Abu Hatem أبو حاتم

A guest piece for TheBeirutSpring Blog.

When looking at the lack of compromise in Lebanon’s current political gridlock, I as an Arab American, remembered the words of James Madison. Madison was the primary author of the American constitution, and most of its greatest commentary - The Federalist Papers. Madison was central in creating the modern Democratic policy making process in the United States of “checks and balances,” - one which was based in competing elites with competing interests, representing the people, arriving at compromise and conciliation in their creation of policy.

Such a system is the oldest continuous Democratic system in the world. It is the product of this very system, compromise, which is the essence of American democracy. The founders of our Republic did not intend for Democracy to be “majority rule,” but in fact worked hard to protect the axial foundation of Democracy - minority rights.

In the Federalist #10, Madison worked hard to convince Americans that this system in which competing interests and branches of government, as well as federalist division between state and local government, would result in policies of compromise which would satisfy the people. He worked hard to convince Americans of the flaws of majority tyranny, and of “mob-rule,” in which compromise simply would not work.

Madison wrote:

There are two methods of curing the mischiefs of faction: the one, by removing its causes; the other, by controlling its effects.

There are again two methods of removing the causes of faction: the one, by destroying the liberty which is essential to its existence; the other, by giving to every citizen the same opinions, the same passions, and the same interests.

It could never be more truly said than of the first remedy, that it was worse than the disease. Liberty is to faction what air is to fire, an aliment without which it instantly expires. But it could not be less folly to abolish liberty, which is essential to political life, because it nourishes faction, than it would be to wish the annihilation of air, which is essential to animal life, because it imparts to fire its destructive agency.

I urge you all to read the remainder of the Federalist #10.

Political compromise is the foundation of a Democratic system. It is only through compromise that a system is truly democratic and survives. The elites, the policy makers who represent us, fail us when they are unable to reach a compromise based in the relative strengths of each group. Obviously, compromise is impossible for every possible opinion, and the weakest and least supported opinions will have less political leverage and thus often not be included. Yet, significant minorities using their political leverage to reach some sort of compromise with the majority is the essence of Democratic policy. Compromise means that everyone will not get everything to go his way, but that different people will have to give up different things for the sake of the public good. It is the job of our elected officials to create policy which reflects the will of the people conditioned upon the common public good.

We often hear Lebanese on both sides today lamenting compromise. Compromise they say causes nothing to be done, or leads to a do-nothing President. Yet the fact remains that the parliament reflects the will of the people - the very divided people of Lebanon. Whether March 14th, or March 8th, the only way Lebanon can progress ahead of the Arab world is to lead the pack in achieving compromise. No-holds-bars warfare, fighting, and clashes all seeking the will to power have characterized the entire Middle East, including Lebanon, for too many years now. Instead of the difficult act of compromise, we find it all to easy to use our strength and resources to destroy opposition. Yet, humans are diverse and people are different. The quest to dehumanize and destroy “the other,” in hope for Utopia, or ideology, or sect, has done nothing but bring hell to the people of Lebanon and the people of the Middle East.

If Lebanon truly desires Democracy. If March 14th and March 8th truly desire peace and prosperity, freedom and diversity, tolerance and acceptance, then they must leave this sectarian and partisan will to absolute power. People of Lebanon, follow in the steps of the people of the free world. If you truly want peace and freedom, then come to the realization of compromise. Destroy the plague of sectarian hate, of class-war hate, of political hate and replace it with peaceful celebration of sectarian diversity, of class diversity, and of political diversity. Solve your problems using rule of law, through peaceful compromise.

We must come to the realization that losing some political battles is a lesser evil than losing freedom to civil wars which never end. For, the acceptance of political loss is itself a victory, a victory for Democracy and a victory for peace. In the words of Madison, on the dangers of a government without institutions requiring compromise:

When a majority is included in a faction, the form of popular government, on the other hand, enables it to sacrifice to its ruling passion or interest both the public good and the rights of other citizens.

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I found this extremely interesting document in the New York Times archives from 1912, almost 100 years ago. It is written by “Hajim son of Ibrahim,” and is a long tract about Islam, Christianity, and the West. It seems as if our current debate is - well, nothing new.

The actual context behind the document is unknown. The Times does not provide any background information. However, in it “Hajim,” argues for an international court at the Hague. While delving into some polemics against Christians and harshly criticizing them and affirming Islam’s right to exist, he concludes that both Christians and Muslims should respect each other’s religions and work together for good.

