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The revolution calls for reforms to combat corruption, which has become the rule that governs Lebanon, or rather keeps it under control.
The right of revolution, of course, because of its demand to fight corruption. The problem is, how? There are those who call for administrative reform, there are those who target the banks and Riyadh Salameh, and there are those who correct the electoral law and want early elections to change the equation, and there are those who follow the judiciary and politicians. There is no doubt that the revolution managed to create a general atmosphere and new behaviors such as surveillance and accountability, and imprisoned politicians in their hiding places. However, in more than a year, it has failed to achieve the desired goal of eliminating corruption or changing government authority.
And if corruption is the root of calamity, how do we define it? And who is the corrupt? Why govern corruption in the articulations of the state?
In the late 1990s I conducted an investigation on corruption (published as a chapter in my book “Masks of Arab Culture”). In the first stage, a large part of the Lebanese people considered corruption related to morals and sexuality. But it was developed in a second stage to name political, financial and administrative corruption. Any theft of public money and turn it into private money.
Corruption has existed since ancient times, but the indicators to combat it and demand personal and financial purity as a basic criterion in political action did not appear until after the Cold War.
So what is corruption?
Robert’s dictionary says that: “What causes someone to act against their conscience”, such as corruption of an employee or elections. The Collins dictionary defines it as “the dishonest and illegal conduct of people in a position of power”, such as police corruption. The Encyclopedia Americana defines it, “Political corruption is the misuse of public office and the buying of electoral votes through promises or intimidation and bribery in the form of gifts, employment, promotion or services.”
Corruption exists in all countries in various forms and degrees. Lebanon defined corruption before the wars in the form of “wasta”. But now it was never the same again.
When I ask around me: Why all this corruption? The answer: “Because there is no state.”
Who among us was not forced to use wasta and contributed to corruption? Starting with simple transactions, to speed them up or avoid humiliation in front of the doors; Until I get a job on any cable in the state
But resorting to wasta does not depend on the absence of the state. Some believe that wasta is part of our religious arsenal and our genetic makeup. When we are distressed we pray and make vows and religious visits to shrines to meet our needs. “Jerusalem has no end unless it has taken over the manipulators,” and forgiveness is the manipulator. The traditional life of the religious revolves around mediating with God.
These are normal practices of religious people: It has a function in traditional societies:
Who does not cut ross
Gets out of jail
Pay money
In short, authority is obtained by force or by services.
Corruption or wasta, in part, is a continuation of the pattern of dealing with inherited social structures. But when the state arises, services become rights. In a rule of law, a “means” is no longer needed to obtain services, because they are acquired rights.
However, during the current situation, all Lebanese need and benefit in one way or another from someone’s “personal” services, rather than obtaining them as state rights. Who of us didn’t have to use wasta? And were you forced to contribute to corruption? Starting with the realization of simple transactions, to speed them up or avoid humiliation in front of the doors; All the way to get a job on any cable in the country, or to admit a patient to the hospital, get a detainee out of the police station, or take a child to school. Our rights have been transformed into services: administrative, educational, hospital or judicial. It is brought to us by an employee who believes that he is at the service of the leader who hired him, not the citizen.
These are the accountability mechanisms, because they are all part of this general clientelist structure.
However, things were not like that when Greater Lebanon was established, as a state that has a constitution and laws, and citizens have rights and duties. After independence, Fouad Shehab established the model of a state of institutions that function in accordance with the law, control, control and guarantee the rights of the citizen in exchange for their loyalty. I personally got an education grant for Belgium from the service council with a coincidence. Now they are successful and are prohibited from being hired.
The civil war weakened the state and its institutions. Corruption spread through occupations and violence. And the “Khawat” became generalized as a norm of behavior.
And a militia leader’s story about how he came to know the power provided by a weapon during war illustrates the point. One of his followers asked him to give him a piece of paper authorizing him to enter a specific establishment to obtain a good from him. The leader refused at first as he did not know them, so what ability would it require? After the urgency, he wrote the newspaper. Thus, he discovered the authority of arms and this institution became a source of funding. This is what we call “Khwah”. The majority of those in power now exercise khawa.
Social peace was broken during the civil war, the deterioration of public order, justice disappeared and the situation reverted to the pre-state. According to Aries, “when the state is weak and symbolic, the protection of the individual is related to social solidarity and leadership in the sense of leadership that provides protection. When the individual feels weak and threatened, the de facto authority takes refuge” .
