To carry out the required missions against the occupation, the need was for a military organization that possessed solid structure, powerful weapons, capable security, and reliable protection for its members. The security apparatus in both cases was one of the basic components of the resistance, along with all the systematic encroachment on the role of the state and its military and security apparatuses. Naturally, such a new reality (de facto forces) had to clash with parties injured by the retreating role of the state and by the new revolutionary project. To consolidate positions and express loyalty to the sacrifices of martyrs, the resistance arms had to be united first. In other words, the resistance had to be turned into the sole speaker in the name of its public which in its majority belonged to the same sect, and transformed into a representative of the interests and aspirations of this public. From thereon, the aim of the resistance was to expand at the expense of the different apparatuses of the state while at the same time establishing social and economic infrastructures in the name of caring for its public and organizing domestic affairs in its areas (security squares) in a manner that excluded any role for the state.
The next step was to expand into the state and its institutions, at times in the name of the sectarian share, and under the pretext of the existence of conflicts with the interests of the resistance at other times. This was followed by the attempt to acquire national legitimacy that went beyond narrow communal demands in an effort to establish a new state. In the meantime, the role of the state and its institutions failed and the game of democracy, consensus, and bargains became acceptable and welcomed in as much as it was in line with the resistance project. Alternatively, this role was unacceptable, unequivocally rejected, and confronted by the force of arms as a conspiracy against the resistance and its sacrifices, and as service to the enemy when it contradicted the resistance project.
In other words, both projects started from the attempt to establish "a state within a state" that speaks in the name of its sectarian public, and once they reinforced the pillars of their "states" as de facto realities that the Lebanese state could neither contain or terminate, the next step was to move to the nationally "unifying state" established and led by the resistance.
Both Bashir Gemayel back then and Nasrallah at present elaborated in describing the characteristics of this unifying state that is strong and just but only as long as it rested on the legacy of the resistance. Both leaders were generous in offering assurances that this state would treat all Lebanese, regardless of their sectarian affiliation, equally in front of the law. The guarantee in all cases was the foundational nature of this state. Bashir Gemayel, for example, always asserted that Lebanon would be home to Christians but not a Christian nation. This meant that coexistence with other sects would be based on the dominance of the political colors of the Christians whom he believed he represented along with the representatives of other sects that belonged to the same political color. Likewise, Nasrallah highlights that the strong state is the state of his "resistance" and not a Shiite state. In other words, he has no intentions to transform the regime in Lebanon into an Islamic Republic similar to the Iranian model, but rather, he wants a state that is founded on political Shiism from which it derives its inspiration and whose grand political strategies it defends.
On top of all this, another commonality between the two projects is that at one time or another, they both attracted Michel Aoun, the indulging general who tolerates playing with the structure of the state and its institutions.
Bachir Gemayel was elected president as he took advantage of the military defeat of his opponents at the hands of the Israeli invasion and occupation. However, his project received a fatal blow when he was assassinated before he officially assumed office, and more than a decade had to pass before the domestic balances were overturned. It was during this period that Nasrallah's resistance which emerged as a result of this occupation obtained recognition and started a phase of domestic expansion all the way to military confrontation with its local opponents.
* Published in the London-based AL-HAYAT on May 14, 2008. |
