2024-10-09 17:41:00
The genocidal attacks carried out by the State of Israel against the Lebanese people and the Hezbollah organization raise the need for a more in-depth analysis of this important organization.
By: Fabio Bosco
Hezbollah is today the main bourgeois party in Lebanon, with a vast social welfare network, a militia that constitutes the country’s main military force, larger than the national army itself, and solid relations with the Iranian regime.
Its origin dates back to 1982, in the midst of the civil war and the invasion of Lebanon by Israeli troops, from the confluence of the political awakening of the Lebanese Shiite community after the Naksa (1967). [derrota y segundo destierro palestino, ndt.] and the Iranian revolution of 1979.
Two other important historical events will shape Hezbollah’s profile: the neoliberal policies after the end of the Lebanese civil war (1975-1990) and the intervention in the Syrian revolution (2011-2016).
The Shiite awakening
Socially and politically marginalized since the country’s independence and the National Pact of 1943, the Shia community experienced a political awakening after the Naksa (the defeat of Arab countries against Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War). Pan-Arabist (Nasserism, Baathism), Marxist (PCL and other organizations) and Palestinian organizations have acquired great influence among the poorest sectors of the Shiite community in southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley, to the detriment of traditional landowners (. za ‘im), Kamil As’ad is the most famous of them.
To counter the growing influence of pan-Arabism and socialism, the Lebanese bourgeoisie, through the state, encourages the political and religious leader Musa al-Sadr, who, together with the speaker of parliament Hussein al-Husseini, founded the movement of the dispossessed (mahrumim in Arabic) and their armed wing, AMAL. His political appeal was aimed at the poorest sectors of the Shia community, combining religion, social justice and anti-communism.
After the “disappearance” of Musa al-Sadr in Libya in 1978 (attributed to the dictator Muammar Gaddafi), the movement became politically and financially linked to the Syrian regime, then the occupying power of Lebanon since 1976.
In 1982, the winds of the Iranian revolution caused the breakup of AMAL, forming the Party of God – Hezbollah. His political speech is also aimed at the poorest Shiite strata, and his popularity grows thanks to his vast social assistance network and military actions against the American and French troops who had to leave the country in 1983, and to actions against the Israeli army. employment.
At this historical moment, communist organizations led the Lebanese resistance which succeeded in expelling Israeli troops from the capital and, thus, expanding their influence among the Lebanese people, particularly among Shia workers and peasants.
Hezbollah’s first program
The “Open Letter to the oppressed of Lebanon and the whole world” (mustazafin in Arabic) of 16 February 1985 presented a strongly anti-imperialist, anti-Zionist position against the Lebanese far right represented by the Phalange. The Charter established as a strategy the expulsion of the United States, France and Israel from Lebanese lands and the submission of the Lebanese Phalangists to justice.
Furthermore, they declared as allies all the oppressed of the world, organizations and individuals fighting the same enemies, and had no objective of attacking Hezbollah. They also announced to the poor Muslims and Christians of Lebanon that, although they support an Islamic system of government, Hezbollah accepts the sovereign and democratic decision of the Lebanese people on the system of government.
The declaration of friendship with other anti-imperialist organizations would not last long. Starting in 1987, Hezbollah began to contest its hegemony over the Shiite community by all means, to the detriment of the communists and AMAL. During this period, Lebanon’s leading Marxist intellectual, Mahdi Amel, was assassinated. Ultimately, communist organizations are persecuted and marginalized. This anti-communist offensive was also carried out by the Iranian regime to eradicate the influence of various socialist organizations in the Iranian revolution, such as the Communist Party, People’s Fedayeen, People’s Mujahideen and Kurdish groups. In 1989, Ayatollah Khomeini ordered the summary trial and execution of approximately three thousand imprisoned communists. The weakened AMAL is preserved on the basis of an agreement between the Iranian regime and the Syrian regime.
On the other hand, Hezbollah has maintained its commitment not to impose an Islamic system of government against popular will, adhering fully to the sectarian regime and seeking, as described above, broad hegemony among the Shiites and an alliance with the confessional and Christians, Sunnis and Druze.
The end of the civil war and the neoliberal reconstruction of the country
The Taif Agreement of 1989 sealed an agreement among the majority of the Lebanese elite to end the civil war. He divided powers equally between Christian and Muslim political forces in parliament and transferred powers from the presidency to the prime minister’s cabinet. The Sunni and Shiite bourgeoisies especially benefited from this redistribution of power.
