September 06, 2015
Beirut, once dubbed
the Paris of the Middle East, is literally drowning in its own garbage and
young Lebanese who are fed up and can’t take it anymore have in turn flooded
the streets around the main government building, protesting the lack of governmental
action to remedy the situation. The government’s helplessness in facing the crisis
is but the latest, if most absurd, example of political paralysis compounded by
the greed, selfishness, and corruption of Lebanese politicians. The crisis may
well be the proverbial straw that breaks the back of the Lebanese state–and for
good this time.
For over a year
now, Lebanon has had no president because of a political stalemate: the two
major blocs in the country, March 8 and March 14, have both failed to muster
the required two-thirds majority in parliament to get their own candidate
elected, and they have not been able to agree on a compromise candidate (as has
been the tradition in the past).
Parliament has extended its own term twice because a new election law could
not be agreed on by bickering parties, each wanting a law that favors its own
candidates and constituents.
Parliament, as a
result of failure to agree on a new president, is paralyzed on all policy
matters and senior appointments. The current government–formed after a
political vacuum that lasted ten months–was originally designated to oversee
new elections, which of course have yet to take place. Essentially a caretaker
cabinet, the Tammam Salam government has been stymied by the cabinet’s own
rules of consensus from taking action on the big issues that face the nation,
such as the war in Syria, Hezbollah’s involvement in it and the resultant
spillover of the conflict into Lebanon. Now, the government is no longer able
to even collect the trash from the streets of Beirut, and to a lesser extent from
other districts, threatening Beirut and the country with disastrous
environmental and health consequences. It’s time to finally admit it: the
Lebanese state has failed!
Briefly, the facts
are the following: A landfill in Na’meh, south of Beirut, closed due to the
surrounding community’s complaints. The landfill was designed as a temporary
two-year measure to take in a maximum of two tons of treated garbage. Almost
ten years and over twenty tons of garbage later, it is full to way-beyond
capacity of largely untreated refuse and is harming the immediate community
living around it. Sukleen, the company
that has had the contract on collecting, recycling, and dumping trash in the
Beirut area and Mount Lebanon, stopped collecting on the obvious premise that
the garbage had nowhere to go–which was evidently true as the government tried,
and failed, to convince other municipalities in Lebanon to take Beirut’s trash.
Accusations have
mounted that Sukleen has been bilking the Lebanese government for nearly ten
years by overcharging while improperly treating, and not recycling, the garbage.
The cabinet, which had already awarded contracts to other companies that
service other districts of Lebanon, has been pressured by the strong street
protests into reviewing all contracts previously awarded. The charge, justified
by the admission of the politicians themselves, is that ministers and factional
leaders insist on granting the fat contracts to their immediate relatives, and
then look the other way as these companies get rich with complete disregard for
the environment and the health of the people of Lebanon.
Fed up with the
stench and energized by solidarity, young people got together on social media
sites and, informally organized by civil society groups, poured out onto the
streets. First they demanded solutions to the problem. Only after suffering
police violence and infiltration of the demonstrations by political opponents
to this particular cabinet, the youth movement demanded that the government step
down. March 8 ministers have already staged a walk-out from the cabinet on the
grounds that Prime Minister Salam has been making decisions (against their
wishes) based on the majority principle and not the traditional consensus vote.
However, should Salam actually step down there would be a complete void of
authority, in all branches of the government. The state institutions of Lebanon
will have come to a complete stop.
The garbage crisis
in Lebanon is not a technical problem. Lebanon, a country with a large educated
middle class, employs technology in various sectors of the economy, from media
to banking and telecommunication networks. And despite economic pressures resulting
from a fifteen-year civil war, followed by only a brief period of
reconstruction, Beirutis still managed a resilient economy and a lively tourist
sector.
The political
stalemate, however, exacerbated by the war in next-door Syria, has reached an
all-time low, while leaders continue to pursue individual gain and political
advantage at the expense of the national interest. The fact that even a
technical and seemingly mundane issue as trash collection has to be decided by
consensus at the cabinet level, by political factions that cannot reach
consensus on anything nowadays, is a sign that Lebanon’s famed National Pact–once
the salvation of Lebanon because it represents all sects via a quota system and
demands consensus on decisions of national import–has become an albatross
around the necks of the people. As it is virtually impossible for any one
faction to accept a possibly diluted voice in a majority system, the National
Pact has outlived its usefulness and the country, as an organized polity, is badly
in need of a new social contract.
What then? Jean
Paul Sartre’s No Exit, a play that
was long ago staged in Arabic to entertain Beirut’s literati, is a very apt
description of the current dilemma: The way out of the morass is obvious but
the players, long trapped by their own selfishness and vicious internecine
struggles, simply cannot leave their self-created inferno. As the three
branches of government collapse and fold the various sectarian and feudal
communities of Lebanon will be left to fend for themselves–politically,
economically, and socially. The most dangerous aspect of this, aside from the
disastrous environmental abyss facing the country, is the security situation. With
no central authority to direct the policing of the various communities, the
strong will muddle through while the weak suffer most–all while the Syrian
crisis next door is spilling into Lebanon socially, economically and
militarily.
Rather than the
total chaos of a Hobbesian society, another option may soon present itself: A military
coup, led by the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) and backed by Hezbollah, is a
distinct possibility if the paralysis continues. As the only power on the ground which has
strong influence on the LAF and, more importantly, has the muscle and the
organization to take advantage of the crisis and fill the void, Hezbollah may
be tempted to act via the LAF, especially that the LAF’s commander, Jean
Qahwaji, is a presidential aspirant who may well be acceptable to many and may
be able to act where the political leadership has failed. Hezbollah’s general secretary, Hassan
Nassrallah has recently indicated in a speech that the way out for Lebanon may
well be in a secular state that no longer enshrines the sectarian quota system.
Domestic opponents of Hezbollah may be hard pressed to resist an army takeover
but Hezbollah’s outright dominance will have serious implications for Syria, Iran,
Saudi Arabia, and–last but not least–Israel and the United States.
Nabeel Khoury is a
non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for
the Middle East and a visiting associate professor with the Middle East North
Africa program at Northwestern University. He spent twenty-five years as a
diplomat in the U.S. Foreign Service in numerous posts from Morocco to Iraq. He
has contributed to the Middle East Journal, Journal
of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, International Journal of
Middle East Studies, and Middle East Policy. On Twitter: @khoury_nabeel.