FRESH DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

Arab News
;section=0 &article=123462&d=10&m=6&y=2009
Ju ne 10 2009
Saudi Arabia

SUNDAY’S elections will go down as a watershed in Lebanese’s political
history. The victory won by the March 14 bloc led by Saad Hariri
is a clear statement from the Lebanese people that they have had
enough of outside political interference in their country. It is a
fresh declaration for independence. Henceforth, voters have said they
alone will be masters in their own house — not the Syrians, not the
Iranians, not the Israelis or Palestinians — nor indeed, despite the
wholly misleading description in some quarters of Hariri’s bloc as
"Western backed", the Americans or the French. It is to be Lebanon
for the Lebanese. And rightly so. Lebanon’s crises for the past three
decades are in large part due to outside interference.

It was voters in the key Christian districts of Zahleh and Ashrafiyeh
who won for Hariri although, on reflection, that should not have
been so surprising. The Christians were one with Sunnis, the Druze
and the Armenians in having the same vision of a free, sovereign
Lebanon, able to stand up for itself in the Arab world and in the
wider international community.

The vote is not the end of the story. The idea that Lebanon can now
settle down to a peaceful new future is a fine hope but there are
real problems ahead. The results may have provided an immediate boost
to economic confidence in the country but they also give a picture
of a seriously divided Lebanon: Shiites on one side; everyone else
on the other. The reaction of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah
who has accepted the outcome is encouraging, so too that of Amal
leader Nabih Berri who has praised Hariri and called for national
unity. What is not encouraging is Hezbollah’s insistence it retain
both its veto over the government and its independent army. Both have
to go. Lebanon cannot be held hostage to the politics of a minority —
and it is clear that Hariri, who now has a strong claim to be prime
minister, plans something different. The worry, though, has to be that
there will be those in Hezbollah, where there is no divide between
military and political, who will argue that because they cannot win
by the ballot, they must go back to the bullet. Not just within them
but behind them. Those who have used Hezbollah and others, both as
a means to manipulate the country and as a weapon against Israel
(but for their own political purposes), are unlikely to give up
simply because the Lebanese have declared their independence anew;
they have known since the Cedar Revolution four years ago that they
do not have the Lebanese people with them, but it did not stop them
trying to terrorize the people into submission.

The people of Lebanon have made their choice. They have chosen
freedom. Now it is Hezbollah’s turn. It has to decide whether it
respects that choice and becomes a wholly civil political party or
tries to retain its military muscle and links to outside interests. If
it tries the latter, there will be trouble. But what also can be said
following the election is that it will be the loser. There is a tide
in the affairs of Lebanon, and it will not be stopped.

Labour in crisis: Change or die

THE Guardian in its editorial yesterday commented on the crisis
gripping the Labour Party. Excerpts:

On a day in which a mild-mannered minister walked out of the government
comparing its leadership to the "militant" tendency, even the most
extraordinary facts about Labour’s crisis seemed plausible. Behind the
Tories in Wales? Sixth place, in Cornwall, trailing a small band of
nationalists? Crushed by the Greens in Norwich? A national share of
the vote below 20 percent for the first time since 1910? Vying with
the Liberal Democrats for fourth place? In the huge southeast England
Euro constituency Labour won just 8.2 percent, in territory that is,
even now, represented by many Labour MPs.

Panic would be the right response to such results, followed by a
determination to do things differently — but Labour’s world and the
real world are now quite separate places, and the party may settle
instead for more of the same. One wonders how bad the party’s election
performance would have to be for its leaders to recognize the obvious
— that the public want to throw them out of office and will do so with
extreme force unless the party changes. Even now, those in charge are
trying to blame external factors for the calamity: the expenses scandal
and the dastardly Daily Telegraph, the recession, disloyal Blairites
and indiscipline, racists and nationalists, the instant appeal of
David Cameron … the list of excuses is long and misguided. Labour’s
leaders have reached a point once described by Bertolt Brecht: "The
people have lost the confidence of the government; the government
has decided to dissolve the people, and to appoint another one."

Not all of the party’s problems are Gordon Brown’s fault, and his
departure may not solve them. Labour needs to find unity and knows it
would be easiest to do this by calling off the attacks on Brown. A
rising economy might lift its vote. The rebels have no leader, and
no agreed policy plan. But the public could not have made their views
clearer. Labour must change, or it will die.