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NASRALLAH: SPHINX OF THE SUBURBS
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By
Mohammad Aslam
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The Montréal Review, July 2011
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Deep below the ground, in the Beirut neighbourhood of Haret Hreik is the suspected location of an underground bunker designed by Iranian engineers to withstand anything short of a nuclear attack. Although the southern suburbs of this great city are known to be riddled with a labyrinth of underground tunnels and bunkers, this particular one is of critical importance for inside it resides one of the most phenomenal individuals of the last fifty years.
Sheikh Syed Hassan Nasrallah, the charismatic Secretary-General of Lebanese Islamic movement Hezbollah is an individual whom for friend or foe, requires very little introduction. Since a deadly war with the State of Israel in 2006, almost every opinion poll in the Arab and Islamic world has constantly ranked him as the regions most popular leader; even surpassing Turkey's eccentric Tayyip Erdogan.
Internet search engine Google consistently ranks him as one of the most searched personalities in the Middle-East, his speeches are converted into books, his images adorn walls, houses and even clothing accessories - not to mention television screens.
But the most crucial aspect that this individual's personality draws, is the legions of dedicated young men and women that are prepared to sacrifice their lives at the mere utterance of his words; sacrificed in some of the most deadly conflicts of today.
It's not the ability to have a deadly following or a popular craze which extols this man on a pedestal like none of his regional contemporaries; rather it's having the ability since his 1992 leadership of the Hezbollah movement to incessantly fight, bleed, ridicule and ultimately survive one of the most ferocious fighting machines in the world: the invincible state of Israel.
Israel was created some sixty-four years ago by a largely worldwide, but in particular European, Diaspora of Jews. These Jews were made of right angels and sharp edges, descendants of the world's most persecuted people with many of them bravely escaping the gas chambers of Nazi Germany in which millions of men, women and children were killed. At the turn of the century, having fought and won five wars with its neighbours since its birth in 1948, sometimes simultaneously, the state of Israel together with its defence and intelligence institutions became widely accepted as one of the most able, daring, and meticulous in the world - per magnitude.
In came Sheikh Nasrallah. By the year 2000 he had spearheaded an incessant campaign of rocket barrages, kamikaze attacks, car and roadside bombings - synthesized with fearless political acumen, to finally succeed in driving out Israel from an 18 year occupation of Sothern Lebanon. But if the events of the year 2000 were a poignant reminder of a deadly new enemy that ceases to rest, the political and military blunders associated with Israel's 2006 war on Hezbollah that rendered the guerrilla movement with a tactical victory, was one of serious concern.
The war happened to be fought without the armed presence of Syria, his immediate protector, after it was forced into a humiliating retreat following 30 years of occupation in the aftermath of Rafik Hariri's assassination.
In any case, the Sheikh didn't cease a minute in selling the result of the war to his constituents and supporters as a victory for an Iran-Syria-Hamas led alliance that would change the face of the Middle-East. He had defied his critics, bewildered western military analysts and adhered himself to millions of adoring people in the region; millions which began to believe in his call for resistance as the only means to counter western-backed hegemony. The only downside it seemed was that he would have no choice but to frequently spend more time in his underground bunker, as a means of evading the preying eyes of Israeli spies, drones and other electronic surveillance mechanisms.
Then the International tribunal investigating the killing of Rafik Hariri came onto the seen. After getting wind that members of his organisation were likely to be implicated, incidentally by Hariri's son himself, he conducted a massive campaign to convince his supporters, both domestic and foreign, that it was an American and Israeli plot to discredit the popularity and legitimacy of his organisation. The real culprit was Israel as far as he was concerned, and held press conferences alluding to potential Israeli reconnaissance of Hariri prior to his death. He was firm to his conclusion that none of his men were involved, and of course any attempt to detain them would lead to hands being cut off.
After presenting evidence which at the very last casts a doubt on the integrity of the tribunals conduct, including false witnesses he claims mislead, corrupt tribunal officials, a pro-Israeli court President, the deliberate leaking of sensitive information to the media and dubious manoeuvring of investigating equipment through Israel. He finally insulated his movement against any charges and brought down the pro-tribunal Prime Minister of Lebanon Saad Hariri, the son of the slain former leader.
A pro-Hezbollah government in place, coupled with the bulk of parliament behind him, the four indictments against his men were delivered and as expected fell on deaf ears. If his detractors thought he would be undone by the tribunal if not by the bombs of Israel, they couldn't have calculated more wrongly.
A shrewd political operator par excellence, at least as far as Lebanon is concerned, the wily old Sheikh had vowed not to cooperate in any form or fashion with the tribunal from the minute he learned it was fingering his do-or-die soldiers. Instead he smugly suggested that nobody in Lebanon was able to detain his men even if they tried, almost as if to say 'catch them if you can' and to this day not even a half-hearted measure by the Lebanese government to detain the four named individuals has been reported.
For his suburban bastion, the support he and his movement have long cultivated among their cadres, the supporters if not members, those in awe of him around the world, the mothers that name children after him, the young, old, dispossessed, disabled and displaced; his anti-Israel and militant stances are unlike to wither away anytime soon. For his enemies, he is the face of evil, hell-bent on implementing Iranian instructions for the region, the anathema they long to silence.
The future is hard to predict. The thunderstorm passing through the Arab world may open new roads and alternative recourses for political action. But in a region long aggrieved by wars, occupations, coups and tyrannical rule, the man many in the region refer to as Beirut's ultimate survivor; is sure to be at the forefront at any confrontation designed to alter the resisting and militant tide of the region. |
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| Mohammad Aslam is a Ph.D candidate in Political Violence at the Department of Middle East & Mediterranean Studies, King's College London. His thesis investigates the sophisticated state-building measures that Hezbollah is currently pursuing within Lebanon.
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The Author wishes to thank his dear friend Rawan Hamdan from the University of Manchester, for providing the finest of literary critiques one could be bestowed with. |
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