Today, 31 July 2006,
Juan Cole has a post entitled "What is Hizbullah?". He introduces me to the concept of
subnationalism, which he says he has from Anthony D. Smith, a professor at the London School of Economics. Dr. Smith says that nationalism means
feeling an intense bond of solidarity to the nation and to other members of it. I can go along with that and let theoreticians argue the fine points.
Subnationalisms are mass movements. We can think of the Irish Catholics of Northern Ireland or even the Scots of the UK as "subnationalisms".
And what is Hizbullah?
Juan Cole:
Western and Israeli pundits keep comparing Hizbullah to al-Qaeda. It is a huge conceptual error. There is a crucial difference between an international terrorist network like al-Qaeda, ..., and a sub-nationalist movement.
Sub-nationalism occurs over a relatively compact area. There are some 1.3 million Shiite peasants and slum dwellers in southern Lebanon. They are now highly connected and politically mobilized, and Hizbollah has their loyalty. However:
Note that this is a new phenomenon. The Shiite masses were not socially and politically mobilized until at least the 1970s, and probably it is more accurate to say the 1980s. The main factor in causing these peasant sharecroppers to become politically aware and mobilized was the Arab Israeli conflict.
Dr. Cole describes that process and notes that a similar process now is ongoing among the Sunni Arabs of central, west and north Iraq.
Where subnationalisms are organized by party-militias willing to use carbombings and other asymmetrical forms of warfare, they are extremely difficult, if not impossible to defeat militarily.
What the Israelis set out to do, if they intended to "destroy" or even substantially attrite Hizbullah, was completely impractical. What they have done is to convince even Lebanese formerly on the fence about the issue that Hizbullah's leaders were correct in predicting that Lebanon would again be attacked in the most brutal and horrible way... [snip]
Israeli alarm about the new connectedness of their foe explains the orgy of destruction aimed at bridges, roads, television and radio facilities and internet servers.
Cole goes on to explain that the "Israeli demographic project" of depopulating areas and destroying villages south of the Litani River will fail as the Arabs are attached to their ancestral villages. And he sees no solution other than to find a compromise that both sides can live with.
No solution there either. But what I found interesting here was the clear description of and warning that invasions and attacks will create subnationalisms where there were none. On Iraqi blogs I've read time and again that, pre-invasion, the Shia and Sunni intermarried and didn't care what the neighbors were. Bosnian refugees have told me the same about their relationships with their neighbors.
There are many smaller groups within Lebanon's population. It seems to me that every single day of war there increases the likelihood of more subnationalisms and decreases the chance that former good neighbors will be able to return to their good relationships with one another. Every single day.