Lebanon has changed beyond recognition, no longer can this nation be used by other Arab countries to practice what they do not preach at home, writes Gamil Mattar* I idled away precious hours listening to the political debate in Lebanon, only to emerge more firmly convinced that Lebanon perfectly epitomises the Arab condition. There were your political luminaries as entrenched in the past as ever, never even contemplating venturing into a new era. And there was that parade of faces whose features were so distorted, and their ravings so wild, that you couldn't be sure whether they were bewailing a lost loved one or whether their minds had been so consumed by politics that they no longer knew how to mourn such a passing. To these figures and others, assassination is merely an opportunity -- and no longer a rare one at that -- to pose before the TV cameras and pontificate from podiums. It struck home more and more how much most Arab countries mirror at least one of the many aspects of Lebanon, loved by all Arabs, even if their ways of expressing this love are as different as the ways of the Lebanese themselves. That wonderful people express deep faith in religion with simultaneous ardour for ideological liberty. They yearn for freedom under a respectable constitutional system and concurrently desire the pleasures of despotism. These dualities, along with many others, have shred the moral fabric of the region, besmirched the prestige of politics and government, and trampled the dreams and aspirations of millions of our young people. I, along with an increasing number of spectators across the Arab world, despaired in seeing how a young man can be killed in a street that everyone knows and among life-long neighbours, only for politicians in Beirut, Cairo, Riyadh, Damascus, New York, London and Paris to issue pronouncements that could only have been pre-prepared and waiting in a drawer, ready to be pulled out when the time came. Lebanon is reverting a past filled with lust for pain and misery, and the rest of the Arab world is joining them, as in Iraq, and beyond. There is considerable truth in the contention that Lebanon's particular demographic and political make-up makes it a playground for the intelligence operatives of all the meddlesome nations of the world. It also makes it a playground for foreign intervention, sometimes of the friendly and pliable sort, but mostly of a vicious and treacherous character. The breathtaking rapidity with which Lebanon can turn from happiness to agony, as seen in July, leaves one dumbfounded. It may also be true that Lebanese politicians have excelled at playing off against one another, those foreign powers that claim a mandate to intervene in Lebanese affairs. Indeed, considerable credit is due to some very astute Lebanese politicians who have succeeded in taking advantage of Lebanon's particular circumstances in order to counter, or alleviate the severity of, foreign intervention. In every Arab capital -- not just in Beirut -- we hear that particularly Arab refrain: "we have our cultural specificity." In one Arab country, religion might offer the proof of that uniqueness; in another, the proof is to be found in that country's long and ancient history; in a third, they speak of their struggle against the Israeli peril and Western proxies. What all spokesmen for Arab capitals have in common is their desire not to let others rock their own country's boat; this is their rule of thumb for dealing with Lebanon. To the Arabs, the ideal Lebanon is the Lebanon in which we can do things we can't get away with at home, the Lebanon which we can have do things for us that we'd feel too uncomfortable, embarrassed or hypocritical to do ourselves. Lebanon is the place to which people can flee the politics of polarisation and the pieties of home, and breathe easily for the space of a summer holiday or more. It is the loudspeaker that can broadcast at home and abroad ideas and feelings that no other Arab country would venture to air. We assign Lebanon the most unpleasant functions we can. If they weren't so unpleasant, the various Arab agencies in charge of our society and economy might perform them themselves and spare Lebanon the consequences of acting in their stead. But, now, Lebanon can no longer do everything we ask of it. Its political make- up, current social and economic circumstances and its new moral order no longer permit it to play its former role. Namely, that of the recipient of the dirty work that other Arab governments can't do at home without risking irritating public opinion or of exposing their unprecedented hypocrisy. Lebanon can no longer serve as the cauldron for the brewing of Sunni/Shia strife in order to forestall more sweeping social strife within some major Arab powers. Nor can it serve as the backdoor to a new pact on Arab-Israeli relations, preparatory to the one big pact that is currently in the pipelines and that is supposed to supersede all others. Above all -- and I hope Washington understands this point -- Lebanon can no longer serve as the springboard for the New Middle East. I was deeply distressed to have heard recently some political commentators on Lebanese satellite news programmes suggesting and even hoping that Lebanon could still play this role. I can only caution that to press Lebanon in that direction would send it down a path no less nightmarish than that of Iraq, one that would make the Lebanese civil war seem like a walk in the park. I foresee several major developments in this part of the world. Above all, I anticipate a sudden power vacuum and neither my naked eye nor my instincts can perceive an Arab power or group of Arab states -- note that I do not use the hackneyed, frivolous and insidious term "moderate Arab states" -- poised to fill it. Nevertheless, I expect Lebanon to be at the vortex of this vacuum, sucking in forces from outside the Arab world. The apathy that characterises Arab political performance domestically, regionally and internationally will pave the way for foreign powers jockeying for position in anticipation of various possible developments in the Arab world. The hordes of foreign military and civil personnel in Lebanon, the resumption of serialised political assassination and verbal confrontations, the presence of different armies in the south and the influx of arms are loud and clear signs that others are busily preparing themselves for this "post-Iraq" facet of the Arab question. * The writer is director of the Arab Centre for Development and Futuristic Research.
