Most political family farms in Lebanon have been around for generations.
Some go back to medieval times, like the Jumblatts, whose practices remain truly medieval and feudal. You go to visit the "castle" in Moukhtara and, were it not for some suits and modern attire, you'd think yourself in the 1500s.
The Lord of the Castle stands behind a large desk in a grand square inside the castle, surrounded by two rows of chairs arranged in a circle around the desk. Guards in civilian dress are everywhere, and some of the Lord's representatives in parliament are also around. Some people are dressed in today's attire, but many still wear the traditional Druze garb: bouffant pantaloons, white shirt, a skullcap, and long long white beards.
Then, upon receiving a cue from the guards who control the flux of "petitioners", one of the latter who are sitting in the circular court get up and move toward the Lord, present him with papers and their case. He, without any emotion, hands over the papers to a scribe/secretary sitting at the desk or to the men, listens to their entreaties, utters a couple of words and dismisses them politely. Then it's the next petitioner, and so on. I do not know what these petitions are about, but they can be about a dispute over land or water, a plea to find employment for a junior member of a family, a request to have a dirt road paved or some other request for help against the Ottoman-vintage bureaucracy in decrepit Lebanon. The institutions of the state (municipality, police, etc.) are for show only: the Lord makes all the decisions and they execute.
Some may find this process romantic or traditional, but it supplants what a modern bureaucracy should be about: equal access, services, institutional independence without the intercession of tribal lords, no begging at the feet of a Lord for crumbs, etc. Yet, this is the daily routine of one Taymour Jumblatt, the 41-year old heir to the Jumblatt dynasty to whom the Druze tribe recently "pledged allegiance" in the Shouf Mountains during a ceremony in which his father, Walid Jumblatt, a warlord during the 1970s-1990s, handed over the reins of power to his son. It is common knowledge that Taymour, when attending American University of Beirut and the Sorbonne in Paris, repeatedly expressed his dislike of the feudal system and his desire not to follow in the political footsteps of his father, grandfather, great grandfather etc.
Yet, here he is, his personal wishes and desires notwithstanding, a tribal feudal Lord ruling over a herd of Shouf Mountains peasants. If one looks at pictures of grandfather Kamal, father Walid and son Taymour, one notices that they rarely smile. They have a terse and resigned look in their faces, which makes me think that they all are unhappy with the role they're made to play. As a ruling lordly family, they are all generally well educated, which explains the tension they live with between what the individual ideas that education grants on one hand, and the tribal duties they have to endure on the other hand. Their women are also very modern and educated but rarely play a political role. They are seen at social, charity, art promotion and similar events mingling with the beautiful people of the Lebanese tribal and sectarian elites.
The Shouf Mountains southeast of Beirut have a mixed Christian and Druze population, oftentimes within the same village. In January of 1976, the Druze of the Shouf looked with indifference as the islolated Christians of the coastal town of Damour were massacred by the Palestinian and Syrians. Then the Druze themselves carried out a campaign of massacres and ethnic cleansing carried against their fellow Christian villagers during the 1980s. In spite of two "reconciliations", one in 2000 and another one last week, under the aegis of the religious dinosaurs of both sides, many Christians refuse to return to their homes and villages in the Shouf out of fear of future massacres by the Druze.
There are, of course, many other similar political family farms in Lebanon, and one would have to write an encyclopedia to describe all of them. This pattern of tribal feudal governance is engrained in the Lebanese DNA, regardless of faith, sect or political ideology. The latter, in fact, is used as a camouflage to cover the shame of the tribal structure. For instance, the Jumblatt's political party is known as the "Progressive Socialist Party". Now, there is nothing "progressive" about being a feudal lord of medieval vintage. Second, there is nothing "socialist" about the Jumblatts whose political performance does not seem to be couched in socialism. Economically, the Jumblatts have amassed millions of dollars in many commercial and business ventures and, to the extent that they publicize or promote their ideals, I personally have never heard them talk about workers' rights for example. In fact, on our trip to Moukhtara, our host pointed to a huge hulk of an unfinished cement building next to a roundabout and said that the deal between Walid Jumblatt and the owner of the project (some large department store) fell through because Jumblatt demanded an extravagant payola to allow the project, which the project owner rejected, leading to a stop in the construction. That is the kind of progressive socialism that the Jumblatts hide behind.
