MGLE01: SHIA CONTACTS SEE NASRALLAH'S CULT OF

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 BEIRUT 001807 SIPDIS SIPDIS NSC FOR ABRAMS/DORAN/WERNER/SINGH E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/06/2016 TAGS: IR IS KISL LE PGOV PTER SUBJECT: MGLE01: SHIA CONTACTS SEE NASRALLAH'S CULT OF PERSONALITY AND SHIA "OVEREMPOWERMENT" AT HEART OF JUNE 1 RIOT REF: A. BEIRUT 1747 ¶B. BEIRUT 336 Classified By: Ambassador Jeffrey D. Feltman. Reason: Section 1.4 (d). SUMMARY -------------- ¶1. (C) On June 6, Hizballah expert Amal Saad-Ghorayeb told econoff that the June 1 riot in response to a LBCI parody of Hizballah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah (ref A) was an embarrassment to Hizballah and the Shia community. She believed the riot was spontaneous, but Hizballah was not conciliatory enough in apologizing for it. Young Shia males took it upon themselves to engage in thuggery, which is not a new trend. According to Saad-Ghorayeb, the June 1 riot was a manifestation a growing cult of personality around Nasrallah. The Shia will not accept any insult to Nasrallah, who many see as a religious figure, not a mere politician. Amal Movement foreign affairs director Ali Hamdan and Shia journalist Abbas Sabbagh concurred in separate meetings, saying that poking fun at Nasrallah was off-limits. Both expressed alarm at the violence and destruction, but also noted that LBCI should have parodied an ordinary Hizballah figure instead. Saad-Ghorayeb sees the June 1 riot as only the latest incident demonstrating "overempowerment" in the Shia community. She explained that Shia are feeling strong and powerful as a community at the same time remaining afraid of other communities as a lingering effect of past injustices. As a result, Shia feel both capable of taking coercive action and justified in doing so. End summary. OF THUGS AND "NASRALLAH-MANIA" -------------- ¶2. (C) On June 6, econoff met with Hizballah expert and Shia professor Dr. Amal Saad-Ghorayeb to discuss the impact of the June 1 riot in Beirut in response to an LBCI broadcast mocking Hizballah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah (ref A). She described the riot as an embarrassment for Hizballah, which handled the situation badly. Hizballah did not organize the protest that turned into a riot, according to Saad-Ghoryeb. Has Hizballah been the organizer, the protest would have been more orderly, more peaceful, and much larger. Hizballah's mistake was that its response was tepid in condemning the senseless mayhem, and failed to reassure non-Hizballah supporters of the party's devotion to Lebanese stability, she said. Nasrallah, addressing the incident in a news conference on June 5, called the riot a mistake, but was less conciliatory than expected. ¶3. (C) The June 1 riot was a spontaneous demonstration carried out by young Shia men infuriated by the show's depiction of Nasrallah. Saad-Ghorayeb knows the kind of young Shia men who participated; she has many of them in her classes at Lebanese American University (LAU). Shia students have told her that they follow her from semester to semester because they will only accept a grade from a Shia professor. Some, especially the Amal supporters, are rowdy, lazy, and just want to discuss politics rather than learn anything. Her students told her that Amal supporters were among the thousands of rioters on June 1. They were likely some of the same students who thuggishly beat up student supporters of Walid Jumblatt on May 25 in plain view of the dean of LAU. ¶4. (C) Saad-Ghorayeb attributed the spontaneous, violent response to the LBCI program to the growing cult of personality surrounding Hassan Nasrallah. Saad-Ghorayeb, who describes herself as sympathetic to the "resistance," refuted any justification for the riot. Sure, Nasrallah is a Sayyed (descendant of the Prophet Mohammad) and is considered by many Shia to be a religious figure, but he is only a mid-ranking cleric. If the program had made fun of Shia spiritual leader Mohammad Fadlallah or the Ayatollah Khamanei, then she could understand the outrage. But Nasrallah is more a political figure than religious scholar. LBCI was irresponsible, but anyone involved in politics in Lebanon should expect such treatment. ¶5. (C) Saad-Ghorayeb said this growing "Nasrallah-mania" started with the Hariri assassination. Subsequent confessional tensions and a sense of threat from the U.S. and Israel has elevated Nasrallah into a cult of personality status. Her Shia students have shown her that they keep Nasrallah's picture on their cellphones and use sound bites of his speeches as ringtones. There are also