Hizb
Allah, Party Of God
By Nir Rosen
06 September, 2006
Truthdig.com
Over
1 million Lebanese gathered in a vast square in a southern Beirut suburb
on Sept. 22 to celebrate their country’s largely successful campaign
against Israel. Seyid Hassan Nasrallah, secretary-general of Hizballah,
risked his life by appearing in public after Israeli leaders had sworn
to kill him, and spoke to his adoring supporters in Lebanon and around
the world.
Many children were given
the day off from school, and buses ferried supporters from all over
Lebanon for the victory celebration. Lebanon had endured 33 days of
war, and not only was the Shia Hizballah movement undefeated, it had
achieved a near parity of casualties with the Israeli military—a
first in the history of Arab-Israeli wars. In an Arab world whose leaders
were dictatorial, mendacious and corrupt, who made false promises and
were beholden to the United States, Nasrallah was renowned for his integrity
and for maintaining his movement’s defense of Lebanon at all costs.
It had made him the most popular leader in the Arab world.
Women, children and men waved
the flags of Lebanon and Hizballah from outside the windows and sang
in jubilation as they waited in traffic. Also on display were the flags
of Palestine and Palestinian movements, Lebanese Christian movements,
the Communist Party, Sunni and Druze movements, as well as secular nationalists.
Although many of the celebrants were men with beards or women whose
hair was covered, many were not. There were youths in trendy attire,
girls in tight jeans with hair exposed and who had turned their Hizballah
T-shirts into stylish form-fitting fashion statements.
Stuck in the crowds with
my seven-months-pregnant American wife, we opted for a better view from
the balcony of an apartment building above the crowds. When the singing
of Hizballah songs and the Lebanese and Hizballah anthems had ended
and Nasrallah began his speech, the women on the balcony with us shrieked
as though at a rock concert and ran into the living room to confirm
on the television screen that it was indeed him. They waved their arms
and started to cry, and a frisson of emotion ran through the men in
the room.
Nasrallah not only spoke
to his natural constituents, the Lebanese Shia, but he also singled
out the inhabitants of Palestine, Syria, Iran, Kuwait and Bahrain. He
told his audience that they were sending a political and moral message
to the world that Lebanon’s resistance was stronger than ever.
Their victory was a victory for every oppressed, aggrieved and free
person in the world, he said, and an inspiration for all who rejected
subjugation or degradation by the United States. He mocked Arab leaders
for not using their oil resources as a strategic weapon, for prohibiting
demonstrations, for not supporting the Palestinians and for kowtowing
to Condoleezza Rice. He extended his people’s hearts, grief and
empathy for the Palestinians who were being bombed and killed daily,
and whose homes were being destroyed while the world, and in particular
the Arab world, was silent.
Surveying this massive crowd
of boisterous people—the men and women, the teenagers and the
small children, celebrating their identity and their steadfastness together
with music—I knew this was not the stuff of religious fundamentalism
or terrorism. I was struck by how the reality of Hizballah differed
from its distorted image in the West. For although Hizb Allah, the Party
of God, is undoubtedly of Shia origin, it is in fact a secular movement,
addressing real temporal issues, its leaders speaking in a nationalist
discourse, avoiding sectarianism and religious metaphors. They participate
in politics, compromising and negotiating, and do not seek to impose
Islamic law on others. Proof of this is readily available in Hizballah
strongholds, where many of their followers are secular, supporting Hizballah
because it represents their political interests and defends them.
Throughout the country, women
in chadors walk beside scantily clad beauties. Along Lebanon’s
highways, or what is left of them, billboards celebrating Hizballah’s
“divine victory” over Israel share advertising space with
posters depicting half-naked women wearing jeans or lingerie. Hizballah
may have preferences, but unlike the authoritarian leaders of the Taliban
or Saudi Arabia, it does not impose them.
Nor has the movement shown
a long-standing inability to reconcile with its enemies. Most strikingly,
in 2000, after Israel’s withdrawal from the Lebanese territory
it was occupying, the thousands of Shia and Christian collaborators
suddenly found themselves vulnerable to retribution and street justice
from understandably aggrieved Lebanese. On strict orders from Hizballah,
however, the vast majority were not touched. Rather they were handed
over to the Lebanese army, dealt with by the Lebanese government and
imprisoned and amnestied prematurely, in a move that offended many Lebanese.
Nevertheless, today they can be spotted in towns in the south; everyone
knows who they are, and they remain unharmed. Hardly the actions of
a violent fundamentalist terrorist organization.
And what was so unreasonable
about Hizballah’s demands? The movement insisted it wanted Lebanese
prisoners to be freed by Israel, all of Lebanon’s territory to
be evacuated by Israel, and for the Lebanese army, which had never defended
Lebanon, let alone its south, to come up with a national defense plan.
Thirty years of proven Israeli brutality and 60 years of Lebanese government
neglect of the south gave Hizballah a raison d’etre its leadership
insisted it did not want.