Fast forward into modern times. One army general by the name of Michel Aoun, who is of modest non-feudal background from the destitute southern suburbs of Beirut, had a huge run-in with the political class during the late 1980s. Without going into the details, his venture into the political world was met with lots of condescending derision by the political class that had allied itself with the Saudis, the Syrians and the Americans: who is this plebeian dwarf pretending to be a prime minister? he is a mad man for daring to hinder our collusion with the Saudis who pay us good money to serve their interests, or with the Syrians whose occupation army protects our interests, against payments of course, and the world rulers the Americans whose proclaimed "value-driven" politics is anything but.
After 15 years of exile, Aoun returned to Lebanon after the Syrian army was washed off Lebanese soil with sewer-water and lots of four-letter words. He had opposed the Syrian occupation during his long exile, so his opportune return was laden with promises of better future, more transparent governance, fighting corruption, etc. If you read all of Aoun's writings (pamphlets, testimonials in foreign parliaments, weekly "Lebanese Bulletin" issues, etc.), you'd think you're reading the words of a prophet whose wisdom will take Lebanon forward into the modern world. But something happened. And that something is based on another thing that didn't happen when Aoun had children: He did not have a son, which is a political death sentence in Lebanon. No son means no perennial family farm in the future. However, Aoun had three daughters, whose French names testify to the Lebanese lack of identity and to their monkey-imitation of the dominant culture of their time. In this case, Aoun (born 1935) named his three daughters at a time when traces of the French mandate were still present: Claudine, Chantal and Mireille. Nowadays, people would be ashamed to use these names on their children. The "trend" as it were is for American movie-inspired names like Kevin, Rebecca, Steve, Angelina, Miley, etc. You get the idea.
Anyway, the key to a male-dominated culture is to have a male son, or short of one, to marry your daughters to "real" men who could substitute for your unborn son. That is exactly what Michel Aoun did. He married his daughters to promising men. He gave Chantal away to a man of short stature (like Aoun in fact) but of gargantuan political ambition by the name of Gebran Bassil, an engineer by training. His other two daughters also married "important" men, one a former army commando whose physical stature doesn't match his intellect, and the other the current CEO of Aoun's family television station OTV.
Having made a 180 degree turn in his politics since returning to Lebanon, Aoun allied himself with the Iranian terror organization Hezbollah and his former enemy Syria. Then, after two years of obstruction of Lebanese Parliament by Hezbollah, parliament was forced to elect Aoun to the presidency. Now, everything was in place to start a dynasty, a political family farm. Despite his modest social background, Aoun managed to graduate himself and his family to the club of tribal, feudal, elitist families who run the politics of the country. His daughters became advisors, other sons-in-law became MPs.
Despite declarations that he and his party will be the first "really" democractic party in Lebanon, the structure and inner workings of the Aoun party (Free Patriotic Movement, FPM) have slowly become just like any of the other family political parties. With Aoun old and senile, Gebran Bassil, the son-in-law, hijacked the leadership of the party, having banned anyone else among his party's very capable cadres from running against him. For three terms in a row, Bassil has run uncontested and is essentially bestowed the party's presidency. To preserve a fake image of "democracy", the party goes through marketing acrobatics, with polls of the membership and fake primary elections etc. Even though his performance has been abysmal at best, switching alliances, never committing to a single path, meandering through shady deals, contradicting himself between a declared secularism and a vow to protect Lebanon's Christians against its enemies, real and theoretical, Bassil remains in command of a fast degrading party. Much of its Christian base has switched to its Christian rival, the Lebanese Forces Party, primarily on account of Bassil's close alliance with the Hezbollah terror organization that continues to harass and murder critics, especially Christians, as it has done since the 1980s. In fact, the FPM lost several seats in the latest parliamentary elections (May 2022), and it is only thanks to Bassil's alliances with terror Hezbollah and corrupt Amal (the two leading Shiite parties allied with Iran and Syria, respectively) that he managed to hold on to some seats in parliament. Whereas in 2016, Bassil and Hezbollah obstructed the elections of a president for 2,5 years and succeeded in bringing Bassil's father-in-law, Michel Aoun, to the presidency, they are now still able to obstruct elections but have been unable to impose their puppet candidate.
What a wasted opportunity for Lebanon's Christians to distinguish themselves from the other feudal tribal communities of this miserable country: The FPM represented as much the Christians of the interior as those of the diaspora whose ideas are more progressive. Having promised us a truly modern non-sectarian political party, the FPM is now just another political family farm.
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