If the title sounds biblical, it is because the facts are of biblical vintage.
In Lebanon, as elsewhere in the archaic Middle East, leadership has nothing to do with merit and has everything to do with genes. The genetic transmission of political power is alive and well today as it was in the Bronze Age and the Middle Ages. Leaders always make sure to have male progeny, and invariably have only one or two at most, because their families are otherwise "modern" (i.e. beget few children) in contrast to their own prolific herd of mountain peasants. After all, those lords have amassed monumental fortunes from decades of corruption and pilfering of the country's public finances.
When the leader (in Lebanese jargon, he is the "zaiim" or boss, just like in the Italian Mafia) dies, often by assassination, the tribe or the religious sect immediately pledges allegiance to his son. Here I describe one, though not an exclusive, example of Lebanese genetic transmission of political power: The Jumblatt family, perched high in a medieval castle in the village of Moukhtara in the Shouf Mountains southeast of Beirut, was granted the title of "Bek" by the Ottoman occupiers with whom they collaborated. Though hailing of authentic feudal vintage, the Jumblatts claim to be Progressives and Socialists, leading a so-called Progressive Socialist Party composed exclusively of members of their own Druze sect. I often wonder how is it possible that all the Socialists in Lebanon are members of one religion (in this case, the Druze), and vice versa, how is it possible that all the Druze in Lebanon are Socialists when their community operates by rules from the Stone Age? Where would a Christian or Sunni Muslim or Shiite Muslim with progressive socialist ideas go to find a political home? Also, stupid European Socialists have romantic notions about the feudalism-socialism fusion, and have a love affair with the salon bourgeois-Socialist Jumblatts, whom they invite to every one of their conferences. They apparently see no contradiction between the Jumblatts' tribal feudal religious makeup, and their claims to socialism and progressive politics, not to mention their barbaric genocide of the Christians of the Lebanese Shouf District during the 1980s.
Between 1968 and 1976, Kamal Jumblatt had done everything the Syrian regime wanted him to do: Undermine the Lebanese State by allying his tribal Druze hordes with the Palestinian terror groups of Yasser Arafat and assorted communists and radical left-wing groups, and leading a savage war against the Lebanese Christians. By 1977, with the war in full swing, the Syrians had no more use for Jumblatt, and just as they always do with former agents (like they did with countless others and were to do with Rafik Hariri in 2005), Syrian Intelligence planted a roadside bomb that killed Kamal Jumblatt. Then the Syrians proceeded to invade Lebanon with their own army.
Kamal had, thank God, begotten an only son Walid who, unlike the herd of mountain Druze peasants who mounted donkeys and wore bouffant pantaloons, rode a motorcycle and wore jeans, went to elitist AUB (American University of Beirut) - he was most likely admitted there by Wasta (political influence over AUB administrators) despite awful grades and only on account of his family's political clout - and led a life of a playboy who gave no indication of wanting a career in politics. In fact Playboy magazine published an interview with Walid in the mid-1980s (see: https://en.calameo.com/read/0000038542ff9fadb0f33) in which he gave cool smart-ass answers (see an excerpt below) to the reporter's questions, just as he continues to tweet cool smart-ass commentaries today in his waning years, camouflaging his feudal backwardness under a shallow pseudo-intellectual veneer. When his father Kamal was killed by the Syrians, Walid was immediately enthroned (in the local vernacular, he was "pledged allegiance to" or مبايعة) as chief of the Druze tribe and of the Socialist Progressive Party by the herd. No questions asked about merit or ambition. No competing candidates. He had no choice. And even though the Syrians killed his father, he spent much of his political career kissing the Syrians' behind until the Americans, who had colluded with the Assad regime in the destruction of Lebanon, changed their minds. The Arab nationalist and Socialist Jumblatt switched camps, jumped off the Syrian ship to climb on the American ship, and throughout the 2000s and 2010s Walid played the on-off pro-Syrian-anti-Syrian switcheroo game depending on which way the wind blew, yet the Syrians never assassinated him because, after spewing venom against Assad for some time, he'd go to Damascus and literally beg the Syrian tyrant for forgiveness. Principle to Walid Jumblatt is like dirty underwear: He changes it every day.
