Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna in cotutela con Università Paris I Panthéon ...

313 Pages·2015·2.03 MB·English

Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna
in cotutela con Università Paris I Panthéon Sorbonne
DOTTORATO DI RICERCA IN
Storia
Ciclo XXVII
Settore Concorsuale di afferenza: 14 - B2

Settore Scientifico disciplinare: SPS-14
The Making of a Shiite Bourgeoisie in Lebanon
Political Mobilisation, Economic Resources and Formation of a Social Group
L'invention d'une bourgeoisie chiite au Liban. Mobilisations politiques, ressources
économiques et formation d'un groupe social
Presentata da: Omar Bortolazzi
Coordinatore Dottorato Relatore
Prof. Massimo Montanari Prof. Gilles Dorronsoro

Relatore
Prof. Giuliana Gemelli

Esame finale anno 2015
Acknowledgments
This work would not have been possible without the support and contribution of many
people to whom I am deeply grateful.
Prof. Gilles Dorronsoro for the enduring patience, the support, and the precious
collaboration.
The Department of Political and Social Sciences at the Lebanese American University
in Beirut: Paul Tabar, Bassel Salloukh, Hasan Hammoud and Imad Salame.
Fawaz Traboulsi, Samir Seikali, Sari Hanafi and Samir Khalaf at the American
University in Beirut.
Special thanks to Michael Young and Lokman Slim for the friendship and never-ending
help.
Thanks to: Waddah Charara, Talal Atrisi, Boutros Labaki, Kamal Hamdan, George
Corm, Nicholas Blandford, Najat Charafeddine, Rima Majid, Riad al-Asad, Cynthia
Kreichati, Raed Charafeddine, Mohammad H. Nasrallah and Ali Fayyad.
Thanks to Mazen Ghandour, Ahmad D. and Hasan D.
To Prof. Giuliana Gemelli without whom…
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Methods, Methodology and Epistemology
A Methodological Trajectory
Entry point and Research Questions
Theoretical Framework
Historiography and Marginality
Resistance over Hegemony: A Struggle for Dominance
Class Formation
The Middle Class in the Arab World
Why Class? Theoretical Approaches
How to Define Class. Marx, Weber and Bourdieu
How to Characterise the Contemporary Class Structure
The Relationships Between Class Structure and Group Identity, Conscience and
Political Agency
Why Class
Social Class, Sectarianism and Political Culture in Lebanon. Claude Dubar and Mahdi
Amel
The Formation of a Social Movement: Theoretical Approaches
From Resource Management Theory to the Reshuffling of Capitals (Religious Capital,
Symbolic Capital, Political Capital, Social Capital, Economic Capital)
Lebanese Shi‘a as a Social Embedding Insurgency?
Introduction
The Lebanese Shi‘a: Historical Background
A Social Group in Motion: From Feudal order to the Rise of New
Forces
The Composition of Society
The Process of Demographic and Social Change within the Shiite Community
The Great Exodus to Beirut
From the Villages to the Capital: The Internal Migration
Exogenous factors to Shi‘a Economic Development
The Fouad Chehab Era
Public Education and Social Mobility
The Diaspora
The African Diaspora and the Making of an Upwardly Mobile Shiite Community
The Political Impact of Diaspora in the Lebanese State Structure
A New Shi‘a Intelligentsia
The Charismatic Leader: Musa al Sadr, Mobilisation of the Masses
and the Reconfiguration of Society
Musa al-Sadr and the harakat al-mahroumeen
Invading the State and Replacing it - To What Extent?
Creating the Space for a New Patron: The Crumbling of the Traditional Shiite Families
Notables, Upper Class, Middle Class and Lower Classes in Lebanon until 1975
The War Economy and the Social Reconfiguration of Lebanese Society
Cantons, Ports, and Thin Boundaries
From Clientelism to Economic and Sectarian Mafism
Pillaging
Drug Traffic
‘Controlled’ Ports
New Business Enterprises and Social Mobility
A New Wave of International Migration
The Transformation of the ‘Hierarchy of Poverty’ in Lebanon
Amal, Hezbollah and the Making of Ethnic Entrepreneurship
Nabih Berri: The Diaspora Entrepreneur par excellence
The Berri Leadership
The New Patron: The Party of God
Starting from Below: Creating Opportunities for the Popular Shiite Strata and Shaping
Loyal Citizens
When Charity Becomes Entrepreneurship: From Social Capital to Economic Capital
Amal’s Beehive: Amal’s Social Institutions
The Making of Ethnic Entrepreneurs in State Institutions: Amal Education Centres
Nabih Berri and his Network of Power
Shi‘a Presence in Postwar Lebanon’s Business Associations
The Beirut Traders Association (Jam‘iyyat Tujar Beirut)
From Liberalism to Neoliberalism
The Postwar Troika of Clientelism and Corruption
The Prime Minister Locus of Power: Rafiq Hariri
The Speaker of the Parliament Locus of Power: Nabih Berri
The Octopus of Money and Power
A New Ruling Entrepreneurial Elite?
A New Wave of Migrants (1990s -): The “Brain Drain”
Entrepreneurs for the Reconstruction. A Triangular Game: Depending
Citizens, Political Forces and Predatory Businessmen
