[Applause] [Music]
i’ve been wanting to do this episode for about three months now
a common friend of ours aliambayet i ran into her on the corniche
and i suggested that i reach out to you and her eyes lit up
and she said you have to talk to shadbir and i was a bit embarrassed to ask for
your direct number back then and she was about to give me your you know all of your information
and i thought i should do my homework first because i know that speaking to you is
not just going to be a casual conversation we’re going to get deep into the subject so
i got your book i read your i actually read your position papers
from 2018 and 2019 which i thought was timed perfectly
right before the protests began and i think november 2019 was the second policy paper
and i read your world bank uh papers going back in time i learned a lot about
your history and i have to thank jad hussain for that because he delivered
four roughly four hours of a very extensive conversation with you
two episodes that go deep into the 1980s your work and rebuilding downtown during
the civil war and also your own backstory you know i didn’t know that you’re an engineer and
a social anthropologist and i also didn’t know that you served ministries twice and telecoms and labor
i had to go back in time so all of that is my way of saying thank you for spending some time with me
during election season i know this is very difficult stretch and
i don’t want to repeat things that have been said over and over and i think zhad ghulsan did a good job at almost
delivering an encyclopedia knowledge of your career i’d like to ask you if you can maybe the bigger picture questions
and the questions that are perhaps a bit sensitive and i think you’re the right person to ask
you served in the state you believe in the state there’s a great quote attributed to you
not a lesser state but a better state which i enjoy that rational thinking
you’re old enough to know lebanon before the civil war and at the same time you attract a
generation that doesn’t remember the civil war which i think is quite remarkable
most most citizens and estate members i meet are in their early 20s they’re
passionate they’re enthusiastic and they believe in the cause something else that resonates with me
this is probably the least sectarian experiment i can think of where you’re in a country that has
inertia and gravity towards sectarianism you’re pushing back against that
and i think this group really did a remarkable job let me start with maybe
a more pressing issue and you can say as much as you’d like it’s almost like a document where you
List formation
look at the lists that were formed in this year’s election and i see that adrien
and in the case of i think metten there’s a slightly different name but otherwise the lists tend to be on
your terms and if you can maybe explain the process of holding on
to your terms during this process and how you felt the process was conducted moving forward to what seems like
endless numbers of lists when what should have been probably a more unifying moment for october 17
well thank you for this meeting this discussion
ronnie well the question of the elections
elections broadly speaking are a very
complex and intense ritual and
people like rituals they like they like football
they like basketball where there are rules
there are emblems there are colors there is passion even for
teams that are coming from very far away yeah they are a kind of exorcism
for or against violence so i believe it is responding to a very
basic need now
more specifically this ritual can serve different purposes
in countries where legit msa has
stabilized on certain rules let’s call them democratic
although interferences are still there manipulations etc etc
elections serve mainly to absorb
shocks or changes that happen within the society or in the environment and
translate generally in reconfiguring the personnel
and the discourse elections do not change
the rules of legitimacy of accepted within a society never
in other places elections are a kind of
formal obligation because a government has to make elections and the elections are a pure similar
where you get 99.99 now it’s becoming more sophisticated
they they prefer getting 85 you see it’s better so it is just a lip service towards the
external dominant setup and
in our case elections are very interesting because
they are neither this nor that
you mentioned the civil war before the civil war
this country knew elections actually elections began in 1864 with the mutasari fear
to elect an advisory council that had absolutely no power
but it was very intense because it was an occasion to promote notables not
abilities yes then with the french coming under the
so-called mandate etc elections were a
regular after independence after 43 they were held regularly
and the parliament included two types of personnel
a small number of of bourgeoisie of professionals
mainly at that time lawyers very close to the real
places of power to trade traders bankers etc to the french to the british etc
or to various arab movements but these were the minority the vast
majority majority were notables from rural areas
who were not very involved actually in the process of decisions
but who served as custodians of the population to frame
the population leaving room for the real actors to play
after 72 lebanon did not do any elections first of all during the war as everybody
knows no elections then the elections in 92 were obviously organized
by the by the syrians who had the mandate
from the american saudi etc to set up so they held elections
96 elections 2000 elections all these elections were clearly managed
by the syrians and with uh with the apparent regularity yeah
now this is important to remember 2005
was a major break 1559 assassinations
the expelling of the syrian army all that brought deep trouble it is significant
that within at the moment where the tensions were at
their climax between the eight and fourteen so-called eight and fourteen well elections were held
and practically both parties were in agreement
why for one major reason all of them were very worried
to slip again into civil war and they felt because they knew civil war and the
assassinations were still taking place they felt that it was necessary to buy
an insurance policy so they held elections
i hope that listeners would keep that in mind because we are in a situation that is very close to that
then after that 2008 was the simple reflection of an agreement that was made in doha so again
it was a it was not an election yeah
then you have the interruption 2018
was a very interesting case because the system was already bankrupt yeah
macron came and promised the 11 billion dollars the sadder conference as they call it
arrangements were made financial engineering were already done the finance the presidential arrangement as
they call it was in place people had demonstrated in 2015
massively so regaining legit msc internally and exercising the fears
of the bankruptcy led to the 2018 elections what’s happening now
what’s happening now looks a lot like 2005. meaning the region is being reconfigured
the local actors are not in any way
worried about the legitimacy of each there of them within
his own community and none of them is challenging the representativity of any other within the
other community right meaning hezbollah does not present candidates in in junior and zsa does not present candidates in
vintage bill right okay so why holding elections i believe that these elections are being
held because the regional arrangements are a source of deep worry
to the communitarian chiefs and they believe that they are able now because people have
been despaired after the bankruptcy the disillusions of the revolt etc demonstrations
they have accepted the loss of their revenues of their money etc people have been
a victory has been in realized by the system power system against the population
so from this side they feel safe and on the other side that is the external arrangements they are worried so
they needed elections to gain a formal legit message
in expecting the external arrangements this is what’s happening
these are the elections now in lebanon and of course they they would be pleased if in these
elections some candidates who pretend being
revolutionaries reforms etc are elected because this would only increase the formal credibility of the
process you know i’ve tried to do my homework and
have a very uh objective lens because i i think there’s
two things that don’t give citizens in the state enough credit one is social media there’s a hysteria sometimes
attributed to this group and television i don’t particularly like learning about
lebanese politics on lebanese tv so instead i actually try to understand you
through your own words and by the way i’m very happy you have this in both english and arabic i can practice my
arabic when needed actually it’s quite helpful you’ve just laid out i think a very
descriptive and very easy to understand structural problem that has crippled this country since the
civil war and i’d like to go a little further on what you’re suggesting is two things
one that citizens in the state is in a sense a
properly legitimate alternative to what we’ve seen happen not just since the civil war but any other group that