Walid Jumblatt nevertheless proved his own barbaric prowess in continuing in his father's footsteps and prosecuting the next 13 years (1977-1990) during which he slaughtered the Christians of the Shouf, destroyed their villages, stole their properties, ransacked their churches, desecrated their cemeteries, then was granted enormous sums of money after the war to supposedly entice those Christians to return to their villages and rebuild. This the Christians never did, as they never trusted the Druze since the massacres of the 1840s, 1860s, 1920s, and 1980s. The Christians have yet to return for good to their homes and villages. There is a Lebanese saying that goes like this, "Eat at the Druze's home, but sleep only at the Christian's" (كول عند الدرزي بس ما تنام إلا عند المسيحي), indicative of how the Christians feel about trusting the perfidious Druze. We now learn, by Walid Jumblatt's own admission (https://www.algemeiner.com/2022/01/06/the-other-ugly-face-of-lebanon/), that at the onset of the October 17, 2019 revolution he managed to whisk some 500 million dollars out of the country, just in time before the US dollar became rare and the Lebanese Lira collapsed. What a charming Socialist.
Now Walid too, thank God, had begotten an only son, Taymour, a name inspired from the infamous bloody conqueror Tamerlane (in Arabic Timourlank تيمورلنك). See how cultured and cool Walid is? Still a young fellow who may have said one day that he wasn't interested in carrying the mantle of a tribal feudal sectarian leader, Taymour was shoved head-first by the tribe into that very position he apparently dislikes, well before his father Walid even dies to be reincarnated into another life form (according to Druze beliefs). Taymour too was of course "admitted" to a corrupt American University of Beirut eager to maintain good relations with the equally corrupt and nepotistic political establishment, and like his father, he couldn't refuse the feudal lord mantle. That is why the Jumblatts rarely smile. They always bear that disgusted gaze of resignation on their faces. The herd demands the same genes at the helm, and so Taymour was forcibly pledged allegiance to, and has been shadowing his father like a sacrificial lamb to political meetings in which he rarely says anything, appearing to be learning the ropes on the job. And in effect, Taymour was made a candidate to Parliament, and was "elected" by the Druze herd in this so-called Lebanese democracy as a patrician MP representing the plebeian Druze peasants of the Shouf Mountains.
As mentioned earlier, this pattern of primitive politics is not unique to the Jumblatts or the Druze. Among the self-anointed "more advanced" Christians, you have the Gemayel tribe, the Frangiyeh tribe, the Chamoun tribe, and the latest addition the nouveau-riche arriviste Aoun tribe, and others where sons, nephews, brothers, uncles all inherit the political staff in proportion to the fraction of the original founder's genome they carry. Sunni Muslims too: Karame, Hariri, Salam, etc. Not quite to their credit, Lebanon's Shiites have opted out of the genetic conference (they once had illustrious tribal names like Assa'd, Husseini, Hamade, Osseiran etc.), and have joined an even more primitive conference, a religious one, after the Iranian Revolution of 1979. The Shiites now transfer power laterally from turbaned bearded clergyman to turbaned bearded clergyman.
It is worth noting that the Druze community, whose territory straddles the tri-border region between Lebanon, Israel and Syria, is itself like a collective chameleon (the herd factor), donning the political colors of the substrate on which they tread: They are fake Socialists in Lebanon, fake Zionists in Israel, and fake Baathists in Syria. Perhaps they take on these fake identities in order to survive, but it ain't decent. Again, the charming perfidy in bouffant pantaloons. And so it is no wonder that the Druze and the Jumblatts have no principles whatsoever in politics, only primitive survivalism.
Unfortunately for pro-Syrian, anti-Western, Christian Lebanese President Michel Aoun, he begot only three daughters. How sad for the macho patriarchal numskull. Since women in tribal societies are deemed inferior beings to their male siblings, Aoun's daughters (whose flagrantly French names Claudine, Chantal and Mireille do not jibe with the family's pro-Iranian, anti-Western politics) had to make do with a less satisfactory son-in-law, Gebran Bassil (whom I cajole as Zebran Basij), whose adherence to family tribalism rests entirely upon his continued consummation of marital obligations.
In the parliamentary elections of May 2022, there were hopes that the
October 2019 revolution and the economic collapse have awakened some
Lebanese to the putrid state of their tribal social-political structures,
and spawned genuinely progressive movements and groups.
Unfortunately, those groups never managed to convince the electorate in a significant way and coalesce into a
unified weighty political force that can effect change. Up to 12 MPS (of a total of 128) were elected from supposedly "reformist" ranks. Not enough to muster sufficient power.
For similar ideas on political and sectarian feudalism in Lebanon, see "https://newsroomnomad.com/2017/03/20/circle-life-lebanon-feudal-rule/"
Excerpt from Walid Jumblatt's 1984 interview with Playboy in which he gave "smart-ass" answers about American women:
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