The reconstruction of the country, devastated by 15 years of civil war, was based on neoliberal policies, such as the attraction of foreign capital, real estate speculation, privatizations and the free market, which increased inequality and social exclusion.
At that time, Hezbollah, already the main Shia political party, broadened its social base towards the Shia bourgeoisie (mainly the merchant bourgeoisie with commercial activities in Africa) and the Shia middle sectors that began to form from greater participation in government enterprises and funds for reconstruction.
Since then, funding sources have diversified. In addition to the Iranian regime, Hezbollah is financed by the Shiite bourgeoisie and middle sectors, as well as by enterprises created by the party itself in various sectors such as supermarkets, shops, petrol stations, restaurants, travel agencies and construction companies.
A profound change is slowly taking shape in the social base and composition of Hezbollah’s leadership, initially based on the poorest layers of the Shiite community and led by Shiite clerics, towards the Shiite bourgeoisie, and with a growing presence of new cadres trained in universities the country’s elite. At the same time, southern Lebanon no longer has the highest poverty rates, being replaced by the north of the country, around Tripoli and Akkar, where the largest community is Sunni. In Dahye, impoverished Shiite sectors coexist with a wealthy Shiite middle class and their luxury cars.
The orientation towards the interests of the Shiite bourgeoisie is visible in Hezbollah’s intervention in the trade union movement. The CGTL played an important role before the Civil War in overcoming religious divisions and uniting workers around their class interests. Hezbollah opposed this class orientation and formed trade unions and sectarian associations, seeking to divide the working class and subordinate the interests of Shiite workers to those of the Shiite bourgeoisie.
His military support for the Syrian dictatorship and the fall of popular support
In March 2011, the Syrian working class rose up against the dictatorship of the Assad dynasty, as part of the wave of revolutions that swept Arab countries. The force of the revolution destroyed the dictatorship’s support base and divided the armed forces. To avoid its fall, the Syrian regime turned to support militias politically linked to the Iranian regime, including Hezbollah.
These militias have participated in several massacres against the Syrian population. Hezbollah, previously admired for its fight against Israel, began to be repudiated by the Syrian population. Widespread questions began in Lebanon about the participation of Hezbollah militias in Syria, after all, the maintenance of the party’s militias has always been justified by the fight against the State of Israel, and not by the killing of their Arab brothers and sisters. More intense was the disappointment of the families of the thousands of Hezbollah fighters killed in Syria.
The enormous political discredit resulting from the intervention in Syria represented a qualitative leap compared to previous events such as the 2005 Lebanese uprising against the presence of Syrian troops in the country, which Hezbollah opposed. The attrition of 2005 was partially offset by Israel’s 2006 invasion, after which Hezbollah regained widespread popular support.
Hezbollah subsequently acted against the so-called “October Revolution” of 2019, a popular uprising against deteriorating living conditions and the Lebanese sectarian regime. His role in suppressing the uprising consolidated his discredit among the general population, while maintaining the support of the majority of the Shiite community, one of the largest in the country (between 31% and 39% of Lebanese residents in the country are Shiites).
Neither terrorist nor revolutionary
Hezbollah is not a terrorist organization, as Israel and Western imperialism claim. Nor is it a revolutionary organization. It is a bourgeois political party deeply rooted in the Lebanese confessional regime and the main representative of the Shiite community, among which it has practically built a Shiite substate within the Lebanese state.
It is not correct to say that Hezbollah is just an Iranian arm in Lebanon. It is a Lebanese political party linked to the interests of the Lebanese Shiite bourgeoisie and also a great ally of the Iranian regime.
The Lebanese working class has many challenges to face nationally, regionally and internationally. The fight against neoliberal policies that have led to the impoverishment of the working class and the fight for the end of the Lebanese sectarian regime are strategic and will confront the interests of Hezbollah and all other bourgeois political parties in Lebanon.
In the region, the challenge of the Lebanese working class is to unite with the Palestinian, Syrian and all Arab working classes against the State of Israel and against the Arab regimes. In the fight against Israel, the working class must form unity of action with all the forces that are part of the anti-Zionist struggle, including Hezbollah, while always maintaining its own independent organization. In the fight against the Arab regimes, the working class will not find allies among the bourgeois parties.
On an international scale, the working class will have to fight against imperialist domination, both by Western imperialism (United States, Europe) and by the new Russian and Chinese imperialisms.
On the path of the struggle for the end of imperialist domination and for the liberation of Palestine, the working class must organize itself independently of all bourgeois parties, including Hezbollah, to fight for the power of the working class in each country, towards a socialist federation of countries Arabs.
Translation: Natalia Estrada.
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