Lebanese Seek To Map a Future Mired in Past

[rodeodance]

very interesting read.




http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/28/AR2005052801170.html

Lebanese Seek To Map a Future Mired in Past
Sectarian Differences Begin to Surface Again


By Anthony Shadid
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, May 29, 2005; A01



BEIRUT, May 28 -- It was a little after 9 a.m. Saturday when Walid Jumblatt awoke to the gaggle already gathered at his idyllic mountain redoubt of Mokhtara. There were supplicants and well-wishers, admirers and job seekers. As he passed, in his trademark jeans, they hushed. As he took his seat in a stone-walled salon, they lined up for an audience.............



It's politics as usual in Lebanon, more than two months after hundreds of thousands of flag-waving Lebanese poured into downtown Beirut this spring, furious over the assassination Feb. 14 of the former Lebanese prime minister, Rafiq Hariri, which they blamed on Syria. In what they proclaimed the Cedar Revolution, they demanded the end of a generation of Syrian dominance over their tiny, mountainous country. The Syrians have since left, but Lebanon is perhaps most remarkable for how little else has changed.

In past weeks, Jumblatt and other sheiks, power brokers, tycoons and their sons have struck backroom deals in the best Levantine tradition, ensuring victory in all but a handful of seats in parliamentary elections that begin Sunday. The fragile coalition that helped drive out Syria has split along ingrained religious fault lines, dominated by many of the same figures who fought in the civil war.

In language redolent of a decade ago, Hezbollah, in a rally of tens of thousands of its Shiite Muslim followers this past week, vowed never to disarm and never to end its struggle against Israel. The haggling along sectarian lines has unleashed disenchantment, especially among the hopeful youth who drove the protests in Beirut's Martyrs' Square.