'We're all Egyptians'

The Lebanese have been glued to television coverage of Egypt's protests, but so far there has been more talk than action as a result, reports Lucy Fielder from Beirut

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Until a wave of people power swept Tunisia and then Egypt, Lebanon was seen as the Arab world's reigning champion for street protests. Indeed, many supporters of the 14 March Movement led by former Lebanese prime minister Saad Al-Hariri are drawing parallels with the mass anti-Syrian demonstrations of that date in 2005.

However, the Arab world's revived revolutionary spirit has in many ways highlighted the flaws in Lebanon's system, despite the comparatively wide margin of freedom enjoyed in daily life.

Karim Hijazi, one of four men smoking a waterpipe on the pavement in Beirut's Cola district, said that Egyptian-style protests featuring people from all walks of life united behind a common aim could not happen in Lebanon.

"We had a period of huge demonstrations, but then there was blood," he said. "Everyone here's still marching behind a zaim (strongman)."

Each of the four followed a different political leader in Lebanon, but they said they were united in their excitement and support for the Egyptian people. "Today we're all Egyptians," said Mohamed Suleiman.

Hijazi's point was underscored on 25 January. As Egyptians took to the streets against their president, hundreds of Sunnis took to the streets to support one of their leaders, burning tyres and blocking roads.

The show of support for Al-Hariri came after rival Najib Mikati was appointed prime minister. The premiership is a Sunni post under Lebanon's confessional political system, and Mikati is Sunni, but was backed by Hizbullah, prompting accusations of a "Shia take-over" of Sunni political privilege.

So, while ordinary Lebanese struggle with rising fuel and food prices, intermittent electricity and poor or absent state services, cross- sectarian protests are rare. Political sectarian leaders have generally called Lebanon's demonstrations and rallied supporters behind them.

"You cannot compare it to Egypt when you see Sunnis rising up against Shias or the other way round here in Lebanon," said Lebanese filmmaker Haytham Chamas. "We have this sectarian malady."

Nevertheless, for Chamas, a supporter of 14 March's Democratic Left Party, images of the throngs camping out in Cairo's Tahrir Square recalled the protests he had joined in Beirut's Martyrs' Square in 2005, following the assassination of former prime minister Rafik Al-Hariri.

Hizbullah, too, has rallied vast demonstrations in recent years, on 8 March 2005, to say "thank you Syria," for example, and then again later to demand a veto-wielding third of cabinet seats and to protest against the government's failure to help rebuild the south after the 2006 war.

"Breaking the silence is getting easier," Chamas said. "I wish I could jump on a plane and go there [Egypt]." He expressed the wish that Syria would witness a similar political earthquake, but thought it unlikely.

In terms of the official reaction in Lebanon, all eyes as always were on Hizbullah, by far the largest and most powerful party.

It responded slowly. While deputy secretary-general Sheikh Naim Qassem saluted the "resisting and proud" Egyptian protesters on 31 January, the movement's secretary-general, Hassan Nasrallah, only spoke about the uprising on 7 February, two weeks into the events, giving a typically detailed explanation of the group's position at a rally of Lebanese parties in support of Egypt's pro-democracy demonstrators.

Had Hizbullah reacted earlier, Nasrallah explained, the protesters would have been accused of dancing to Hizbullah's and Hamas's tune. He said he wished he could be with the protesters in Tahrir Square, and warned that Israel was working to keep the regime in power.

"What you have done is no less significant than the historic steadfastness the Islamic resistance achieved in 2006 and the resistance in Gaza in 2008," Nasrallah said.

Nicholas Noe, editor of a book of Nasrallah's speeches, said that his weighing in later would do less damage than had he done so early on.

"They clearly had to say something because their silence was taken as a sign of weakness in the face of the sectarian card. Nasrallah had to make clear that this was a strategic decision," Noe said.

"Mubarak and the Saudis have been looking for any excuse to say that this is a Shia plot against the Sunnis."

Saudi King Abdullah, an ally of Mubarak and also Al-Hariri, has put Egypt's uprising down to "outside agitation", a thinly veiled reference to Hizbullah's backer Iran. Israel, too, has been quick to invoke Iran. Noe pointed out that the Saudi news channel Al-Arabiya was one of the few to run Nasrallah's whole speech live, in a possible attempt to encourage claims of Iranian and Hizbullah interference in Egyptian affairs.

It was always clear that Hizbullah had no desire to see Mubarak cling on, and Noe described the two sides as "mortal enemies". Mubarak was also part of the pro-US axis that accused the Shia group of sparking the war with Israel in 2006.

"Hizbullah has been public about its suspicions that Egyptian and Jordanian intelligence have been conspiring to knock off resistance fighters, and perhaps played a role in Imad Mughniyah's assassination," Noe said. Mughniyah, Hizbullah's military mastermind, was killed in Damascus in 2008.

Hizbullah also angered Mubarak by accusing Egypt of complicity with Israel during its late 2008 Gaza offensive.

But relations between Hizbullah and Mubarak hit rock bottom in April 2010, when Egypt convicted 26 men accused of spying for Hizbullah in Egypt and planning terrorist attacks. The charges were widely seen as politically motivated. Nasrallah said the men were helping to smuggle weapons to Hamas in the Gaza Strip but not plotting attacks in Egypt.

One of those convicted, Sami Shehab, escaped during a jailbreak last week, Hizbullah has since confirmed.

Mubarak had close relations, however, with Hizbullah's political rivals in the 14 March Alliance, and especially the far-right Christian Lebanese Forces and the Phalange Party. Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea met Mubarak on several occasions, and Phalangist head Amin Gemayel met with him in Egypt the day before Egypt's first "day of rage" on 25 January.

Demonstrations in support of Egypt's uprising have occurred in Lebanon, but numbers are estimated at no more than 1,000 for the largest, which have been held outside the Egyptian embassy in Beirut.

The Islamist groups Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya -- an offshoot of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood -- the Islamic Labour Front and the Hizb Al-Tahrir have organised small rallies in the northern town of Tripoli. Baalbeck, the main town in the eastern Bekaa Valley, has also witnessed small demonstrations.

Ibrahim Al-Amine, chairman of the board of Lebanon's pro- Hizbullah Al-Akhbar newspaper, wrote in a column on 2 February that the Lebanese reaction to Egyptian events had been apathetic. He lambasted the 14 March movement's supporters for likening their protests to those in Egypt, but also spared no one.

"What is preventing the leftist forces, especially the Communist Party, or the Nasserite powers... from taking to the street, and occupying the surroundings of the Egyptian embassy and confronting the embassies of the United States and France, and exerting pressure in support of the rebelling people in Egypt?" Al-Amine asked.

"What is the Arab citizen doing in Lebanon? Nothing up to now, nothing at all."