Love of the Land: March 14 Has Not Stepped Up To The Plate

March 14 Has Not Stepped Up To The Plate

Ghassan Karam
Special to Ya Libnan
13 February '10

One of the most common definitions of a state is the one given by the great sociologist Max Weber: “it is that organization that has monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory”. Obviously not all states in the world meet the simple conditions set in that functional definition. A sovereign state is obviously the one that combines the de facto and the de jure aspects of that definition by exercising total control over its territory.

Unfortunately there are some “quasi” states in the world where the governmental institutions pretend to have power when in effect they do not. Unfortunately there are many such cases in the world of government setups similar to those in Afghanistan where the official government enjoys international recognition but is not capable of either promoting its policies or even of governing its territory. The Taliban’s present such a formidable threat to the government in all aspects that they might as well be viewed as the real power in the land

Lebanon is even in a worse shape. Hezbollah is the real power behind the thrown. Not much, if anything, can be accomplished in Lebanon if Hezbollah’s’ approval is not forthcoming, not even the privatization of the cellular telephone network that is falling behind the technological developments in the world and in the region as we speak. Nothing gets done in Lebanon if Hezbollah does not permit it. But the power of Hezbollah on the Lebanese scene goes far beyond that of the Taliban in Afghanistan. In Lebanon Hezbollah is part of the official cabinet that it openly opposes.

Most would agree to describe the official Afghanistan government of Mr. Karzai as a de jure state while that of the Taliban as a defacto one. But in Lebanon it is worst than this. Hezbollah and its allies are the defacto government and they are the ones that practically dictate all what passes as a dejure government

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Love of the Land: March 14 Has Not Stepped Up To The Plate