His words read:

But what if now we are awakened to a consciousness of better things, can we not unite to make the world better, holier, happier? What if our crescent wanes? Shall it not again grow to a glory that shall help to sow peace on earth? What if the cross is marred with the story of many a war, many a persecution, many an insult to the memory of Him who fainted upon it? Let us both cleanse away the past and be just and upright with each other

Very interesting. Muslim-Christian coexistence will be the basis of any new order of peace that is ever ushered in. If Muslims and Christians are in peace, the world will be a much more peaceful place. And there is great precedent for this - go walk through the streets of Syria’s Homs and you will find intermarriage between them and respect for both religions. Muslims and Christians have lived in peace before, and I believe that Muslim and Christian nation-states can also be in peace.

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I have always been politically strange. Never a Democrat, nor Republican, I watched politics on TV since I was little but I always had my views.

Robert Novak and Pat Buchanan were two people who appeared on TV a lot. Whether on The Capitol Gang, or Crossfire on CNN in the old days, or the McLaughlin Group on PBS, or even later Buchanan and Press on MSNBC - I often enjoyed their views. Novak and Buchanan were fiscally conservative, where I always stood, yet they were highly critical of Israel and highly non-interventionist in foreign policy. Ever since the old days Novak and Buchanan have been pressing Israel and were both against the Iraq war (which Novak said was “for Israel,” before it happened).

Before the neocons took over, both Novak and Buchanan were speaking out against them. Buchanan even wrote a book about it called: Where the Right Went Wrong about how neocons hijacked the Republican party.

I am no Republican. I support SCHIP (which I will admit, many Republicans - including President Bush in ‘04, did). I also support many types of affirmative action, although I will admit I do not feel that strongly on the matter. I am highly critical of the Republican party’s treatment of minorities - especially blacks, and I am a strong supporter of civil liberties. On top of all that, the Democratic party is the only one that makes sense on the immigration issue and the environment.

But if you could say there was a brand of politician that I agree with most, it would be the paleoconservative type of Novak, Buchanan, and Ron Paul. It was for that reason that I was very impressed when I heard that both Bob Novak and Pat Buchanan have endorsed Ron Paul as their candidate. Buchanan said this in an interview on MSNBC, and Novak said this in a piece by the Washington Times.

However, Novak offered his own personal endorsement of Texas congressman Ron Paul. “He’s a very engaging person… I’d like to see him as president,” Novak said. “Can you imagine him at the United Nations?”

If we can get more and more of these people to take back the Republicans from the neocons, then the world, and America, will be a much better place.

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NYTimes has a piece for tomorrow on the surge, discussing the improved security situation in Baghdad which has included the return of many refugees who went to Syria.

I will have to admit, I was skeptical, but the surge is working.  However, if there is no political reconciliation then what is the point of a surge?  Another part of it is the growing Arab hatred for al-Qaeda that was highlighted in my post about the Pew poll a few days ago.  Iraqis are fighting against the terrorists for their own good, yet this doesn’t necessarily mean that they are pro-America.

If Iraq is actually going to become a functioning democracy than the first thing that needs to happen is an improve in security which will only happen through political reconciliation.  Remember Maslow’s heirarchy of needs?  Well, security and safety was the first need on that list… and so the surge in military might has to be met with Thomas Friedman’s term - a “political surge.”

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While I was reading today’s news on Yahoo I stumbled upon this article:

TEHRAN, Iran - Venezuela’s outspoken president joined with Iran’s leader Monday in boasting that they are “united like a single fist” in challenging American influence, saying the fall of the dollar is a sign that “the U.S. empire is coming down.”

It just reminded me of the balance of power theory that foreign policy Realists have been repeating for decades - powers don’t bandwagon, as neocons claim, they balance.

For more information on the two theories see John Mearsheimer’s work Hans Morgenthaeu and the Iraq War: Realism versus Neoconservatism:

Realists do not believe that we live in a bandwagoning world. On the contrary, realists tend to believe that we live in a balancing world, in which, when one state puts its fist in another state’s face, the target usually does not throw its hands in the air and surrender. Instead, it looks for ways to defend itself; it balances against the threatening state.

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“You have a right to your life, you have a right to your liberty, and you have a right to the property you earn. But you don’t have a right to a house, or a right to a job, or a right to medical care because that involves a violation of somebody else’s rights. They literally have to take it from you. But you say, ‘no it is from the government.’ The government has nothing, and produces nothing, and for the government to give you healthcare they have to literally take it from somebody else. And ultimately, its a poor person because we usually inflate, we borrow, we create economic conditions that hurt the poor - so even with this attempt to give people this free medical care this is usually what happens today. The poor people who try to make it, they get gouged.”