is willing to engage with pre-october 17 parties or smaller groups that don’t see eye to
eye with citizens in a state on the other side which i understood mostly from this book this is a very
descriptive analysis of the economic collapse and a lot of it is attributed to post
thought of years really from the early 1990s onwards so if you can let’s go into the
political story and something that i don’t think was touched a lot on with with shad shadowson i’d like to go in
that direction a bit the political failures of post taif
Political failures
and in a sense i think it’s easily described as three steps that are not that were not uh delivered
on time the first is sectarian reform we never had a senate and if my
understanding is right this is something that’s long overdue in lebanese history yet it always seems to be at the end of
the story rather than at the beginning so there’s one example of reforming sectarianism
the other example the syrian departure took 15 years rather than two or three
years and you’re right to emphasize that the syrians not just occupied but they dictated
politics local politics to the point that politics was the way you described it elections is a formality
rather than actual agency the third thing is the disarmament of all sub-state militia and we have one
today that is a very big part of the narrative is there any way in trying to explain
the failures of lebanon with not being able to address those three fundamental steps
and i’d like to marry this with the economic collapse meaning that lebanon did not function
the way it should have and the reasons it doesn’t function today are not so much
the mediocrity or even the extreme corruption or even the plunder this crony
capitalism that we all know well that it is a structural problem that may still be with us
and it carried on post syria and it’s with us right now
i i and i’m starting this because i did look at the book carefully there is a section at the end and i think it’s the
second policy paper on how to address something like hezbollah but it almost
leaves me wanting more and i’d like to go down that road okay
well you’ve put many subjects in your question i’ll try
i’ll try for myself at least and maybe for the listeners to to organize the answer
well i would say that the common point
that i would like to clarify to to organize the answer is the following
what is what is the meaning of a society and
power what is the relation between a society and a system of power
well there are many societies in history in the world
until now that live without a specific form of organization that
is called the state state is an instrument
that pretends
having something that we should call mixing easy legitimacy within the
society so that this legitimacy justifies
the mobilization of resources this instrument is the state is
justified by the need to perform
certain functions i do not think that the state is derived from
race religion or anything like that it is one form of organization
in our region and in many other regions in the world actually mainly in regions that used to be
marginal parts of empires societies
organized themselves without the state i would say even
organized themselves so that they could live by opposing the idea of having a state
this is the case in most of our region this is the case
globally in the balkans and in many other places in southeast asia etc etc
in many large places areas in china etc empires
do not act as i did what i defined as states empires rely
on the dominance many cases the
military dominance of a small group
actually in a military superstructure this
military superstructure does not
care or has not the need to care about the whole society
it has to care about mainly two things
the maintenance of its military power of its military supremacy internally and
externally and the control of a limited
number of points that constitute a network to extract wealth
mines ports trade routes the rest
is secondary yeah secondary in both meanings first of all because
these areas that are neither on large trade routes
nor in rich planes where you have agricultural surplus
these areas can be populated by populations where the possibility of extracting
significant tribute is very small and the risk of seeing a military
competition arising from this area is also very small yeah in our region this applies to most of
the stepping areas where we have tribes and asha here of the mountainous areas where we have
communities whether they are i don’t know kurds allow its uh maronites shia jews or
whatever but so what happens if you if you live in such a place
you do not see the state it’s not the same as if you were in
damascus or in istanbul where you have military the military the ottoman
military garrison directly you do not have it you have the welly who is far away
who has for economic reasons advantage in delegating yeah the management of these
marginal areas to whom to whoever can do the job you can call
it a mere herb whatever but for the population in place
this guy looks very important looks as important even more important
than the sultan yeah right yeah in our books of history people
do not even students pupils do not even know the names of the ottoman sultans
apart from selim ii and abdel hamid is the last one right yeah we were part of that state for 400
or 600 years so we know the emir of the shaykh who were well small notables
that the valley delegated a certain function that is
essentially collect whatever he could intribute and put in his pocket
uh the part that he could spare and pay the rest to the welly and it if at any moment one of these
guys uh played outside the rules well the wally could eject him or even kill him yeah
okay so this has been in place until 100 years ago in our place
the idea is that the society is organized
you can call it communities but this is a historical product you do not believe that it has anything to do with deep
religious thinking i share that sentiment fully i agree okay so people organize themselves their
imaginary world on the idea that they have islam yeah and the zaheim is
very important here is the horizon and the saheem is charged with a very
heavy burden that is dealing with the rest of the world the power the power is outside the society right the power is
dangerous yeah so the zaheem is in charge of dealing with the external permanent external threat
so he has to be he has to be supported so in the elections you go to support
the za’in so that the same can deal with the threats that come from the external world whether it is the usa
iran turkey whatever okay and so
the meaning of politics and the confidence
the contract between the people and the zaim is a real one both of them abide by it
the zarim is faithful to the community and the community is faithful to the but in both cases
there is nothing called the state we had in this region by accident periods where
a strange object called state was imposed from the exterior well in the late ottoman period
the modernization tried to impose a state it did not work really so we had 1860 64 massacres et cetera then the
french came and implemented their there are classical tools okay
our guys began playing with it and it’s for those who are interesting whether the mandate period
was very intense in this sense trying to put the state and circumvent et cetera
absolutely then we had the shahabist period yeah where she had who was a french officer when people forget that
yeah okay tried to implement what he learned in the in the military academy
as soon as he finished his mandate all what he did was dismantled so
in our place you see it’s not a matter of sectarianism it’s a
matter of ending a long historical period
where even the attempts to implement a state were
vanquished okay because simply not because
we have different mood simply because the functional need for a state is
terrific in the immediate that’s all because the state the society is bankrupt and the region is being
reconfigured so when you talk about all the the things that you mentioned
well the the the senate the hezbollah the corruption etc all that in my view
fits within display the corruption we do not have corruption of course we have corruption like anywhere
but what is called corruption is simply the way of functioning of this
contract you know what i see i appreciate the way you’ve you’ve actually done something which i think is difficult you found a way to marry
history with present circumstances in a very very digestible way and i see it
the way you’re describing actually i think it resonates a lot because you’re you’re focusing on things that are far
more important than supermarket words like sectarianism you’re actually identifying structure
i’ll ask though i’m not so hard on the early independence years and i’ll say i wasn’t
alive you were uh you’re the you’re the same generation of my parents
that lived long enough to see lebanon collapse in 1975. uh before we started recording
we’re just briefly talking about how would how you would get from beirut to tripoli during the war by plane
i would have to go to syria all the way up to tripoli to avoid checkpoints and khattems
i can imagine something and you tell me if you see it the same way that the building blocks necessary to
Building blocks
get to an actual state were wobbly but they were available pre-1970.
