Why Hezbollah's Al-Manar Television is broadcasting Sunday Mass

[eridani]

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15819.htm

A truck laden with yellow Hezbollah flags drives past the Christian neighbourhood of Gemayzeh early Sunday morning in downtown Beirut. There's a picture of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on the windscreen, but it's not his name that the young men on board are chanting. "General, General!" yell these young Shiite boys.

Their chant is for the leader of Hezbollah's largest Christian ally, the former General Michel Aoun. And this van captures an important dynamic that many of the international and Lebanese press have omitted from their coverage of the last few days -- that almost a quarter of the crowd at the huge anti-government protests have been Lebanese Christians.

The size and commitment of the Christian participation became clear Sunday, as thousands of Christians from Aoun's 'Free Patriotic Movement' marched in from East Beirut to join their Shia allies in calling for the Prime Minister to resign.

"We are all Christians and we are against the government," 45-year-old Joseph from East Beirut tells me as he walks past with his son, "We want our own Lebanese government with no Syrian influence, no American influence and not any influence from other Arab countries. "

Umm* but haven't we been told that Hezbollah are just Syrian agents? Why would nationalist anti-Syrian Christians want to be in a coalition with them?

[Kagemusha]

1. Because the Sunnis aren't giving them a better deal?

I'd think it starts with that.

[eridani]

3. Probably--

--and a lot of shifting alliances in the future wouldn't surprise me at all. I was mainly trying to point out the support Hezbollah currently has from strong nationalists of all stripes at the moment. The iconic demonstration of this waw Robert Pape's analysis of the biographies of known Hezbollah suicide bombers, of whom 3 of 38 were Christian, one a college-educated Christian woman. One Christian commented after the latest Israeli attack that Olmert had finally succeeded in uniting their fractious society against something.

[necso]

2. The Christians are divided;

the Muslims are divided.

(With no one group (that is, people under one "leader") clearly dominant.)

It's something like warlord politics, you (generally) ally with whoever best serves your interests (or who you think will win; being on the losing side generally being strongly against your fundamental interests). (Of course, there can be old grievances, animosities, other popular/personal sentiments and beliefs, etc, that keep an individual warlord from seeing and following his (and his people's) best interests.)

And it's (generally) over-simplistic to see this or that group serving someone else's interests -- that is, to the detriment of their own. But it does happen, as people (groups, etc) are susceptible to pressure, inducements and manipulation.

For example, people (especially powerful "leaders") are susceptible to having their egos, fears and animosities (etc) fed; having realities "colored" (alone or with help) this-way-or-that as they prefer; etc -- and overreaching as a result. Combine these manipulations/misunderstandings with various inducements and promises -- and you can get people to make grave errors.