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Politics of Islamic Resurgence

Lebanon (1)

The Lebanese Case is especially illuminating on four key issues:

1)The plasticity ofculture ( the degree to which culture or ideologies can be

reformulated or reinterpreted to mean something radically new)

2) The degree to which context shapes the interpretation of a cultural tradition

3) The extent to which culture/ideology should be seen as an independent

variable in politics

4) Political Islam's capacity for moderation and the the role that political
inclusion can play in moderating extremism

I. Bird's eye view of the Lebanese political system:

A. Since the early 1930s, the political system in Lebanon = an imperfect

democracy organized along sectarian (i.e. religious) lines

Political rights and privileges are distributed on the basis of one's religious
community (e.g there are sectarian quotas for seats in parliament, positions in the civil
service, etc.)

B. Origins of the system:

Lebanon, the country, is the artificial creation of its former colonial

overlord: France

The population was extremely fragmented culturally and religiously

In 1932 Lebanese society counted more than 15 t religious sects (e.g. Sunni
Muslims, Shia Muslims, Druze, Jews, and more than 11 different kinds of Christians
from Greek Orthodox to Maronite to Protestant)

To manage the country's centrifugal diversity: the National Pact (1932)

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National Pact promised to protect the interests of each religious community by

distributing political power along strictly confessional lines, in proportion to the size
of each community

Flaw: system did not uphold the principle of proportionality

(I.e. did not distribute political spoils to the different religious

communities in proportion to their size in the population

Christians, esp. Maronite Christians, got more than their fair share~

while Muslims, esp. the Shia, got less than their fair share

The distribution of spoils was based on a population census conducted in 1932 that
overcOlmted Maronite Christians and undercounted Muslims and that seriously
undercounted the number of Shia

II. PositiQn of Shia Community in Lebanon

A. Important repercussions of the political system for the Shia community:

Shia did not get a fair deal politically (did not get enough seats in parliament
or civil service posts

Shia did not get a fair deal economically (did not have sufficient political clout
to channel public resources toward their community)

Shia community was economically disadvantaged to begin with:

Because they tended to live in remote rural areas in Lebanon (As a

persecuted minority they sought refuge from persecution by settling far from
population centers)

Geographical remoteness provided the Shia with safety,

But it also condemned them to the developmental retardation that comes from
living in a backwater

So the confessional political system in Lebanon certainly worked to reinforce the

disadvantage of the Shia community
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B. Desperate situation of the Shia community further compounded by the

community's less than visionary leadership.

The traditional leaders ofthe Shia community did little to redress the sorry state
of Shia community
Traditional political bosses of the Slria community had an interest in
suppressing the advancement of their people in order to guarantee their
own domination of the community.

(By denying their Shia constituents empowering things like education, the
traditional bosses could guarantee their own relative power) (Example:
Ahmed Bey)

The religious leaders of the Shia community, also did little to mobilize the
Shia in ways that might have redressed their misery

The clerics eschewed this activism because :

l. philosophically, they believed that the Shia tradition counseled

distance from politics

Shiism, they believed, counseled quietism, passivity, and

dissimulation not activism, mobilization, or public
confrontation in the name of the community

n. fmancially, the Shia clerics were economically dependent on the

traditional Shla political bosses for their livelihoods

C. The miserable condition of the Shla was further reinforced by the state, and
its studious neglect of Shla areas.

The state failed to invest in infrastructure in Jebl Aml and the Bekaa (e.g. build
roads, extend the electrical grid, provide potable water, invest in local education,
industry, or agriculture)
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III. Changes in the 50s and 60s:

A. Automobile culture ended the isolation of the remote Shia villages

B. The state finally began to introduce public schools to the Shia areas

C. Influx ofremittances from Shia who had migrated to West Africa and Detroit
began to make advanced education possible for a larger cohort of Shia

D. Many Shia migrated to Beirut and profited from the economic boom

Result: Shia community began to feel more self confident and began to feel
greater disaffection with their relative exclusion from the system

At same time, see greater disjoocture between the Shia community's size and its
share of political spoils grew ever larger

(Shia population took offbut the distribution ofspoils remained frozen based on
the population census of 1932)

IV. Impact of Musa Sadr

Musa Sadr: a charismatic personality (tall, telegenic) and a "stranger"

Musa Sadr came from a place where Shia were a majority - i.e. he had
no fear/no inferiority complex about being Shia

He was bold and supremely self-confident

He could imagine another way for the Shia and could

encourage them to be out spoken and defiant.

Musa Sadr set about mobilizing the Shia politically and building institutions that
would advance their interests:

A. 1969: creation ofthe Shiite Higher Council (a vehicle designed to represent

and promote the interests of the Shia community)

B. 1970: organized a major strike to protest conditions in the South which

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led to the creation of the Majlis at Janub (the council of the

south) -- capitalized at 30 million Leb pounds to support
development in the southern region

C. 1974: launched a mass movement called Harakat at Mahrumin

(Movement of the Deprived) that militated on behalf of the Shia
poor in the South and in the slums of Beirut.

D. 1975: reluctantly oversaw the creation of the Shia milita, AMAL,

organized to protect Shia communities during the civil war.

V. Comparison of Musa Sadr's Movement to Other Revival Movements

A. Goals:

Not expressly religious; Did not seek to propagate Islamic practice or

create an Islamic state

Rather, goal was to win political and economic equity for the Shia
community

Sadr's movement: utterly reformist and pro-system

Sadr's followers did not seek to overturn the system but rather achieve
unprejudiced inclusion in the system

B. Motivation:

i. Modernization? Did fuel the movement, though it was the successes

as much as the strains of modernization that fueled it

Increased urbanization and the spread of education raised the

accomplishments as well as the expectations ofthe Shia community (and
this mobilized them to demand a bigger slice of the pie).

ii. Quest of Cultural Authenticity? Less of a Factor.

Musa Sadr's movment was not really a movement of cultural

reassertion ... although Islamic Shiite symbols and imagery was used to
mobilize the community
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Many of Sadr's followers were not even religious

Their Shiism was as much a matter of ethnic and cultural identity as
religious
iii. Quest for solace in response to defeat in the 67 war?
Less of a factor.
67 war not necessarily perceived by the Shia community as a Shia battle;
Shia in Lebanon always sustained an ambivalent attitude toward Arab
nationalism
So defeat in 67 did not have shattering psychological implications for the
Shia community that it had for Sunni Arabas
iv. Failure of the Modern State? Clearly a factor.
Failure ofmodem Lebanese state to deliver basic social welfare promises
to the Shia community, mobilized the Shia under Sadr