10-20-2019, 10:13 PM
*** 21-Oct-19 World View -- Massive anti-government street protests paralyze Lebanon
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
****
**** Massive anti-government street protests paralyze Lebanon
****
![[Image: g191020b.jpg]](http://Media.GenerationalDynamics.com/ww2010/g191020b.jpg)
Protesters in front of the Muhammad al-Amin mosque in downtown Beirut, Lebanon, on Sunday. (EPA)
There have been four days of massive anti-government protests in
Beirut, Lebanon's capital city, and in cities across Lebanon. In the
country's second largest city, Tripoli, in northern Syria, and in the
southern port city of Tyre, the protesters waved the Lebanon national
flag, and changed "revolution" or "the people demand the fall of the
regime."
These were the largest street protests in Lebanon since 2005, when
Rafiq al-Hariri, the father of the current prime minister Saad
al-Hariri, was killed by a massive terrorist bomb in Beirut. The
assassination was blamed on Syria and on the fact that Hariri opposed
Syria's influence in Lebanon. The massive street protests at that
time led to the Cedar Revolution, causing the withdrawal of Syrian
forces from Lebanon.
Most popular protests in Lebanon have been highly sectarian, aligned
with the Sunnis, the Shias or the Christians. However, the massive
2005 protests cut across all the sectarian blocs.
The same is true of the protests in the last four days. They've been
almost completely peaceful, with some violence on the margins.
Protesters have been united in criticizing the massive corruption in
the government of Lebanon, and the resulting poverty, and a ballooning
deficit.
The protests were triggered on Thursday by a proposed fee the
equivalent of 20 cents on WhatsApp calls. Making a phone call using
Lebanon's antiquated phone system is expensive, so people have
increasingly used WhatsApp to make the calls. But the fee proposal
triggered the massive protests and the proposal was quickly withdrawn
by a desperate government in the hope of ending the protests.
However, the protests continued and grew, and the government is now
even more desperate, as it appears that the country will be paralyzed
by the protests on Monday. The Maronite Christian Lebanese Forces
party is withdrawing from the government, along with its four
ministers. The country's main labor union has threatened a general
strike.
Hariri has demanded that each government office implement reforms by
Monday evening, including a 50% cut in salaries of numerous government
officials. Protesters have been mocking these demands, since they
know that the government officials will never agree to cut their own
salaries. However, if the reforms are implemented, then they will
unlock $11 billion in Western donor pledges and help avert economic
collapse.
****
**** Brief generational history of Lebanon
****
![[Image: g191020c.jpg]](http://Media.GenerationalDynamics.com/ww2010/g191020c.jpg)
Girls holding anti-government placards during protests in Beirut, Lebanon, on Sunday (AP)
Although the objectives of the protests are serious, the protests
themselves are often playful, unlike, for example, the protests in
Hong Kong. That's because Lebanon is in a generational Awakening era,
and so the protests are similar to those in the US and Europe in the
1960s. Hong Kong and China are, by contrast, in a generational Crisis
era, which means that their protests are likely to lead to full-scale
war, which is not likely in the case of the Lebanon protests.
Lebanon had two generational crisis wars during the last century. The
first was part of the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire (1908-22).
The second was Lebanon's civil war (1975-90), mainly between Muslims
versus Christians, killing some 200,000 people. A major event
occurred on September 15-16, when Maronite Christian militias
massacred 2-3,000 Palestinian civilians in the Sabra and Shatila
Palestinian refugee camps. This act has haunted Lebanon to this day.
After a generational crisis war end, the belligerents enter a
generational Recovery Era, and the survivors of the war take steps to
try to guarantee that nothing so horrible should ever happen again.
I want to take a quick side trip to describe what happened in Iran and
Syria.
I've described many times how a country that goes through a
generational crisis war that's also an ethnic civil war almost always
follows the same pattern. The ethnic group that won the civil war
takes power, and the oppresses and martializes the people in the
losing ethnic group, sometimes resorting to extreme violence.
Iran had a crisis civil war, the Islamic Revolution of 1979, followed
by the Iran/Iraq war. The leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, wrote
a new constitution that gave himself complete dictatorial powers, in
order to prevent a new anti-government rebellion. In 1988, Khomeini
ordered the torture, rape and massacre of tens of thousands of
political prisoners and political enemies. That's fairly typical of a
country's Recovery era following an ethnic crisis civil war.
