The Invasion of Mansourieh (updated)

There may very well be no scientific basis to residents’ fears of “cancer” from electromagnetic fields from a new high tension power line which now it appears shall pass over their homes; a cursory search via google tells you that, but that’s not the point. It is how our Lebanese Government, and indeed other Arab and third world governments, treat their people, the heavy-handed approach that considers all who oppose the official will as trouble makers and vandals. 

On the morning of Tuesday, May 7, I left my home at just after 10am. I was stunned to see a row of armored personnel carriers with M60 machine guns set atop them, police vehicles, army jeeps, machinegun-armed soldiers in camo fatigues, I thought “They must be here to raid an ISIS cell in Mansourieh!” The next thought was “In Mansourieh! Nah”. It was only later, when I returned home in the midafternoon that I learned of the clashes between irate residents and security forces protecting power utility employees preparing to string up a high-tension power line overhead.

If this military presence is not an example of unnecessary provocation, I don’t know what is. This is a huge fail for the government, specifically the ministers concerned, the Interior minister who sent in the troops, and the power and water minister, who knew of the sensitivity of the issue but still never deigned to meet with Mansourieh/Ain Najm/Ain Saade residents to discuss people’s concerns and answer questions. What happened in Mansourieh, my home, was another example of the brutal, impersonal, heavy handed government machinery bulldozing its way over the objections of terrified even if ill-informed residents.

One search via google came up with a well written Forbes article about the very issue, concluding that the most recent research has dismissed any risk from EMFs from power lines, in fact, the article lumped such unreasonable fears together with fears over vaccines causing autism, there is simply no science to support such fears, the article concluded. But still, residents deserved better than to be faced with riot police carrying shields and batons, even if residents were being hysterical and unreasonable, they still deserved a personal visit from the responsible minister to reassure them and answer exhaustive questions. 

The government could have brought in a respected scientist from abroad, impartial and unswayed by local political considerations, to give lectures on the subject and reassure residents. EMF measuring devices could have been installed under the proposed power lines to monitor emissions. In short, the government could have done a lot more than it did. The fact it didn’t is in my view a sign that the Lebanese are right to suspect that governments once elected care very little about the people who elect them. And here we come to the political hay making, as the saying goes make political hay while the sun of official blundering shines and the Kataeb Party certainly did that!

Wednesday evening the church hall of our local parish church of St. Therese saw a visit by Sami and Nadim Gemayel, leaders of the party, as well as the MP Elias Hankash, all to support residents in their ‘good struggle’ against the government bulldozer that is about to uproot their lives. It was quite emotive and effective. I’d say the party won a few extra votes in the Metn as a result of it. 

It was the image of a local resident holding up a wooden crucifix at the head of a group of protestors as they pushed up against the police cordon with one man getting visibly hit on the head, that forced everyone to stop and consider their next moves carefully I guess. Religion after all is an extremely serious topic and a very sensitive one in Lebanon, it has been ever since our disastrous civil war. 

The meeting at the church hall ended Wednesday with the local priest coming out and telling gathered residents to meet at the church at 7am the next morning to protest further, which was met by cheers from the crowds and chants of “Aboona, Aboona, Aboona”, in English “our father”, by which they didn’t mean God, but rather the “father” of our flock. This is exactly what the government didn’t do, it didn’t behave as a father of its flock, but as an impersonal machine unconcerned with local feelings, issuing pronouncements from on high.

Yes, the past few days have been quite a fiasco, all very entertaining, drama, action, and a light political theatre, but what are the lessons that the government has drawn from these events? I suspect as all haughty governments everywhere in the third world, very few to none.

Thursday morning a small crowd gathered at the cross roads leading to the church as riot police assembled below them, above them on the high ground and around them. The Press was in attendance more than it was in the previous two days. By the early afternoon, more trucks and jeeps and security men could be seen, a possible sign they anticipate trouble. There is every indication that this issue will not go away even though the government might want it to.

There is no doubt that the high tension power line issue is one of back door political maneuvering now as the head of the Kataeb Party Sami Gemayel Thursday morning submitted a request to revise the electricity law to the constitutional council. He managed to get ten MPs, mostly independents to sign it. How effective this may turn out, I have no idea. But there is a local saying "iza ma kibrit ma btizghar", in short its gonna get a lot bigger and more convoluted before it is finally resolved.

Some still raise the banner of health risks, some the risk of lightning strikes and impact on property from storm damage, falling live power lines etc..., as reasons for their objections, but I suspect there is more to the impetus that drives protestors and the church, a major property owner in the area, as well as the secular machinery of politics to kick protests in to high gear. It is ultimately about property prices, desirability, and view! And yes these things are important to property owners. 

It is less about health risks and more about a visual obstruction of ugly proportions, which is just as serious. Most residents not directly under the power line but in its immediate vicinity own their own house or apartment, for most it is the single most valuable thing they own. They are unlikely to benefit from the buyout option offered by the government to residents living directly under the power line and will in the next ten or twenty years when they may decide to sell up find themselves at the mercy of a fickle market and buyers unwilling to pay premium prices for properties whose view is obstructed by high tension pylons and cables.

Ultimately, a deal will have to be reached that involves money and incentives, this may end up costing this government quite a bit. One thought that comes to mind as to what concession may be made would be for the government to offer life time property tax wavers to residents living within 200 meters of the power lines. That would soften the blow of falling property prices considerably. I suspect that a compromise may be reached, the only question is how quickly will stubbornness give way to reasonableness.