Sense, Mainly
May 13, 2008
by Qunfuz
The Lebanese government took the first steps towards dismantling Hizbullah’s vital communications network. The opposition closed roads and demonstrated. Pro-government thugs shot at civilians, as they have done many times before. This time, the opposition responded decisively. Disciplined Hizbullah fighters and their unruly allies from Amal and the Syrian Social Nationalist Party quickly took control of West Beirut. Hundreds of Hariri’s Future militia surrendered. In the Shuf, pro-opposition and pro-government Druze forces fought it out, with the opposition winning. The north was messier. In Tripoli the Sunnis fought, Hariri supporters against Omar Karami’s opposition-linked group. Future men ransacked and burnt offices of the Ba’ath Party, of Ayatullah Fadlallah, Michel Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement, and the Syrian Social Nationalists. (This party, by the way, is not Syrian but ‘Greater Syrian’; while the Ba’ath envisages a union of all Arab countries, the SSNP wants a state covering Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, Iraq, Kuwait and – believe it or not – Cyprus, a Fertile Crescent state.) At the time of writing, things have calmed down in Tripoli.
So far, it looks like a clear victory for the opposition and a resounding defeat for the government and its Saudi and American backers. Hariri and Junblatt have been humiliated. Sinyura said he would let the army decide on Hizbullah’s communications network. The army accepted the offer and promptly declared that the resistance would be protected. It also announced that the Hizbullah-linked head of airport security would be reinstated. The government (if it is still the government) must be bitter that the army, which it had heralded as the symbol of a neutral state, has shown more understanding for the opposition than for the leaders who provoked it.
Hizbullah has acted with its usual intelligence and restraint. As soon as the opposition took control of pro-government areas it handed them over to the army. It did not perform a coup, as it so easily could have done. It has been careful to include its Sunni and Druze allies in the military action, and to work in concert with its Christian allies politically. All that it has demanded is a return to the status quo before the government orders threatening the resistance’s communications network. It has not even mentioned the third of cabinet seats that it has been negotiating for months. The Shia community, which makes up between 30 and 40% of the people, currently receives only 21% of parliamentary seats. Rather than push for an end to this injustice, Hizbullah is trying to soothe tempers and establish a new consensus around the resistance.
Still, the presence of militia on the streets once again is heartbreaking, and will make consensus very difficult to achieve. There are reports of Amal men entering homes to beat Hariri supporters, stealing jewellery, and chanting sectarian insults. The Future TV building was burnt by SSNP supporters. An Amal supporter turned his fire on a Sunni funeral crowd, killing at least two. And the ‘clean hands’ purity of the resistance has been lost. Hizbullah is the only militia which did not commit massacres against other communities during the country’s civil war. The actions of the last few days may have been necessary, and Hizbullah itself (as opposed to its sometimes embarrassing allies) behaved in a disciplined manner, but Lebanon has now seen Hizbullah using military force against other Lebanese. If sectarianism proves to be stronger than sense in the Sunni community (and the Saudi-run media will do all it can to whip up hatred – al-Arabiyya’s coverage, for instance, has been appallingly one-sided), or if Hizbullah now makes even one mistake, a short term victory for resistance Lebanon could become a defeat, and bankers’ Lebanon could return in force. Or there could be a return of blood and chaos.
There have already been scenes which replay the civil war. Future militiamen lined up and murdered a group of migrant Syrian workers. Junblatt’s militia kidnapped and executed at least two Hizbullah supporters. These are the ‘moderate democratic’ pro-Western forces the US has been funding and training in Jordan (alongside the Badr militia calling itself the Iraqi army and the Dahlan militia pretending to be Palestinian security). Hariri, Sinyura and Junblatt have recognised the current balance of forces, but haven’t recognised the justice of the opposition’s stand. Whether or not they call on their fighters to destabilise the new set-up will depend on the orders they receive from Saudi Arabia and the US. Here, the signs are not good.
Aside from general destruction, the Bush administration has failed in everything it has tried in the Middle East, and may now be getting desperate. The Lebanese events are very reminiscent of Gaza, where America (via the Abrams Plan) armed and then incited its own faction against the resistance. The resistance tried its best to establish a national government but in the end, after grievous provocation, took direct control of Gaza.
1.3 billion dollars of American money was spent propping up the Sinyura government, and not only money. A former head of Mossad observed yesterday that three years of work by Arab and Western intelligence agencies in Beirut had been lost in one night. This is a good thing, surely. Where will we be in a month’s time?
