facebookers and bloggers in Jordan become officially a National Security threat.

The outcome of these two strikes was practically a failure related partly to intimidation, but also to a lack of a political culture practiced within healthy and democratic multiparty system.
No wonder why the ruling parties in the Arab World are generally the only ones capable of mobilizing on demand. We pay the price in Fundamental, Civil, and Political Liberties for them to stay in power in the name of stablility and security.

The choice of the 4^th of May for the Egyptian strike was not a coincidence; it was the 80^th birthday of Egyptian President Hosni Mobarak. Today he can sit back and relax, he had a happy one!

According to all the international reports, food and prices crisis is a part of a global economic crisis settling down surely with no real international solutions for it, just alarming reports. So we will have to expect more demonstrations and movements related to that matter in the near future. That will hopefully give the oppositions in Arab Countries more chances to mobilize.

Incidentally, a demonstration under the same slogan is planned in Beirut on the 7^th of may, but the Clausewitzean style might be the best way of describing it before it even happens: It will just be the continuation of the struggle between the '8^th' and '14^th of March' fronts by other means.

Mayday for the New Left

By Joseph El-Khoury

2004 was a good year for the Left in Lebanon. After years of peripatetic confusion, previously disparate groups and individuals came together to found the first viable alternative to the symbolic heavyweight that is the Lebanese Communist Party (LCP). The result was the Democratic Left Movement in Lebanon (DLM). The attendees came from a variety of background, from the young westernised students to ex-party apparatchiks in addition to intellectuals and civil society activists. They had in common two main things: A problematic love and hate relationship with the communists and an antagonism towards the Syrian occupation and its Lebanese apparatus. During this process the organisers failed to notice the absence of any significant representation of the working classes or the rural sectors. That omission would be at the root of a major flaw in the party’s identity.

The name itself appears to have been chosen in order not to offend but also to reassure a mainstream section of a weary Lebanese public. Political parties and militant movements of various denominations had been struggling to regain popularity and were widely blamed for the demise of the pre-war prosperous and conservative merchant Lebanese republic. The emphasis on democracy was in opposition to the Soviet model of 'democratic centralism' still operational within the ossified LCP but also to reinforce the new party’s social-democratic credentials, which were clearly stated in the mission statement. The Leftist banner is at best a colourless one in the context of the Lebanese scene where well-defined words such as socialism and nationalism are routinely recycled to suit the narrow interests of feudal warlords without the hint of accountability. Nonetheless it at least denotes a progressive attitude motivated by the interests of the majority and a concern for human and social rights while distancing itself from any Marxist heritage. The term movement is fluid and reflects the intention to import a flexible internal, almost federalized, model which allows for official currents to form and fight it out within the boundaries of the party.

In essence, the DLM was modern and keen to break with the past. A 21st century party for a 21st century country. Until the assassination of the ex-prime Minister Rafik Hariri in 2005, the DLM remained embryonic and engaged with school ground skirmishes with its more powerful cousin to the left. It emerges to the public eye through its charismatic leader Samir Kassir and his role in the Beirut Spring movement which ends with the departure of Syrian troops from the country. Unfortunately Kassir is assassinated a few months later, leaving the organisation headless and directionless. Elias Atallah, former military commander within the LCP, takes centre stage and wins a seat in the Lebanese parliament carried by the sectarian weight of the pro-Hariri Sunni electorate in North Lebanon. From that point onwards the story of the DLM is that of the Anti-Syrian Alliance known as March 14th. Repeatedly Atallah fails to act as a promoter of secular, social and democratic values, preferring to align his positions to those of his old friend the Druze leader Walid Joumblat. While voices of discontent emerge within his own party, crystallizing in 2007 in the ‘Keep Left’ faction, they remain unable to formulate a strategy or a vision for their movement.

In 2008 the DLM is in disarray stuck in the moving sands of sectarian alliances that have defined the political scene for the past 3 years. Shaken by an identity crisis and hostage to a leadership taught at the school of organisational Stalinism this experiment is in need of a shake-up and productive soul searching. Only then will it be able to redefine its mission and sell it to a Lebanese people eager for a way out of the labyrinth.