Amal and the Elyssar Project: Negotiating and Opposing the State
Hezbollah and The Waad Project: Dominating and Replacing the State
‘Tainted’ Remittances, 'Tainted Businesses’: Hezbollah’s ‘Fundraising’
Activities
Diaspora Remittances: Ideology and Realpolitik
Business and Logistics Between Lebanon and Africa: The Tajeddine Brothers
“It’s no secret”
Hezbollah Business Activities: The Latin America Connections and Beyond (The Tri-
Border Area; Hezbollah in Paraguay; Hezbollah in Ecuador)
Salah Ezzeddine: The Shiite Bernie Madoff
The Changing Face of the Lebanese Bourgeoisie
The embourgeoisement of Dahiyeh: From Shiite Banlieue to a Middle-Class Quarter
A Non-Homogenous Community. Metrics and Indicators
Not Just one Shiite Bourgeoisie
The Middle Class
The Large-Scale Entrepreneurs
The Outsiders
Conclusions
Bibliography
Abstract
The thesis analyses the making of the Shiite middle- and upper/entrepreneurial-class in
Lebanon from the 1960s till the present day. The trajectory explores the historical,
political and social (internal and external) factors that brought a sub-proletariat to
mobilise and become an entrepreneurial bourgeoisie in the span of less than three
generations. The Lebanese Shi‘a are the first community to have achieved significant
political and economic power as a group in the modern Arab world. They are the only
Arab Shi‘a who were able to pull themselves out of oppression, isolation and
marginalisation to achieve major political power and economic independence with the
political order of Lebanon’s state and society respectively. The Shi‘a over a 30-year
period have become quite simply the most powerful political force in today’s Lebanon
and the single largest community in the country, with a noteworthy contrast with other
Shi‘a communities in the region.
This work proposes the main theoretical hypothesis to unpack and reveal the trajectory
of a very recent social class that through education, diaspora, political and social
mobilisation evolved in a few years into a very peculiar bourgeoisie: whereas Christian-
Maronite middle class practically produced political formations and benefited from
them and from Maronite’s state supremacy (National Pact, 1943) reinforcing the
community’s status quo, Shiites built their own bourgeoisie from within, and mobilised
their “cadres” (Boltanski) not just to benefit from their renovated presence at the state
level, but to oppose to it. The general Social Movement Theory (SMT), as well as a vast
amount of the literature on (middle) class formation are therefore largely contradicted,
opening up new territories for discussion on how to build a bourgeoisie without the
state’s support (Social Mobilisation Theory, Resource Mobilisation Theory) and if,
eventually, the middle class always produces democratic movements (the emergence of
a social group out of backwardness and isolation into near dominance of a political
order).
The middle/upper class described here is at once an economic class related to the
control of multiple forms of capital, and produced by local, national, and transnational
networks related to flows of services, money, and education, and a culturally
constructed social location and identity structured by economic as well as other forms of
capital in relation to other groups in Lebanon. What is the social, political and spatial
status of this ‘new’ (entrepreneurial) bourgeoisie? How does kinship, class affiliation,
ethnicity and identity influence the transformation of capitals? (‘the sect as a class’).
Résumé
Ce travail analyse la création et le développement de la bourgeoisie et de la classe
entrepreneuriale chiite au Liban dans les années 1960 jusqu'à nos jours. La trajectoire
explore les facteurs historiques, politiques et sociaux (internes et externes) qui ont
contribué à la mobilisation de un sous-prolétariat et à devenir une bourgeoise
d'entreprise en moins de trois générations. Les chiites libanais représentent la première
communauté à avoir obtenu un pouvoir politique et économique significatif dans le
monde arabe moderne.
Seulement le chiites arabes qui ont réussi à sortir de l'oppression, de l'isolement et de la
marginalisation pour atteindre une grande puissance politique et l'indépendance
économique avec l'ordre politique de l'état et de la société du Liban. Les chiites, dans
une période de 30 ans, sont devenus tout simplement la force politique puissante au
Liban d'aujourd'hui et la plus grande communauté dans le pays, avec un contraste
remarquable avec les autres communautés chiites de la région.
La thèse propose les principales hypothèses théoriques pour révéler la trajectoire d'une
classe sociale très récente que grâce à le rôle joué par l'éducation, la diaspora, la
mobilisation politique et sociale a évolué en quelques années dans une bourgeoisie très
particulière: alors que la classe moyenne chrétienne-maronite avait pratiquement produit
