BEIRUT // It has become a familiar scene in downtown Beirut: protesters battle police at barricades, chucking stones at riot officers and running from tear gas, water cannon, batons and – occasionally – rubber bullets.
Hundreds have been injured and dozens arrested since protests first broke out in July. Initially sparked by the government’s failure to solve a rubbish collection crisis, they have since evolved into a broader fight against a lack of basic public services, corruption and the sectarian nature of the Lebanese state.
But though the protests show no sign of stopping, and public anger continues to grow, the country’s sectarian political system – where major parties are largely led by former warlords and political allegiance is often determined by religion – may prove to be an impassable obstacle.
“The problem of the Lebanese state is that it does not provide its citizens with rights. In order for citizens to get anything – even basic services – they have to go to sectarian leaders,” said Lina Khatib, a senior research associate at the Paris-based Arab Reform Initiative.
She said this in turn “sustains the political power of those sectarian leaders and ensures that the political status quo is never really reformed”.
Lebanon remains a country where parties and leaders largely fight for benefits for their own sectarian groups – not the nation as a whole. And despite rhetoric about dialogue, coming together and building a strong nation, few sectarian political leaders – called the “zuama” in Arabic – are believed to really want change.
Sectarianism is so built into the fabric of Lebanon’s politics that by an unwritten 1943 pact, the country’s president will always be Christian, the prime minister Sunni and the speaker of parliament Shiite.
Analysts say the first step to creating a successful, nonsectarian civil society movement in Lebanon is to break the dependency of citizens on established political parties.
“Sectarian loyalty pretty much prevents the formation of a cohesive national movement from becoming widespread,” said Imad Salamey, a political science professor at the Lebanese American University in Beirut.
Ramez Dagher, a blogger on Lebanese politics, says the biggest challenge facing You Stink – the main group behind the latest protests – or any similar movement is “to convince the Lebanese that their interests as Lebanese citizens are more important than their interests as a political party [or as] sectarian supporters”.
But, Mr Dagher said, the government’s most recent failures have helped to break down people’s complacency about the intersection of the state and sectarian political parties.
“The government’s inactivity and severe lack of basic services – no water, no electricity, slow internet, horrible infrastructure and rubbish piling up in front of homes – is currently eroding an illusion that the system profits the people,” he said.
And the government, despite repeatedly saying that it will find a solution to the rubbish crisis – as well as address other concerns, such as police brutality and corruption – does not appear to be taking the protesters seriously in terms of taking concrete action, said Ms Khatib.
While the government has failed to find an alternative disposal site for rubbish after Lebanon’s largest landfill shut down on July 17, the ministers who protesters have called on to resign remain in office.
Ms Khatib said the government does see the protest movement as “an existential threat to the status quo”, but rather than responding with political reform, it was instead “reacting through cracking down”.
Another major obstacle facing the protesters is manpower: while many Lebanese are cheering the protests on from home, few are willing to go out on to the streets themselves.
“People watch TV and see tear gas, police brutality, protesters hosed down with water cannons, violence and oppression,” said Mr Dagher. “Independent moderate Lebanese have adapted to the humiliating circumstances they live in and aren’t ready to take the extra mile of participating in a protest and risk being targeted and bullied by the state or its bigoted partisans.”
On several occasions, men claiming to be supporters of Nabih Berri – Lebanon’s speaker of parliament and head of the Shiite Amal party – attacked protesters who held derogatory signs about the former warlord and shouted slogans against him.
But Faysal Itani, a resident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Centre for the Middle East, said citizens were not just fearful of violence, but also sceptical that they could make a difference.
“There are not really any means of securing your interests in Lebanon without the ‘regime’, that is, the sectarian client-patron systems,” he said. “Citizens know this, and while they don’t like the regime either, they simply don’t have any better, practical, implementable alternatives, so they are paralysed by their situation.”
Other Lebanese see the protesters as striking out at the wrong target, and attacking the only somewhat legitimate institutions in the country.
Many who are strongly opposed to sectarianism “are thirsty to have a functioning, centralised state authority and institutions that have power,” said Mr Salamey. “So that’s why when the protesters throw stones to confront police, many people come to resent this.”
However, “the difference between Lebanon and other countries [such as Tunisia, Egypt and Syria] when confronted by civil protest movements ... is that the political power is not centralised”, Mr Salamey added.
“Rather it is decentralised among various sectarian chiefs. And this makes the effort for protesters much more difficult: they have too many parties to fight instead of just one.”
foreign.desk@thenational.ae
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Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
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- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
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The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Lamsa
Founder: Badr Ward
Launched: 2014
Employees: 60
Based: Abu Dhabi
Sector: EdTech
Funding to date: $15 million
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At a glance
Global events: Much of the UK’s economic woes were blamed on “increased global uncertainty”, which can be interpreted as the economic impact of the Ukraine war and the uncertainty over Donald Trump’s tariffs.
Growth forecasts: Cut for 2025 from 2 per cent to 1 per cent. The OBR watchdog also estimated inflation will average 3.2 per cent this year
Welfare: Universal credit health element cut by 50 per cent and frozen for new claimants, building on cuts to the disability and incapacity bill set out earlier this month
Spending cuts: Overall day-to day-spending across government cut by £6.1bn in 2029-30
Tax evasion: Steps to crack down on tax evasion to raise “£6.5bn per year” for the public purse
Defence: New high-tech weaponry, upgrading HM Naval Base in Portsmouth
Housing: Housebuilding to reach its highest in 40 years, with planning reforms helping generate an extra £3.4bn for public finances
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
Number of staff: 22
Investment raised: $4 million
Skewed figures
In the village of Mevagissey in southwest England the housing stock has doubled in the last century while the number of residents is half the historic high. The village's Neighbourhood Development Plan states that 26% of homes are holiday retreats. Prices are high, averaging around £300,000, £50,000 more than the Cornish average of £250,000. The local average wage is £15,458.
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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MATCH INFO
Uefa Champions League semi-final, first leg
Bayern Munich v Real Madrid
When: April 25, 10.45pm kick-off (UAE)
Where: Allianz Arena, Munich
Live: BeIN Sports HD
Second leg: May 1, Santiago Bernabeu, Madrid
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Ms Yang's top tips for parents new to the UAE
- Join parent networks
- Look beyond school fees
- Keep an open mind
More Iraq election coverage:
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