by Robert Fisk
I couldn't help a deep, unhealthy chuckle when I watched the French foreign
minister, Philippe Douste-Blazy arrive outside the wooden doors of Saint
George's Maronite Cathedral in Beirut this week. A throb of applause drifted
through the tens of thousands of Lebanese who had gathered for the funeral
of murdered industry minister Pierre Gemayel. Here, after all, was the
representative of the nation which had supported the eviction of the Syrian
army last year, whose president had been a friend of the equally murdered
ex-prime minister Rafiq Hariri, whose support in the UN Security Council was
helping to set up the tribunal which will - will it, we ask ourselves in
Beirut these days? - try the killers of both Hariri and Gemayel.
. . . the French wanted the Maronites to run Lebanon and thus after
independence bequeathed them the presidency. Sunni Muslims would hold the
prime ministership and the Shias, who are today the largest community, would
be compensated by holding the speakership of parliament. The French thus
wanted Lebanon's "independence" - but they wanted it to be in France's
favour.
Two problems immediately presented themselves to the Lebanese. By claiming
the largest area which it was possible to rule with the tiniest majority -
the Maronite religious leader of the time, Patriarch Hayek, was responsible
for this - the Christians ensured that they would soon be outnumbered and
thus rule their country from a position of minority power. . . .
The other Lebanese problem - which the people of Northern Ireland will
immediately spot - is that a sectarian state, where only Maronites can be
the president and where only Sunnis can be the prime minister, cannot be a
modern state. Yet if you take away the sectarianism France created, Lebanon
will no longer be Lebanon. The French realised all this in the same way - I
suspect - as the Americans have now realised the nature of their sectarian
monster in Iraq. . . .
Amid such geopolitical uncertainties, it is easy for westerners to see these
people in the borders and colours in which we have chosen to define them.
Hence all those newspaper maps of Lebanon - Shias at the bottom and on the
right, the Sunnis and Druze in the middle and at the top, and the Christians
uneasily wedged between Beirut and the northern Mediterranean coast. We draw
the same sectarian maps of Iraq - Shias at the bottom, Sunnis in the middle
(the famous "Sunni triangle" though it is not triangular at all) and Kurds
at the top. . . .
But we do not draw these maps of our own British or American cities. I could
draw a map of Bradford's ethnic districts - but we would never print it. I
could draw a black-white ethnic map of Washington - but the Washington Post
would never dream of publishing it.
And thus we divide the "other", while assiduously denying the "other" in
ourself. This is what the French did in Lebanon, what the British did in
Northern Ireland and the Americans are now doing in Iraq. In this way we
maintain our homogenous power. . . .
FULL TEXT
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Robert Fisk is the author of "The Great War for Civilisation"
"Diplomats Doubt That Syria Would
Kill Hariri," The Wisdom Fund, July 13, 2006
"U.S.-Backed Israel Pounds Lebanon, Thousands Flee,"
The Wisdom Fund, July 13, 2006
"Israeli War Crimes in Lebanon," Human
Rights Watch, August 3, 2006
Jonathan Cook, "Syria:
Convenient but Unlikely Fall Guy for Gemayel's Death,"
antiwar.com, November 24, 2006
Robert Fisk, "Who's
running Lebanon?," Independent, December 15, 2006
Robert Fisk, "Opposition
demonstrations turn Beirut into a violent sectarian battleground,"
Independent, January 24, 2007
[The country is not on the brink of another "civil war", but has been
subsumed in an "imperial war" engineered in Tel Aviv and Washington. He's
also mistaken in thinking that the Paris 3 Conference is designed to "save"
Lebanon from the mountain of debt which piled up after Israel's destructive
34 day war. The real purpose of the $7.6 billion in loans is to shackle
Lebanon to the international lending institutions that are demanding
additional taxes on the poor, more privatization of state-run industries,
and restructuring the economy to meet the requirements of the global banking
elite.--Mike Whitney, "Why Fisk is wrong about
Lebanon," Information Clearing House, January 28, 2007]
Robert Fisk, "Please
spare me the word 'terrorist'," Independent, February 3, 2007
Antoun Issa, "The Lebanese
Dilemma: A Primer," antiwar.com, February 3, 2007
Robert Fisk, "US
power games in the Middle East," Independent, March 19, 2007