absolutely okay let’s let’s go down this road a bit i think 1970 is the year
that we should go back to rather than throw away i recently spoke to nadeem ishmael who’s
40 he wasn’t around but he’s part of that whole legacy
meaning you have a party pre-independence
that becomes a militia in the 1970s every single political party in this
country with the exception of a handful pre-october 17 have blood on their hands this is civil
war tragedy but none of them were militia before 1970
and i don’t think lebanese naturally drove this country to hell
i think something that is beyond local control like external arms in 1970 it was fatah
it wasn’t always fatah that transformed into something that killed
politics in the 1990s which was syrian hegemony and i think and we can go as deep as
you’d like into this i think that same problem is with us today and it’s best represented as hezbollah’s
dominion not hezbollah’s politics not even hezbollah’s local aspirations
the inability to reform something that’s larger than lebanon and it’s sub-state
violence would you agree at least in the foundation that 1970
is the end and we should not be so dismissive of
post-independence years up until then that we could have probably
gone on the long journey of reform had this kind of machine not been part
of the story okay again your questions is so rich i’ll try not
to be very long i take liberty knowing that i can ask you these questions because i can’t please please
okay you mentioned 1970 yes 1970
is a landmark 1970 6970 actually well
the cairo agreement and the elements of the civil war were built
up yes and one important thing then is that
what remained of the chehabists went to see for jihad asking him
to run for or to be candidate there is no formal candidate but okay for the
presidency of the republic and he wrote a document that is one page
it is called meaning the the refusal of
of going again on the scene and he mentioned things that well to be
summarizing very briefly after the experience that i had
i now believe that the forms of
whether the formal or the informal rules of political life
the dominance of monopolies
and the manipulation of sectarianism will
end the country and i do not want he does not say it in these
worlds but do not want to go out of democratic processes
so i fear that this country is finished and he didn’t have children there was no
evil absolute consideration absolutely so we are now i hope it will not go this
way we are now at the edge of changes that could slip
into violence okay maybe the main reason for which violence
has not exploded is that it happened that the communitarian chiefs have
themselves experienced violence so when you have experienced war and civil war more precisely
you do not run easily again yeah into fire it’s not
to magnify their credit but this is an important factor yeah if you compare it
to what happened in the 70s or the way things evolved in syria one cannot but recognize that the
possibilities of slipping into violence over the past i don’t know 15 years
were much higher much riskier than they were in the 70s okay so
this being said another point that you mentioned well
the 70s the late 60s early 70s well
i would say two things here i hope that they might be of interest not only for
history but also for the lessons they could bring history does not repeat itself but one
has to learn lessons i’ve heard the saying that it echoes but it doesn’t repeat absolutely yeah okay well what happened
in the 60s is that due to the
state building project of one person who is for a chap
structural actions were put in place the
large part of our legal system was issued at that time by legislative decrees yeah okay not
voted in the parliament right although the dossier bureau at that time had
secured a nice majority for the shaykh nevertheless foreign and his governments
were not able to have a low vote in the parliament the social security the
public service etc all that okay it was issued by special powers by legislative
uh decrees remember that this is also our proposal to manage the present situation okay now
these actions well the generalization of electricity the
opening of public schools
all that was done at that time well what was the result the result was
paradoxically an acceleration of rural migration
the idea was exactly the opposite it was to develop the marginal regions and lebanon to
avoid what happened in 1958 yeah actually what happened was exactly the
opposite as in many places the acceleration of rural migration yeah well rural migration
brought a change which is that the traditional notabilities in the
regions who were who had mustaches tar bush and cheruel and etc etc were nice guys
controlling the the people there
were no longer able to control and the new youth
who went to the lebanese university still having in hand
the
links with their villagers were eager to share power
and the local bourgeoisie at that time mainly in beirut was so myopic
so happy with having the suez canal closed having boats waiting for months to enter
the port of beirut they did not give the minimal attention
to that this has built the basis of a
dramatic change in the system of power by destroying
the alliance between the urban bourgeoisie and the rural notabilities
and opening the field for the fight among these newcomers
new bourgeoisie who tried each of them to find the arguments where he could
some become arabist other become pure lebanese other leftist with harafat against arafat these were
only taken from the shelf the mechanism was that this led the ground for the civil war on
top of that you mentioned the tape well both the qatari and the socialist party
yani uh pierre smigiel and kamel jon were two pillars of the shahabas system
when they saw this social change happening
and when they saw as you mentioned the change in the region yani the defeat of 67. yeah
the the last dramatic years of jabal abdul nasir
the autonomization of fatah yes as opposed to up the nozzle
okay plo you know that okay they went as zymes
playing the same old game that is there is a change of valley the
exterior is changing let’s position ourselves both of them who were the pillars
of the sheriff’s system yeah the qatari first and then commercial blood right
went in a process that is commanded by the logic of zymes as i
mentioned earlier but that led to the dismantlement
of what was under cons estate under construction point is describing it state under
construction yeah the point is that the drama in that is that okay
themselves or their sons were killed it has huge prices on that but there is
a disproportionality between the
expectations or the ambitions of the zaheem’s and the results these calculations were
small you know at that time having arafat in the arkham was considered as a secondary process you see
rashid karami was a an essential part of the shaiba system
okay but the calculations of emil bostani you know small tricks yeah
and even the presence and what’s called fat land
was considered as being very secondary what we care of was you know the center of lebanon they
wrote wrote to damascus who cared about that so what i want to say is that
small errors in calculations can bring to disasters there is no proportionality
and this is very important for what we are living today i think that’s well said and i think
it’s important to it’s not something that comes naturally to memory that these are all people that were in the
future government at the core and i think that’s an important uh
it shows what they are like during the years and it shows what they
can turn into in under different circumstances so i appreciate the ability to show just if
you allow me what i want to say is that these persons
their behavior was commanded by the same scheme that is
the contract between one zaheem one chief and the community
see what we call sectarianism is not a matter of senator or whatever
it’s a matter of having a state that is not independent uh in need
to gain legitimacy from zymes you see right and i it’s a different story no no
but actually that’s that’s important to emphasize i i will try to unpack this
knowing that you have both uh history you’ve lived these years you’ve also
meticulously studied a lot that i simply will never i mean you’ve done your
you’ve done your career is embedded in in this whole noble goal of reform and
rebuilding and not just reconstructing properly creating a functioning state so
i say from my side with limited knowledge
i can’t imagine camel jumblat or pierre jemele
committing atrocities without a group like fatah as part of the story so in other words
the system tolerated these zaim which you described but the
system also did not allow for anarchy in that sense there was
something under construction which i appreciate the way you described it i
i appreciate two things that these people their legitimacy comes from places that
we should not turn to meaning this old-fashioned zaim population bond this
contract is outdated and it’s long past its prime but i would say
that something that prevents a population’s eagerness to reform
and willingness to in a way evolve its own social contract within lebanon
that is still with us today the obstacle is there so i’ll give an analogy
we’ve lost 52 years since 1970. two days ago was the
anniversary the 47th anniversary of the civil war that’s at least two generations that
have grown up with violence as part of politics
and that’s why i tried to bring in hezbollah to the uh conversation yeah they’re coming that that
i can’t see us moving that far down the road as long
as what tore this country apart even in its bad shape even if even in its
very awkward power sharing mechanism the problem persists and i’ll go i’ll
The problem persists
revise one point only i agree with you that there’s a reluctance to go down the road of civil
