Hizballah Protests: Once More With Less Feeling

Photo by Andrew Lee Butters

The truce if off. Hizballah and the other Lebanese opposition parties resumed their anti-government demonstrations today, picketing in front of a Finance Ministry office in Beirut that collects sales tax.

Coming after the massive rallies that have paralyzed central Beirut in past weeks, today's event wasn't much of one. When TIME photographer Kate Brooks and I showed up, there were more police than protesters. No funny new slogans, no loudmouth politicians, no angry shebab. Kate got so bored she left a few minutes later.

The choice of the sales tax building as the target of the protests was also anti-climatic. It's hardly the nexus of pro-American Prime Minister Fouad Siniora's hold on power, or a symbol of some American-Zionist plot. The opposition chose the building because the government recently announced plans to raise the tax, as part of a package of economic reforms and money raising efforts to help the country rebuild after the past summer's war with Israel.

While a tax hike is hardly popular among the many Lebanese who are already struggling to make ends meet, today's rally isn't going to make the government drop its plans and resign. They consider themselves the democratically elected majority, and will try to weather whatever storm hits the country between now and the next election.

The opposition has promised a succession of roving protests, each day at a different government building. But as long as they stay peaceful, these actions aren't going to shut down the country. It's not like merchants all over the country stopped collecting sales tax today. I went grocery shopping on my way home from the rally, paid the usual 10 percent, and have the receipt to prove it.

So here's the dilemma for Hizballah. As long as these protests remain peaceful, the government will just shrug them off. But if Hizballah becomes more aggressive -- say by forcibly cutting off the airport road, or storming a ministry or two -- it risks alienating the majority of people who attend their rallies who have no taste for civil conflict.

Not that the government is out of danger. It too is on borrowed time. Or rather, borrowed money. The reason Siniora wants to raise taxes is to get Lebanon's finances in order before he leaves for Paris on Saturday, cap in hand, to raise money at a major donor conference. Siniora is hoping to raise a cool $4 billion to dig the country from under it's about $40 billion debt.

The longer the stalemate drags on, the more Lebanon's finances and economy deteriorate. And the greater the chance that Hizballah, or some outside agitating force, will resort to less peaceful means. If there is a blow-up -- literal or financial -- everyone in Lebanon will lose.

--Andrew Lee Butters/Beirut