May 13, 2008 at 9:40 pm
[...] May 13, 2008 Today I am honoured to welcome another new editor. Qunfuz, aka Robin Yassin-Kassab, has been a friend of The Fanonite for some time, but he has now agreed to join the team of editors. Robin has lived and worked in France, Pakistan, Turkey, Syria, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and Oman. His first novel, The Road From Damascus, is published by Hamish Hamilton and Penguin in June 2008. His first contribution to The Fanonite is an excellent analysis of the developments in Lebanon. [...]
May 14, 2008 at 10:13 am
The SSNP are a fascist party.
Read their website.
May 14, 2008 at 11:10 am
Could you provide the link , and quote the specific instances that back up your thesis.
All i can see is a link to George galloway interview and an article on Picasso.
May 14, 2008 at 11:49 am
http://www.ssnp.com/new/index_en.htm
Read the principles.
May 14, 2008 at 12:44 pm
From what i can gather the principles are a wholesale rejection of the Picot-Sykes dismemberment of the region and a total rejection of the Balfour declaration.
The quote against the “alleged racial purity of any nation on a groundless myth” may well be the most anti-facist sentence i have ever read.
If anything the principles may be more Gramsci than Gramsci.
Therefore i reject your charge of Fascism as a groundless ascertion.
Unless you define Fascism as to what it means to you , then we have a debate.
May 14, 2008 at 12:50 pm
i didn’t realise that Fascism had to rest on racial purity,but hey,maybe Franco wasn’t a fascist.
Just lets define everything as Syrian,under a supreme leader eh?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Ssnpmap.png
Including Cyprus.
May 14, 2008 at 1:01 pm
your case , and mask , is unravelling.
Quoting mikipedia is the last bastion of a man going down fast…….
Franco used outside help to occupy Spain , the SSNP is against all forms of outside interference….
Good luck with your Project for the New American Century ( cut and paste) faction.
May 14, 2008 at 3:45 pm
Its not a quote,Its a map of the SSNP claims to territory.
May 14, 2008 at 3:53 pm
SSNP is against outside interference?
Well seing as they claim Iraq Lebanon,Palestine,Israel,Jordan, Cyprus and part of Egypt as their own I should damn well think so.
May 14, 2008 at 4:57 pm
If you follow your logic then the EEC and the United States of America are fascist success stories.
Whats wrong with the free equal rights and movement of citizens in that region and why would having such an aspiration make one a fascist?
May 14, 2008 at 5:01 pm
Ha Ha .
May 14, 2008 at 5:05 pm
I rest my case.
May 14, 2008 at 5:10 pm
So a federation of states is the same as sujugation to the Syrian Motherland.
Well done. Anchsluss man.
May 14, 2008 at 6:16 pm
I know thats you Jim , stop digging and stop Faking it.
May 14, 2008 at 6:33 pm
It was,sorry.
So you see the SSNP’s aims of a greater Syria as the same as a federation of independent states?
I wonder how many Cypriots would agree with you?
Or Egyptians.
May 14, 2008 at 7:44 pm
Good to see youve come clean and sobered up.
First you have to answer the “F” question , thereafter we can discuss merits of a greater Syria in a rational discourse manner.
May 14, 2008 at 8:16 pm
Centralised undemocratic party,controls economic and political society from the centre and emphises Syrian nationality before any individual or minority rights.
Yep.
Thats the SSNP.
On to Cyprus then.
Its a part of an undemocratic Syria.
May 14, 2008 at 8:48 pm
Good retort , if it was not wrong.
Firstly they do not allow for any one nationality to dominate each other.If you go further into the site they even explain that there is no such thing as a Syrian nationality but it is a mix of nationalities of a region, hence why one cannot dominate the other, or you end up with the “Lebanons” of the world.
The concept of Syria is more a region entity just like europe is not an all-embracing nationality but a region of nationalised citizens.
The party is against the Sykes-Picot plan to divide and rule the region by having multi-centres of weak , rather like the configuration Europe within 1870-1945)statelets.
If following the ECC model worked fine for Europe, it would be odd to declare a similar approach for the region as a facist project.
According to your rules , you are the first person i know that would call the great Maronite Poet Khalil Gibran a fascist , as he was also a advocate of a greater syria , rather than the statelets we have now that make up a foreign imposed divide and rule programme.
