Augustus Norton on Hizbullah’s Social Services

Source: www.harpers.org, 19-3-2007
Posted on Wednesday, March 14, 2007. Augustus Richard Norton, professor of international relations at Boston University and an adviser to the Iraq Study Group, is one of the country's leading experts on political Islam. In "Parties of God," my story in this month's magazine (excerpted online), I noted that Norton favors engagement with Islamic movements that participate in democratic politics, including groups such as Hamas and Hizbullah. "Unlike the millenarian aims of Osama bin Laden, [political Islamists] have goals that are in many ways pragmatic and even prosaic, and they are amenable to reasonable solutions and compromise," he told me. Norton's new book, Hizbullah: A Short History (Princeton University Press), will be published later next month. Below is an edited excerpt from a section entitled "The Rich Texture of Shiite Institutions," which describes Hizbullah's important role in offering social services to its constituents. Hizbullah is deeply rooted in Lebanon's political and social life; this excerpt serves as a primer on why that's the case. By Augustus Norton.
Sources
The Lebanese government offers paltry social welfare services for its citizens, and the few that are available are heavily concentrated within Beirut. A broad range of services is sorely needed in the Dahiyeh [the heavily Shiite southern suburbs], where per capita income is one fifth to one sixth of the national average. With no safety net of state-provided social services, life has traditionally been very hard indeed for those without prosperous extended families. But the glaring lack of non-family-based support services began to ease in recent decades, at least in the Shiite community, owing in part to the vision of the Shiite cleric Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah.
During Lebanon`s civil war Fadlallah spoke about the necessity of creating a dawlat al-insan, or "human state," that would provide the resources for people to help themselves and one another. Fadlallah's concept has inspired the emergence of many private social-service associations, most of which serve the Shiite community. Some are linked directly to Fadlallah or to other leading sayyids, institutions, and parties, notably including the Musa al-Sadr Foundation, the Supreme Islamic Shiite Council, the Amal movement, and Hizbullah. "Husseiniyas," some built by families, others funded by municipalities or benevolent trusts (awqaf) are often important centers for associational life, and in smaller villages they are often the only site for social assistance. Anthropologist Lara Deeb recently quoted a Shiite woman in the Beirut suburbs who observed, "Before, there was nothing here, not a single jam'iya (charitable organization), nothing." Although not literally true, the statement does underline the paucity of jam'iyaat, or associations, only a few decades ago.
Although wealthy Shiites, including émigrés and rich Shiites in the Gulf, are often important donors, most of the jam'iyaat depend heavily on local fund-raising and donations or generate income themselves. As Lara Deeb notes, Fadlallah's rich complex of institutions includes gas stations, a publishing house, a photocopy store, a factory for religiously permissible or halal foods (such as meat that has been slaughtered according to Islamic rules-similar to Kosher standards), and a computer store. Individual donations include alms (zakat) that may be paid in kind, such as gifts of food for the poor; Ramadan gifts, khums (a fifth of one yearly income after meeting living expenses), half of which is paid to one's marja or wakil and the other half to a descendant of the prophet or sayyid, and ad hoc donations by the faithful (sadaqat). Respected jam'iyaat are often authorized by several marjai'is to collect donations on their behalf. It is not unusual for as much as two million dollars to be collected on a single night during Ramadan.
Hizbullah offers an array of social services to its constituents that include construction companies, schools, hospitals, dispensaries, and micro-finance initiatives (notably al-Qard al-Hasan, literally the "good loan," which began making loans in 1984 and now offers about 750 small loans a month). These tend to be located in predominantly Shiite areas, but some serve anyone requesting help. Hizbullah hospital and clinic staff also treat all walk-in patients, regardless of political views or their sect, for only a small fee.
Much of the funding for the social and medical infrastructure is raised domestically, but Hizbullah also receives significant subsidies from Iran. The amounts are often estimated at $100 million a year, but, in fact, they vary widely, depending on the political climate in Iran. A significant portion of Iranian support is for Hizbullah's militia wing. Several of the Hizbullah-sponsored societies are actually branches of Iranian organizations or were initially created by Iran. Hence the large Islamic Charity Emdad (ICEC) was created in 1987 with Iranian financial support but today depends heavily on volunteer labor. Deeb notes that of 440 Emdad employees only about 90 were paid, and many paid employees donate a significant amount of unpaid labor. The Martyr's Association was created in 1982 by Khomeini and operates as a sister group to an Iranian organization of the same name, as does the Association for the Wounded. Other organizations were created by Hizbullah, more notably the Jihad al-Binaa Development Organization, which has literally reconstructed and repaired much of the damage wrought by war. The Hizbullah Women's Committee and the Islamic Health Committee are also important groups.
A Shiite friend, in 2004, told me that, "there are no needy people in the Dahiyeh," implying that the rich fabric of social and charitable organizations meets the needs of people who would otherwise be impoverished. A safety net exists today that simply was not there before, and many Shiites take pride in knowing that they have helped to build it.
The social services institutions that do exist in the Shiite community were put to an extraordinary test in 2006 by the "Israeli" attacks that targeted broad swaths of that community and left as many as fifteen thousand homes destroyed or badly damaged. The severe, extensive damage has overwhelmed even Hizbullah's services framework, but the party's prompt action to meet its constituents' needs is a vivid example of the competence and professionalism that has won Hizbullah extensive support among many Lebanese Shiites.
More important than the specifics of any one association is the evidence that a palpable sense of community and religious commitment (iltizam) now exist that emphasize that a mark of faith is to offer a helping hand to others and participate in the community. Ayatollah Fadlallah is known for capturing this ethos when he says that he does not want followers but rather partners. It is impossible to appreciate the striking durability and loyalty that modern Shiite groups such as Hizbullah (or comparable groups in Iraq, for instance) generate unless one understands that their strength derives from the strong social fabric that they have woven over the years.