The Daily Star - - Learning Lebanon's lessons, once again

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Copyright (c) 2006 The Daily Star

Wednesday, September 06, 2006

Learning Lebanon's lessons, once again

By Rami G. Khouri
Daily Star staff

Lebanon is in the peculiar situation of having to rebuild after the 34-day war between Hizbullah and
Israel while it is still in the process of rebuilding after the 15-year-long Civil War of 1975-90. Will this
time around be different, and not lead to another war in a few years? Will the political balance between
Lebanon's 18 officially recognized confessional and sectarian groups regain sufficient equilibrium and
stability to drive a long-term economic revival anchored in serious political reform?
To find out, I went to the person who had literally written the book on this subject. By coincidence, as
the latest war broke out I had been completing a recently published book about war and economics in
Lebanon by the respected Lebanese economist and American University of Beirut professor Samir
Makdisi, who also once served as minister of national economy in 1992.
I asked him if this summer's war had caused him to reconsider any of his conclusions from the Civil
War experience. He said that this war, and the political events that had preceded it, only reconfirmed
the central thesis of his book: that balancing the needs of all citizens in Lebanon's multi-confessional
system requires serious political reforms that can generate better governance and a new political
culture; these in turn would allow Lebanon to tackle the significant challenges it faces in fields like
environmental degradation, debt, unemployment, corruption, public sector inefficiency, and
shortcomings in urban and rural planning, to name only the most obvious.
Makdisi's book, "The Lessons of Lebanon: the economics of war and development" (I.B.Tauris, London
and New York, 2004) provides a valuable combination of political and economic analyses of Lebanon
before, during and after the Civil War years. The dual focus on technical issues of finance, trade,
regulatory systems, exchange rates and growth, alongside the larger social and political context of
Lebanon in the half-century from the 1950s to 2000, is especially useful now - because Lebanon's postwar capacity to overcome adversity again relies heavily on progress on both the economic and political
fronts.
Makdisi's prognosis is mixed. In his book, he notes that sectarianism locally and constant foreign
influences were two reasons why Lebanon's central government never achieved the sort of diligence
that is so evident in the private sector and civil society in this country. After the Civil War, these factors
led to "the absence of a coherent long-term national policy that focused on the public good."
"Whatever its merits," he wrote, "the finely tuned sharing of political power among Lebanon's religious
communities is inherently discriminatory." He called the political system a "constrained" democracy
that is imbued with potential instability. This inherently unstable system always required external
hands to stabilize it, the most recent one being Syria until last year.
The consequence of such a system is "an unstable political equilibrium" that will continue to prevail
unless its underlying reasons are properly addressed. Among the consequences of this, he wrote a few
years ago, are two things we have since witnessed in recent years: many talented young Lebanese will
leave the country to find work abroad, and a system that swings between stable and unstable periods
will always need external hands to balance it.
The post-Taif era "has not witnessed the creation of genuine political stability or, for that matter, better
governance," he wrote, adding presciently that "open national dialogue on how to resolve major
political and economic issues ... which seeks broad political consensus has not been a Lebanese
tradition."
I asked him if the national dialogue that was launched earlier this year by the speaker of Parliament,
Nabih Berri, corrected this flawed legacy. He replied that the dialogue may not have made major gains
because it was conducted by leaders who had vested interests in the "consociational democracy"
system as it has long operated - sharing the spoils among sectarian groups according to established
patterns of weight and influence.
The national dialogue will succeed only when it does what the Europeans did in the 1980s - bring in
others in society (private sector leaders, academics, technocrats, activists) whose expertise can help
generate a truly new system that is at once more stable, equitable, prosperous and sustainable, he

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The Daily Star - - Learning Lebanon's lessons, once again

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said.
The events of the past two years confirm many of the key points Makdisi makes in his book. These are
more relevant than ever today, as Lebanon once again faces the reality that successfully rebuilding
economically demands a parallel political reconfiguration.
"One lesson of this year's war," he told me, "is that Lebanon cannot be totally at the mercy of outside
powers, whether from the East or the West, or else we risk inviting civil war again. We must work for a
new political understanding that acknowledges the dangers of external interference. Iraq sadly is a
good example of what can happen when solutions are imposed from the outside."
What should the Lebanese do now, as rebuilding defines the land once again? He replied that, "our
response should be a greater effort to manage our readjusted sectarian and confessional system in the
short run, so that in the long run it moves toward a truly secular, liberal, and democratic political
system. Such a system must safeguard the rights of all citizens equally, and not sacrifice the public
interest for private interests."
Sensible thoughts, from a seasoned son of the land itself.
Rami G. Khouri writes a regular commentary in THE DAILY STAR.

Copyright (c) 2006 The Daily Star

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