If elections are held in Lebanon, a crisis of identity could burst into Lebanese political life, or what is left of it. However, even if those elections are not held, the outcome would likely not be very different. At least three political forces are facing this crisis: the Aounists, Harirists, and Berrists, or according to their party names: the Free Patriotic Movement, the Future Movement, and the Amal Movement.
These days, the members of these partisan environments, especially the first two, are likely pondering: who are we? It is also likely that they are doing so frequently, with a sense of urgency, and perhaps nervously.
For various reasons and until further notice, Hezbollah, the Lebanese Forces, and the Progressive Socialist Party will not face this kind of crisis. These three forces, to varying degrees, are firmly rooted in their doctrine. They have their challenges, but identity crises are not among them.
On the other hand, the first commonality between the Aounists, Harirists, and Berrists is that they are all products of political projects that have reached their maximum limits and ended up with less than minimal results: With the Aounists, their leader, the general, became president with a personal history of brimming with pain, exile and political bargaining, but also puffed-up promises. But at the end of the day, it came to be the most feeble and costly presidency in this country's modern history.
With the Harirists, a change of the scale of Rafic Hariri's assassination and the subsequent succession of his son Saad, who occupied the prime ministerial position on several occasions, ended up with a riddle: Will Saad run for elections or not? Will he continue to be a politician, or will he retire from politics? As for the Berrists, whose leader, Nabih Berri, succeeded in turning parliament into his fiefdom and consolidating his dominion over its speakership, they are looking for an heir while groaning under the weight of their inability to speak their mind and the difficulties making alliances and choosing enemies that are facing their movement.
Regardless of the individuals who have represented the three political projects and their weaknesses or shortcomings, it remains fitting to question the projects themselves and the role that the nature of these projects played in leaving them with such feeble representation.
Aounism shifted the Christian stance, or that of most Christians, on local, Arab, and international politics alike. Harirism did something similar to the Sunnis, or most of them. As for the Berrism, despite its alignments decided "in the final analysis," it remains indecisive: On the one hand, it inherited the many hesitations of its founder, Imam Musa al-Sadr. On the other hand, it has come to lose its confidence in the future, as its wait for the death of Hezbollah that never came has been long. Deadly despair is at its door.
Facing this Berrist indecisiveness that does not establish any dynamism or hold firmly decide on any direction, the superficiality of Aounist and Haririst shifts leave the former like a summer cloud and the latter an unfinished spring.
Aounism has not, at the core, adopted the idea of "resistance" and allying with the Assad regime and Khamenei's Iran, let alone the struggle against "imperialism and Zionism." As for the Sunni environment, which had rallied around Harirism and no longer saw in Nasser- or any other Nasser- its leader and in the Palestinian resistance- or any other resistance- its army, it continues to wonder what it has become, or the meaning of what it has come to be?
On the other hand, for well-established sectarian reasons, these two forces did not turn into representatives of a cross-sectarian bourgeoisie, nor was that prospect proposed in the first place. That also applies to Berrism, which now faces competition from Hezbollah over representing the Shiite bourgeoisie itself after the latter managed, more by crook than hook, to generate a new segment of that bourgeoisie and bring another to its side.
The most important point remains that when Aounism has no special relationship with "the West" and the head of its party is sanctioned by the US, it resembles Harirism when it has no special relationship ties it to "the Arabs." That is, the contemporary duo of Aoun and Hariri is the total opposite of that of Beshara El-Khoury and Riyad al-Solh, which has often been presented as requisite for Lebanese independence. As for Barrism, it has to ask for permission from its stronger sectarian sister before addressing any steely matters, domestic and foreign.
Indeed, the extraordinary challenge that Hezbollah has come to present to the Lebanese formula as a whole exacerbates these shortcomings and brings them to the fore: nothing is left to the Aounists but the crumbs of authority and Hezbollah could surprise them with a war that nibbles on those crumbs. As for the Harrists, who lost out to Hezbollah, their only option is to court it in the hope that it will grant them similar crumbs. Meanwhile, the Berrists are constantly threatened with losing their ability to maintain the share of the crumbs left to them.
It is no coincidence then that every conversation about Hariri boils down to speculation about his money and temperament and that talk about Gebran Basil swings from the prospect of his rise to the presidency to that of his failure to win his parliamentary seat in the next elections. As for Amal, the fate of the movement as a whole hangs in the balance, while an array of obscure and cloudy projections on who will succeed Berri are being floated.
What alternative political landscape could emerge? Answering this question now is difficult, but it is nonetheless a luring question for at least one reason: finding out who will face the scorn of the Lebanese in the future!