And unlike many of his counterparts in Iraq, Nasrallah is ingenuously
urging a course of national unity in Lebanon. During his Sept. 22 speech,
he went out of his way to use the rhetoric of Lebanese nationalism while
condemning sectarianism. In previous speeches Nasrallah had declared
that he was fighting for the umma, the world Muslim community, which
is vastly Sunni. He charmed the Lebanese in a recent television interview
when he looked his female interviewer in the eyes, allowed her to interrupt
him and smiled with her, practically flirting. His posters can be found
in Iraq, Palestine, Egypt; his name is spoken with pride in Saudi Arabia.
In Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, I recently saw shops named in
his honor, and heard a local cleric compare the conflict the cleric’s
Islamic court militias were facing with Ethiopia and U.S.-backed warlords
to Hizballah’s conflict with the American-supported Israelis.
The details of that conflict
are instructive, because in it I again saw the tragic error inherent
in the Bush administration’s policy of viewing the entire Muslim
world through the “war on terror” prism, rather than judging
each conflict on its own. In Somalia, it is widely believed that the
CIA is funding a slew of unpopular and criminal warlords against a popular
Islamic militia movement (which the CIA neither confirms nor denies,
of course). This suspected U.S. support comes despite the fact that
most analysts believe the militias are not harboring any significant
terrorists nor are they likely to set up a Taliban-style regime in the
country. As a result, the perception in Somalia is that the U.S. has
allied itself with warlords who are terrorizing the populace in an attempt
to stamp out a popular Islamic uprising.
It is this same distorting
war-on-terror prism that has led the Bush administration to view resistance
fighters in Iraq as mere terrorists—as opposed to elements of
a popular movement made up of Sunnis and Shias with real grievances
against an oppressive and increasingly onerous occupation. As a result,
the inhabitants of entire towns and provinces have been branded as terrorists
and “anti-Iraqi forces”—and treated as such. When
I was visiting Falluja in the spring of 2004 it was clear that the vast
majority of the defenders of that city were locals who believed they
were fighting in self-defense against a foe that sought to destroy their
city and oppress them. They were nationalists, fighting against foreign
occupation. Their city of 300,000 was virtually destroyed—turned
into the proverbial parking lot. Falluja became legendary in the Muslim
world for its resistance to occupation and for its martyrs—much
like the people of south Lebanese villages such as Aita al Shaab, who
boast of their willingness to die for their ideals and of their sumud,
or steadfastness.
During his Sept. 22 speech
Nasrallah paid tribute to their sumud, but he also spoke of national
unity, insisting that the resistance had prevented civil war from recurring
in Lebanon. He called for the Lebanese state to become strong, just,
capable and free of corruption. When the state became able to protect
Lebanon, the resistance would give up its weapons, he promised. Hizballah
was not a totalitarian movement, he insisted, and he was not a ruler—nor
would his sons be.
Support for Hizballah transcends
economic class divides and the divide between religious and secular
Shias. Hizballah is one of the few movements in Lebanon addressing substantive
issues that transcend sectarian identity—issues like corruption,
social justice, rejection of America’s new Middle East project,
resistance to Israeli occupation, and support for the oppressed Palestinians.
Hizballah now has strong
allies and supporters among most of Lebanon’s Christians (who
make up some 40% of the population); it also enjoys the support of most
of the 400,000 Palestinian refugees living in Lebanese camps. Indeed,
the war has only increased Hizballah’s supporters. I spoke to
Sheikh Maher Hamoud, a powerful Sunni leader in Sidon, who told me that
although he had objected to many of Hizballah’s positions before
the war, he had supported them during the war and had no disagreements
with them now. Hizballah’s victory was a victory for Lebanon,
Arabs and all Muslims, he said, adding that “our pride was restored.”
I spoke to Joseph Moukarzel, owner of the newspaper Addabour, and a
leading organizer of the March 14 movement that was Hizballah’s
main opponent in Lebanon. “I was for taking Hizballah’s
weapons before the war, and I still am,” he told me, “but
in the war I had two choices, to be with Hizballah or to be with Israel.
I chose Hizballah. Hizballah was David and Israel was Goliath.”
Followers of other Lebanese sects—Greek Orthodox, Maronite, Sunni,
Druze—merely follow their leaders because of their positions,
not because of their ideas. Hizballah is a people’s movement,
having emerged in 1982 as an inchoate umbrella group representing the
marginalized and oppressed and cultivating a culture of resistance to
oppression and injustice.
It was this culture of resistance
that led to Hizballah’s surprise victory in what is now being
called in Lebanon “the Sixth War” with Israel. (A note on
my usage of “surprise victory”: If war is politics by other
means, then Israel failed to achieve its stated political goals of disarming
Hizballah and pushing it north of the Litani River; so too did it fail
to achieve its unstated goals of cleansing the south of all Shias and
intimidating Lebanese and Palestinian resistance— two failures
that even Israel’s own generals are beginning to admit. Hizballah,
on the other hand, not only survived the war intact, and with relatively
few casualties, but it inflicted relatively heavy casualties on the
Israeli military and achieved greater popularity than it ever had—winning
the hearts of Muslims around the world, and many non-Muslims in Lebanon.)