war again for the reasons you described that there is living memory of what that can do
but i would also bet that hezbollah would not survive that kind of situation
and i also think that hezbollah’s capabilities deny other groups from posing any serious threat regardless
so i think the civil war threat is not going to happen what is happening though is paralysis
and what is happening is that the good efforts of protesters trying to achieve power are being denied
and october 17 to me is that last breath of trying to reform
as long as violence is part of the story and i don’t think that they can be married together properly
and that’s this is where i think all the sensitive conversations happen where everyone falls into division
again new questions are very complex
or at least this is how i see them because you are
addressing the point from many perspectives i’ll try again to organize as far as i
can well but you let me know if i’m not asking something clearly because i really don’t know it’s it’s not a matter of clarity
it’s a matter of complexity i’m trying okay no well i’m a layer first of all no
no no so first of all well you mentioned that this situation is
outdated et cetera well
maybe repeating myself but the various forms of organization
in society cannot be placed in a simple uni-dimensional order saying
that this is more efficient in absolute terms this is more moral this is more modern this is
whatever it’s not true the same as electoral laws it’s not you do not have one fair electoral law yeah the british
electoral law is not fair at all so what are we talking about okay so yeah it’s the oldest one yeah right
right now the political configuration of a society
is a historical product it comes in a certain
moment generally crisis and it lasts until another change another crisis happens
we are in such a situation now it is not that the one that existed was
not efficient actually it was efficient in some way what way
well what we call the
the communitarian non-state has been very efficient
it has succeeded something that was not easy to achieve
many things first of all getting in the same time massive financial and military
assistance from the us and europe and iran at the same time this is incredible
it has succeeded in managing
after bankruptcy a system financial system
and a redistributive system that irrigated of course not in an equal
manner but the all the population
by organizing accepted massive immigration
and extremely sophisticated manipulation of perceptions that kept people believing
that the lebanese banks were in good shape for 20 years ronnie
this is an incredible achievement they have also succeeded
after 2018 let’s say since 2019
to circumvent the protests by making people admit
a the liquidation of their society meaning
okay we have lost our money you do not have real aggressivity against the banks in
lebanon not really losing their income their jobs
leaving their losing their institutions whether commercial educational
medical all that is accepted and people are participating to this ritual of
elections this has been done because a very very accurate mix
of threat of violence so fearing the worst you know people have continued talking in lebanon
when will the final collapse happen actually it had happened two years before we are talking about capital
control there is nothing really left so so this has been success for this system in managing
a mix of threat of violence measured threat of violence
and a persistent management of illusions we will find oil and gas
okay we will reconstruct syria we will get money from the imf as if
time for santa claus you know okay so this has worked the cost is maybe 20
billion dollars lost but on top of that is a deep despair
this is a very tricky place so it is an efficient system just to make it short
this is not something that is and this is very close because you know these communities what are these communities
these communities are lineages okay languages are family ties that is
the basic system of ties among humans this is an extremely efficient network
to find jobs to emigrate to penetrate organizations you know uh what is mafia in southern
italy it’s the same mafia is very efficient you know yes
may i interrupt here please uh you know you have a very uh very unique way of using words that i
really enjoy so efficiency you’re absolutely right it is efficient in a sense that it it it allows us to suffer
immensely and survive it allows to
really put us through extreme economic financial stress
and live in what should be a fairly uh normal environment it drove us all to
hell it ensures that a group like hezbollah is preserved
Hezbollah is preserved
that’s so so let’s say efficiency is both in the sense that it survives
it leaves the the political violence element roughly intact
and it drives everything else insane you know you mentioned doha earlier 2008
that did not just happen casually that’s a byproduct of
three weeks of fighting on the streets of beirut 2005 which is the syrian exit and
everything that went wrong after that national unity that was the way you described it i agree this is the worst
type of governance possible you get everyone that hates each other to just sit down and do nothing
a year later lebanon pays an immense price for being involved in a war that lebanon should not have been involved in
2008 as political paralysis it’s ta if gone wrong and then after that i mean i i’m sorry
to beat this over and over hezbollah’s role in lebanon has really
crippled our politics to the point that it can actually eliminate the aspirations
of protesters this is not a protest movement that just picks up and goes home
now i know that this is the sensitive subject i know no it’s not it’s not i’ll answer you no don’t do it it’s not
sensitive at all so in that sense it’s a major part no not foreign in these in the um circles of media i think everyone
goes a bit insane on this subject but i wanted to okay yeah okay let’s go back
to answer precisely the hezbollah point well in the late 2019
we had a government of national unity as usual okay
who was a calamity ignoring even the basic fact that state was already bankrupt at the banks
in spite of all the warnings that we send all the papers okay now
what happened is that these guys were surprised it is surprising that they were
surprised but they were surprised by the uprising as if the uprisings and even in their
legal drafts they say that the capital control should begin at the 17th of october as if the 70s of
october was an administrative decision right right while actually all over 2019
visible indices that the the financial system was collapsed were given persistently
stopping credit problems in provisioning of basic goods
etc etc up to the [Music] what’s up you’re also a pioneer because
in 2016 is when citizens in the state is formed and also you address these issues
and i marked it here october 2018. so you’re talking about financial economic and political challenges and how to
address them so you’re ahead of time in a sense this is the role that we can hope to
play now what happened is that they were surprised by the protests yeah
okay they asked for 72 hours with sat hariri to draft a reform yeah
of course it was okay it looks like a joke it looked like a joke yeah
and immediately that government that national unity broke in two parts
one part pretending they were revolutionaries and other part pretending they were
aggressed yeah okay okay so just here both of them were reacting
on the basis of design scheme meaning the threat is exterior
whether you believe that well it is a kind of
us-backed revolution so if you bet on this exterior you become a supporter of
the revolution if you believe the same you consider you are the target of the aggression and you
defend it the first typical case is that of the lebanese forces the
second that of hezbollah immediately it took it took 24 hours or maybe 48 hours
none of them went thinking what did happen what were the errors what is still kept
to put the grasp on the transition period and make it manageable none of them both
of them went one saying it is done by the exterior so
i will uh jump on the wave and the others exactly with the same diagnosis
it is done from the outside so i have to defend myself okay you send your guys
with the motorcycles you know the story okay it’s an important point i i believe okay
so and we know both are not true we know that it’s not a matter of truth they they really believe that right
yeah but i meant i meant um sorry i do not believe that of course the reasons were obvious they have been
building up for 10 years all that but how how do these actors
see things how how do they behave and as long as they have the support of their
community how large parts of our society behave so you see what your point okay but that’s
the central thesis of the book i think and well you just i’m getting obsessed sorry i began with that just to
take one of the elements you mentioned to
highlight the homogeneity you see of the behaviors yeah okay this is how this society as
long it is as it is organized as a non-state association of communities behaves this
is how it works this is a good example okay now
hezbollah hezbollah is a military organization
that was put in place after the 82 invasion
with the harvest assad acceptance because he was
feeling threatened by what was happening within syria and in iran between iran and iraq
yes okay these are facts well this military organization
in its uh field of action has shown remarkable
efficiency again about efficiency with external support iran of course
okay but this is true now what happened is that two things
that very specific organization and experiment
slipped almost and without even
automatically within the rule that governs the society meaning
becoming a duality of the community
