After winning AUB elections, PYO’s Rabah dedicates victory to 2005 independence martyrs

Rabah calls on students to keep faith in the process of building this country saying that his favorite motto has always been: If there is a will, there must be a way

BEIRUT - Alternative Staff

January/February 2006

The American University of Beirut's elections for the year 2005/06 witnessed the victory of the alliance of the Progressive Youth Organization (PYO), the Future Youth Organization, the Lebanese Forces and the No Frontiers leftist group over another under-the-table alliance formed of the Free Patriotic Movement, Hizbullah, Amal, and the Syrian Social Nationalist Party.

The victory of the first alliance was sealed with the re-election of PYO's Makram Rabah as the Vice President of the University Student Faculty Committee (USFC), the highest student representative position in AUB.

Alternative interviewed Rabah who dedicated his victory to the March 14 martyrs "Rafic Hariri, Samir Kassir, George Hawi and Gebran Tueni" as well as to those who survived "the Syrian terror: Marwan Hamade and May Chidiac."

Alternative: What was the first thing that came to your mind after your victory?

Makram Rabah: At first I wanted to scream as a sign of vengeance. I thought to myself that we were many. The Lebanese who love their country and who took to the streets are many and are still active. These free people don't belong to one man or one sect and that's what our opponents failed to understand.

Politics

Alternative: But your opponents accuse you of having an idol yourself and a sect of your own.

Rabah:Well if you mean Walid Jumblatt, he's no idol. He's a skilled and veteran leader and politician. Jumblatt is perhaps the only politician who admits to his mistakes. Plus, taking the Lebanese confessional system into consideration, the maximum position he can elected to is to become MP and he's been there for quite a while and his position is not threatened.

Alternative: Is it not because he is of the Jumblatt family that you follow him?

Rabah:The Jumblatt family has played a role in Lebanon's history, yet this doesn't count. Kamal Jumblatt was a leader in his own rite, and that's the talk of his enemies. He was an intellectual and a politician. He had a view and died for it. When he died, we said to Lebanon. Kamal Jumblatt sacrificed himself for Lebanon. He didn't sacrifice Lebanon for himself, his position or his presidency or whatever…

Alternative: Don't you see a family business in the Jumblatt leadership?

Rabah: Let's be realistic. There are many families who couldn't maintain their leadership. The family clearly puts you at an advantage. Bush Junior used all of Bush Senior's connections to become president. Nothing is wrong with that. What is wrong, however, is to pass leadership from father to son by an order. That is when the strong father obliges everyone that his son rules after him. That's not the case for the Jumblatt family, or the Hariri family for that matter. The first generation was killed and their sons had to prove themselves to earn the leadership, albeit with some family advantage.

Alternative: What about the Druze base?

Rabah: What about it? The Druzes don't want to establish a state of a special kind to cater for their own interests. The fact that the Jumblatt leadership has a Druze base is due to the fact that whole Lebanese political scene is still primitive, pre-industrial in the European sense. We still don't have citizenship in the modern sense like in Europe. In light of this, Jumblatt and many of us deal with the situation as it is and hope to improve it eventually. Do you want us to import citizens from Sweden instead and deal with them (laughs…)

Alternative: People criticize the Progressive Socialist Party (PSP – mother organization of PYO) for not doing enough.

Rabah: In order to see whether PSP and Jumblatt adre doing enough or not you ought to compare their performance to other parties in Lebanon and the Arab world. You shouldn’t compare our performance to parties say in France.

In Lebanon, we're probably the only quote unquote sectarian party that calls for civil marriage and social justice. Being a Druze doesn't grant you a special status with the PSP, perhaps being a PSP might or might not grant you a special status with the Druze but this is because the party has always borrowed from the good credit of the Jumblatt family with the Druze. Again, the PSP doesn’t aim at creating a Druze state…

Alternative: Why doesn’t the PSP have a good credit with non-Druzes?

Rabah: Two things: First the PSP – compared to other parties – has the highest percentage of non-Druze (in the case of other parties Shiites, or Maronites or Sunnis). Second, you should blame the whole system for this. The Lebanese system categorizes PSP a Druze party and Jumblatt as a Druze leader. If either one of them tries to interfere in issues considered to be Shiite or Maronite or other non-Druze issues, they would be accused of tampering with the Lebanese sectarian status quo.

One of the main reasons of restricting the PSP and its progressive thought to the Druzes is the Lebanese system that forces it to remain as such.

Student Politics

Alternative: Back to AUB. A faction of students accuses the PYO of bringing into AUB politics from off campus and forcing them on AUB whereas student representatives should cater to student interests and not receive instructions from outside?

Rabah: First, this proves that these AUB students are not politically aware. AUB is in Lebanon and Lebanon is in the Arab world. AUB students cannot behave as if their campus is on Mars in the same way that the Lebanese cannot just close their eyes and pretend that nothing is going on beyond the borders.

Second, most students are adult citizens. The university experience gives them a chance to try citizenship, activism and political life in its romantic form i.e. in a form where everything seems to be perfect.

Alternative: What do you mean by perfect?

Rabah: AUB elections are ideal. There is no money used to buy votes, no dead people voting, no threats to voters. This is probably one of the most idealistic places to practice democracy.

Alternative: But some say you use sectarianism in AUB and that is improper?

Rabah: How do we exactly use sectarianism? If a group of Druzes opens another party or club in AUB, do we abuse them? Of course not. Look at No Frontiers, they preach a great deal of our progressive ideas and political platform. We’ve always been on good terms with them.

Alternative: And why was your alliance with No Frontiers dissolved this year?

Rabah: It wasn’t dissolved per se. We couldn’t reach an agreement at the SRC level, but we exchanged votes later. The reason why this happened was because No Frontiers overestimated their power and asked for a share that we believed was bigger than their actual influence on campus. Elections proved that we were right and they were wrong when it came to numbers.

Alternative: You were reported as undermining the killing of Hariri…

Rabah: God forbid. I never did so. What happened was that when we won a majority in the USFC and the VP seemed to be in our hands, our allies the Future Youth Organization said that one of their USFC members should become VP because this year was the martyr premier Rafik Hariri’s year. I was infuriated and said that Hariri belongs to all of us and if I become USFC VP, I would represent his line and the line of his party’s alliance with my party and the Lebanese Forces.

Alternative: And the Aounists?

Rabah: The Aounists treated us like enemies even though we never assaulted them. They forced us into a confrontation. They used to be one of the March 14 forces but then they turned coat and their allies became Syria’s protégés.

This didn’t make us hold a grudge. To us, their out of line behavior was due to electoral concerns, both in AUB and in parliamentary elections. We always told them that we were ready to make bridges with them, and we’re saying this today too.

Alternative: Any last word?

Rabah: I call on all students to stand their grounds in the building of this country and never give up. My favorite motto has always been: If there is a will, there must be a way.