31. A leadership capable of transformations: The party
leadership believed in this ability to resist due to its understanding
of the historical impact of Imam Khomeini's revolution in Iran, whose
success cannot be explained solely through material factors.
An in-depth study by the RAND Corporation concluded that popular support
for military organizations has several sources, including the
effectiveness of the institution. This is determined by, among other
things, the presence of a strategic, charismatic, and effective
leadership. The general public interprets reality through the eyes of
the leadership that it believes in.
Hezbollah would not have built an incubation, cohesive, and committed
environment without such leadership. Belonging to the party and its
project is fraught with many risks and burdens and requires an enhanced
ability to inspire, persuade, influence, and attract others in order to
secure an adequate incubation environment capable of advancing its
resistance project.
Analyses, especially hostile ones, are unanimous in the fact that
Hezbollah's leadership (especially Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah) influences
the group’s successes. It is a self-sacrificing, honest, charming,
emotional, and wise leadership that lives the concerns of its people.
Thus, the supporters feel that their leader is part of them and
integrated with them. This is reflected in a form of recognition or
understanding among segments of the environment that embrace the
leadership’s decisions, even if the adopted decision or position does
not convince everyone.
For all this, Hezbollah’s leadership (which is a collective leadership
in which decisions are made by consultation and consensus in general) is
a victim of intense and systematic misinformation campaigns locally and
regionally. These are designed to undermine the group and prompt people
to question its motives and morals.
32- The originality of the idea of resistance: In other words,
Hezbollah made the issue of resistance its main project that governs its
identity, policies, and behavior. It is not a circumstantial or a
tactical issue or an issue subject to bargaining.
Resistance is a second nature to the party; it is a resistance movement
that practices politics and not a political movement that practices
resistance. This is linked to two essential factors: the party’s
identity (it is a jihadist faith movement) and its reading of the
region’s crisis in that it is a crisis fueled by the state of
subjugation to American hegemony.
On this basis, the party molded its incubation environment, linking the
resistance to the religious/Husayni dimension, the history of the sect,
and national interests.
Therefore, the party treats its resistance as a natural part of the
history of the sect and the nation, by recalling the contributions of
others from national, Islamic, leftist and nationalist forces.
The party repeatedly tells its supporters in its various constituencies
(Shiite, Lebanese, Muslim, and Arab) of the offers it receives to
compromise on the issue of resistance and the pressures it endures for
refusing to make concessions.
It insists that it represents the real struggle in the nation and the
homeland. This originality of the party's resistance project tightens
the bonds between its popular incubators and shapes their perceptions of
the resistance. As such, people are more willing to bear burdens and
risks.
33- Ethical pillar: Building a symbiotic environment requires
the existence of a solid moral ground that enhances social stability,
deepens cooperation and peace, and imposes behavioral and political
discipline.
The importance of this increases with the availability of all this
material force that can push for forms of authoritarianism and
impoverishment, especially with the nature of the Lebanese reality.
The party’s discourse and educational process emphasize the ethical
aspects of religiosity (good deeds, charity, solidarity, relief, piety,
care for the rights of others, family ethics, etc.) based on the rich
heritage of hadiths and biographies of the Prophet and his household
(PBUH).
The impact of this is evident in the current economic crisis, where it
is easy to notice a high level of social solidarity within the party’s
environment, both residents and expatriates.
34- Producing party cadres: The party pays great attention to
building its cadres, especially the young ones, in order to provide them
with the knowledge and skills necessary to carry out tasks that are
increasingly complex.
The party takes advantage of the many students and university graduates
in its circles to select those best qualified to be its working cadres.
The cadres are also involved in extensive field work directly related to
addressing the people’s needs, which enhances their awareness of the
social, political, and cultural reality, as well as academic knowledge.
These cadres, within the different organizational levels, serve as
fulcrums in the party's body, where circles of influence and efficacy
are built around them and are integrated into pre-designed networks.
