By Rebecca Theodore:

As wild flames of fire engulf the Arab world, provoking a moment of rising democratic optimism and thoughts of liberalization and freedom for many, the eruption of a civil war is also evident as the dispute over Lebanon’s support of a UN tribunal expects to indict several Hezbollah members for the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Thus, this ominous and far-reaching allusion now extends into a chain migration of Syrian Lebanese in the Caribbean, as more and more refugees are joining relatives and friends rather than striking out for entirely new territory.

Unlike the murky era of the 19th century when Arabs migrated to the Caribbean to escape religious persecution at the hands of Muslim Turks; ties of race, blood and clan now stitches a web of commercial businesses in the Caribbean for the Syrian Lebanese migrating population because of social connections, jobs and strong family ties. The Caribbean is now the country of freedom and the land of milk and honey where streets are paved of the purest gold for the throng of Syrian Lebanese refugees in an exodus for survival and development as displaced Arabs establish new lives, enjoying the political stability and pristine environment that is the Caribbean.

It cannot be denied that the Syrian Lebanese community makes valuable contributions to national, economic, social and cultural development in the Caribbean but at the same time the Caribbean Syrian Lebanese community is not without blame. There is word that prominent Syrian Lebanese businesses and groups in the Caribbean are organically tied to the authoritarian arm of Hezbollah, financing their destructive paramilitary and unconventional warfare capabilities in Lebanon through money laundering and other illegal maneuvers. This conduct not only subverts the values of security, freedom, and cooperative diversity in the Caribbean but also make domestic and international relations impossible.

In this great wave of migration, the Syrian Lebanese hegemony over money laundering in the Caribbean needs to be challenged and Caribbean leaders need to take heed because in the same way corruption and incompetence in Palestinian politics gave birth to Hamas seizing the Gaza Strip by force, dramatic unrest in Tunisia and Sa’ad Hariri’s alliance with Hezbollah to retain a majority in the 128-seat parliament resulted in its automatic dissolution, throwing Lebanon into political chaos; the cultivation and manipulation of influence and power by prominent Syrian Lebanese elites over political parties and elected members of government -- most notably Trinidad and Tobago, Antigua and Barbuda , Barbados, Dominica and Jamaica should not go by unnoticed.

Experience teaches that societal influences, corruption, and abuse of power are some of the chief clauses that now see Lebanon’s deposed prime minister, Saad Hariri (the son of Rafik Hariri), being placed between a rock and a harder place. If he does not agree to dismiss the findings of the tribunal, labeled a Zionist American conspiracy by Iran and Syria sponsored groups, then street protests, violence, possible civil war and sectarian battles between Sunnis and Shi'ites will herald a new dawn in the political and economic lives of the Syrian Lebanese people who yearn for an honest judiciary, a legislature guided by liberal ideals, strict and equal law enforcement and a free press -- the institutions that form the backbone of democracy.

And as the Lebanese crisis incites the alarm of the international community, Hezbollah’s violent, subversive, and destructive autocratic power swiftly imposes billionaire Najib Mikati as prime minister while the US stands helplessly with folded arms, unable to implement its role as a major superpower with the same fortitude it did in the Gulf War of 1991. Through it all, Hezbollah leader Hassam Nasrallah exerts power, Iran hits the jackpot, Saudi Arabia abandons its efforts to resolve the dispute, and the wave of migration to the Caribbean deepens.

The political turmoil in Lebanon is a turning point for political and social history in the Caribbean as it welcomes another new wave of migrants. It is a precedent that will affect democratic reform, the strength of civil society and the political will of governments. It gives Caribbean governments cause to make adjustments on who they think are model refugees into the Caribbean basin.

February 5, 2011

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