Syria's last generational crisis war was a religious/ethnic civil war
between the Shia Alawites versus the Arab Sunnis. That war climaxed
in February 1982 with the destruction of the town of Hama, which
killed or displaced hundreds of thousands. This ended the war, but
today, Syria's president Bashar al-Assad is still conducting genocide
and ethnic cleansing of his political enemies, the Arab Sunnis.
Lebanon's Recovery Era acted somewhat differently. Instead of putting
one group (the Shias, the Sunnis, the Christians) in charge of the
government, which might have led to the same kind of violence as in
Iran and Syria, they tried to write the constitution to balance the
three sects.
Lebanon's constitution requires that the three main offices be
occupied by specific sectarian groups:
This sectarian separation seems to have served Lebanon pretty well, at
least as compared to Iran or Syria. But protesters see it as a source
of the corruption causing the economic problems.
Each of the sects is in control of a major set of government
institutions, controlling the funding and salaries for those
institutions. Protesters are being quoted as saying that they can't
get any government services without going through the relevant
religious sect. Furthermore, each sect skims money from the
institutions that it controls. Protesters are calling this the reason
for Lebanon's extreme poverty.
Sources:
Related articles:
KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Lebanon, Beirut, Tripoli, Tyre,
Saad al-Harari, Rafiq al-Hariri, Cedar Revolution,
WhatsApp, Maronite Christian Lebanese,
Syria, Iran, Ottoman Empire, Sabra, Shatila
Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Contribute to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
- Massive anti-government street protests paralyze Lebanon
- Brief generational history of Lebanon
****
**** Massive anti-government street protests paralyze Lebanon
****
Protesters in front of the Muhammad al-Amin mosque in downtown Beirut, Lebanon, on Sunday. (EPA)
There have been four days of massive anti-government protests in
Beirut, Lebanon's capital city, and in cities across Lebanon. In the
country's second largest city, Tripoli, in northern Syria, and in the
southern port city of Tyre, the protesters waved the Lebanon national
flag, and changed "revolution" or "the people demand the fall of the
regime."
These were the largest street protests in Lebanon since 2005, when
Rafiq al-Hariri, the father of the current prime minister Saad
al-Hariri, was killed by a massive terrorist bomb in Beirut. The
assassination was blamed on Syria and on the fact that Hariri opposed
Syria's influence in Lebanon. The massive street protests at that
time led to the Cedar Revolution, causing the withdrawal of Syrian
forces from Lebanon.
Most popular protests in Lebanon have been highly sectarian, aligned
with the Sunnis, the Shias or the Christians. However, the massive
2005 protests cut across all the sectarian blocs.
The same is true of the protests in the last four days. They've been
almost completely peaceful, with some violence on the margins.
Protesters have been united in criticizing the massive corruption in
the government of Lebanon, and the resulting poverty, and a ballooning
deficit.
The protests were triggered on Thursday by a proposed fee the
equivalent of 20 cents on WhatsApp calls. Making a phone call using
Lebanon's antiquated phone system is expensive, so people have
increasingly used WhatsApp to make the calls. But the fee proposal
triggered the massive protests and the proposal was quickly withdrawn
by a desperate government in the hope of ending the protests.
However, the protests continued and grew, and the government is now
even more desperate, as it appears that the country will be paralyzed
by the protests on Monday. The Maronite Christian Lebanese Forces
party is withdrawing from the government, along with its four
ministers. The country's main labor union has threatened a general
strike.
Hariri has demanded that each government office implement reforms by
Monday evening, including a 50% cut in salaries of numerous government
officials. Protesters have been mocking these demands, since they
know that the government officials will never agree to cut their own
salaries. However, if the reforms are implemented, then they will
unlock $11 billion in Western donor pledges and help avert economic
collapse.
****
**** Brief generational history of Lebanon
****
Girls holding anti-government placards during protests in Beirut, Lebanon, on Sunday (AP)
Although the objectives of the protests are serious, the protests
themselves are often playful, unlike, for example, the protests in
Hong Kong. That's because Lebanon is in a generational Awakening era,
and so the protests are similar to those in the US and Europe in the
1960s. Hong Kong and China are, by contrast, in a generational Crisis
era, which means that their protests are likely to lead to full-scale
war, which is not likely in the case of the Lebanon protests.
