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Abstract
In Lebanon, the Arab uprising is often analyzed through the lens of the side effects the Syrian uprising had on the country thanks to the massive refugee influx and involvement of Sunni and Shia Lebanese in Syria’s battleground. In fact, popular mobilizations happened prior to and during the current crisis as two different types of effects of the Arab uprisings at large. First, in late 2010 emerged an anti-sectarian movement that brought up an anti-system claim in line with other Arab social movements targeting authoritarian regimes and corruption. Second, the Sunni radical mobilization that started in Saida in 2011 around the popular Imam Sheikh Assir gathered resentments toward the Shia leading party Hizbullah as involved alongside the Syrian regime and, surprisingly, adopting an active minority mobilization strategy. Both movements conducted demonstrations of different types (from classic marches to on-road sit-ins) starting from a completely opposite perspective and in a very different environment: when the anti-sectarian mobilization faded, the sectarian one rose. This article will try to address the historical process of both mobilizations and assess their differences in light of several mobilization theories. It intends to raise questions about the types of actors involved, their discourses and justifications, and the contextual local and political environments.
Notes
1. Joel Beinin and Frédéric Vairel, eds., Social Movements, Mobilization, and Contestation in the Middle East and North Africa (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2013).
2. Marc Lynch, The Arab Uprising: The Unfinished Revolutions in the Middle East (New York: Public Affairs, 2013).
3. Charles Tripp, The Power of the People. Paths of Resistance in the Middle East (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013).
4. Amin Allal and Thomas Pierret, Au coeur des révoltes arabes. Devenir révolutionnaires (Paris: Armand Colin/Recherches, 2013).
5. Laurent Bonnefoy and Myriam Catusse, Jeunesses arabes. Du Maroc au Yémen: loisirs, cultures et politiques (Paris: La Découverte, 2013).
6. Paul Kingston, “Patrons, Clients and Civil Society: A Case Study in Environmental Politics in Postwar Lebanon.” Arab Study Quarterly 22(4): 1–18 (2000).
7. Agnès Favier, ed., “Municipalités et pouvoirs locaux au Liban,” Les Cahiers du CERMOC 24 (Beirut: CERMOC, 2001).
8. Karam Karam, Le mouvement civil au Liban. Revendications, protestations et mobilisations associatives dans l’après-guerre (Paris: Karthala-IREMAM, 2006).
9. See, for instance, International Crisis Group (ICG), A Precarious Balancing Act: Lebanon and the Syrian Conflict, The Middle East Report 132 (Brussels, 2012); International Crisis Group (ICG), Too Close for Comfort. Syrians in Lebanon, The Middle East Report 141 (Brussels, 2013); International Crisis group (ICG), Lebanon’s Hizbollah Turns Eastward to Syria, Middle East Report 153 (Brussels, 2014).
10. Samir Kassir, Liban: Un printemps inachevé (Paris: Actes Sud, 2006).
11. Daniel Meier, The Effect of Arab Spring and Syrian Uprising on Lebanon, Papers on Lebanon (Oxford: Centre for Lebanese Studies, 2013). http://lebanesestudies.com/papers/papers-on-lebanon/ (accessed October 7, 2014).
12. Doug McAdam, Sydney Tarrow, and Charles Tilly, Dynamics of Contention (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
13. Beinin and Vairel, Social Movements, Mobilization, and Contestation in the Middle East and North Africa.
14. Johanna Siméant, “La violence d’un repertoire. Les sans-papiers en grève de la faim.” Cultures & Conflits 9–10 (1993). http://conflits.revues.org/218 (accessed February 2, 2014).
15. Sofia Saadeh, “Basic Issues Concerning the Personal Status Laws in Lebanon,” in Thomas Scheffler, ed., Religion, between Violence and Reconciliation (Beirut: Ergon, 2002), 449–456.
16. Allal and Pierret, Au coeur des révoltes arabes.
17. Against this inaction, their claims targeted the sectarianism of the political system, its corruption, and call for social justice.
18. Romain Caillet, “Le phénomène Ahmad al-Asîr: Le nouveau visage du salafisme au Liban? (1/2).” Les Carnets de l’Ifpo (2012). http://ifpo.hypotheses.org/3075 (accessed September 12, 2014).
19. In arresting Syrian opponents of the regime of Bashar al-Asad and bringing them back to Syria. See Daniel Meier and Giacomo Galeno, “Le Liban au miroir du ‘printemps arabe’: Anciens pouvoirs et nouveaux paradigmes,” in J. Chapuis (dir.), Le Moyen-Orient en marche. Perspectives croisées, Les Cahiers du CCMO (Paris: Editions du Cygne, 2012), 67–82.
20. James Scott, Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985).
21. Respectively, leader of the Progressive Socialist Party, the prominent Druze movement, and cofounder of the March 14 coalition and leader of the Future Movement since the death of his father, former Prime Minister Rafic el-Hariri assassinated on February 14, 2005.
22. Cited in Romain Caillet, “Le phénomène Ahmad al-‘Asîr: Le nouveau visage du salafisme au Liban? (2/2).” Les Carnets de l’Ifpo (2012). http://ifpo.hypotheses.org/3240 (accessed September 12, 2014).
23. Ibid.
24. Non-Sunni communities in Islam have long been perceived as deviant ones from the perspective of the Sunnis. Thus Alawites as well as Shia received stigmatizing labelings, respectively, as “nosayris” and “metwalis.” Sabrina Mervin, Histoire de l’Islam: Fondements et doctrines (Paris: Flammarion, 2000).
25. See Daily Star, March 20, 2011.
26. See Daily Star, February 27, 2012.
27. See http://www.nowlebanon.com, May 6, 2012.
28. See http://www.nowlebanon.com, May 13, 2012.
29. Antoine Messarra, “Les parties politiques au Liban. Une expérience arabe pionnière et en déclin.” Revue d’Etudes du Monde Musulman et de la Méditerranée 81–82(3–4): 135–151 (1996).
30. Caillet, “Le phénomène Ahmad al-‘Asîr (2/2).”
31. See L’Orient le Jour, June 29, 2012.
32. Ibid.
33. See L’Orient le Jour, February 23, 2013.
34. See L’Orient le Jour, April 28, 2013.
35. See Al-Akhbar, April 20, 2013.
36. During which the Lebanese Army finally lost 16 troops. See L’Orient le Jour, June 25, 2013. Interestingly, no precise death toll or number of injured people was disclosed among the partisans of the Sheikh. The state muteness toward the final episode of Sheikh al-‘Asîr could be linked to Hizbullah’s involvement in this assault and the secrecy the Party of God tends to favor in such security issues.