The Naked Diplomat

by Tom Fletcher

  Lebanon is a prisoner of history and geography. The losers, splitters and persecuted of the twentieth century sought refuge in its mountains, not anticipating the need to coexist with at least eighteen cults even more niche than their own. For many of them – Allawites, Druze, Maronites, Palestinians, Armenians, Orthodox, etc. – this is where they make their last stand, and success in the twenty-first century is survival.

  The Lebanese are mountain people: resilient, tough survivors who put family and clan first. And sea people: adventurers, dreamers and traders.

  Throw in the most difficult set of neighbours since 1940s Poland, and you have a cauldron of raw, often violent, politics; and a vector for regional instability. There are no permanent allies nor enemies. The veneer of the state is paper thin, with the Lebanese relying on it for no more than a passport, functioning cash machines and an airport. The Lebanese are fatalist about these problems. And they always have an outsider to blame, normally with good reason.

  So by all normal standards of logic, Lebanon should not work. No one really understands how it does. My sense is that it is through a combination of money, fear and ingenuity. The Lebanese cash keeps on flowing – remittances from the 80% of Lebanese overseas that maintain economic growth against the odds; from the Gulf Arabs who take bling breaks in Beirut away from their normal obligations; and from Westerners keen to prop up a country – or at least bits of it – that we think looks and sounds like us.

  Fear, because the brutality of civil war is etched on those who survived it, and the landscape. However much the factions hate and threaten each other, however itchy the trigger fingers get, no one judges it is in their interest to go back. Lebanon is a post-failed state that craves stability.

  And ingenuity, because the Lebanese have always found a way to work through their problems. A fragile but somehow functional system of consent, patronage and compromise holds. Think UK coalition negotiations with militias outside the Cabinet Secretary’s office, or a European Council with RPGs. This encourages brinkmanship and inertia.

  External interventions in Lebanon – in recent memory Israeli, Syrian, American, French, British, Iranian, even Italian – tend to follow a set pattern: seduction, toxification, terror, and ignominious departure. Lebanon is easy to swallow, but hard to digest.

  But Lebanon also has a highly engaged, political population. So I started to experiment. In 2011, we organised the first live Twitter Q and A between an ambassador and a head of government. Prime Minister Mikati and I spent an hour online simultaneously, to highlight a visit he was making to London and to seek ideas for new cooperation between our two countries. We answered hundreds of questions and engaged a set of interlocutors – honestly and directly – that we would never otherwise have reached.

  Emboldened by this, I hosted the first ever virtual diplomatic reception, with participants encouraged to prepare the same meal as us, and those present in person live-streamed in order to interact in real time with those not physically in the room. We debated the steps Lebanon needs to take to skip a telecommunications generation and put in place the right infrastructure to be a twenty-first-century Singapore. Running the event was hard work: I had to be a combination of dinner-party host and television presenter, while tracking and responding to online questions and comments. But it stimulated a huge number of ideas. More importantly, it generated the connections to deliver them.

  I started using Twitter walls during speeches in order to interact and take questions in real time. Again, this created challenges. It was disorientating to have what used to be called an audience commenting with each other on what you are saying, while you are saying it. But it delivers a much more useful and responsive discussion, and often means that I make rapid changes to the subjects we debate as we go along. Many of those who need to be part of the solution to Lebanon’s challenges are members of Lebanon’s massive diaspora. A digital element to public events created the opportunity to bring them more closely into the conversation.

  We also decided that blogging would help us reach a completely new audience. One issue we were up against was short-termism, and a lack of any coherent national vision. So in 2012 I wrote an idealistic but controversial vision of what Lebanon could become.

  Beirutopia

  Diplomats hate making predictions. Churchill once said that you could ignore every other page of Foreign Office advice, because it tended to be in the form of ‘on the one hand’ and ‘on the other hand’. The files are full of pre-election telegrams that hedge their bets.

  There are good reasons for this. We don’t like being wrong. And the more we study international politics, the more we realise how unpredictable it all is.

  So this blogpost is no crystal ball. But – amid the pessimism – many people have been talking to me about the future of Lebanon. So I wondered what my successor would write in his report following the 100th anniversary celebrations in Lebanon in 2020.* Here is one of several possible versions:

  Dear Foreign Secretary,

  I represented you at today’s centenary celebrations in Beirut.

  There were many international leaders present. Lebanon’s new wealth, the result of huge amounts of offshore gas, is attracting great interest. The eurozone president commented to me that Lebanon was now Singapore with more skiing, or Qatar with more culture.

  The highlight of the celebration was the participation of so many talented poets, musicians and film-makers. Since the end of the Syrian occupation, Lebanon has re-emerged as the epicentre of the Arab Cultural Renaissance, as you know from the high numbers of film and music downloads in the UK.

  The newly elected Syrian president was guest of honour. The Treaty of Recognition and Cooperation signed between Syria and Lebanon in 2014 established an equal relationship. The border was demarcated, and Lebanese businesses and community leaders of course played a key role in the reconstruction of Syria following the terrible 2011–13 civil war.

  I spoke to many MPs attending. Most are now under the age of forty, the post-civil-war generation. Many returned from expat jobs overseas to help lead the country. Where once we spoke of a Brain Drain, we now see a Brain Gain. New technology has allowed the Lebanese diaspora to create one of the world’s most dynamic global business networks, with Beirut as the hub between Europe and Asia. In her speech, the president (one of the first citizens to have a civil marriage with a partner from another confession) said that as global power shifts south and east, we are on the cusp of a new Levantine age.

  The 2014 Beirut Accord still seems to be working well. Of course, Lebanon wouldn’t be Lebanon without some animated debate over political representation. But most parties feel their interests are safeguarded. For me, the key moment was the rebuttal by Lebanon’s leaders of international offers to oversee the ‘reset’ of Lebanon’s constitutional settlement. By insisting that this should be a Lebanese-led process, they ended the vicious cycle of external meddling and patronage. For the first time, the constitutional settlement is truly Lebanese.

  There was little political debate at the ceremony itself, though politics is as lively as ever. The key dividing line is over what to do with the income from gas. The One Lebanon (centre left) party want to give each Lebanese citizen a dividend. The One Nation (centre right) party want to retain a sovereign wealth fund. The only party to retain a sectarian basis lost its last seat at the 2017 elections, though the Senate continues to act as the safeguard for cross-confessional interests.

  Alphabetical protocol meant that the ambassadors of Israel and Iran were sat near to Great Britain, both in animated conversation. The 2015 peace agreement between Israel and Lebanon has of course been a key part of the regional gas boom. Borders were settled in the south, and both sides pledged no further aggression. The establishment of Palestine the same year, following intense US-led engagement, meant the return of many Palestinian refugees from Lebanon. Western tourists now visit Israel, Palestine, Syria and Lebanon on the same trip, and many Lebanese Christian and Muslim pilgrim
s from Lebanon visited Jerusalem last year.

  Lebanon’s kaleidoscope nation was out in force, a vivid reminder of the different groups who have made this land their home over the centuries. Having paid the price in the past for sectarian division, Lebanon is now a talisman for coexistence, and delegations regularly visit from countries in conflict to study the lessons. As in Northern Ireland, it is remarkable to see how far a number of former militias have come, committing to a genuinely national project. They have more political power as a result. The National Guard, including many former resistance fighters, marched proudly alongside the rest of the Lebanese army, many of whom have now returned from peacekeeping missions on several continents.

  I arrived at the ceremony on the new citytrain, one of the flagship projects of Lebanon 2020, a private-sector-driven modernisation project. Beirut now has the world’s first car-free city centre, and oil and gas revenues have funded the repair of the national grid, leaving generators a distant memory. The effort to discover and renovate ancient ruins remains at the heart of the remarkable tourist boom of recent years. Beirut is now the top citybreak destination for Brits, and many will I’m sure join me in Sky Bar tonight to continue the celebration.

  Lebanon at 100 is an extraordinary, talented, resilient, hopeful, diverse, beautiful and enchanting place. I look forward to the next royal visit.

  Yours,

  HM Ambassador Beirut

  PS: It was a pleasure to see my predecessor Tom Fletcher win the 100m and 200m at this year’s Olympics.

  A fantasy? Naive? It depends on you. Tell us what you think. #Leb2020

  Much of the letter does indeed look naive. But it triggered a debate, and was widely shared. We realised that we had identified a way to cut through to dinner-table conversations, and to trigger new arguments, to break people out of comfortable but dangerous narratives.

  So as part of our public diplomacy to mark the seventieth anniversary of Lebanon’s independence in 2013, we decided to ratchet it up a level, and take a gamble by releasing a controversial open letter to the Lebanese people. Again, this aimed to tackle some of the fatalism about Lebanon’s situation, to point out some hard truths, and to stimulate fresh thinking about the tough decisions needed if Lebanon was to make it to seventy-five. I pulled it together with help from colleagues and ran it by trusted Lebanese media contacts. I then pressed the button to ‘finalise’ and held my breath.

  Tomorrow I’ll hand a letter from Prime Minister Cameron to President Sleiman, with formal congratulations on Lebanon’s seventieth anniversary.

  The wonderful people at Rag Mag also asked me to write an open letter to mark the day. This is a tough and precarious assignment, and it will annoy or anger some people. But I’ve had a try, as I think this is an important moment for reflection.

  I hope others will consider writing letters of their own.

  Dear Lebanon,

  I wanted to write to say Happy Seventieth Birthday.

  I know that in reality you have been around thousands of years, and were trading and writing long before my ancestors. But that moment of your birth in November 1943 was special, different – you took your first steps as a new nation founded on uniting principles rather than lines of division.

  I’m proud that my predecessor, Edward Spears, was there to support that, and that we believed as strongly then as now in the idea of Lebanon.

  The thing is, Lebanon, do you still believe in that idea? This is a question only you can answer. Without doubt, it has been a bumpy seven decades, with troublesome teenage years and plenty of midlife crises, to put it mildly.

  You now face another tough year, and rising anxiety that regional rifts can drive you apart once again. We have been reminded this week that there are plenty of people who want that to happen.

  I hope that you’ll forgive a bit of feedback, from one of your admirers.

  You’re so much better than you admit. Look back at those seventy years. Your writers, musicians, thinkers and business people have conquered the world again and again.

  Your mountains, valleys and coasts are the envy of all of us. You have an extraordinary unquenchable spirit. You have found a way to move on from a devastating civil war, almost as though it never happened.

  You are the world’s best networkers, in a century that will be run by networks. You are also the most exceptional hosts, not just to ambassadors but also to the hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees who have arrived in the last two years.

  Whatever your religion, there are few more beautiful sounds than the intermingling of the call to prayer and church bells. Every day I meet extraordinary Lebanese people doing great things against the odds.

  So, let’s be clear, I’m a fan.

  But I’m also frustrated, and I know that many of you are.

  Your politics are dynamic on the surface. Yet broken and paralysed beneath it. You talk of unity. Yet often say things like ‘Lebanon would be wonderful if it wasn’t for the Lebanese’, ‘it will always be like this – this is Lebanon’, or ‘they [insert different group] are just too different’.

  You have an impressive ability to absorb hardships such as power cuts. Yet you rarely confront the causes of them. You invest more than any country in the education of your youth. Yet they feel excluded from changing the country for the better. You have been a beacon for women’s rights. Yet only elect a tiny handful to Parliament. You were the first country in the region to stand up against dictatorship and tyranny in the twenty-first-century Middle East. Yet your voice in calling for your own rights and those of others seems to have fallen silent, and in too many cases been silenced.

  So here’s some unsolicited advice.

  First and most important, start ignoring advice from outsiders, including me: this is your country.

  Second, celebrate the success that is all around you – yes, the talented and inspirational athletes, thinkers, explorers and activists. But also the grafters who tell me on the school run, in the street, shops, schools or hospitals – ‘this is our country, we share it, and carrying on our lives is the best response to violence and division’.

  Third, why not use this seventieth anniversary of independence to remember what independence meant and should still mean – that you’ll prioritise national interests, Lebanese interests, over those of foreign patrons? And demand that your leaders do too?

  Fourth, maybe it is time to renew those marriage vows, to spend a moment reflecting on what you admire rather than what infuriates you about each other. You’re stuck together I’m afraid, for richer or poorer, for better or for worse.

  Finally, don’t forget your collective strengths. You may have difficult neighbours and a tendency to fatalism. But your location and diversity put you at the hub between continents and cultures. Your history gives you a resilience and free spirit that others in the region would die for. And are dying for.

  Many of us are rooting for you. The UK is doubling trade, increasing tenfold our support to the army’s stabilisation effort, and running our largest ever humanitarian effort to help you cope with the refugee influx. The Security Council, far from fighting their battles here, have come together repeatedly to prioritise your stability, and to provide peacekeepers, aid, political support.

  For many of us you’re too important, and too special, to let fail. If coexistence proves impossible in Lebanon, how can we be confident that it will work elsewhere?

  I’m still buying shares in Lebanon 2020. All I encourage, humbly, is that you do too.

  You’re at a moment of jeopardy. Seventy is too young for a country to retire. You can’t just Botox away the cracks. Whether you make it to seventy-five depends on whether you can find a way to regroup, to focus again on what unites rather than divides you.

  That is not something that you can leave to outsiders. You have to decide whether you’re on the side of those who are fighting over Lebanon. Or with those who are fighting for it.

  Happy Birthday. Happy Independence Day. Happy One Lebanon D
ay. Mabrouk, bon courage, and solidarity.

  Yours affectionately,

  Tom

  This was high-risk, and outside the usual rules of diplomacy. It set out to challenge and provoke. One journalist later called it a ‘gadfly stunt’.

  But it was a stunt with a purpose. And it cut through. In the first forty-eight hours, the letter received over 10,000 Facebook likes, was tweeted over 8,000 times, and was covered prominently by all major TV and radio outlets. It received over 1,000 online responses, and was debated on the Lebanese equivalents of Newsnight and Question Time. One blogger estimated that the letter had been read by a third of the Lebanese population.

  Of those who responded online, roughly 50% were enthusiastic; 30% said that it showed the need for Lebanese people to debate stronger action to protect stability, and began discussing how; 10% passed it on as a bit of novelty; and 10% saw it as an act of condescending neocolonialism from the country of Sykes, Balfour and Blair. Television debates were 90% supportive of the letter and the UK, with several enthusing celebrities.

  Lebanon’s most brilliant satirist, Karl Sharro, then wrote a very effective parody reply from Lebanon to the UK, which triggered another twenty-four hours of debate. I responded with a YouTube video, encouraging satirists to poke fun at those in public positions and giving examples of British creativity and liberty. This led to a further round of interest, with over 4,000 views in the following twenty-four hours.

  Over three days, we had stimulated an argument about Lebanon’s challenges that would not otherwise have happened. And I hoped that we had positioned the UK, at least in the eyes of most who followed the exchanges, as an honest if critical friend. The campaign raised our local profile significantly, and helped to draw attention to our wider messages in support of Lebanon’s stability, including the gift of seventy Land Rovers for Independence Day.

  This is new terrain, and the direct approach would not work everywhere. But it showed that it helps to set up dividing lines, rather than seek the path of least resistance. It helps to create moments of jeopardy or cliffhangers, in this case around Lebanon’s prospects for survival. We need to build unusual coalitions, such as with the divas and celebrities who promoted it.