Suleiman and Neo-Chehabism
Abdullah Iskandar Al-Hayat - 25/11/08//
In his speech on Lebanon's 65th Independence Day, President Michel Suleiman had seemingly chosen to follow in the footsteps of one of his predecessors at the head of the army and the State. He has chosen the model of late President Fouad Chehab; he has opted for Chehabism and its concept of a State that embraces all the Lebanese. In addition, he has favored conformity with Arab unanimity in all regional issues. As such, he has distanced himself from his predecessor President Emile Lahoud, who took sides with one camp at home and a specific Arab axis abroad.
Suleiman has evoked the Lebanese who, in the 60s, tried to build a State of independence (Chehab era) but almost fell in the trap of the independence of petty states. He asked them to work today, as individuals and groups, towards rebuilding a unifying State, where "every member of society commits to the requirements of national unity."
This neo-Chehabism trend appeared indirectly in the President's inauguration speech and in other interventions on numerous occasions. However, after the first few months of his rule and in light of the government's modest achievements, Suleiman had to call for accelerating the process of moving from "power to State."
There are no illusions about the magnitude of obstacles and challenges facing this endeavor that alone guarantees independence, liberties, development, and "finality." Petty political, military, and sectarian states in Lebanon - which flourished since the collapse of Chehabism at the beginning of the 1970s and were strengthened during and after the civil war - represent ideological and economic trends in parallel with each other and with the fragile State. These petty states fed on their internal conflicts in the name of defending the fate that was supposedly abandoned by the State. If the issue today is about Hezbollah, its weapons, and its institutions that constitute a closed network parallel to the State, it is because this faction is the strongest of the petty states, as it benefited the most from the State's dismemberment and the loss of its internal and foreign role - in addition to "the absence of Lebanon and its interests on the international scene in the past years," according to the Independence Day speech.
With these petty states and closed networks of interests, corruption thrives, reform turns difficult, transparency disappears, and the judiciary is neutralized. This has been the case during the past years, with the absence of transparency and accountability - particularly during parliamentary elections, whose results were known before the ballot boxes were even opened. Hence appears the wager on the upcoming parliamentary elections and the hopes they would renew political life and prioritize the unity of the State.
In parallel, President Suleiman ascertained that the statement issued following his summit with his Syrian counterpart shape the nature of the relation with Syria - in a clear echo to the famous meeting between President Chehab and late President Gamal Abdel Nasser at the time of Syrian-Egyptian unity. Back then, the statement defined Lebanon's Arab policy away from Arab divisions. In parallel, the current Lebanese president sought to balance Lebanon's relations with Syria, hence his attempts to forge Arab and regional relations in such a way that Lebanon would not take sides with a specific Arab side in light of the current divisions. This protects freedom of decision and alleviates the burden of interference and bias.
As proof of this balance, Suleiman stuck to the international resolutions on the peace process in the region and the Arab peace initiative even though the latter is rejected by Lebanese parties that have strong alliances with regional countries that in turn reject the initiative publicly or voice reservations on the proposed peace option. This reflects on the nature of national unity and on the attempts to rebuild the State. Hence, the obsession of the unifying State prevails over tactical and trumped-up requirements.
President Suleiman has restored the importance of Chehabism, but has also taken into account the changes that took place in Lebanon and the region during the past fifty years, in order to "preserve the distinction, mission, and individuality of Lebanon as a country of coexistence, dialogue, and fraternity."
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