CERCLE DIPLOMATIQUE - issue 04/2020

LE MONDE ESSAY
Lebanon – a microcosm of the
rest of the world
Karin Kneissl
studied law and Arabic at
the University of Vienna.
She later served as an
Austrian diplomat in the
office of the Legal Advisor,
Cabinet of the minister,
Middle East Desk and was
posted among others in
Paris and Madrid. Later on,
she worked as an
independent correspondent
on energy affairs, analyst
and university lecturer
(Vienna, Beirut). She served
as Austrian Foreign Minister
from December 2017 – June
2019. Thereafter, she
returned to her independent
work. She has written
various books, numerous
papers and articles on the
topics of geopolitics, energy
and international relations.
kkneissl.com
Endless wars, terrorism, social unrest, immense corruption and a tremendous
explosion – is a list of what it means to live in Lebanon. The Lebanese
are professional survivors and most of what I have learnt about life, they
have taught me – also to understand what might be happening next in our
own societies west of Beirut.
The name Lebanon is much older than the Lebanese
republic. We can read it in King
Solomon’s Song of Songs and so many other
texts, like the Tell el Amarna tablets. This is a correspondence
on tiny tiles, excavated by archaeologists
in Egypt, and a fascinating collection of classic complaints
by diplomats about their posts. I enjoyed reading
the translations in the Cairo Museum of Antiquities
many years ago, for they prove that really
little changes in human civilisation, notably in the
history of diplomacy. Most of the pieces stem from
the time of Pharaoh Amenophis III, whose court was
in close contact with its vassals in Byblos in what is
currently Lebanon. The importance of cedar wood
for the fabrication of coffins has put Mount Lebanon
on the map of geopolitics ever since.
Going global long ago
Millenia ago, Phoenician merchants spread from
the Mediterranean to the African coasts, maybe even
farther. They created an “after sale service” for their
trading points, circulated new ideas and innovative
techniques, including the alphabet, which they had
encountered in Ugarit. They contributed to globalisation
as it existed several thousands of years ago. To
emigrate has since been part of the Lebanese culture,
though they always keep in touch with their country
of origin. In addition to approximately five million Lebanese
in Lebanon, 12 million others dispose of a Lebanese
passport but live elsewhere. Their remittances
from the Americas, the Gulf etc. keep the country
running. Migration has always been a feature of Lebanon,
some left out of curiosity for foreign lands, others
left out of despair.
The term “Lebanisation” is equal to “Balkanisation”,
and they are often interchanged in political sciences.
Both refer to the implosion of a state, the dismantling
of institutions and the rise of tiny units to the
detriment of a central structure. Once the state’s monopoly
of force is weakened, militias enter the scene.
When Lebanon drowned in the proxy war of the
1970s, analysts referred to the “Balkanisation of Lebanon”.
And in the 1990s, the break-up of Yugoslavia
was called by many historians: the Lebanisation of Yugoslavia.
The Soviet Union was balkanised/lebanised,
Spain and the United Kingdom might be on the brink
of a similar dissolution. However, Lebanon is still there
on the map, both as a state and a society. This fact is
quite admirable, for too many commentators have announced
the end of Lebanon, again and again.
Corruption is the name of the game
When I had the honour to speak at the General Assembly
of the United Nations in September 2018, I
took the opportunity to pay tribute to Lebanon’s amazing
capacity for survival. I decided to start my speech
in Arabic, one of the six official UN-languages. In my
remarks I referred to the Lebanese determination to
continue living with dignity and elegance. While
many of my Austrian compatriots have lost the sense
of putting on nice clothes, polishing shoes and many
other tiny but important features of everyday life, the
Lebanese still cherish those habits no matter what.
You may call it superficial, I consider it a sort of resistance
against ugliness.
The Lebanese have been surviving wars, bombings
by their neighbours and a constant influx of refugees.
And they have somehow managed to live through it all.
But what has finally broken the backbone of the Lebanese
society is the omnipresent corruption that plagues
the society. It starts with buying and selling university
diplomas in the commercialised private education system
and includes moves to obtain medical aid and find
work. Everything is done via “wasta” which is the Arabic
word for “connection”, i.e. corruption. The entire
political structure which is based on a confessional
partition of power represents one big corrupt system,
providing the people with totally inadequate public
services. Add to this the expansive and dubious world
of non-governmental organisations which have become
a business branch of their own. This combination
has been lethal to the Lebanese society.
The result is a high degree of frustration by Lebanese
of all age groups. In October 2019, hundreds of
thousands of them decided to descend into the streets
and ask for an end to the mess. The movement was
PHOTOS: FELICITAS MATERN, ADOBE STOCK
called a revolution, but a year later nothing has changed.
The same faces still hold the same posts. A terrible
explosion in the port of Beirut on August 4 this year,
hit the capital and destroyed thousands of apartments.
Here also, corruption is most probably the culprit as
several police reports had been warning the port authorities
that chemicals stocked there for years could
cause an inferno. Nobody acted.
Orientation and the Orient
In Latin the saying goes: ex oriente lux – Orientation
comes from Orient. Ever since the antiquity, we
always look to the East for guidance. In the 1980s, not
only did Lebanon go through wars, but also through
horrible terrorist attacks. In the 1990s it went through
the destruction of its cities and nature by wild and corrupt
construction. Confessionalism broke and fragmented
the society even more than the war. Being
Lebanese became a statement of one’s ethnic confessional
identity. As a result, state structures weakened;
private money increasingly replaced public funds.
Ever since my first journey in 1989 to this “petit pays
qui fait tant de bruit” (this small country that makes so
much noise) as Metternich said in 1830 on the occasion
of the first humanitarian intervention of history, I
have been fascinated and appalled at the same time.
Lebanon is a laboratory of political and social developments.
What happens there, repeats itself in
many ways in other parts of the world. Terrorism, ethnicism,
religious extremism, breakdown of state institutions,
corruption: you name it, you have it. In past
years, when speaking on the Middle East, I regularly
pointed out the return of the social question. The Arab
revolts of 2011 were more about unemployment, corruption,
lack of housing, etc. The slogans were dignity,
justice and freedom.
Similar outbreaks of frustration are to be expected
in the near future in many cities around the world.
The notion of the “angry citizen” became famous in
2010 with the pamphlet of the former French Resistance
member and diplomat Stéphane Hessel, entitled
“Indignez-vous!” (“Time for Outrage!”). What might
be different from previous demonstrations such as the
“Yellow Vests” in France and the “Occupy Wall Street”
movement is that these demonstrations will be led by
people who are not simply angry, but desperate. This is
what happened in Lebanon last year, and it can happen
elsewhere soon. The question is whether we will
be able to survive in dignity and elegance, as the Lebanese
do.
View of Lebanon’s capital
Beirut, before the explosion
on August 4, this year.
46 Cercle Diplomatique 4/2020
Cercle Diplomatique 4/2020
47