Beirut’s streets are reverberating under massive protests. The Lebanese government can’t seem to placate the protesters.
Unfortunately, Lebanon’s history and the various political factors involved likely means Beirut is in for bloodshed.
At its heart, this protest movement is like that underway in Iraq. It’s a crisis of public confidence in the government’s ability to serve the people. Unwilling to liberalize the economy and reform broken utility services, the Lebanese government is defined by three toxic characteristics: high taxes, poor services, and endemic cronyism. So when the government recently introduced plans to tax users of the internet communication service WhatsApp, the rage boiled over. That tax was seen for what it was: the government’s choice to tax average citizens rather than address the reason they are using WhatsApp in the first place: the nation’s dysfunctional telecommunications sector.
The WhatsApp factor also speaks to another issue here: Many of those on the streets are young. Facing chronic youth unemployment levels, the WhatsApp tax seemed designed to further affront them. And they’re not backing down.
Increasing spending to support Lebanon’s poorest and authorizing reforms to the banking and utilities sectors, the government hoped to stem the protests. But the protesters sense that they have the initiative. Aware of Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s ultimate weakness, the protesters insist that the government might resign en masse.
Such a fundamental demand might seem strange, but the people see Lebanese politics for what it has become: a system in which access to power is the means to enrichment and a system in which parties with otherwise profound ideological disagreements co-exist in the shared benefit of getting rich off the backs of the people. Even where reformist politicians such as Nada Boustani Khoury of the Energy Ministry attempt to improve things, the system acts to stymie them.
Correspondingly, the protesters are demanding a new emergency government of nonsectarian technocrats take power and prepare for new elections. Thus far, however, the Lebanese Forces party has been the only one to recognize the fury and resign from the government. Erstwhile elder statesman and President Michel Aoun has only expressed sympathy for the protesters.
What happens next?
Well, while the Shiite Hezbollah and Amal factions supported Hariri’s Monday reform program, they’re unwilling to cede power as the protesters demand. They cannot risk any caretaker government introducing reforms that would gut the foundations of their power. The importance of these foundations cannot be overstated. Hezbollah needs political power to legitimize its violent expansionism, to launder the proceeds of its criminal enterprises, and to divert government contracts into the hands of its operatives. Similarly, Amal’s leader, Nabih Berri, is an incarnation of corruption. Amal uses his control over the Finance Ministry to divert vast sums toward his own interests.
We’re heading into dangerous waters.
In a signal of the coming escalation, Amal and Hezbollah operatives aggressively rode motorcycles toward the protesters on Monday. They were stopped by the military this time, but they’ll be back.