As for the case of Cyprus , It is hardly a part of Europe either , but i have never heard anyone declare a portion of it joining the EEC (ahead of Turkey) as a fascist step.Nor have i heard greek or turkish claims to the Island to be declared fascist.Is this special priviledge only reserved for some claiments and not for others.
May 14, 2008 at 9:15 pm
So lets just define everyone as Syrian,thus avoiding any nationality problems.
Well done Rumpel.
What choice do those Lebanese or Egyptians who do not see themselves as such have?
No need for a Palestinian state then.
I see you don’t answer any of the democratic economic or political platform points.
May 14, 2008 at 9:47 pm
Nows lets sick to the sober and rational deal we made.
The previous post was an explanation as to why Syrian is not relevant as nationality only comes into play as a divide and rule strategem , and the areas nationalities (Lebanese;Palestinian etc) are Picot-Sykes induced ones.
The fact that the party are involved in the democratic movement means that the programme they advocate can only have a democratic mandate.
If you read the website you will notice the economic plan is not set in stone in that it will only be determined by post Picot-Sykes externational division basis by wholesale concensus.
Now this “F” thing that you keep throwing about like confetti , is there any substance or is moving goalposts the best you can come up with.
Lets have some links and quotes.
May 15, 2008 at 5:57 am
The SSNP has these principles
First Basic Principle: Syria is for the Syrians and the Syrians are a complete nation.
Second Basic Principle: The Syrian cause is an integral national cause completely distinct from any other cause.
Third Basic Principle: The Syrian cause is the cause of the Syrian nation and the Syrian homeland.
Fourth Basic Principle: The Syrian nation is the product of the ethnic unity of the Syrian people which developed throughout history.
Fifth Basic Principle: The Syrian homeland is that geographic environment in which the Syrian nation evolved. It has distinct natural boundaries and extends from the Taurus range in the northwest and the Zagros mountains in the northeast to the Suez canal and the Red Sea in the south and includes the Sinai peninsula and the gulf of Aqaba, and from the Syrian sea in the west, including the island of Cyprus, to the arch of the Arabian desert and the Persian gulf in the east. (This region is also known as the Syrian Fertile Crescent).
Sixth Basic Principle: The Syrian nation is one society.
Seventh Basic Principle: The Syrian Social Nationalist movement derives its inspiration from the talents of the Syrian nation and its cultural political national history.
Eighth Basic Principle: Syria’s interest supersedes every other interest.
The Syrian nation is the product of the ethnic unity of the Syrian people
May 15, 2008 at 10:16 am
Cometh the hour cometh Godwins (substanceless) cut and paster
I rest my case.
May 15, 2008 at 11:14 am
“The Syrian nation is the product of the ethnic unity of the Syrian people”
Explain how Cyprus is ethnically Syrian?
May 15, 2008 at 1:10 pm
Ill try and help you out a bit , i hate to see a man drown , even if by his own devices.
In order to prove your initial theses , you must prove why someone advocating for his region a Model that has worked in Europe (the European Union)that is considered progressive by most , suddenly becomes a Fascist when advocating it in their own region.
But , and this is the hard bit , you must do so by not getting yourself into a double negative of , which you have done up to this point , of declaring the EEC itself as a fascist success story.
When you get past the “F” roadblock and either prove the advocation of a greater Syria and the EEC are both fascist , or accept that neither advocations are fascist , then we can get through the mis-places checkpoint and discuss the merits of the advocation of a greater Syria with the baseless “F” charge thrown out and rational discourse holding sway.
But first you have to retract the intial “F” charge.
As discussed before Cyprus is hardly ethnically European either though no one advocating it joining the ECC ; Greece and or Turkey has been convincingly declared a fascist.And neither should someone advocating it joining a SEC.In the instance you mention “Syrian” should be transsubstituted for “Europian” and im sure you would readily concur that a person can be Cypriot within europe/and or Syria pan-national region without the “F” being banded about with gay abandon.
May 15, 2008 at 2:54 pm
btw, the canard of some kind of “Fascism” has been used for a long time as a bludgeon to silence opposition to colonialist practice in the ranks of the wavering. Albert Camus, the great “humanist” from that other European settler state of the Mediterranean opposed independence for Algeria by invoking the Orientalist cliché that Algeria would revert to an “Islamic empire” if the benevolent guiding hand of the pied noir were ever taken away from the tiller.
May 15, 2008 at 2:59 pm
Your quite right.