okay being israel and a community
commence it commands everything commands
the political action it commands the alliances it commands the elections it commands but it commands also something
that is very strange that is a complete inability to exert
public responsibilities hezbollah has not a single idea about
what to do let’s suppose hezbollah had full power what would hezbollah do with the
currency with the banks etc i’m deeply believing that they do not have you have
maybe individuals without within hezbollah exactly but hezbollah organization has no idea about that i
agree so what i wanted to say is that the hezbollah
phenomenon it’s an important phenomenon is not different in nature
from the rule that governs a society organized on the basis of a non-state
in this sense hezbollah can be okay it’s not exactly the same
in in homologous situation to other situations that were experienced where
you know you know a community is a group of associated lineages
from rural origins this is a community okay a community as long as it lives in its
rural areas is to a large extent isolated from major
routes it constitutes itself as a community at
the moment when it moves from being in a marginal region to
a central place call it a city at it is only at that time well this happened
with the maronites in the mid of the 19th century okay let’s jump it happened
with the shia in the second third of the 20th century that’s all okay how does it translate it
translates into a uh
a thriving action both politically symbolically institutionally
military all that okay how does it translate it does not
translate in a state in no way right because it is functionally up in opposition to a state
it translates it it might it can go into wars absolutely right into violence all that
yeah is a real threat but this logic i’m not plagiating
but this logic okay ends to this community
being disintegrated as a social human group and its institutions being
absorbed into this you see if you take if you take well the people
who consider themselves as shia supporting hezbollah well
of course they are exposed to what’s happening in the country but their children their children are as well as
others expecting to emigrate you see it’s the same you see
the sun so the prevailing logic that has proven
some form of efficiency okay is something that no longer can serve
the needs of the real society of the people you see this is the point hezbollah is the extreme illustration of
that you know it’s a matter of graduation hezbollah is the extreme illustration of that at its climax the
others they are they have been maybe at some moment in
time in a similar situation now they are less at their climax but all that does
not get out of the same frame
all that frame being now unable to address the real needs neither
hezbollah nor the lebanese forces nor any other rest have any possibility of imagining
managing a state managing the society you see in the elections yeah they don’t even present their slogans they are
talking about confidence faith and loyalty yeah yeah so the link between
the basic contract strength and loyalty you see the basic contract between design and the
community so none of them has any ideas no no no no sorry no no it’s actually it’s very rich uh this is so yeah but
this is a rich rich area for exploration and i i promise you this will not be the rest of the conversation will i want to
touch on other things that are meaningful to citizens in a state in particular what’s happening now but but
allow me to go a step further this these social explanations or the
social phenomenon or even the um the societal lexicon
which pervades across lebanese society whether you’re in the south in the north
in the mountain whether you’re a lebanese forces supporter or hezbollah supporter or anything in the middle east
everything in the middle east what a crowd so that that whole uh the plate of all
that it means to be lebanese i think that’s that’s entirely accurate what you’re describing is how we live in
this country i will take one issue though the reason why
the lebanese forces for example is not
nearly as problematic in terms of reform and i don’t mean reform in the
absolute sense i mean the foundational sense is because they’re not a militia
anymore that’s the story that ends in the 1980s in 1989 1990. so when we talk
about this group today it’s collateral damage to the system you can almost measure it right
i’m trying to i don’t know careful here uh even haruket amir their footprint in terms of how they can
actually subvert we know what it is and it’s contained uh every other group
and all those other groups that were that have blood on their hands during the war
you can actually imagine a situation where they’d be forced to take some consideration
hezbollah has one unique value that all the other groups had during the civil war and they
have it now i don’t think they have it because of our societal flaws or whatever they are
our uh our society the way it functions i think this is an imposed disorder
i tell you okay you’re taking the example of the lebanese forces okay let’s take back the lebanese forces but
the lebanese forces in the 80s when the israelis invaded
most of lebanon and came to beirut okay well the lebanese forces were
in coordination with the israelis what is called the war of the mountain
how did it happen the israelis left without organizing their retreat with
the lebanese forces they had also contacts with some intermediaries
from the druze side they retreated the lebanese forces were completely
smashed yeah and zharjah fled to their lamar where he stayed several months so
what led to this defeat the fact that the external supposed ally
left them aside okay so again the fear from the exterior okay
yeah one other event in the beginning of the nineties well jaja was a major
supporter of the tariff arrangement et cetera okay okay that’s saying that
did not has blood on his hands of course well but nevertheless at that time
if the americans warring christopher was coming weekly to damascus yeah had asked to let samir jaja aside
he was abandoned again by the americans so again to get back to hezbollah
but he was abandoned abandoned as a disarmed head of a disarmed militia okay in the 80s he was armed you know yes you
know you know the pressures the pressures that the lebanese forces exerted on opponents
living in eastern what’s called eastern regions during the 80s
was terrible it was now hezbollah is exerting pressure on people on the south
mainly during the elections but the lebanese forces did the same and more you see so they were strength they
were straying strong at that time yes and they lost threats because
their external uh
yeah okay abandon them so and and what i want to say is that the same
story is able to be repeated but what we say reform couldn’t have been possible in the 1980s that’s true absolutely
reform in the 1980s you would be impossible to imagine you were trying your best in the 1980s to do something
very big help reconstruct downtown but it stops
i want to respond again before getting to that well you know
you mentioned also nabi barry and aman okay well what made
samir jaja at a moment in time become the chief leader among the
maronites and then michelle own and what led
among the shia because in this logic this is how it works hassan nasrallah become the chief leader
removing nabi berito a secondary position and protecting him as it is obvious now in the elections and
okay these are changes that happen
through what is perceived as being violent and successful clashes this is
how it means and let’s take one example now the
was a significant proportion a majority of
our citizens who believe they are shia because in my view this is a different story of course
feel in the same time have a feeling of pride
because of the achievements of hezbollah and in the same time they have a feeling of being threatened
because of that pride so when hezbollah comes and say what is happening when you
have people from i don’t know uh let’s take fairy side for instance or uh
saying that it is
occupation or something like that well what is the reaction of hezbollah
the whole world is threatening us and plotting against so actually on both sides
each of these actors gains support because both of them only deal with their
community but so you see it’s fair side and wherever he is up in the mountains
their leverage to to to paralyze our political life is minuscule compared to
what hezbollah can do now that that’s my point is that the reform in 1980s would
have been impossible with something like samir jaja’s lebanese forces and the population under that kind of
political nightmare if you want to call it politics would have been impossible now we’re in a climate where it’s
assumed that something like hezbollah is tolerable and you can do reform alongside it this
is where i get into i get i get confused that we have a problem that is as big today if not bigger but the appeal for
reform seems to push that aside and say it’s just something we cannot really
it’s something that is existential but we can’t touch it no no not at all i would not use the word reform okay
because it is polycemic and can be very ambiguous and used for many purposes
what i was trying to tell you is that neither hezbollah nor
ferris and in imasum or fairy side are in competition
within the same society you know they are not in competition
fairies uh does not is not presenting if you were talking about elections again in vintage bail
and uh hezbollah is not presenting candidates in question
so that’s that’s fair yes okay that’s important yeah okay what we are doing is
acting on the whole scene by ignoring voluntarily this
silo compartments you see this is the point now when you talk about the last point you mentioned the ani
the relative weight okay and reforms