After the Taif Agreement, the militias seized power, allied themselves and submitted to the Syrian occupation, in exchange for chairs and profits guaranteed by corruption.
Corruption was exposed as a mode and means of governance, after the formation of a sacred alliance that took power completely under the protection of an armed party.
At the turn of the millennium, under Syrian hegemony, we lived in the shadow of rampant corruption without anyone daring to expose it under the guise of external respect for the constitution and the laws.
However, starting in 2005, the year of Hariri’s assassination and the departure of the Syrian army, the mechanisms of corruption began to appear and the feathers were released, condemning the practices and crimes of the Syrian hegemony and paying a price for their lives.
However, we did not know of the shameful corruption that replaced the laws, except with the beginning of the second decade of the third millennium, and after Hezbollah imposed its hand on the State based on the Doha Agreement and the third blockade. He adopted the “weapons are mine, chairs are yours” mechanism. Signs of popular protest against corruption emerged with the You Stink movement and its aftermath.
Corruption was exposed as a mode and means of government, after the formation of a sacred alliance that took power completely under the protection of an armed party. And they became: “Oh mountain, no wind shakes you.” They can spread the clothes of their mutual scandals in the context of their fight and talk to them about the actions without fear of punishment.
The question now is, what can be done in a country that reached a dead end before its resounding fall? Why didn’t the anti-corruption lawsuit abandon them? Even the Amal movement is demonstrating against corruption, while its president’s police exploit the protesters’ eyes. Hizbullah was the first to initiate the argument against corruption, but claims that it cannot. Is it because of your inability or because corruption is a tool of your domain? The protest against corruption has become folklore.
But the violence comes from those who raise the slogan of sovereignty and the slogan “No to arms”, which is beyond legitimacy. And it demonizes Fares Saeed’s visit to Tripoli and causes “Rabih Al-Zein”, linked by some rumors to the devices, to reject the slogan “Iran on the ground”. Who would believe that Tripoli has closed itself to the sovereign in favor of Hezbollah’s agenda, or that it wishes Iranian tutelage?
So it is possible in a “normal, master and independent” Lebanon that the hundreds of thousands who filled the streets could not change power and impose early elections! Wasn’t it up to a higher authority to protect those in power?
How can you get to the truth and hold the corrupt accountable while the law depends on the thresholds of certain regions?
How to stop the collapse by rejecting the intervention of the IMF? How can corruption be fought when the law is applied in regions and is outside the borders of other regions? How do we fight corruption when there are those who are hitting the wall with the judgment of the International Court and the Lebanese judiciary, so that they do not extradite those wanted and convicted? How can corruption be fought with legitimate borders protected by the weapons of the statute?
Does Hezbollah want reforms while Gebran protects Bassil, the only one who the revolution unanimously rejected?
Save Lebanon first. Then judge who you want. Let’s start with ourselves
Does justice allow the judgment of the corrupt and vulnerable and leave the corrupt protected?
What are we waiting for after the pillars of the state were shaken by its legislative and executive powers, the banks were wiped out and the military weakened? !! As for the judiciary, on behalf of the Minister of the Interior, is 95% corrupt? Could the revolution come to an end with a single file? Has anyone been held responsible despite the accumulation of files and their documents?
Although the revolution shook the pillars of authority and put her in a dilemma, it laid bare her cards. However, there is no alternative government in sight, because Iran has no interest in it now.
It is an occupation by proxy, which puts the state in the circle of existential danger, so what will save Lebanon, fighting corruption or restoring sovereignty?
It is a battle of national liberation that requires the formation of the broadest coalition of all Lebanese prepared to carry out the demand for the implementation of the Taif, the constitution and international resolutions. An independent judiciary and the equality of citizens before the law are the two basic conditions for fighting corruption and recovering stolen money. No independent judiciary holds perpetrators without sovereignty accountable.
Faced with the danger that Lebanon will transform the state, we cannot afford to reject those of the political class who review themselves and fight for the restoration of sovereignty. Accounting for the theft of public money comes later.
Save Lebanon first. Then judge who you want. Let’s start with ourselves: we all benefit from BDL’s financial policy and live above our true standard of living and our silence.
