The Character of the Lebanese Uprising

The forces shaping the revolutionary process

We are almost into the third week of the Lebanese popular uprising that seeks the resignation of the current government, a dissolution of parliament, and an end to the confessional system that has sustained Lebanon’s political class in positions of power since the end of the Lebanese Civil War — and arguably even before.

For 12 days (as of writing), protestors, in a show of national solidarity that transcends entrenched and traditional geographic and sectarian divides, have been able to sustain a defacto general strike by blocking major roads and highways throughout the country. Although the strength of this stranglehold has waned at times, the people’s resilience has been proven as every speech given by a government official or traditional party leader has been countered with a larger influx of people to the streets.

Even with this incredible show of strength in the face of sporadic violence and suppression, some are already writing the revolutions obituary. Although I cannot condone or participate in such fatalistic analyses, it would be wrong to withhold any form of constructive criticism that can help us identify the strengths and weaknesses of this movement as well as what threats may lay ahead. To be able to make such criticisms we would need a better understanding of the forces at play in the uprising. This as opposed to leaning on tired platitudes of regional comparisons or lack of clear goals.

The Shape of a Revolution

There are five main characteristics of the Lebanese uprising that can help us shape our understanding of it. The first and most important one is that it is a Spontaneous and reactive uprising. People took to the streets after an announcement of additional taxes from the government and have not left since then. This is important because the uprising is not being maintained by any political initiative but is self-regenerative. This is impressive considering the lack of political participation or opposition in previous political crises. The ability for the uprising to sustain itself then can only be taken as a sign of accelerated development of discipline and revolutionary ethic usually thought to be impossible to find in spontaneous uprisings. This is further supported by the fact that the uprising has not subsided in the face of promised concessions from the government and multiple attempts to co-opt or suppress the uprising.

The second characteristic is that the uprising is decentralized. Previous oppositional movements to the government usually found their confrontations confined to Beirut and met with entrenched scepticism by those outside the capital city. This time, protests have erupted in all major cities and several smaller ones. Most striking is the fact that the uprising is also taking place in areas that are thought to be the most entrenched in the traditional political system which has sustained itself through clientelism.

Protestors have correctly identified this decentralization as a strength of the uprising. The movement cannot be dismissed as an expression of outrage from a privileged class of city dwellers. Mass participation has also meant that the government has been unable to play different sections of the Lebanese population against each other making them politically impotent.

Inline with decentralization and spontaneity, the third characteristic of the uprising is that it is Leaderless. This is a bit of a tricky one, there is no doubt that a diffused ‘leadership’ of sorts has, by now, naturally emerged to coordinate the various protest sites. However, leadership here is not used in the directional sense of the term but rather the functional and organizational sense. The fact that the movement has remained leaderless is being touted as a firm positive. This is because the government has repetitively called for a meeting with the movement’s leadership to negotiate demands. A leaderless movement means that there is no one to negotiate with and a minimization of the threat of opportunism. This rejection of opportunism was made clear when protesters made it clear that anyone claiming to negotiation on behalf of the protesters is to be labelled a traitor to the revolution and to be excommunicated — further proof of the revolutionary discipline developed. The ‘leaderlessness’ of the uprising is also being presented as a way to preserve its decentralization and minimize fragmentation. Finally, a leaderless revolution means the government doesn’t have targets to imprison.

But here, two contradictions present themselves. The first is that if the revolutionary spirit is this formidable, then why the fear of leadership? If a movement can disown a self-proclaimed leader claiming to negotiate on its behalf, it can just as well chose leaders that are given no mandate to negotiation and disown them just as well as they would the self-proclaimed leadership. Second, the juxtaposition of leadership and decentralisation is simply false. Leadership can easily be constituted in a way that reflects and emboldens the decentralization of the movement and respects the pluralism within it.

The situation gets more complicated when we confront the fact that the uprising has a leadership constituted from the various political oppositional forces that have been manifesting since the garbage crisis of 2015. This leadership made itself known on the first Sunday of the uprising to reject the concessions provided by the Prime Minister and is referenced frequently in the news. It has even put forth four concrete demands including 1) the immediate resignation of the government 2) the freezing of politicians financial accounts 3) the creation of a small technocratic administrative government meant to formulate plans to save Lebanon from its financial woes 4) early parliamentary elections. With this, any talk of the movement being leaderless can be dismissed, what can be said however is that this ‘leadership’ is choosing to take a passive role instead of a directional one that tries to mould the uprising or take it in one direction or the other. In this way, the uprising’s leadership is maintaining the reactive nature of the revolution. Finally, there is something to be said about the social phenomena of imprisoned leaders as sources of galvanisation and the intensification of confrontation.

