The Great Sunni Makeover

How the death of a politician helped transform a whole community and how this might affect the wider region.


A group of clean-shaved, thirty something old men in expensive suits exchange small talk at the entrance of the millionaire Prime Minister’s office. The office’s is located in a snazzy neighborhood in the middle of the city, and the entrance is especially treated to allow for the convoy for armored S-series Mercedes cars to enter and exit safely.
No I’m not talking about the ex Prime Minsiter Hariri’s mansion in Koreitem. This is very much Najib Mikati’s office In Maarad, street, Tripoli.

Najib Mikati, whose picture is next to that of the slain ex-prime minister’s in different spots in Tripoli, is not the only politician trying to emulate the late Hariri in style; the chatter in Tripoli is that that other tycoon, Mohammad al Safadi, has been anonymously donating enormous amounts of money to all sorts of causes, from deaf and mute schools in the South to old churches in the north that need restoration, let alone the obvious “Mohammed Al Safadi educational and sport centers” peppered all over the north.

Suddenly, after witnessing the aftermath of his assassination, Prime Minister Hopefuls found in the late Hariri a formula that works. But is it only a matter of presentation and extensive philanthropy?

The politicians are only the tip of the iceberg. They are following a deeper trend that has been reshaping the whole Sunni landscape since February 14, a trend which has revolutionized the sunni ideological priorities altogether.

A few years ago, if a random Lebanese were asked to prototype a Sunni politician, he would probably say something like: “ibn 3aileh” (from a respected family), “za3im” (clan-leader), Pro Arabist, slightly Islamist and pro Syrian. Think Omar Karami, Salim el Hoss, Tammam Salam…etc.

Not anymore. Today, That image was replaced by that of a democratic-minded, millionaire, presentable, Lebanon-loving businessman that reaches across to all sections of the Lebanese society. Ibrahim Bairam laments in a report in Al-Jazeera, the loss of the Sunnis’ role as “the protectors of an Arabic Lebanon”

If two years ago, you told someone that tens of thousands of Sunnis in the north would be waving Lebanese flags and chanting to Samir Geagea’s wife, he would laugh you off as naïve. But this is precisely what happened yesterday when Hariri the son visited the north in his elections campaign.

It is difficult to point out what exactly brought up that change, but the answer can be very far reaching. The Sunnis in Lebanon, like their brethrens in the Arab world, have been bottling up discontent with bankrupt ideas, mainly Nasserite Pan Arabism and Bin-Laden Islamism. They were disillusioned by “revolutions” that only brought oppression, poverty and illiteracy to the “Umma”. Also, they have seen the level of savagery that unbridled religious extremism can go down to.

Hariri, a moderate who preached reforming societies from the bottom up through education and tolerance, liberalized Lebanese politics and economics. His murder confirmed the view that those backward forces would snuff out anything that would be a threat to their existence.

His own family and media have contributed largely to this perception. Future T.V. has portrayed his death as “For Lebanon” and has relentlessly broadcasted emotional messages about Hariri’s love for his country. A far cry from the anti-Israel messages that a lot of Arabs were expecting to see. Saad, his son, is reaching out to all factions in Lebanese politics regardless of their religion and affiliations, asking them to pray for national unity when they wake up and before they sleep. He has been trumpeting the March 14 revolution as a prototype for the new Lebanon, the one that Rafik Hariri wanted to build.

The Lebanese Sunni transformation is greatly significant to the wider region. It is the first case where Moslems are, from their own free will, choosing liberal democrats over Arabists or Islamists. Turkey has imposed democracy by force on its people, and the other Moslem countries like Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia have liberal elites that do not represent the people. Tricky social issues like women’s rights might be difficult to tackle, but politicians, who now have a popular mandate, can treat them with an incrementalist approach.

To all observers out there, something big is happening here: the Lebanonization of the Sunnis is the first breeze in the imminent Arab winds of change.

(P.S: this post now has a [Part 2] )