The contention here is that a project to self-liberate a region from colonialism of Picot-Sykes divide and rule is being called “F” for some still to be adequately explained objection that even Khalil Gibran would fall foul of.
May 15, 2008 at 3:54 pm
Hmm.
An undemocratic centralised party with a supreme leader which plans to take control of the economy and the military in the name of Syrian Ethnicity is the same as the EU which is a confederation of democratic staes choosing to pool sovereignty in certain ares.
By the way SK.
Its the SSNP which opposes independence for Cyprus,Lebanon,Jordan,Iraq,Palestine and parts of Egypt.
No Palestinian State,because they’re Syrians.Ethnically Syrians.
May 15, 2008 at 4:04 pm
The contention here is that a project to self-liberate a region from colonialism of Picot-Sykes divide and rule is being called “F” for some still to be adequately explained objection that even Khalil Gibran would fall foul of.
So incorporation into Syria is voluntary?
May 15, 2008 at 4:48 pm
Let me help you out again.
read the website and you will find their is no such thing as Syrian ethnicity as their is no such thing as European ethnicity.
Europe is a conglomeration of national ethnicities (Like Cypriots;Irish etc) hence Europeans.according to your logic this is fascism.
Exact same for Syria.Except no one , apart from you , is calling Syria to adopt the same model as fascist.
Sinn Fein in Ireland believe in a United Ireland.But they want to persue this in a democratic way.According to your Logic Sinn Fein should be regarded as a fascist party.
The SSNP are also a party that stands in the democratic process.Now we have a microcosm of your unresolved are EEC and SEC both Fascist or non-fascist projects in the regional logic of your argument and are Sinn Fein/SSNP both fascist in the local sense.
To make this easy for you nether the EEC /SEC /Sinn Fein or SSNP are fascist.That is the answer.
Now the hard bit for you, are you Man enough to admit you are wrong or is a smokescreen of semantics and goalpost moving the best argumentation you are going to offer.
And one last question , is Khalil Gibran a fascist or not , because according to your logic he is , unless you modify it quick.
May 15, 2008 at 5:08 pm
you’re very poor at this.
The SSNP Eight Principles are based around Syrian Ethnicity.
Fourth Basic Principle: The Syrian nation is the product of the ethnic unity of the Syrian people which developed throughout history.
But as we’ve discussed that doesn’t make them fascist.The supreme leader,lack of internal democracy and control by the party of the economy and military,does.
If you believe that taking part in elections confers the status of non fascist,then I look forward to your arguments claiming the BNP as non fascist or Jorg Haider,or the elected Adolf Hitler or Oswald Mosley.
The Sinn Fein position would be similar of course if they claimed most of Western Europe to be Irish and wished to annexe it by force and abolish elections.
May 15, 2008 at 5:27 pm
While we’re at it.
Which elections do the SSNP take part in?
May 15, 2008 at 5:32 pm
if you study the website you will find the parties you have cited are based of a racial-purity agenda.If you look at the website you will find a complete rejection of this racial purity doctrine.Therfore your 3rd paragraph is a total smokescreen irrelevance.
The first paragraph could easily have , as we have discussed already , the word “European” trans-substituted with “syrian” without exciting any hoarse cries of fascism.There fore this is also a hollow smokesreen.
The forth paragraph is a totla hollow smokescreen irrelevance because Sinn Fein claim TOTAL Irish claim ( and it is odd that you mention “Western Europe” only , whats wrong with Eastern Europe as to what the EEC is branching out to with the inclusion of Poland;Bulgaria etc), would that make the EEC only half fascist.
Still no news of the Khalil Gibran front.
But most importantly is the second paragraph in which to apologise ( as much as your pride will allow you) , the first time you come close to back-tracking on your Fascist charge.
Ill accept that as total unconditional surrender on your part , even though poor Khalil Gibran didnt get an apology , which is a shame on your part.
I accept your unconditional apology and rest my case.
May 15, 2008 at 5:37 pm
Pathetic.
By your increasingly odd definitions,the Italian Fascist party weren’t Fascists.
Which Elections does the SSNP take part in?
May 15, 2008 at 5:38 pm
“The forth paragraph is a totla hollow smokescreen irrelevance because Sinn Fein claim TOTAL Irish claim”
Gibbering.
May 15, 2008 at 6:06 pm
The SSNP are also a party that stands in the democratic process.
Oh Dear Dear Me.
No wonder you are so keen to defend fascism,you believe the Syrian State has a democratic process.