Hariri joins the elite
list of Arab dynastic patriarchs who pass on their power to their
sons from beyond the grave. The Hariris have clearly now joined
the dynastic big league — the Jumbalatts, the Gemayels, the
Frangiehs and the Chamouns, all traditional zaims (political
godfathers and, on occasion, warlords) of Lebanon.
Of course, it is
equally ironic that Saad Hariri’s meteoric ascent to power is
based on the same dynastic principle that enabled Dr. Bashar
Assad, a London trained ophthalmologist, to succeed his late
father Hafez as the President of Syria. Dr. Assad’s other
opponent, Walid Jumbalatt, once ran the Socialist Progressive
Party during the Lebanese civil war, but owes his power to his
status as the hereditary leader of the Druze, with a fortress —
palace in the Chouf.
If patronage politics,
clan rivalries and the cult of Omerta (as ancient a concept as
Mafia) defines the Byzantine netherworld of Syrian politics, it is
no different in Lebanon. After all, the tragedy of the civil war
was punctuated by regular massacres of warlords and their sons in
a manner reminiscent of Sonny Corleone’s fate in The
Godfather.
Bashir Gemayel, the
leader of the Phalange, became President of Lebanon in 1982 and
was murdered by a bomb that devastated the Ashrafiyeh district of
Beirut. His brother, the pharmacist Amin, succeeded the Maronite
warlord as President Suleiman Frangieh was Lebanese President in
the 1970’s, but a political rival of the Gemayels. So in 1978,
gunmen from the Phalange massacred his son and heir Tony Frangieh,
whose own son was a minister in the Lahoud cabinet. Then there
were Rashid Karami and Danny Chamoun, both assassinated heirs of
political dynasties in the civil war. Like Tsarist Russia,
Lebanese politics are also "despotisms tempered by assassination."
The dynastic principle in Arab politics goes back to the founders
of the Umayyad and Abbasid dynasties, after all. Amir Muawia was
succeeded by his son as the commander of the Faithful, the caliph
of Islam. Abul Abbas Saffah left his empire to his brother Abu
Jaffer al-Mansur, the second Abbasid caliph who founded Baghdad.
Some of the wealthiest, most powerful states in the Arab world are
literally ruled by dynasties.
Two Arab states,
Hashemite Jordan and Saudi Arabia, are even named after their
ruling families. Baathist Syria, populist Libya, the military
dictatorships that rule from Egypt and Yemen are all " jumlakas,
to use the cynical Arabic joke, republican monarchies where the
President’s son is the anointed crown prince. Jimmy in Cairo, Saif
and Hannibal in Tripoli, Ali Abdullah Saleh junior in Sanaa are
the chips of the old block, the successors to de facto Presidents
for Life who happen to be Daddy.
As Lebanon proves,
Syrian withdrawal does not end dynastic politics in quasi-feudal
Arab societies. George Bush’s democratic rhetoric sounds hollow in
a Middle East fragmented into sectarian schisms, tribal cleavages
and family networks. This is not to argue that dynastic leaders
cannot spearhead democratic reform. King Mohammed VI of Morocco,
King Abdullah II of Jordan and the Sultan of Oman rose to power as
eldest sons of absolute Arab monarchs but have all embraced the
cause of democratic reform as an instrument of state policy.
The Darwinian nature
of Arab royal politics produces some extraordinary leaders, men
who survived palace intrigues in the Arabian desert to lead their
nations on the global stage.
King Faisal
represented Ibn Saud, his father and the founder of the kingdom of
Saudi Arabia, at the Versailles armistice as a teenager and is the
true father of the modern Saudi petrocurrency state. King Hussein,
the grandson of a murdered Hashemite king, who survived multiple
assassination attempts, emerged as one of the most subtlest
diplomats in the Middle East and the founder of modern Jordan.
King Hassan II of Morocco, the heir to the centuries old Allawi
dynasty of the Maghreb, ruled his kingdom with such moderation
that successive French Presidents used Rabat to mediate between
the Palestinians and Israelis.
Sure, dynastic rule
often produces incompetent or unsuccessful Arab kings. Farouk of
Egypt lost his throne long after he lost the respect of his people
with his hedonistic, decadent lifestyle. King Ghazi of Iraq died
in a car accident after alleged unstable behaviour, King Saud was
replaced by his brother Faisal in 1964 because he was unable to
lead the House of Saud.
The pragmatic Bedouin
tradition in Arab culture has often ensured that the most
competent son, the one most able to build tribal alliances and
share power, would emerge as the king. So consultative monarchies
rather than constitutional republics have proven more successful
models of political freedom and wealth distribution, better
insurance against bloody wars of succession. The Gulf emirates,
particularly Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and the UAE are classic
consultative monarchies. The Arab republics inherited the old
Ottoman template of bureaucratic politics, elite palace guards,
absolute rule and "imposed" reforms, as any visitor to Cairo,
Damascus, Sanaa and Algiers will attest.
Yet the next
presidential election in Egypt will be a test case for George W.
Bush and Condi Rice’s democracy bandwagon. It will determine if
Gamal Mubarak succeeds his father in a nation where power has
banded down from father to son since times of pharaohs. "Power
flows from the barrel of a gun", Chairman Mao argued. Wrong. In
the Arab world, it flows from the family tree of the Big Boss and
genealogical Darwinism defines the calculus of
power.
Matein Khalid is a
Dubai based investment
banker