On Sept. 17 I attended a
memorial service for some of Hizballah’s dead soldiers in the
small town of Aita al Shaab, a mere few hundred meters from the Israeli
border. Aita al Shaab has suffered numerous attacks from Israel since
1970, but in this last war 85% of the town was destroyed. Only 100 Hizballah
soldiers fought in Aita al Shaab, and 60 of them were local. The vast
majority were not professional soldiers. The nine local martyrs who
died in the 33 days of war were typical of Hizballah’s soldiers.
They were a high school history teacher, a high school principal, a
sweets shop owner, two high school graduates about to start university
for engineering, a university student home on summer break. They were
restaurant waiters, farmers, car mechanics, bakers. They had completed
Hizballah’s boot camp and training and returned to their normal
lives, occasionally going for refresher courses, much like our Army
reserves or National Guard.
The people of Aita al Shaab
blamed America as much as they did Israel for the war that had been
waged against them. In the memorial service Hizballah representative
Nawaf al Musawi spoke of “the American, British and Israeli war
against Lebanon.” Even little children were aware of Condoleezza
Rice’s comments about the birth pangs of the new Middle East,
and 7-year-old Sajah Bajouk mocked Rice and John Bolton, playing on
words and changing “the new Middle East,” or al sharq al
awsat al jadid, to “the new Dirty East,” or al sharq al
awsakh al jadid.
Most of Hizballah’s
soldiers in the most recent war were between 18 and 25 years old and
had never fought before. Somehow these 100 fighters in Aita al Shaab
held the town, never surrendering it to the Israeli military. Many of
the town’s old people stayed behind to cook and care for Hizballah’s
soldiers. Other people left their homes and shops open for them. The
town was Hizballah. And the entire town gathered on Sunday, Sept. 17,
to mourn its dead and celebrate its victory. Hundreds of black-clad
women made their way up a dirt road from the newly constructed martyr’s
cemetery where the nine Hizballah soldiers and the nine civilian war
dead had been buried. Many tearfully carried large framed pictures of
their lost men.
After the ceremony, thousands
of prepackaged meals of rice and meat were provided for the townspeople.
Aita al Shaab’s people reaffirmed their support for Hizballah
and resumed rebuilding their lives. As one hears so many times in Lebanon,
the entire south is Hizballah; and Israel knew this, hence its war was
against the people of the south. But they can’t all be terrorists,
can they? Israel claims it gave a 48-hour warning to civilians, ordering
them to leave the south or face death. Under international law, however,
civilians never lose their immunity, and, besides, it is well known
that in some instances Israel gave no warnings of its impending attacks
on civilian areas (in the Bekaa Valley, for example).
When climbing amid the ruined
schools, fuel stations, shops, homes, roads and bridges of southern
Lebanon or driving through village after village flattened and pulverized
by the terror that rained down, it is clear that the civilian population
was deliberately targeted. Over 1 million cluster bombs were dropped,
and 40% of them did not explode. They remain in the south, waiting for
children to play with them, for farmers to step on them, a gift that
keeps on giving. The agricultural fields on which the south depends
for its economy are destroyed. Then as now, Israel knows what it and
America continue to deny: Hizballah is the people, and hence the only
way to push Hizballah north of the Litani River as Israel stated it
wanted to do was to cleanse the south of Shias and make sure it was
too dangerous, and economically impossible, for them to return. But
the Shias of Lebanon pride themselves on their steadfastness, and their
culture of resistance to oppression. They cannot be so easily dislodged.
At fighting’s end, they returned and ensconced themselves in the
ruins, trusting Hizballah to provide and reward them for their loyalty.
The media has fast forgotten
Lebanon: Americans are distracted by what former Rep. Mark Foley wrote
to congressional pages; many Muslims worldwide are more concerned with
whether or not the pope insulted Islam than with who is actually killing
Muslims. As the 1 million Lebanese refugees who fled Israeli terror
return to sift through the rubble of their lives, they will be sidestepping
cluster bombs and trusting that Hizballah will house and shelter them
from the fast-approaching winter. As we Americans mourn our losses in
the Sept. 11 attacks and in the subsequent war on terror (which has
now cost more American lives than were lost in the attacks that provoked
it), it is worth wondering: What exactly is terrorism? And if it is
the infliction of violence on civilians for political reasons, then
who are the terrorists?
Nir Rosen is a fellow at
the New America Foundation and author of “In the Belly of the
Green Bird: The Triumph of the Martyrs in Iraq.” He is working
on a book about the battle of Aita al Shaab.
Copyright © 2006 Truthdig
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