On Lebanese Reform and Reformists' Need for Politics

Asharq Al-Awsat

02-04-2025

Some Lebanese take pleasure in concocting a narrative that presents the pursuit of disarmament that establishes a state monopoly on arms and the fight against corruption in public life as contradictory objectives. Mind you, there is plenty of glaring evidence that impunity for one sustains the impunity of the other.
Some of those peddling this false dichotomy have gone so far, in their anti-reformist narrative, as to parrot antisemitic tropes about 'conspiracies,' 'the fifth column,' and 'hidden hands' moving in the shadows. These kinds of entirely pitiful, fantastical accusations have also been leveled at the media outlets that support reform: 'destroying the national economy,' 'undermining patriotism,' and other formulations drawn from the lexicon of the defunct Syrian regime.
As became evident with Mr. Karim Soueid's appointment as Governor of the Lebanese Central Bank, however, the reformists are waging a war with kitchen knives, or they are counting on a mechanical process that spares them the hassle of playing politics, albeit in the convoluted Lebanese sense. Since the Lebanese will likely cross many junctures similar to that of Soueid's appointment as the country's political life is reformulated, a multi-pronged reassessment of the fundamentals seems necessary.
Confronting the logic of sectarian spoil-sharing, along with the old banking system and its cabal of interests, both extremely formidable adversaries, is not the easy task that some reformists may sometimes deludedly see it to be. This confrontation calls for playing on the contradictions within the bloc of politicians and bankers, trying to break its unity or at the very least undermine its cohesion, and striving to build common ground with factions that could, for one reason or another, potentially take a distinct position and diverge from the others' course.
A sort of sentimental attachment to the model of October 17, 2019, might be what is impeding such an effort. However, the October movement was an exception to the rule, a glaringly exceptional moment that, by definition, one that cannot be replicated. Indeed, political-sectarian contentions and the polarization they engender remain unresolved, while their weight on public life has only increased.
That also applies to the purist slogan 'All of them means all of them.' While its prominence a decade ago is understandable, given the context in which it emerged, it cannot be allowed to remain a permanent barrier to politics until the end of times.
The reform efforts of modern Lebanese history, regardless of one's opinion on their reformist credentials, suggest that reformists should neither overestimate their own power when they operate as a self-sufficient force, nor underestimate the power of their opponents. That reality is what pushed Fouad Chehab, whom many Lebanese agree was a reformist, to secure a Muslim political umbrella for his project, even though this required making significant concessions to Nasserism, in addition to soliciting the support of a Christian faction, represented then by the Kataeb Party.
As for leftists, when they believed they were reforming and transforming the country, they came under Kamal Jumblatt's Druze umbrella, which entailed Marxists breaking with Marxist orthodoxy and the nationalists breaking with their orthodoxy.
Several movements seeking reform emerged before the war of 1975 (like the Democratic Party and the student-led 'Awareness Movement') and sought to distance themselves from 'the sectarian establishment' to the greatest extent possible. However, the eruption of civil war swiftly annihilated them before they could mature.
Left-wing and secular parties largely proved to be 'time-out' parties; when push came to shove, they took shade under the 'sect's' umbrella, that of the armed Palestinian factions.
Such conclusions can be drawn from an overview of their many historical experiences, both those that unfolded during times of peace and those that unfolded during wartime, regardless of whether we look into attempts at reforming society through the state or grassroots social movements that sought to reform the state.
Today, taking purism too far might amount to being excessively self-centered, especially as sectarianism heightens across the Levant and sects take on an increasingly rigid and insular ethnic character.
Purist reformists could, under fleeting exceptional circumstances, find a place in the political mainstream, but they are far more susceptible to being pushed to the margins. And mind you, they will resist constituting a cohesive block in this marginal position, as the 'change' deputies are currently demonstrating. As for, 'all of them', they are unfortunately well-placed- amid the inflating sectarian polarization that inflates them - to become the overwhelming majority of the population.
If it is true that most Lebanese would benefit from change and reform, and it is, that does not, in itself, grant the push for reform a social-political base with enough influence to contest spoil-sharing and corruption.
This, without a shadow of a doubt, is a conservative view of Lebanese affairs, and of the slim odds that reform and change will be achieved unless they are coupled with politics that engage influential sectarian forces and seek to court those among these forces whom it could potentially find common ground with as it confronts those with whom no accord could ever be reached. Moreover, this assessment conservative label does not discredit it; only reality and experience determine whether it is sound or not.
While the obscene discourse of the offensive against reformists and those seeking change is undoubtedly harmful, it is even more harmful to underestimate reality and count on voluntaristic resolve whose power is derived from good intentions.