Lebanon had two generational crisis wars during the last century. The
first was part of the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire (1908-22).
The second was Lebanon's civil war (1975-90), mainly between Muslims
versus Christians, killing some 200,000 people. A major event
occurred on September 15-16, when Maronite Christian militias
massacred 2-3,000 Palestinian civilians in the Sabra and Shatila
Palestinian refugee camps. This act has haunted Lebanon to this day.
After a generational crisis war end, the belligerents enter a
generational Recovery Era, and the survivors of the war take steps to
try to guarantee that nothing so horrible should ever happen again.
I want to take a quick side trip to describe what happened in Iran and
Syria.
I've described many times how a country that goes through a
generational crisis war that's also an ethnic civil war almost always
follows the same pattern. The ethnic group that won the civil war
takes power, and the oppresses and martializes the people in the
losing ethnic group, sometimes resorting to extreme violence.
Iran had a crisis civil war, the Islamic Revolution of 1979, followed
by the Iran/Iraq war. The leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, wrote
a new constitution that gave himself complete dictatorial powers, in
order to prevent a new anti-government rebellion. In 1988, Khomeini
ordered the torture, rape and massacre of tens of thousands of
political prisoners and political enemies. That's fairly typical of a
country's Recovery era following an ethnic crisis civil war.
Syria's last generational crisis war was a religious/ethnic civil war
between the Shia Alawites versus the Arab Sunnis. That war climaxed
in February 1982 with the destruction of the town of Hama, which
killed or displaced hundreds of thousands. This ended the war, but
today, Syria's president Bashar al-Assad is still conducting genocide
and ethnic cleansing of his political enemies, the Arab Sunnis.
Lebanon's Recovery Era acted somewhat differently. Instead of putting
one group (the Shias, the Sunnis, the Christians) in charge of the
government, which might have led to the same kind of violence as in
Iran and Syria, they tried to write the constitution to balance the
three sects.
Lebanon's constitution requires that the three main offices be
occupied by specific sectarian groups:
- The prime minister, currently Saad al-Hariri until Saturday, must
be a Sunni Muslim.
- The president, currently held by Michel Aoun, must be a Syriac
Maronite Catholic.
- And the speaker of parliament, currently held by Nabhi Berri, must
be a Shia Muslim.
This sectarian separation seems to have served Lebanon pretty well, at
least as compared to Iran or Syria. But protesters see it as a source
of the corruption causing the economic problems.
Each of the sects is in control of a major set of government
institutions, controlling the funding and salaries for those
institutions. Protesters are being quoted as saying that they can't
get any government services without going through the relevant
religious sect. Furthermore, each sect skims money from the
institutions that it controls. Protesters are calling this the reason
for Lebanon's extreme poverty.
Sources:
- Lebanon Sees Largest Protest Yet as Video of Woman Kicking Minister's Bodyguard Goes Viral (Haaretz/AP, 20-Oct-2019)
- Ministers resign after third day of protests in Lebanon (AlJaz, 19-Oct-2019)
- Hundreds of thousands in Lebanon’s biggest protest for years; PM promises reform (TimesOfIsrael, 20-Oct-2019)
- Lebanon's Hariri agrees to reforms amid nationwide protests over economic crisis (Reuters, 20-Oct-2019)
- Lebanon's mass revolt against corruption and poverty continues (Guardian, 20-Oct-2019)
- Timeline of the Lebanese Civil War From 1975 to 1990 (ThoughtCo, 13-Aug-2019)
Related articles:
- Israel-Hezbollah-Lebanon border clash fizzles quickly, no repeat of 2006 war (02-Sep-2019)
- Saad Hariri shocks Lebanon by resigning as PM while in Saudi Arabia (05-Nov-2017)
- Arab League brands Lebanon's Hezbollah a terrorist organization (12-Mar-2016)
- Paralyzed Lebanon decides to export its garbage to Europe (24-Dec-2015)
- How Israel panicked in pursuing the summer Lebanon war with Hezbollah (23-Dec-2006)
- Massive Beirut explosion killing Rafiq Hariri puts Lebanon into state of shock (16-Feb-2005)
KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Lebanon, Beirut, Tripoli, Tyre,
Saad al-Harari, Rafiq al-Hariri, Cedar Revolution,
WhatsApp, Maronite Christian Lebanese,
Syria, Iran, Ottoman Empire, Sabra, Shatila
Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Contribute to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe
