By Sari Zeineddine | Staff Writer
The reinforcement of sectarianism.
The political economy of the post-war era wouldn’t have seen light of day without the repression of the socio-economic speech that had arisen in the beginning of the war, with the expansion of the role played by workers unions in Lebanese politics. As mentioned by Hannes Baumann, famous for his writing about the Hariri Era in Lebanon, the politicization of sectarianism first requires the depoliticization of alternative socio-political visions. Many argue that sectarianism in Lebanon is based primarily on the consent of the sectarian people and the noninvolvement of coercion force. In contrast, I argue that historically the coercion role of the state and many other apparatus had played a major role in the reproduction of the same political order that is based on the subordination of the masses to their sectarian leaders.
The political economy of the reconstruction era:
The ta’if conference of 1989 put an end to one of the components of the civil war: violence. This means that the underlying factors behind the civil war and the phenomena that had been produced on a social scale still exist. For instance, the war generated a huge social group that does nothing, but fight and all its socio-psychological existence is based on this trait. Therefore, stopping the war, or one of its tools (violence), without an immediate alternative for this group, would lead to a social catastrophe and a political mess for the sectarian powers. Hence, the state and the public sector mainly had absorbed these groups and helped reproduce the political order that ensured the dependency of the masses to the sectarian leaders. This political mechanism wouldn’t have occurred without the government over-borrowing which generated high guaranteed profits for mainly the Lebanese banks.
In other terms, the post-war era politics was based on an inflated public sector that finances the political relations of the warlords and helps them maintain their power through clientelism and sectarian lines. In addition to this, one can’t disregard the role played by the currency stabilization and high interest rates that produced an artificially boosted way of life that disconnected the masses from politics, or politics of social interest rather than sectarianism.
Trade Unions and how they lost their independence:
Trade unions had played major role in the history of modern Lebanon, from the establishment of the first trade union in Bekfaya (union of tobacco workers) to the labor movement in Zahle, and finally to the organization of the masses that had taken the streets in the 1993 against the neo-liberal policies of the post-war era (Hariri’s era). Regarding the weakness of the trade unions, one can’t disregard one important attribute of the workers in Lebanon: the real workers in Lebanon, the construction sector and the agriculture sector especially, are refugees or foreigners that accepted poor conditions and are not able to join any union. This feature was extremely important in keeping the unions weak. One of the main coercive and repressive measures taken back in the 1990s was the one issued by Rafic Hariri’s government in June 1993 that prohibited street demonstrations. After many strikes, one in October 1994 where 60,000 workers went on strike prompting the people in charge to meet their demands, the government agreed to increase the minimum wage. Defying the government ban on street demonstrations, the unions mobilized their members in July 1995 and hundreds of people were arrested after clashes with security forces. The protests represented a dangerous attack to the political economy of sectarianism since it had introduced new grounds for the political struggle: socio-economic problems.
However, these demonstrations didn’t achieve their goals, and this was mainly due to the depoliticization of trade unions, the coercive power of the state and most importantly, the role played by the sectarian leaders in recruiting every labor movement to the benefit of their interests.