You might have noticed that I have been silent on the independents election campaigns springing up all over Lebanon the past few weeks. The independent, secular campaigns trying to coalesce into something that hopefully isn’t an amorphous blob of compromise and disappointment. That’s because I am still hoping that with the start of March 2018, these campaigns will realize that they need to energize their base, before trying to appeal to voters who would otherwise not vote for them under normal circumstances.
The “Too Risky” Excuse
With potential “independent” lists including so many prominent not-so-long-ago politically affiliated individuals, you might dismiss that as just how elections work, where you tone down the idealism and think pragmatically. Compromise after compromise, I’m worried we’ll end up with something ambiguous, and a far cry from what catalyzed the popular uprising in 2015 and the following impressive results in the municipal elections of 2016.
Too risky to be openly for gender equality, too risky to support LGBT rights, too risky to reassert the constitutionally guaranteed right of believing whatever you want, or not believing at all, too risky to raise issues such as the crisis of hashish arrests plaguing more than 3500 young people a year, too risky, too risky…
With these many asterisks, what exactly differentiates us from the ruling political class? The tired, cliche, over-used, bland slogans and tip-toeing around issues that might be controversial, is what the political parties do, and I don’t know about you, but I will not be committed and excited to work and volunteer and vote for groups that simply say “we’re not them”, while including prominent figures of the “them” in their own lists to be “pragmatic” and toning down the demands that made movements we support popular with voters in the first place.
Demands such as having a secular system, real gender equality, wasta-proof transparency and tackling issues that the political parties consider taboo such as civil marriage, the right for Lebanese women to pass their citizenship to spouses and children and reform of the judiciary and police infrastructure in Lebanon that many unwitting and helpless taxpayers fall victim to every day so a public employee can make a quick buck from bribes.
Focus on the Base First
If campaigns feel the need to include people with them for the sole reason that their original political parties didn’t nominate them, then so be it, but not as part of the independents’ campaign. Form coalition lists with the people that only days ago were members in one of the political parties that have been gripping to power illegally for the past 9 years, but don’t expect us to just accept that they are now one of us, when nothing they have done or achieved proves otherwise: they’re just opportunistic wannabe politicians riding on the wave of support independents have garnered in the face of the astounding failures of the political parties in Lebanon, especially in the last decade.
I did not support and volunteer with movements and organizations because I wanted to maybe win a seat or two here and there. I worked for them because they represented a platform I cared about and could relate to.
A Lebanon where the rotten cheese isn’t split based on whether you worship your deity on a Friday or a Sunday. A Lebanon where old men in black robes don’t decide what’s best for me and my future spouse based on archaic, misogynistic religious laws that take years and a ton of money wasted when a civil court can do a much better, fairer and quicker job at it. A Lebanon where young people aren’t terrified when they see a cop car, but reassured that they are safe. A Lebanon where big corporations don’t wiggle out of their billions of dollar embezzlement lawsuits, while a university kid gets hounded in the justice system for years for a mere tweet.
Before aiming to win new supporters, you need to reassure your base that you’re not just another all-talk, all-compromise bunch of amateurs. We are coming from a place of power, not of weakness. The Lebanese public shares our sentiment, at least the broad lines of it. So why the fuck tone it down? Why would a voter or volunteer choose a group doing the same things as the political parties, just with less money for their campaigns?
Be more aggressive in the demands of voters, especially the younger ones who have never voted and will be the asset that wins us seats across the country.
We Can Be the Largest Bloc
If we get 1 seat in each district, that’s a 15-member parliamentary bloc, which will be the largest, or second largest in Lebanon. This is what we should be working towards. If we get 20 members, then we can flip the tables on this rotten system and begin actually making people’s lives better, not just under-the-table deals for incinerators and power ships to engorge our pockets and party leaders pockets with the people’s money.
Grow a spine and be more assertive on the issues that have allowed you to seek election for public office and be our representatives. Do something different, do something the politicians have never done. Don’t let petty elections politics and unreliable stats and polls of a population that has drastically changed over the last 9 years, make your decisions for you. Take a chance, let people believe in your message.
Stop accepting political partisans in your midst, and instead, figure out how to form loosely-linked coalitions with some of them if need be to ensure we get better chances, but don’t let them fester and crumble what we have worked so long to get to: a Lebanon that looks like us, not the 80-something-year-old gang of warlords and thieves we’ve had to suffer under all our lives.
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