The construction of institutions and qualifying cadres contribute to
transferring the party’s culture and experiences from the higher
echelons of power to young cadres (especially for the generation that
joined the party after the liberation of the south in 2000).
This contributes to the renewal of the organization. In the course of
this process, part of the internal partisan dialogue takes place, which
allows the leadership to listen and engage in dialog with cadres who
have intense contact with the different levels of the organization as
well as with the public.
35- Intensive mass communication: It is a process that makes the party more like the nervous system of the resistance community.
Hezbollah communicates with the public through several channels. There
is direct and daily communication through political and religious events
(official and private), sports, scouting and entertainment activities,
political meetings in villages and neighborhoods, and the provision of
services through a huge network of party institutions and units. Then,
there is media communication in all its forms (traditional and digital,
memorials, billboards, exhibitions, etc.).
It is rare to see a political organization that is involved at this
level with its supporters; party leaders and cadres visit villages and
neighborhoods all year round and hold political seminars in which they
listen, answer, and discuss; its leadership continuously address them,
presenting its positions, visions, and interpretations.
Thus, the party communicates with the supporters from different angles
that reflect its professional, age, regional, and scientific
characteristics, hobbies and needs.
Thus, the public receives consistent messages that confirm the
narratives promoted by the party. At the same time, this intense
communication allows the party to listen and understand its supporters'
trends (this is in addition to the continuous opinion polls that the
party silently conducts). Hence, this is an additional factor in the
decision-making process, in how the decision is presented, or in how the
topics of public discourse are determined.
36- Comprehensiveness of social services: From the beginning,
the party owned modest service institutions to meet the needs of its
resistance fighters and their families. Then, it began to expand to
respond to the reality of its marginalized public environment.
Providing
these services is the shortest way to the minds and hearts of the
public, and it is pleasing to God according to Islamic culture and
loyalty to the people who embrace the resistance.
These institutions have expanded enormously and are now meeting the
needs of hundreds of thousands of citizens (dispensaries and hospitals,
lending, subsidized schools, agricultural and animal development
support, rehabilitation centers for addicts and neurological diseases,
student grants, student guidance, care for vulnerable groups, food
stores at subsidized prices, in-kind donations, etc.).
These services make the party closer to the people, and large numbers of
volunteers who carry the party’s message participate in providing them.
They are provided as part of jihad represented in lifting deprivation
and defending the weak. Thus, these services enhance the resistance of
the Islamic identity within the community.
Researchers have concluded that these services are an important factor
in explaining popular support for the party but not the main reason,
because many of those who do not benefit from it (either they are not in
need or are expatriates) are supporters of the party.
They concluded that the most prominent reason for the party’s support
within its environment stems from the security it provides and making
those who are part of that environment feel strong and empowered. This
service network has given the party flexibility to deal with the
financial and economic collapse in Lebanon by expanding the range of
services to mitigate the effects of the collapse on the downtrodden
segments.
37- Giving meaning to the movement of society: Hezbollah created
a historical task for its society to organize and manage its affairs
through it, which is to bear the responsibility for the resistance
project.
The party has done this by defining this mission as a religious,
historical, national, and humanitarian duty, as well as linking the
issue of resistance to the daily interests of the people.
The choice of resistance, apart from being a natural extension of the
group's religious and political history, as the party sees it, is part
of its material interests in the present and the future.
The fierce media and political attacks against the party help create a
kind of social solidarity within the party’s environment over the
concept of resistance, which has become the centerpiece of the
collective identity that is threatened and a source of pride at the same
time.
Here, partisan institutions evoke the history of the Lebanese Shiites
and their men and show their roles in resisting the various forms of
occupation.
38- Honest and balanced discourse: Hezbollah needs to talk to
several social incubators from different cultural backgrounds, including
within the Shiite community itself.
It also needs a state of internal stability, and it does not struggle
for power in the traditional sense. Therefore, the party cannot present
an extremist discourse.