our position is not a matter of reform it a matter of rupture what we are saying is that
this situation that the whole society or most of this
society of our society is still recognizes as being
the state of the world this is how people behave now okay even the so-called opposition
they organize groups who present candidates in one circumscription okay they cannot imagine
being on the same discourse on the same position from the extreme sounds to the extremists they do not even imagine so
when i say that this configuration of the society has failed
and there is an urgent need it’s not a fancy an urgent need for something that
this society did not accept that is a state that is confident in its legitimacy
you see so it is not a matter of reform it’s a matter of rupture yeah you would say how translating a need into effect
okay because if people are
losing their referential this is how they see the world and it doesn’t work anymore what do they do
actually they do two things they escape but they take with them their imaginary
yeah imagination okay or they retract like turtles you know
that’s true yes really yeah in what they call i don’t know groups whatever okay or communities
because communities are also defensive structures okay with a shell and with
with the shells and we are different from them and they formally we greet them
on official religious my shell is bigger than yourself yes okay okay so but
so this is the situation the problem is that all
that has collapsed what has collapsed is not a banking system what has collapsed
is not a group who was ignorant of you know of
of laws managing the budgets it’s it’s far beyond that it is a whole
socio-political system that emerged during the 70s when we had in the same
time a civil war and due to the oil boom a massive inflow of
dollars yes okay we gained this society this society has
its rules forget the constitution nobody cares about the constitution there is not even one item in the constitution
that is applied reality acts so this is finished
the question is now when it is finished meaning the society
is under transition is there a possibility of making this transition
managed or will it be left going along the road as it goes this is
the central point this is why we are addressing our
position to everybody but also to the leaders why because they are
the communitarian leaders the rhymes because these are the guys who have been
entitled within the confession communitarian system with
the support by delegation yes you see so telling them listen guys
you know very well that okay some people might like you or dislike
you this is not the point you are functionally unable to manage
this transition you know i see i okay so i will from from nasrallah to jaja and all the
others between you see i i will fast forward to the last two and a half years because that’s something i think we have
to we’ll we’ll go into and i i will only ask your opinion on on one thing
um and by the way i appreciate this you know i don’t have this opportunity to actually engage somebody in your
position who’s doing two things at once really patiently trying to explain to somebody
half your age if not less where everything went wrong and also
offering a vision to the future i think this is a very difficult journey so i i appreciate your
you’re sincere and you’re honest in your convictions i don’t think that’s uh oftentimes it’s hard to find this in
lebanon i don’t think tatif was ever properly implemented and that’s the point
Taef
so in other words in other words i know you’ve already said it rupture i know you’ve already said that the collapse
happened we have to start over i know this i know this but i think lebanese should be
not afraid of a civil state they should not be afraid of secularism obviously if it
suits them better they should go that journey but before going down that road i think we should at least address
everything that went wrong in your lifetime and mine and listen yeah
i guess call you shut up you’re my friend i shouldn’t do that do it please join us pleasure i don’t know please
honorary guest you are obviously aware and you’ve talked about
it already and your book points at it that lebanon has a problem and hezbollah
is not a problem per se it’s the capabilities of hezbollah that are problematic
why is it any different this time around where you have a situation and you described it october 17 2019
the president of this country has a security arrangement with hezbollah the prime minister of this country is
hezbollah’s preferred prime minister yes yes and the speaker of parliament you mentioned earlier it’s almost like a
protective alternative that looks worse than hezbollah that’s the disorder that a group like
this can create why is it different now i don’t i don’t know why two and a half years later this
group would be more flexible or more lenient okay
well okay the if civil state why now okay this is the three points
that i i mean i don’t think we should be so
hard on thought if because we never even really appreciated what it could have turned into
and the civil state okay that’s the destination of course right that’s what everyone is not of course it is an
option i mean sorry that’s even until if it points in that direction it’s it’s an illusion maybe but what i mean is
how can you leave this big chunk of the polit politics okay to
bet on the behaving better okay life is an arrangement
that was put in place because the soviet union was collapsing
and the americans wanted to reorganize the region considering that this
civil war in lebanon had lasted too long and it has to be finished this is the whole story because otherwise
well these uh remaining pure deputies would have agreed on any text 10 years
before so it’s not at all linked to any okay so they took them there but you probably know
the story father what is tai ta’if is
many things first of all it is an attempt
to organize the end of the civil war almost on syria and iran’s terms which
existed right of course of course syria was part of the arrangement the syrian army sent i don’t know maybe
100 guys with the americans against the iraqis in iran in
kuwait yes of course but i mean like of course lebanese forces is disarmed hezbollah’s
not that’s that’s the whole thing we’ll get back to that we’ll get back yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah okay so if was
essentially an external organization settlement organized by the americans with a
significant major role to the syrians and the saudis and everybody leading to
the so-called peace process this was life mainly now within the text
within the text you had several things some meaningful other meaningless
okay this was said yes you have something called the spiritual
families what’s that okay this was simply one of the guys who had
presented that in the document five years ago and wanted to be inserted okay put whatever you want nobody cares you
see yeah you have silly things okay okay you have things that do not work
okay you have mentions that are in order to disculpate
the old deputies who wanted again to overcome
sex political communication and they put the so-called senate joke but why is
that a joke why if it’s never been tested well it has been tested the senate has
never been yes it has been tested it lasted two years when the french were here in 2016. now it’s interesting okay
okay okay we had the general the high commissioner who had full power
the first time the the constitution was put in place and the president charlotte the best at that
time the government first timer sending the project for budget
to the parliament yeah okay the parliament began discussing discussing you know
with the notables you know with the tarbush and the mustache etc not finishing so
the budget was issued by decrees and it was sent to the senate the senate blocked the
so the high commissioner became crazy and changed the constitution suppressing the
senate okay okay you’re right sorry i didn’t mean you’re absolutely right but i meant so in our lifetime we have not
lived in a country with the senate that’s really i mean okay yeah we do not have even a parliament these are pure
formal things we have five six or seven big chiefs
who send delegates to become deputies to become ministers etc this is you know
when i was in the council of ministers trying to disrupt the system
i succeeded in several times in driving the debates on things that were not in
the agenda you know what happened at that time successively because they were not the guys
the other ministers are instructed before getting to the cancer of ministers what to say on every
point by a central team and they just read
take the debate out of the track for which each of the ministers had the paper and he just had
to read his comments yeah rewritten okay what happened you know
maybe 10 or 15 ministers felt in a hurry to go to the uh to the uh
okay to be able to ask their chief what should i say yeah you know so just to make the story simple no no i do not
have we do not have a parliament we do not have a council of ministers we have
a cooperative of five six seven chiefs
but in the past organized so so what is said in taif agreement okay in taif agreement they say you know
when you have commitments in a constitution okay just begin saying that lebanon is a definitive
what on the country what does it mean and germany is a
temporary one what does it mean these are only slogans you know yeah you’re
right but you’re absolutely right but the reason you know what what prevents me from
going all the way and what you’re saying is that even in your own situation
you’re able to live in a country that’s outside of syria’s orbit post 2005 and even then
when the syrians left yep i wish part of the problems that began in 1970
left in 2005 because there’s absolutely no reason there’s no