des formations politiques et avait bénéficié de ces formations et de l'état de la
suprématie maronite (Pacte National, 1943) pour renforcer le statu quo de la
communauté, les chiites ont construit leur propre bourgeoisie, et ont mobilisé leurs
"cadres" (Boltanski) non seulement pour bénéficier de leur présence rénové au niveau
de l'Etat, mais en même temps à le opposer. La Théorie générale du Mouvement Social
(Social Movement Theory), ainsi que une certaine quantité de littérature sur la
formation de classes sont donc largement contredites, donnent lieu à l'ouverture de
nouveaux territoires pour la discussion sur la modalité de construire une bourgeoisie
sans le soutien de l'Etat (Théorie de mobilisation sociale, Théorie de Mobilisation des
ressources) et si, finalement, la classe moyenne produit toujours des mouvements
démocratiques (Hezbollah).
La bourgeoisie décrit ci-dessus est une classe économique liée à la maîtrise des
multiples formes de capital, et produite par des réseaux locaux, nationaux et
transnationaux liés aux flux de services, de l'argent et de l'éducation Quel est le statut
social, politique et spatiale de cette «nouvelle» bourgeoisie? Comment l'appartenance de
classe, l'ethnicité et l'identité influencent la transformation des capitales? (‘La secte
comme une classe ‘).
A NOTE ON LANGUAGE AND TRANSLITERATION
I have adopted a simplified transliteration of the Arabic language. For most Arabic
terms that are not frequently used in everyday English writing I have transliterated the
letter ‘ayn with [‘]; the letter hamza is designated by [’]: Shi‘a; ‘Amil; Ta’if, zu‘ama,
etc. I omit diacritics.
For those Arabic terms, names, and expressions that appear frequently in English-
language academic literature and texts I use the most simplified transliteration:
mahroumeen, Beqaa, etc. Also in this case, I omit diacritics.
When quoting an outside source, I quote Arabic terms as they appear in the source.
A NOTE ON BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES AND EXPLANATORY NOTES
Bibliographical references and explanatory notes both appear in the footnotes at the
bottom of the page.
A NOTE ON INTERVIEWS
To ensure the privacy of all interviewees, I referenced the source with a general
‘Interview with the author’, except for those cases that allowed me to mention the
source. All interviewees that shared sensitive information were kept strictly anonymous.
Methods, Methodology and Epistemology
In the social sciences, qualitative research is hard to do well. Quantitative research is also hard to do
well. Each tradition can and should learn from the other. One version of conventional wisdom holds that
achieving analytic rigor is more difficult in qualitative than in quantitative research. Yet in quantitative
research, making valid inferences about complex political processes on the basis of observational data is
likewise extremely difficult. There are no quick and easy recipes for either qualitative or quantitative
analysis. In the face of these shared challenges, the two traditions have developed distinctive and
complementary tools (emphasis in original).1
This research builds upon a methodological and theoretical pluralist approach and a
multidisciplinary nature, combining a broad array of approaches, from explanatory
theories and narratives to focused-comparison case studies, for investigating plausible
hypothesis and explanatory hypothesis (the intermediate hypothesis that constitute a
theory’s explanation). The focus is mainly on qualitative approach, rather than
quantitative/statistical, keeping a middling view of the relationship between quantitative
and qualitative methods. Developed most coherently in a volume edited by Brady and
Collier (2004), this ‘dualist’ approach promotes the co-existence of quantitative and
qualitative traditions within a broad social scientific enterprise. Unlike ‘purists’,
‘dualists’ see value in collaboration between quantitative and qualitative researchers,
and an important element of interdependence in their relationship. Compared to ‘neo-
positivism', the ‘dualist’ school sees strengths and weaknesses in both approaches.2
Hypothesis was regarded as the ‘compass’ or the ‘guiding principle’ of research, since
the whole investigation was basically meant to test whether the hypothesis was correct
or incorrect, right or wrong (‘how to create a bourgeoisie without the state’s support’).
Therefore, for the sake of focus and direction, the main hypothesis was essential. The
hypothesis started as a conjectural statement which needed to be confirmed or refuted
through experimentation. According to Osuala,
1 Henry E. Brady, David Collier and Jason Seawright. (2004), “Refocusing the Discussion of
Methodology”, in David Collier and Henry E. Brady (eds.), Rethinking Social Inquiry: Diverse Tools,
Shared Standards, Boulder: Rowman & Littlefield, p. 10.
2 Ibid.