From Beirut to the Beltway

With Lebanon suffering the fallout from the decision to empower Hizbullah politically by allowing it to join the government, you would think others would learn from the Lebanese experience and prevent groups such as Hamas from fielding candidates in the upcoming Palestinian election, or limit the participation in Iraq’s election of groups with links to sectarian militias or the so-called “resistance.” Sadly, that is not the case.

Unfortunately, people vote for what they know, and in the Palestinians' case, they know of two choices: the religious or the corrupt. Hamas, like Hizbullah, is becoming a state within a state, a de facto alternative to whatever the Palestinian Authority is failing to become or to obtain from the Israelis. Today, the Israelis said they will not allow Palestinians to vote in Jerusalem because Hamas, a group that tries to destroy Israel, is participating in the election. While I am no fan of Israeli policies towards Palestinians, I can’t say I blame them. They do not want to give Hamas political authority.

In Iraq, Shias voted in large numbers for candidates from the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) party, whose armed militia, Badr, is said to have infiltrated the interior ministry. Some of the Sunni groups who ran also have known links to the Iraqi “resistance”, which is responsible for the killing of many innocent Iraqis.

I think the US administration is finally realizing the damage a fledgling democracy can incur from empowering groups such as the SCIRI. Ambassador Khalizad recently said that “you can’t have someone who is regarded as sectarian as the minister of interior.” Khalizad was referring to the Iraqi interior minister Bayan Jaber Solagh, a Shia hardliner with links to Badr who is accused of turning a blind eye to the abuse of Sunni detainees in secret interior ministry jails.

As far as I know, no electoral law in the region prohibits candidates with links to armed groups from running. What we have now in Lebanon, a religious and armed group engaged in politics for the sole purpose of keeping the country in an endless state of war, is bound to happen in Palestine and Iraq if electoral laws do not bar militants from standing in elections.

Many of these groups also use religion to sway voters. To get Sunnis to vote in Iraq, Sunni Imams described the vote as a religious duty and directed their electorate to vote for groups affiliated with Sunni fighters (and with a flip of a switch, the militant groups heeded the calls of the Imams and ceased violence for a day). In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood campaigned under the slogan “Islam is the solution” and won an unprecedented number of seats in parliament. They would have won more had it not been for voter obstruction by the Egyptian authorities. The secular opposition was too weak to mount a real challenge. In fact, in Egypt and Syria, secularism was hijacked by the ruling party and became synonymous with oppression and corruption.

Ayatollah Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, who is falsely considered by Western journalists as a spiritual guide to Hizbullah, has warned against the use of religious authority for electoral purposes. Here’s a relevant quote from the ICG report on Lebanon:

A Fadlallah political adviser told Crisis Group that religiously-inspired instructions are acceptable only when pertaining to the "strategic," not "organizational or tactical" level: “God granted the individual. ... reason. A man of religious learning can advise Muslims, for example, "not to vote for corrupt candidates." But it is still up to the individual himself to decide who is corrupt and who isn't. Hizbullah violated this principle. ... Shiites were made to feel endangered, so they felt compelled to vote. And that's dangerous, as now the Shiites think the resistance's weapons are theirs.”

In a region of military dictatorships, it's hard to convince people not to vote for religious groups or militants riding sympathetic causes. And with dictators bent on destroying the secular opposition, militant religious groups automatically rise in power until they become the only alternative to corruption and injustice. And we all know what some of those groups have given birth to: terrorism.

Giving militant and fundamentalist groups political authority does not strike me as democracy. When these groups reach power, the first thing they will do is cancel the free vote in the name of conformity. Iran here is a good example. After all, nobody should have to give up their Beethoven, Radiohead and Fairuz.