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Danielle Plekta, a foreign policy expert at the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute has a contributing op-ed in today’s New York Times.

I have written about the neocons numerous times on this blog. Plekta follows her alarmist logic again to push the case for nothing but a short-sided and idiotic foreign policy. Just because your brave enough to be a hawk and say “use guns,” doesn’t mean its the smartest thing to do.

Plekta states that Bush has not been strong enough in his foreign policy and due to this he is falling into weakness, the alarms are sounded for instance because:

Now suddenly, Washington eschews comment on North Korean arms sales. And as for Banco Delta Asia, it’s back in business and its frozen money has been returned to North Korea. Worse, Ms. Rice has now signed on to a new “Mark II” version of the agreed framework, which has considerably fewer benchmarks for the North Koreans than the Clinton administration deal did.

Yes, just because Bush is using diplomacy on North Korea, his neocon friends have left him and state that he is being soft. Have you heard of a more extremist foreign policy than one that calls Bush’s foreign policy soft or weak? And these people say they are out for the national interest.

In the end Plekta states that because the administration has not been aggressive on the Syrian administration for the alleged nuclear program (which in a blog a few days ago I showed the Financial Times reporting that many believe it was not a nuclear reactor) and the fact that they are inviting Syrians to Annapolis for the peace summit will simply give incentives to the countries of the world to fight America. For Pleka:

Why not engage in bad behavior if the Bush administration, like the Clinton administration, will look the other way?

By kowtowing to the conventional wisdom of what a secretary of state should do, Condoleezza Rice is making her legacy dependent on the future behavior of a North Korean tyrant and Palestinian pretenders. Ultimately, that will serve neither selfish nor national interests.

Perhaps Pleka should pick up the books of the foreign policy Realists who have time and again shown us that states such as Syria, Iran, and North Korea only connive against us because of perceived threats against them. I urge her to see A Coalition for a Realistic Foreign Policy which includes such “hawks,” as Kenneth Waltz and Sammuel Huntington (”The Clash of Civilizations,”) who favor diplomacy with the Arab world. Inviting Syria to Annapolis and solving the Israeli-Syrian issue can lead to the abolition of Hezbollah, and Syrian influence in Lebanon - all administration motives.

In her crying “diplomacy with the devil,” Pleka proves one thing - Neocons don’t want diplomacy, the only want war. War, to advance their Utopian Idealistic worldview.

I remember again the words of Prof. Craig Waggaman about the neocons, which I have quoted many times, that if our self-arrogance and self-righteousness lead us to believe in moral superiority then this can lead to great harm. For it was the Athenian army, who believed such a thing, that eventually carried out the worst massacre at Melos (see Thucydides - the Peloponnesian War). Or, as I have quoted time and again, Protestant theologian Robert Neihbur said - if our belief in God’s blessing America is unchecked by Divine accountability it can lead to immense injustice.

Mrs. Pleka, people have learned better than your alarmist interventionist spew.

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America is a free country. Or at least we are told.  Why is it then, that the economic freedom in the U.S., while much better than many European countries - is extremely low, and possibly lowering.

Case-in-point: taxes. In the U.S. if I give you a gift of over $12,000 dollars a year, even if you are my immediate family member (although not my spouse), then I will be taxed at an extremely high rate. Why don’t you work for the money? Well, you will be charged payroll taxes from the government. How about my selling you goods for $12,000? Well, then there is a 7% sales tax.  And if you die with a substantial amount of money there is always the death tax.

Use the phone? There is a phone tax, which although small, does end up costing a few dollars. Drive on the roads? Well turnpikes charge $1.25 toll taxes. Watch the TV? Well, there is a cable tax. And oh, did I forget to state that Congress might even be thinking about taxing the internet.

All of this points to what economists call and measure “fiscal freedom.” It seems like no matter where we go we are being taxed. And instead of this money going anywhere that matters - it goes to paying an extremely huge defense budget, foreign aid to Israel and Egypt, pork-barrel projects by Congress, and more and more big government. Spend, spend, and spend some more.

