Interview by Jim Quilty - Daily Star staff

’The state isn’t properly constructed yet’

BEIRUT: In the Corniche al-Mazraa headquarters of the Democratic Left Movement (DLM) you find a wall that’s been painted red. Upon it are arrayed a series of 10 black-and-white photographs of men at work. All the men are working in large-scale construction, evidently in Lebanon. You immediately wonder whether the workmen are Lebanese nationals or Syrian guest workers.

Whether a salute to Lebanon’s working class or a document of 21st-century labor migration, the photos provide an appropriate prelude to a conversation about state-building in Lebanon.

DLM vice president Ziad Majed has taken up the subject in his new book "On the Beirut Spring and the Unachieved State." It assembles essays published in the newspaper Al-Nahar and Mulhaq al-Nahar - that paper’s weekly cultural supplement - between 2004 and 2006.

As the title says, the essays focus on the weeks of civic activism following the assassination of Lebanon’s former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri on February 14, 2005, the political changes issuing from the Israeli withdrawal from South Lebanon in 2000 and the aftermath of March 14, 2005. The essays are not merely narrative.

"There is self-criticism that addresses why we were unable to build a modern state from this movement," Majed says. "There were several reasons for this - Hizbullah’s insistence on keeping its arms and the Syrian assassinations. Also March 14 did not have a program to build a modern state. [The DLM] were unable to elaborate a program to attract individuals who participated in the Beirut Spring who would be attracted to us as secular leftists.

"The book’s conclusion discusses the best means to dismantle tensions in the country and what kind of social and economic policies are possible and to elaborate a national strategy for defense." He smiles. "This needs to be revised in light of the last war, of course. But Hizbullah’s armed wing should be integrated into the army.

"It’s politically possible because the army is under the state and Hizbullah is now part of that state."

There has been a lot of talk about state-building recently. Politicians from across Lebanon’s political spectrum invoked the term during this year’s national dialogue. The term has got more mileage since the termination of Israel’s 34-day war against Lebanon.

For most March 14 politicians, "state-building" means asserting a single facet of the Weberian ideal - the state’s monopoly over the means of coercion within its borders. This is code for the disarming of the armed wing of Hizbullah and militants within Lebanon’s Palestinian refugee community.

For Hizbullah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah, meanwhile, the strong state - one liberated from sectarianism and clientelism and accountable to the needs of its constituents - is a necessary precondition to Hizbullah’s disarmament.

It’s not only in Lebanon that the term is being thrown around. In his new book "Empire in Denial: The Politics of State-Building," David Chandler argues that US and EU state-building rhetoric advocates a distinct conception of state.

For international technocrats, he says, a "strong state" is not one marked by political autonomy, but administrative efficiency. Sovereignty isn’t a matter of indivisible, absolute right of legal and political independence, but a bundle of administrative capacities that repackages external coercion within a discourse of "empowerment," "partnership" and "capacity-building." This state is simply a "transmission belt" for international influence.

Majed’s position on state-building falls within the framework of the March 14 Forces, although - as a spokesman for the only secular leftist grouping in that alliance of interests - he maintains the privilege of disagreeing with March 14’s sectarian politicians.

"The balance of forces trying to build the state are mostly confessional," he says. "But we can’t deny that Taif’s reforms imagine Lebanon as a confessional state.

"Even if we can’t implement a secular state, there are goals we can pursue. We can implement a non-sectarian parliament. We can pursue measures to secure the independence of the judiciary. We can pursue decentralization.

"Hizbullah is a problem but it’s not the only problem we face. There is also the regional factor. How is it possible to be actively engaged in the politics of this region - engaged in pursuing a just peace settlement in Palestine, in bringing democratic reform to Syria - without having regional politics upset the internal stability of Lebanon itself?

"During this last war there was a line that you were either with the state or you were with Hizbullah. It’s a false assumption because ’the state’ isn’t properly constituted yet. We must build the state along with Hizbullah so that Hizbullah will be included in it, but without compromising our ideal of what the state should be."

Majed disagrees with March 14 politicians’ response to the last Israeli assault on Lebanon.

"There were many naive arguments put forward in the last two months," he says. "’We have nothing to do with this war. Hizbullah didn’t consult us before carrying out the July 12 raid and so the war is against them, not us.’

"With a million Lebanese displaced and over a thousand Lebanese killed?

"There is now a Shiite question in Lebanon. The appropriate response to Shiite asabiyya [collective solidarity] isn’t to reinforce the asabiyya of the other confessions.

"We should also create spaces for those who don’t want to represent themselves in sectarian terms."

For all his disagreement with his March 14 colleagues, Majed remains convinced that the DLM is better off in March 14 than out.

One of the premises driving the movement’s founders is that the left will be better able to reform the political process by engaging with it than by remaining outside it - as Lebanon’s other leftist parties do.

"Many are pessimistic about what we’ve accomplished since we allied ourselves with March 14," he says. "But we haven’t had a chance to take a breath. There were the assassinations, the elections, the dialogues sessions and now this war. It’s been a very busy two years. There’s been little effort to analyze our choices and tactics. That’s no excuse. Of course you must question and interrogate your decision-making, even in times of crisis."

Even without such crises the DLM faces a challenging task in reconciling a secular left program with the realities of the Lebanon’s muhassassa [allotment] state, under which state services and resources are allocated along sectarian lines and distributed via clientelist networks. It binds constituents

to their politicians at the expense of the civil service, while both bureaucratic professio-nalism and political accountability wither.

Of the many organs of state that require reform, Majed gives priority to parliament because of its legislative role (a function that will ensure the reform of the judicial and executive branches), because it is the most interactive body (both in terms of elections and political alliances) and because it has the right to monitor the executive.

"A system of proportional representation would break down the sectarian blocs in parliament. We can focus on the independence of the judiciary and place more authority in the hands of the municipalities. We can modify the state’s taxation policy to make it more progressive. We can lobby in favor of environmental issues and women’s rights.

"One approach we considered [in reforming the muhassassa state] is to make it fair. If no one feels somebody else’s sect is getting more than their fair share, then the system might work better.

"But now we think that this approach will simple legitimize a corrupt system.

"[The Taif Agreement] tries to make an equilibrium among the executive branch, the judiciary and the presidency. We should commence a reform process that will introduce a rotational system to the executive offices. Create a system where any Christian - not just a Maronite - can be president, where any Muslim - not just Sunnis - can be prime minister, where perhaps a Druze can be the house speaker. Then we must liberate parliament from sectarianism and invest discussions of sovereignty to a sectarian upper house.

"We shouldn’t be too quick to judge the present government harshly.

"There are a number of nominations in the judicial, diplomatic and security apparatus that have yet to be acted upon because the political decisions haven’t yet been made."

The question remains as to the relevance of such retooling, given the long history among the political classes of bypassing the organs of state to secure their positions via foreign patrons - whether French, American, Saudi or Iranian.

"In 2005 we thought we were becoming a country where there were no more foreign alliances. We are Arabs. We’re open to the West but we can’t be neutral in the Arab-Israeli conflict. In 2000, too, we had an opportunity to assert this identity. In 2000 it didn’t work. In 2005 it didn’t work. Again we’re facing the same dilemma in 2006.

"I’m not sure if we’ve learned this time but in a way we’re condemned to learn. What shall we do? Shall we simply surrender? Or do we say one way of facing this is by founding a strong state?"