justified reason to have this kind of problem in our country until today
i appreciate that this book is focusing on the on two things on the economy
on on society and as well as offering a way out of this misery i would love and this is a personal
personal uh personal desire i would love to see citizens in a state
take the road of diplomacy as well and address how to resolve political violence okay and i wish that
that was part or maybe even a second second section to the story that
it’s just no longer tolerable to have something like militia in this country absolutely
[Music] you know i uh in our generation nobody
escaped from having at the same time people very close being killed or
assassinated but also having people who were you know in the class or
friends or neighbors becoming assassins you know killers
because it’s not true that this was the other’s war in lebanon it’s not true now i would if you allow me just try to
continue on tife you know taif is a kind of landmark
that can be understood if you put it in the perspective of the situation when it happened
now the reference of legitimation is important because when people are lost
they need legitimacy in our constitution there are two articles that are the most important
one is that freedom of conscience is absolute okay and the other is that lebanese are
equal in regard of the law okay what does it mean in our sense
all what is mentioned in the articles 95 22 24 etc concerning
the community etc only apply because the freedom of
conscience is absolute to those who choose not to be direct citizens but to be part of
communities any action any law any any
that classifies people as being members of communities
is contrary to the constitution what we say civil society civil states
the most powerful organizations in civil society are the communities
that’s true actually okay let’s go back you know so the society is massively communitarian
the state cannot be communicated this duality how
is it translatable by saying two things first of all
at every moment in public action whether it is elections uh civil service
uh civil status personal status okay every citizen has to choose individually
and explicitly between being a direct citizen or because our society is
what it is to be treated as member of a community for those who are choosing to be members
of copunity equilibria balances etc have to be put in place for the others no this is first
point second point the legit because of that the legitimacy
of the state supersedes the communities it has to take care of the communities as being a
historical heritage only they are not mukawinet nothing right right they are social
situations that are a heritage of the past third
this is a urgent need it is not because i
like it or you like it it’s an urgent need because what we have now is a paralysis a functional paralysis a
communitarian chief cannot deal with an economic collapse
he cannot be right wing or left-wing because if he supports in any country
when you have crisis you have chances the government here you have nothing why because a communitarian chief
cannot allocate losses if he favors i don’t know civil servants against
landowners he will lose the land owners within the community and not gain the
support of the civil servants who are in the other community they are strictly unable so they continue
launching empty slogans such as defending the deposits as if they we
still had banks you know so this paralysis is a threat to every and each and every person
including the chiefs themselves and therefore what we are saying is listen guys
our your system we dislike it but this is not our argument is a threat
even to your own community and to your own person so be responsible
don’t wait from outside an arrangement that you fear [Music]
transfer for a temporary period power to a government that is of no community
that is not a threat for you chief in your own community whether you are shia sunni drews or whatever night or or
whatever okay it’s not the matter like i don’t know we muhammad threatening the jean
blood in the jews not at that level this
transition of power for a limited period of time to a government with exceptional legislative power cannot happen unless
there is a negotiation this negotiation cannot take place if our counterparts who are part of our
country are forced because of the threats and the balance of power
and third unless they know on what terms they are negotiating so there is a
proposal for government we are not going into a process of elections
we are putting on the table a proposition for a transfer of power that is a change in regime simply because of
the need you see these points are absolutely essential and they begin with the text of the constitution of tai
the text of constitution the two most important points are
a pretension to have a state meaning all citizens are equal
second the liberty the freedom of conscience is absolute so on that point
without the senate and the commission and whatever all the dispositions that
apply mithi tarayosh and all that applies only to those who choose and in
that sense every each and every person will have to choose right you see yeah and under the
pressure of fears of bankruptcy of lose of ambitions of massive immorality more
than immigration etc this is the moment where this choice takes all its meaning
this is the central point of all what we are trying to do let’s let’s elaborate further on that i know that your
your journey from trying and at some point you did have some
success in your portfolios in the past as a minister and and trying to navigate the system as
dysfunctional as it is to 2016 realizing that it doesn’t help
to be either affiliated with whether it’s the crowd or any other crowd uh that always
rafael okay
no longer made sense that you were going to go down this path instead and then from 2016
until october 17 we built the party yeah could you could you i’d like to ask you
in terms of the the what what attracts me to this type of party and see what you
what you would have to add i like that it’s i can’t
every conversation i’ve had with any member of this group has done their homework
Citizens in a State
they have proposals that they can that they can lean on they have research that they can show
i think in terms of trying to project a new face for politics this group stands
out also something else which i really enjoy uh you’ve done two things whether this
is by design or not i don’t know the the crowd that’s running for parliament are people that i would like
to be friends with they all dress normally they speak casually uh they’re social media savvy they’re young and
dynamic and the last thing you know about them is their confession it really doesn’t matter when it comes
to delivering the story they’re in the north and the south i see them in bathrooms sometimes
i know that you’re running for parliament and you’re running with friends i know musahuri
i know in matin i know shad and najar in matan so these are people that i know
there’s some names that are familiar as well lucian berger is on your maternal list et cetera et cetera
is it by design that you wanted to have this duality that you’re the you’re the
permit me to say this the older wise man
and then you have the generation behind you this new upcoming
generation that sees lebanon differently or is this just a fluke really that you’re able to do two things
represent what was in the state with a group that is trying to
completely transform it so just the in a way the psychology of this because it’s
fascinating for me there’s no other group like this in lebanon and you found a space for it
okay my view on that
well in actually in 2015 2016
after many attempts to influence the the process that is ongoing in
lebanon as early as the 80s was rafil hariri then
in early 90s through the banking system in 98 99 with salim huss
and george arm in 2004 with lia serba
2017 10 11 with michelle own etc etc
well what i in most of these places the idea was
listen there are bets that you took these bets did not prove feasible
when you are stuck in such a position i know it’s not easy for a political actor
to say i was wrong but if you do not recognize you were wrong
you get stuck it becomes very dangerous so this kind of stubbornness of continuing
in spite of yourself knowing you cannot continue
was the major i’m saying lesson i learned and
in 98 we tried at that time
because of what happened 98 was mainly linked towards what happening in syria okay
assad was getting old and sick etc so there was a kind of fight for the succession and we had the
changes here okay well this is no no tried was selling house and george auram
to say we can restructure the economy of the country the cost is
still bearable all the depth was the 18 billion dollars at that time yeah okay
to make the story short i don’t know if themselves or the syrians or both did not dare as far as that okay in 2004
we we made a very precise restructuring program that was discussed with the imf
with the world bank actually i met your father at that time in washington okay
well the assassinations happened that it was stopped this is which do you remember which year
this was 2004 2004. okay so he must have been at the imf though yes yes
no no he was in in office yeah in washington when we had dinner oh really yes yes
in if you have any photos eight two thousand and two thousand four no remember it was
november or december 2004. okay if you ever find a photo please send it to me i’d like to see this a moment
yeah were you were you agreeing or disagreeing on everything no i’m trying no no no no no no [Laughter]
we can talk about that as much as you like okay so who’s michelle who paid
no i’m kidding it was an official invitation
no sorry okay in 2009 2010 the idea was to disrupt the
communitarian system by and dismantle this band of mafia that is