Ron Paul wrote a very interesting column last week about Charlie Rangel’s proposed tax overhaul, which would again raise taxes on Americans. Paul stated a few things that the people in Congress don’t want to hear:

The founding fathers never saw taxation as a method to direct social behavior or enforce equality. Equality to them was equality under the law, not equality of outcome, or income.  It was not the founding fathers’ job to manage the economy, or make American businesses competitive. That was up to the free market and American businesses.  The founders sought to provide only protection of property and civil liberties such that job creation could happen naturally and peacefully in a stable, prosperous environment.  They never sought to take from the rich to give to the poor, or rob Peter to pay Paul. But today, the top 5% of earners in this country pay over half of all income taxes collected, but only bring in a third of the income.  One third of Americans pay nothing or receive subsidies from government.

 Paul concludes stating that because both sides of the government - the Administration and the Congress - are up to no good, that we can only hope for gridlock. Because a “do-nothing,” Congress is better than a “do bad,” Congress. I would have to agree here. With the President wanting to spend more and more on an expensive war, and the Congress throwing more and more money away at pork-barrel projects and increasing taxes, we can only hope for a do-nothing Congress.

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In this month’s issue of Foreign Policy there is an online article by the journal from George Mason University economist Russel Roberts entitled “Why We Trade.” Roberts does a good job of weeding out the spin talking-points of both Democratic and Republican Presidential candidates when it comes to free trade - tracing them back to the pre-Adam Smith school of Mercantilism which asserted that the power of a state was based on the revenue gained by exports.

What I liked most about Roberts’ article is his quoting of Shumpeter, someone who has been quoted in different articles mentioned on this blog for the path weekend, and his famous phrase “creative destruction,” an essential force for giving us better and better lives (at least materially speaking).

Roberts states:

Trade is just one economic force that creates and destroys jobs. Tastes change. Innovation makes workers more productive. Some industries shrink. Others expand. Some disappear. New industries get created. Joseph Schumpeter called it creative destruction. He understood that it is the underlying mechanism that transforms our standard of living for the better.

Very true, and very interesting.

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Depending on which angle you view from Lebanon can be a hallmark of success, or of the greatest failures in the Middle East. It is thus that I call it the most schizophrenic country in the world.

No other country in the entire region at least has achieved so much. Free markets, free elections, and a truly Democratic system compared to all others in the region. In Lebanon there actually exists rule of law, and the religious beliefs of all seem to be respected throughout the system. Lebanon is neither extremist secular nor a fundamentalist state. Courts for each faith settle religious law matters, and all are free to worship and believe as they wish.

It is only in Lebanon that you find such a population of minorities in the Middle East. While Syria, Jordan, and Palestine have many Christians - Lebanon is obviously the bastion of Christendom in the Middle East. At the same time, Lebanon can be said to be the bastion of the Arab Shi’a.

Yet at the same time, this nation has been torn apart by more civil wars than you can count. Everyday it seems as if one sect does not agree with another. An exemplar of the backwords sectarianism characteristic of the “failed civilization,” of modern Arabism, in Lebanon you will find Christians hating Muslims, Muslims hating Druze, and Shi’a hating Sunni.

If you compare Lebanon’s civil war with the modern civil war in Iraq, time will tell which will be worse. It is in Lebanon where you have extremist Christians calling for revolution, overthrow, and a Christian state; extremist Shiites calling for an Iranian-style republic, and extremist Sunnis attempting revolution in Nahr al-Bared.

This reminds me of Thomas Friemdan’s New York Times article which I have blogged about twice; Democracy’s root: diversity. Tolerance and diversity are two things which both the Christian and Muslim faith’s value. Christianity preaches the love of thy neighbor as oneself; and Islam preaches that God has only created different groups to know one another. In both Christianity and Islam the person is not hated, his evil attributes are, and one must love good for all people. (If someone wants theological verification for at least the Muslim side of this please see Imam Nawawi’s Sharh Sahih Muslim on the hadith “None of you truly believe until you love for your brother what you love for yourself.”)

We must quit hating and seeing people as “Jew,” or “Christian,” or “Muslim,” or “Notherner,” but as human beings. If only the Lebanese had mastered this, then perhaps they would have evolved from their current condition to the bastion of Arab freedom.

Lebanon is a country that has been destroyed time and again, where sectarianism reigns supreme, but yet still has the will to hold on to the beauty which freedom is and has not fell into decay.

The great Syrian poet, Mohammad al-Maghout, a native of my city, said this about Lebanon, a few years ago before his death:

Do you miss Lebanon?
This is what I have to say to the Lebanese: Whether partisan, secular, materialistic or spiritual you must cling onto this fragment of freedom, the last little fragment that remains. This scrap is our salvation. Don’t let go: freedom is taken, not given…Â

Wise words

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