It is impossible to write about southern Lebanon as a region reflecting a similar culture and historical experience, sharing the same concerns, anxieties, and needs, despite the fact that it is equally threatened by repeated Israeli attacks and persistent aggression. It is impossible to generalize about a region where almost all Lebanese sects and denominations coexist without examining its unique characteristics, especially when we are talking about a centralized, sectarian state where political control is rotated among sectarian parties in each era. The Arqoub region, part of the Hasbaya district, lies on the border between the Western Bekaa Valley and the South, and encompasses seven villages: Shebaa, Kfarshouba, Kfarhamam, Rashaya al-Foukhar, al-Mari, al-Habbarieh, and al-Fardis.
The crisis of parliamentary representation is not confined to the South, the Arqoub region, and the Hasbaya district; rather, it is widespread throughout Lebanon due to electoral laws that fail to ensure proper representation, both nationally and locally. The Arqoub region and the Hasbaya district have a long history of such issues. The last thing any region needs in a country suffering from successive collapses, ongoing wars and skirmishes, and deadly centralism and sectarianism is parliamentary representation limited to offering condolences and congratulations—something MP Qassem Hashem (through whom the Shiite duo usurps the Sunni position in the region) has consistently done throughout his term, making it his primary focus and almost exclusive area of activity.
The representation is a political representation of the region and its people, and of their great, heavy, and chronic concerns and worries. It is reflected in proposed laws that address problems and work to develop the region and the resilience of its people, not merely a formal representation that has no substance, taste, or smell. When some of its features appear, they come in accordance with the perceptions of the authoritarian sectarian parties with their choices and orientations, which confiscate the political decision and eliminate all pluralism.
The electoral law crisis isn’t limited to this specific location or region; it’s a general Lebanese representation problem, especially when we recall, for example, what Druze candidate Marwan Khair El-Din said in the last elections in the Hasbaya district. He addressed the residents of Hasbaya, saying, “A single neighborhood in Khiam (Marjeyoun district) could elect me as a representative.” And is it conceivable that MP Elias Jaradi, elected from Hasbaya based on platforms reflecting fair representation, would later turn around and abandon the very platform he ran against because it undermines fair representation, without any possibility of being held accountable? If these examples are meaningful, they highlight the representation crisis we’re discussing. How can a candidate insult the people of the district he represents? How can he be against them and not with them? And how can another candidate circumvent the principles on which he was elected, resulting in a parliamentary term that achieves nothing in terms of development or the legislation the region needs? How can the electoral law be in this form, which confiscates the correct political representation of Lebanon in general, and of the people of a region who have suffered greatly in successive historical periods?
The crisis of parliamentary representation does not stop at this level, as it is no secret that the Arqoub region suffers from direct Israeli attacks, from the deterioration of its military and security situation, and from the injustice of relatives represented by a state that has abandoned all its duties in the countryside in general, and in the south in particular, and in the Hasbaya district and the Arqoub region specifically, so its political representation has been centered on one standard, which is confiscation and appropriation.
It goes without saying that the sectarian forces that monopolize sectarian representation in Lebanon transfer positions and influence in various regions to one another, trading in people, their choices, and their lives. They relinquish positions in Hasbaya in exchange for parliamentary seats in other areas. They also trade in people’s security, handing it over to the de facto powers. Sometimes this handover is to Palestinian organizations under the guise of nationalism and patriotism, and at other times to the Shiite duo and the Iranian axis under the banner of resistance. In short, this handover is to major issues that have stifled development and rendered social and political life devoid of any semblance of dynamism.
The suffering of the people of Arqoub is no secret, nor is it confined to them. However, the region is uniquely targeted by the greed and avarice of the enemy, who relentlessly pursues it, and by the political manipulation of the choice of alliances, leading to the destruction of what remains untouched. It should be noted that the region has never shirked its national duties.
In both cases, the region suffered, and continues to suffer, from choices that are not its own, because they do not reflect the genuine representation that the people of the region aspire to. Rather, they originate from axes extending beyond the state, thus undermining both the state and the region simultaneously. These choices have, in every conceivable way, only served to erode the possibilities and conditions of life, the conditions of democratic political experience, and the conditions and values of the state and citizenship. When a system of appropriation, hegemony, confiscation, subservience, nepotism, and domination prevails, any region teeters on the brink of a volcano that will engulf freedom, justice, and development, in favor of legitimizing transgressions, spreading political illiteracy and ignorance, and causing social and existential decay. This only serves to fuel tribal conflicts and reinforce the biases of blood ties.
The two criteria mentioned above lead to a generalization of neglect and decay. If we move from the general to the specific, the political problem becomes one of the repercussions, a crisis that masks deeper and more dangerous mental crises. The region has not been represented in decision-making centers, nor has it ever been at the heart of developmental concerns. There are no developmental policies that reach it—no hospitals, no universities, no factories, no plants, no agricultural development. It also suffers from a scarcity of top-tier jobs, which keeps it in a state of perpetual decline, and makes the jobs that some of its people hold purely political positions, pre-conditional, so that its priorities become the last of the criteria.
Can we truly speak of the state’s role when the region is unrepresented in the decision-making bodies of any of its institutions—diplomatic, administrative, or ministerial, let alone the rest? What has the state offered the region? How has it forged such a strong connection? A fragile education system with barely functioning public schools, public university education available only outside the region, no hospitals, and the confiscation of the only well-equipped hospital in the area (in Shebaa) for political gain, spite, and power-sharing. Policies that neither support farmers nor ensure their stability and security. A precarious security framework, riddled with Israeli violations and militia dominance, and conditions for producing a meager living that poison rather than nourish! Is it conceivable that the state’s presence is limited to collecting bills for services the region’s inhabitants barely receive? Is it conceivable that this ever-present yet absent state is the very institution that refuses to extend its reach into the region?
Despite this, the Arqoub region, like other areas, did not demand the impossible, reflecting an exceptional political and pragmatic awareness. This was especially true given that the absence of the state in Arqoub did not foster any support, even nominally, for militia rule or the rule of regional factions, despite some isolated instances of dissent. On the contrary, the region has consistently demanded, and continues to demand, a just state and strives to redress the injustices inflicted upon it, seeking genuine and effective representation and influence.
The Arqoub region has not lost its way, nor its direction, and it does not need intensive national training courses. Despite the occupation and its absence from top-tier positions, it has continued and still strives to appoint its sons to the Lebanese Army and other national institutions, or to do the impossible to get them into even the smallest state institutions, even if only in second, third, and fourth-tier positions.
But is confronting political hegemony enough for the state to view it as a subordinate region? Certainly not. The region’s aspirations extend far beyond that. It aspires to the fundamental recognition of its Lebanese identity and its equality with others, institutionally, legally, and in terms of opportunities. It aspires to dismantle the stifling centralization that manifests itself in exorbitant costs during government transactions. It hopes for a shift in the mindset surrounding its issues. It aspires to an electoral law that accurately reflects representation and does not usurp it for any political party or faction. It aspires to participate in decision-making in general, and in decisions concerning its own affairs in particular. It aspires to development that strengthens the resilience of its people and improves their living conditions and ensures their continued existence. It aspires to prevent its children from dying before reaching hospitals for treatment. It aspires to educate its children without incurring exorbitant costs that its families cannot afford. And above all, it aspires to be treated as an integral part of the remnants of a social contract that falters daily, but whose demise it has not, and will not, declare from its platforms.