The demands made by this leadership brings us to the fourth characteristic of the uprising — A-politics. The protestors and its leadership consistently repeat that they do not belong to any political school of thought or movement, they are simply calling for a removal of the entire ruling class and its system of confessional representation. The proof of this ‘non-alignment’ is that they are not seeking power for themselves, but want to replace the current government with technocrats who have the technical skills to save Lebanon from doom (as per demand #3). This presentation is a bid to present Lebanon’s problems as simple, technical, or administrative problems with scientific solutions. But this point is met with immediate contradictions. What political method will be used to select the ‘technocrats’? what decision-making system will tell us the correct technical solution? and since we’re asking this question, who said a team of technocratic administrators should be the next step? why not opt for direct democratic control of the economy by the people? it’s their revolution, not the leaderships. Obviously then these proposed solutions are themselves political and subscribe to a set political-economic ideology.

Two further contradiction can be found here. The first is that there needs to be leadership for it to be able to disqualify itself from leadership. As we have seen it is not that this movement doesn’t have a leadership. It is that this leadership refuses to play a leadership role — an outright political decision meant to preserve the decentrality and autonomy of the movement. this brings us to our second contradiction in that for all the talk of decentralization, an immediate demand of the leadership is to centralize control to a group of technocrats as soon as the current government resigns. How is it then that the leadership is promoting decentralization as a way to blunt fragmentation, but is looking to turn its back on it as soon as its primary goal is met in favour of a ‘dictatorship of the technocratia’. If fragmentation due to centralization is expected under uprising conditions, why would it not be expected during the consolidation of the revolution?

The fifth and final characteristic of this uprising is that it embraces and seeks to maintain current institutions. Shortly after the beginning of the uprising, the Lebanese Army announced a state of neutrality. This was quickly hailed by protestors who quickly aligned themselves with the army. A declaration of neutrality meant that the army will not tolerate attacks on protestors by government party supporters who are better organized, armed, and are not afraid to use direct violence. However, by declaring neutrality the army removed itself from the playing field. Where previously the army was seen as an institution that the protestors can pressure and manipulate — an area of contestation, its declaration of neutrality solidified it as an agent of the state apparatus and the ruling class in its entirety. The army, even though it has promised to protect the protestors from rogue actors, has also regularly participated in the clearing of roads from protestors — that is to say that it has actively suppressed the movement as well.

The army is not the only institution that the uprising refuses to contest. The leadership of the uprising has refused to contend with the network of banks, construction companies, export/import businesses, universities, and hospitals that are aligned to the current ruling class. Even with a change in the political system in Lebanon, these institutions will remain as will their loyalties to the ruling class. One can argue that once the seizure of power by the uprising is complete, then these institutions will automatically redirect themselves as the old ruling class stops being useful, but these institutions are inseparable from the ruling class meaning that they will not turn on them before the seizure of power and will probably disappear with the ruling class if they are successfully ousted leaving technocratic administrators with nothing to administer!

This refusal to contest these institutions and the uprisings alignment with the army has also meant that the uprising’s arsenal of direct action is automatically limited for one cannot escalate tactics to occupations and the building of dual power if they want to be seen as an ally to the institutions that have propagated their oppression. These too are political decisions that place unnecessary shackles on the uprising and relegate it to a position second to the government it wishes to overthrow. Without the ability to escalate tactics and intensify the revolutionary process the uprising maintains the governments best weapon, time.

The Day After

None of these observations is meant to poke holes or discredit the uprising, nor is it meant to be seen as opposition or prognosis of failure. However, all of these are issues worth considering and will impact the revolutionary process well past the resignation of the government and the seizure of power. Here major questions around what opposition to the ascending government will look like, and how a new government will deal with such opposition is unclear — especially if some of these oppositional forces already have a system of dual power. Will the institutions that the uprising is fighting hard to maintain be able to uphold their role as well as they currently are? Will elections according to a new non-confessional electoral law really present new leaders?

One may project that in the event of a successful revolution, institutions hollowed out by the ruling class will be reinforced by the large Lebanese diaspora. We can equally project that the discipline forged through this uprising will repel any violent counterrevolution after the seizure of power as it has during the uprising. Although we can equally say that this discipline and unity might disintegrate once the flood gates of ‘politics’ reopen in a post-uprising Lebanon; in which case a counterrevolution may not need to be violent but can simply reassert itself through electoral politics.

The future is unknown, this does not mean that we shouldn’t push forward, but that at the least, we should be aware of the words of warning by Antonio Gramsci.