Few are well-deserving of the title of “statesman” within the Lebanese political junta, as the vast majority of what is known as Lebanon’s political elite have proven to be irredeemable and outdated. Among the men whose presence is rare is the former Speaker of the Lebanese Parliament, Hussein Al-Husseini, who passed away yesterday at the age of 86. Al-Husseini left us a legacy rich in sectarian reconciliations, and a political performance that sums up the post-Lebanese civil war that lasted between 1975 and 1990, and the subsequent rise of Lebanon followed by the current downfall.
Hussein Al-Husseini is the scion of one of the most prominent Lebanese Shiite families in the Bekaa Valley, and he spent most of his life serving his country and his people. First, at the age of 18, he became the mayor of his long-standing family village, Shamstar. After that, Al-Husseini entered the Lebanese Parliament in 1972, to be among the youngest members of the last elected parliament before the outbreak of the civil war. Nine years later, in 1984, he was elected Speaker of the House of Representatives.
The pinnacle of President Al-Husseini’s bids for his country, Lebanon, as the speaker of his parliament, was when he directly contributed in 1989 to ending the Lebanese civil war through Saudi sponsorship of peace talks that took place between the various sects and parties in the Land of the Cedars, where those talks were held in the city of Taif in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia under the auspices of the late King Fahd bin Abd Dear, the League of Arab States, and the international community. During which all the remaining members of the parliament elected in 1972 met.
There in Taif, under the guidance and direct supervision of Hussein al-Husseini, the deputies of the afflicted country cooperated on how to get rid of fifteen years of bloody sectarian confrontations, and to introduce a new formula for participatory governance that was later known as the “Taif Accord.” As the godfather of the agreement, as he later became known, Hussein al-Husseini became the protector of the Lebanese constitution and the guarantor of the rule of law. It has always become the loudest voice in the country of the Cedars, with full force, of the need to implement the Taef Accord in its entirety.
However, the exploits of President Al-Husseini are not limited to this historic achievement of him in Taif, as this gentle and firm personality had a pivotal role in establishing the Lebanese “Amal” movement, along with Mr. Musa Al-Sadr, who became the head of the movement. Later, Al-Husseini himself occupied the leadership of the movement after the kidnapping of Al-Sadr and his two companions in Libya in August 1978, and perhaps this was done on the orders of Ayatollah Khomeini, who was afraid of Al-Sadr’s charisma, and was not satisfied with the presence of another Shiite force in the region with independence. about Tehran.
Despite his high status and high status in the Lebanese Shiite community, Hussein Al-Husseini did not fit the image preferred by the active regional powers of the politician and the warlord, who were seeking to create loyal agents in Lebanon. For this reason, the regime of former Syrian President Hafez al-Assad replaced him with Nabih Berri as head of the movement. The latter was favored by Damascus, as he was a figure who by nature sought to make concessions. It is ironic that Berri replaced Hussein Al-Husseini in the presidency of the Lebanese Parliament in 1992, a position that Berri still occupies today.
In any case, even after relinquishing his position as Speaker of Parliament, Hussein Al-Husseini continued to play a very important role as a legislator and guarantor of the constitutional procedures being properly formulated, which was not acceptable to the Lebanese political system whose twisted, opportunistic and opportunistic methods did not agree with the approach of President Al-Husseini, to which he adhered. throughout his political life. In 2008, al-Husayni was forced out of parliament through the dominant Shiite bipartisan alliance between the “Amal” movement (which he helped found) and the Iran-backed “Hezbollah”, which no longer accepted al-Husayni’s moderate political approach and his tendencies rejecting violence, nor Especially after the assassination of Rafik Hariri in 2005.
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At that time, the corrupt political elite in Lebanon accused Hussein Al-Husseini and his generation of naivety and excessive idealism. They stressed the point that the Taef Accord was nothing but a preamble covering Hafez al-Assad and his regime’s absolute control over Lebanon and its resources. By accusing him of this, they are emulating the old Arabic saying, “She threw me her disease and slipped away.” Al-Husseini was the least deserving of describing the agent of Damascus among all Lebanese politicians.
Until the end of his days, President Al-Husseini continued to call on the Lebanese to the necessity of restoring their state by paving the way towards a civil state governed by actual constitutional institutions run by skilled civil servants with experience and knowledge. Although President Al-Husseini’s vision of the Republic of the Taif Agreement did not see the light during his lifetime, his name and his great legacy will remain present in the hearts of those who took to the streets in the October 2019 revolution to demand sovereignty, reform, and human dignity.
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