Wednesday
Aug162006
Building dissent
Matthew Carrington
Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, a professor at Beirut’s Lebanese Arab University, got in a good sound bite in the New York Times today. Denying that Hizballah is a state within a state, she characterized the organization instead as “a state within a non-state.�
The piece reports on Hizballah’s rebuilding activities in the south, casting it as some kind of Iranian outreach program. Saad-Ghorayeb provides some balance, noting that Hezballah’s message is “We’re going to reconstruct. This has happened before. We will deliver,� but signally fails to note the content of her comment: that it has happened before, and that Hizballah did deliver (during and after the IDF / SLA’s occupation of the south).
Hizballah’s political organization is built on the provision of services (from schools to clinics to national defense) that were either not there in the first place or that the IAF and the IDF destroyed and that the Lebanese government failed to replace, and from this flows the political weight and staying power that no short term “torrent of money from oil-rich Iran� (as some NYT editor put it) could buy.
This has direct relevance to Maria Golia’s piece below on “new formulas for peaceful dissent.�
Large-scale peaceful protests aren’t going to happen spontaneously. Small demos may be an important showcase for state brutality, but they do not in themselves seem to be leading to anything bigger.
Providing services, however, is one way forward. Filling in as and where the state crumbles into non-state by providing clean water or a clinic or whatever (there is no shortage of areas in which this state fails its citizens), means developing administrative and communication capacity and building credibility and legitimacy. It also means building a constituency and opening up the kinds of opportunities to mobilize and to educate that will be required if the current demos are not only to grow, but to grow without becoming mobs.
The piece reports on Hizballah’s rebuilding activities in the south, casting it as some kind of Iranian outreach program. Saad-Ghorayeb provides some balance, noting that Hezballah’s message is “We’re going to reconstruct. This has happened before. We will deliver,� but signally fails to note the content of her comment: that it has happened before, and that Hizballah did deliver (during and after the IDF / SLA’s occupation of the south).
Hizballah’s political organization is built on the provision of services (from schools to clinics to national defense) that were either not there in the first place or that the IAF and the IDF destroyed and that the Lebanese government failed to replace, and from this flows the political weight and staying power that no short term “torrent of money from oil-rich Iran� (as some NYT editor put it) could buy.
This has direct relevance to Maria Golia’s piece below on “new formulas for peaceful dissent.�
Large-scale peaceful protests aren’t going to happen spontaneously. Small demos may be an important showcase for state brutality, but they do not in themselves seem to be leading to anything bigger.
Providing services, however, is one way forward. Filling in as and where the state crumbles into non-state by providing clean water or a clinic or whatever (there is no shortage of areas in which this state fails its citizens), means developing administrative and communication capacity and building credibility and legitimacy. It also means building a constituency and opening up the kinds of opportunities to mobilize and to educate that will be required if the current demos are not only to grow, but to grow without becoming mobs.
Reader Comments (9)
No, I don't think charity work as a way forward in Egypt.
The whole aim of the movement for change is empowering people, not telling them "You are poor, sick, then come to our clinic and we'll treat you for free."
The time and money spent on trying to get the endless funds to open a clinic in every street of cairo (and the rest of Egypt), should be channeled instead into building a movement that can lobby the state for a better health and education system.
Secondly, activists don't organize small demos to act as a showcase for police brutality. What I'm saying if there's police brutality, it should be recorded and exposed.. but activists don't just organize those demos for the sake of getting beaten.
It is unfair to dismiss the provision of services as "charity." It is hardly "charity" when a community provides for itself what the government can or will not. Take "community" to mean a village, a city or the whole country, and the point stays valid.
At any rate, I think you have missed the point. The benefit is not only in the direct provision of services, but in building the capacity for action. In the same way that it isn't charity for a community to provide for itself (quite the opposite I would argue), neither is it belittling to point out that people have unmet needs (we all need clinics, schools, and clean water). Again, I would argue the opposite: that recognizing the need recognizes that people deserve better.
In the end, providing services neglected by a repressive government develops a political consciousness and exercises the ability to take action collectively.
Anyhow. I certainly didn't mean to suggest that you had said that people were staging demos in order to get beat up. Apologies if that para is open to that reading. I have amended it.
the full amal piece from which the quote is taken is here:
http://www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=18611&prog=zgp&proj=zme
If an organisation enables people to participate actively in it, in order to meet some of their basic needs, and if that organisation is democratic, transparent and accountable, it could serve as a training ground for participation in political life. It could give people concrete ideals: they could then imagine what it would be like if the state worked that way, and learn the political and communication skills that one needs in order to participate in such an organisation. And this practical experience in self-organisation could then be channelled into activist groups as well.
Oh, indeed Hezbollah did 'reconstruct' South Lebanon, with 130 foot deep bunkers, thousands of rocket launchers, artillery, mines, tank traps, firing positions. And I'm sure they'll repeat this "reconstruction" just as soon as the "Multinational force" takes over from the IDF. And their actions will help Lebanon just as much as their previous construction did.
If you are suggesting that another non-govt group come in and try to usurp the Hezb's non-military role, then, if they actually succeed, what's to stop *that* group for eventually developing into an impediment to a functioning, sovereign government?
Also it seems that as long as the Hizbullah have weapons and money from Iran, anytime their peaceful role is challenged, they will have the power to disrupt. They could either agitate within the country, threaten other groups who criticize them, or they could lob a few missiles at Israel, prompting a counterattack which allegedly justifies their existence.
Good government or bad, if you are trying to build up government services outside of a government, won't it only sow the seeds for more discord down the line?
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I love the state within a non state bit, not that it would convince anyone.
the service building as a platform for grassroots politics is a great idea, but it's easier said than done, and with Egypt's strong centralized government with security and army controlling most spaces it is a very difficult proposition. but not impossible.
the islamists used to do that, the state learned a lesson, ask anyone working in "development" about how it's difficult to escape the double effect of police and corruption in their work.
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