called the general confederation of labor yes okay yes okay yeah okay at each of
these moments when the the core objective was close
well whether for different calculations whether for awareness increased awareness of the
adversaries or for whatever reason okay
these attempts were stopped so in 2015-16
we knew very well that the system was at the end financially
and i believe that the need for a political organization a
party was absolutely necessary because individual action
has its limits okay so we constituted citizens in a state
as being a tool for one precise situation that we foresee for so
that is the financial and economic collapse okay it’s not something where we have an ideology saying that this is
the end of history we are going to take you to heaven no no it is a tool designed as such now
getting back to the structure okay as a consequence
of the deep impregnation of the society with the model that it has been living under for
30 years that brought for a country for 30 years
the ability to live above its means you know
240 billion dollars of transfers came to lebanon 200 billions were spent
as over consumption this is an amount i have said that many times that is larger
in real terms than all the marshall plan that was designed to reconstruct all
western europe you inject if you inject such an amount of money in a country whether it is
switzerland china or united states you change the society we are not a particular case we are an extreme case
so what was the reaction to this attempt
to structure a party not a group we are a real party where people declare their revenue their debts
their wealth they contribute as a proportional system etc okay so what is
the result and it’s a very committed group of people yes yes i got to know muhammad
before he officially joined the group he’s been on the podcast a few times okay so there’s a lot of people i actually turned to to learn from in this
group so the point you’re raising about the age structure well it is a matter of fact that as a result
we are composed of many two large two groups one small and one
large the small group is people who had various
but direct political experience by one of them maybe we are 10 or 15 in that case
the rest are not very young people we do not have many in the early 20s okay
it’s rather people who are in the 30s okay but there is a gap there is a
in the middle you know people in the 40s and the 50s are very few yeah why
my explanation might be true or not is that
among those who have lived the past 30 or 40 years
well many are i would say
if you allow me are ashamed of what they did so they are retired
fairly young but i don’t know in the 40s and 50s but they’ve already they have been yeah
they have played in the casino and once you you see the world as a casino you accept
losing you know you you do not react you know it’s interesting to see when the banks were
already bankrupt and came asking people to reinvest with bonuses promised etc
full casino type okay some people reacted to that you know i remember
explaining to to people who are in the profession of banking it said listen
it is already bankrupt you say yes you’re right but don’t you think that it will still last few months
meaning let me go again to the casino where i win at every play you see
this logic of casino is deeply rooted in the society and this is in my view what
explains that people admit the loss you know if you if you see the world at the casino where you have won
so many times well you admit losing it is not the case
for the younger okay who are you the very young
are in my view and this is very sad are making their luggage to
yeah to immigrate yeah those who are in the 30s are tempted by immigration but
they have still something built here so these are those who fight interesting you see so you have different age
categories that are linked to the type of experience that they have been confronted to right
i like that so in a way it’s building for the future because in a sense the the the crowd
that i meet which is mostly i hope i remember i get this right they’re mostly in their mid late
twenties and and thirties the 30s that they have an appetite which
i don’t exist that i don’t see in my age group anymore so i appreciate the way you you’re framing this
i also appreciate something else you gave time to me to let me ask you
one of the most sensitive questions i could ask and it’s something that destroyed you
know this it destroyed my my life of course it prevented you from having dinner with him again
and it’s still in our lives today and i would much rather see a group that uh has this
capability within it go the extra mile and offer a way out
for this problem beyond beyond just saying that we need a transition because i think
there’s something and i mean this very carefully but i mean it it doesn’t seem like it’s the focal
point of the story but i think it is the focal point of the story and these this is a path i’ve experienced with other
members as well economics easier to talk about
politics very straightforward hezbollah it’s not so straightforward
you found a way today to explain it in a way that was both precise on your terms and and and very
deep so i think it’s the first time i’ve heard you say it this way it means a lot to me please that’s it
okay and i want to uh i want to wish you best of success in this stretch i know how difficult it is i’ve met so many
people running and you see most of them on the highway when you look up yep
i happen to know your father not in many occasions i mentioned the
meeting we had in washington in the end of 2004
then when he came to the ministry of finance he was not surprised by that but
independently apart from the dominant classification of 8 and 14 et
cetera several deep clarifications on the process of
public finance were immediately without hesitation done by your father
this might look as being a simple action it is not because this
shows at the level of public responsibility
something that is unfortunately not very common in this country that is the autonomy of decision you see
this was not in the mood and i must say that i had
the same experiment but not successful with uh
with others ministers of finance or others you know it happened that i
i knew rafariri very closely for a long period of time and i had a
major disagreement with him yeah about uh
entering as a private investor in solidarity while the arrangement was the syrians as a saudi with the beginning this is different story okay
well but in spite of that knowing most of these persons who have become very important well okay
on points that had significant effect on mainly the
management of public finance okay
almost none of them dared uh getting out of the path that had been
put in place to make stories simple by fourth senior um
your father without hesitation it’s losses you know
what saying that you asked me we are now working to constitute a
national civil assembly that disputes all the existing system on this legitimacy whether the parliament the
government etc this is very sad to say but
people who seem the most aware of the responsibility and have
significant courage to go into it are not only in their eighties but in their nineties you know
no it’s very sad believe me no
people who have been through all the changes the painful
changes the loss of hopes
and who they’re considering all that as being
not a state of the world but changes our older people elder people elderly
people because most of the population now apart from the poor
syrians that nobody looks at as if they did not exist they were transparent they are becoming the majority of the
population with the immigration now okay most of the population in lebanon
now sorry to finish by that have lived in something that they knew was a casino
they were not unaware of that you know when when it became
almost a kind of obligation to have a bengali or filipino made at home you
know when you look at the process of social promotion as they call it
how what was their their ownership what was their way of living themselves
men women etc maybe the children do not know but they know
this jump was not for them something natural it was winning at the casino and
this and the logic of casino is has been rooted very deeply
and without that i could not understand the passivity of people against all the
losses that they have incurred i’m sorry to finish by a sad description but no but
that’s uh i think it’s an appropriate way to end this conversation because even though you need a bit of optimism
to pursue politics i think it it comes with the territory and you need
not just ambition but you need a lot of patience when you’re campaigning and it’s just weeks left
i think the reality is this country is in a very very very difficult stage you eloquently i think those last words
are there’s not much more that can be said you’re absolutely right
i think my children may see a lebanon that’s recovering slowly
and i would like to see the last years of my life seeing the transition for a better country um
i’ll add that i appreciate any group that is challenging
old inertia and gravity and citizens in a state is that one group
that i think is really trying and you’re heading it i know it’s it’s a group that will exist
past your prime i’ve had people even say this to me that it’s not about you it’s about the group and it’s about that’s
about what you believe in um so i look forward to meeting other members i look forward to doing this again in
the future and uh i don’t know what to say other than thank you for your this is a very rewarding uh exchange for me thank you
thank you sherbet thank you it’s a responsibility you’re adding on it thank you my pleasure and let’s do the
handshake to officiate the end here we go okay
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you