Here, the party benefited from the experience of its "embryonic"
discourse in the 80s, as it worked on developing it after discovering
the reality of local peculiarities.
In its discourse, the party emphasizes the inclusive elements,
reiterating its Lebaneseness, Arabism, Islamism, and identity as a
national liberation movement, which allows it to build bridges with
different environments with varying degrees of strength.
The party's rhetoric is based on extremism regarding the struggle with
the enemy and on openness, recognition, and understanding in other
issues, which sometimes provokes blame from its supporters, who consider
it too soft, or criticism from others who see it as a conciliatory
discourse with the current situation in Lebanon.
39- Getting out of the narrow partisan mentality. With the rise
of the party's strength and prestige, it no longer needed to engage in
traditional party rivalries.
So, over time, it tended to act as an entire community/nation rather
than a party. This allowed the party a measure of flexibility to
communicate and build bridges with segments that differ with its culture
and agree with it in other issues, foremost of which is the resistance.
On many occasions, the party launches media campaigns that miss its
official slogan, contributes to supporting activities and institutions
that are not within the party’s structure, and non-partisan figures in
ministerial, union, and administrative positions.
Within this context, Hezbollah tends to work through broad national
alliances and partnerships as much as possible on the basis of its
strategic options related to the resistance, with the necessary
consensus, stability, and political leverage. The margins of
differentiation between the party and its allies in local politics
narrow and widen according to the topic and stage.
40- Focusing on religiosity: The party is interested in
spreading religiosity within its society and allocates great resources
to that as an Islamic and faith movement in the first place.
It believes
that the religious dimension preserves the project of resistance and the
authenticity of its society’s identity and protects it from penetration
and disintegration.
However, as much as the party is concerned with the form of religiosity
in the private and public spheres, it was keen from the beginning to
revive the revolutionary dimension of Shiism. It also made belonging to
the resistance and support for the Palestinian cause a political
component of the Shiite and Islamic identity.
This is most evident in the party's Ashura discourse, which sees America
the Yazid of the age and relies on this revival of popular mobilization
to fight and prepare for sacrifice.
As much as the party is concerned about the emergence of forms of
atheism, it is also concerned about the emergence of forms of
non-political, non-revolutionary religiosity that does not have a
project related to the challenges of the era.
Therefore, as much as the party is keen on the strength of religiosity
in its social environment, it is also keen that religiosity be against
domination and occupation.
Conclusion
For 40 years, Hezbollah has continued its upward trajectory in building
power equations against the “Israeli” enemy. For 40 years, it chose to
engage with challenges, face crises, deal with deficiencies, seize
opportunities, learn, and develop.
In its last
decade, the party faced complex regional and local challenges that are
likely to become more complex due to the stormy crises within the
regional and international spheres.
This series shows what emerged from the party’s experiences with
attitudes and practice. But writings about the party should have a
measure of caution since it is a resistance movement first and foremost,
and its jihadist component forms its heart and soul.
The ambiguities, secrets, and mysteries surrounding the party are
extensive, and this is one of the sources of its deterrent power. After
the 2006 war, the “Israeli” enemy was stunned (six years had passed
since the liberation) at what it had found, to the extent that one of
the “Israeli” conclusions was that the “Israeli” army must be an army of
“black swans”, that is, be prepared for all surprises and for all that
can be imagined before fighting Hezbollah in the future.
But will that be enough? We won't know until after the war, but the
enemy's reluctance to attack helps us in speculating about the answer.
The great challenge facing the party today is how to manage the problems
arising within all of these factors, in connection with generational
changes, rapid and intertwined internal and external transformations in
the political, social, cultural, and technological fields, the
increasing complexity of the tools of its enemies, and organizational
facts in the party’s structure.
Interaction with these challenges will determine much of Hezbollah's image, position, and role in the next 40 years.
By Housam Matar | Al-Akhbar Newspaper
Translated by Al-Ahed News
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