What is Hizbullah?
Western and Israeli pundits keep comparing Hizbullah to al-Qaeda. It
is a huge conceptual error. There is a crucial difference between an
international terrorist network like al-Qaeda, which can be disrupted
by good old policing techniques (such as inserting an agent in the
Western Union office in Karachi), and a sub-nationalist movement.
Al-Qaeda is some 5,000 multinational volunteers organized in tiny cells.
Hizbullah is a mass expression of subnationalism that has the loyalty
of some 1.3 million highly connected and politically mobilized
peasants and slum dwellers. Over a relatively compact area.
I take sub-nationalism as a concept from Anthony D. Smith. It would be
most familiar to Western readers under the rubric of the Irish
Catholics of North Ireland, or even the Scots of the UK.
Subnationalism, like the larger, over-arching nationalism, is a mass
movement.
Thus, a very large number of the Pushtuns in Afghanistan are
sub-nationalists with a commitment to Pushtun dominance. They deeply
resent the victory of the Northern Alliance (i.e. Tajiks, Hazara
Shiites, and Uzbeks) in 2001-2002. A lot of what our press calls
resurgent "Taliban" activity is just Pushtun irredentism. There are
approximately 14 million Pushtuns in Afghanistan and another 14
million or so in Pakistan.
The Shiites of southern Lebanon are compact enough to likewise offer a
subnationalism. Note that this is a new phenomenon. The Shiite masses
were not socially and politically mobilized until at least the 1970s,
and probably it is more accurate to say the 1980s. ("Social
mobilization" refers to literacy, access to media, urbanization,
industrialization and so forth; isolated small villages have
difficulty organizing big movements.)
The main factor in causing these peasant sharecroppers to become
politically aware and mobilized was the Arab Israeli conflict. The
Israelis stole some of their land in 1948 and expelled 100,000
Palestinians north into south Lebanon, where they competed for
resources with local Lebanese Shiites. In the late 1960s and early
1970s the Palestinians became politically and militarily organized by
the PLO. The Shiites' conflict with the PLO in the southern camps in
the 1970s was probably a key beginning, but from 1982 it was primarily
their conflict with the Israeli Occupation army that spurred them on.
Processes of integration into the world market and increased
mechanization of south Lebanon agriculture, as well as urbanization
(Tyre, south Beirut) provided a *social* mobilization substrate that
enabled but did not cause their *political mobilization* (see A.
Richard Norton's book on early AMAL). The rise of a Shiite wealthy
class, especially as a result of commerce with the Oil Gulf, added to
the community's organizational capacity and resources. Still, the
Shiites of south Lebanon are generally poor and a lot of them are
still rural.
The Sunni Arabs of central, west and north Iraq are now also creating
a subnationalism and organizing extensive paramilitary cells with
highly significant asymmetrical warfare capabilities. The entire might
of the formidable US military machine has made no headway against
these 5 million persons.
Where subnationalisms are organized by party-militias willing to use
carbombings and other asymmetrical forms of warfare, they are
extremely difficult, if not impossible to defeat militarily. It would
take a World War II style crushing military defeat of these
populations, with the willingness of the conqueror to suffer tens of
thousands dead in troop casualties. Israel is not even in a position
to risk such a thing, given its small population.
Hizbullah is not like al-Qaeda in any way, sociologically speaking,
and making such an analogy is a sure way for a general or politician
to trick himself into entering the fires of hell.
What the Israelis set out to do, if they intended to "destroy" or even
substantially attrite Hizbullah, was completely impractical. What they
have done is to convince even Lebanese formerly on the fence about the
issue that Hizbullah's leaders were correct in predicting that Lebanon
would again be attacked in the most brutal and horrible way by the
Israelis and that an even more powerful deterrent is needed. I.e more
silkworms, not fewer. . The days when the Israelis could lord it over
disconnected unmobilized Arab peasant villagers with their high tech
army are coming to a close. The Arabs are still very weak, but are
throwing up powerful asymmetrical challenges (e.g. party-militias with
silkworm missiles!). Israeli alarm about the new connectedness of
their foe explains the orgy of destruction aimed at bridges, roads,
television and radio facilities and internet servers. But it is too
late to disconnect the south Lebanese, who can easily and quickly
rebuild all those connectors.
One hope the Israeli hawks appear to entertain is that they can
permanently depopulate strips Lebanon south of the Litani river. Since
most Shiites vote Hizbullah and offer political support and cover to
it, fewer people means fewer assets for the party-militia. This
project would require the total destruction of large numbers of
villages and the permanent displacement of their inhabitants north to
Beirut.
That is why the massacre at Qana occurred. The Israelis had bombed
Qana 80 times. They were destroying all of its buildings. Therefore,
of course, they destroyed the building where dozens of children and
families were hiding. This tactic is both collective punishment and
ethnic cleansing all at once. It is not only a matter, as the Israelis
claim, of hitting Hizbullah rocket launchers. They are destroying all
of the buildings.
The Israeli demographic project of thinning out the population of the
far south of Lebanon will fail. They do not control that territory,
and cannot stop people from coming back and rebuilding. The Israelis
have an Orientalist myth that the Arabs are Bedouin and not attached
to their ancestral villages. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
Palestinian refugees in Lebanon still around their camps in accordance
with the geography of their former villages. The Lebanese Shiites will
mostly come back.
The Israelis cannot win this struggle against a sophisticated, highly
organized and well armed subnationalism.
The only practical thing to do when you can't easily beat people into
submission is to find a compromise with them that both sides can live
with. It will be a hard lesson for both the Lebanese Shiites and the
Israelis. But they will learn it or will go on living with a lot of
death and destruction.
posted by Juan @ 7/31/2006 06:35:00 AM 1 comments
--
Jim Devine / "These capitalists generally act harmoniously and in
concert, to fleece the people." -- Abraham Lincoln