Nasrallah key BEIRUT 00001807 002 OF 003 rings and cellphone neck bands. Saad-Ghorayeb was recently surprised to see one of her most liberal Shia female students, who wears European-style dress and leaves her hair uncovered, carrying around a notebook with a Nasrallah picture on the cover. (Note: Other Shia contacts have observed this growing cult of personality around Nasrallah (ref B). End note.) SHIA VOICES: LBCI IRRESPONSIBLE, BUT RIOTS WERE INEXCUSABLE -------------- ¶6. (C) On June 5, Ali Hamadan, foreign affairs director of the Amal movement, gave econoff a similar, if more gentle, assessment of the June 1 riot. Hamdan condemned the LBCI broadcast as irresponsible, but did not spare any condemnation for the rioters. He said the riot was an embarrassment to the Shia community and was an unacceptable lapse in self-control. Hamadan identified the main problem as LBCI's satire against a religious figure "like Patriarch Sfeir or Archbishop Audi." He explained that Nasrallah is a Sayyed, so any insult to him is more inflammatory than to a civilian Hizballah officials. The riots would not have happened if the satire had poked fun at Minister of Energy and Water Mohammad Fneish or MP Mohammad Raad, according to Hamdan. He admitted that the press routinely criticizes his boss, Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri, but that the Amal movement just accepts it as a part of politics. The key difference is that Berri is not a Sayyed. ¶7. (C) Abbas Sabbagh, a Shia JOURNALIST based in southern Beirut, observed the riot and agreed that it was largely spontaneous. According to Sabbagh, Hizballah MP Ali Ammar joined the protesters in the street, but there is no evidence he was acting on orders from Nasrallah. Sabbagh did not view the LBCI parody of Nasrallah as unusually insulting. However, the fact that Nasrallah is seen by many as a religious figure and that the show was aired on LBCI (viewed as sympathetic to the Lebanese Forces) made Shia so angry. Sabbagh condemned the violence. He saw it as an expression of power and fear by the Shia. They seem to think they can take to the streets for any reason. Like Saad-Ghorayeb, Sabbagh also saw Amal supporters among the protesters. "OVEREMPOWERMENT" AT PLAY -------------- ¶8. (C) Saad-Ghorayeb viewed the June 1 riot in south Beirut, in addition to the May 25 LAU violence and May 28 Blue Line fighting, as datapoints in the trend among Lebanese Shia of what she termed "overempowerment." She explained that Shia had been dispossessed for most of Lebanese history until their revival movement in the late 1970s and 1980s. Now that Shia have gained equal footing with the other sects and more, they think in overempowerment terms. It is a dangerous phenomenon of the Shia feeling strong and powerful at the same time they still feel threatened because of past injustices. As a result, the Shia community feels justified in using coercion to get its way at the same time it knows it possesses the capability to do so. Saad-Ghorayeb expects more such incidents to occur despite her hope that they won't. ¶9. (C) According to Saad-Ghorayeb, the Shia feel empowered by Hizballah's perceived military successes against Israel, the Shia community's newfound clout in Lebanese politics, and by Iran and its nuclear weapons program. She gave a practical example of this overempowerment. In the past, Lebanese prejudice against Shia was such that a pejorative term for a Shia Muslim, metawli ("follower of Ali"),was used to describe anything that was low-class, shabby, or ruffian. For example, a Christian or Sunni might say to their fellow confessionalists: "What are you wearing, you are dressed like a metawli!" Now, Shia are taking control of the word and are calling themselves and each other "metawli" as a kind of a statement of confessional brotherhood. The flip side is that they are taunting non-Shia, who are now afraid to use that word in front of Shia for fear of verbal or physical attack. COMMENT -------------- ¶10. (C) Embassy's Shia contacts have been warning us for more than a year that confessionalism and angst within the Shia community was increasing, due in part to Hizballah rhetoric. The June 1 riot was a sign of that Shia anger and seemed to suggest that Hizballah may not be able to control BEIRUT 00001807 003 OF 003 what it fomented. Saad-Ghorayeb's analysis helps explain how a community -- one that boasts the only remaining militia, is possibly the largest in Lebanon, is lavishly supported by Iran and Syria, and whose parties seem to exercise a veto on all political and economic reform -- still acts as if it is the one under siege. End comment. FELTMAN