Italy and Lebanon: Intertwined Histories, Tumultuous Presents, Uncertain Futures - Part 1
Analysis by Francesco Pitzalis, Staff Writer and Sandro Joseph Azzam, Staff Writer
February 28th, 2021
On the 8th of September 2020, former Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte visited Beirut and pledged support for Lebanon in the wake of the port explosion. Conte declared, “There’s a very ancient tradition of relations and of very intense ties between Italy and Lebanon. This bond has been revived even more in this moment of emergency.” The following three-part series investigates the intimate intertwining of Lebanese/Italian history, the concurrent struggles that both countries face at present and projections for the future.
Lebanon’s Italian connection originates with Emir Fakhreddine II. Fakhreddine was the first Lebanese nationalist to confront the rule of the Ottoman Porte. His endeavour to unify Mount Lebanon with its surrounding regions was supported by Tuscany. Thus, this Lebanese/Italian alliance assisted the formation of the embryonic Lebanese state.
After initiating an anti-ottoman alliance with Tuscany, Fakhreddine was forced to flee to Italy following the unplanned disclosure of his plan to prise the Levant away from the Ottomans. Fakhreddine’s 5 years of Italian exile were spent predominantly in Florence. The Emir developed a notable admiration for Italian banking, judiciary, and military stratagem. He also gained access to Italian weaponry with which to confront the Ottomans upon his return. This would occur in 1618 after many of Fakhreddine’s former adversaries were deposed from power. The power vacuum proved the ideal moment for Fakhreddine to reassert his authority.
Fakhreddine first captured Mount Lebanon and later conquered the Beqaa, Sidon and Tripoli. The Ottomans sought to quell the Emir’s power grab by mobilising the Ottoman army. Fakhreddine defeated the Ottoman forces at Majdel Anjar and captured their leader in the process. The Emir’s army was comprised of Lebanese of all sects and would epitomise future aspirations for a multi-confessional Lebanese state.
Fakhreddine was later defeated by the Ottoman army in 1633, having refused to accommodate Ottoman forces in the Beqaa. Nevertheless, Fakhreddine’s influence would not be lost on the Lebanese people. The alliances with Italian duchies in addition to friendly relations with the French, English and Dutch expanded Lebanon’s trade with Europe. Italian artisans procured by Fakhreddine were instrumental in initiating the Mount Lebanon silk trade. Italian merchants also dissolved many Italian words into the Lebanese vernacular; for example, List (lista), bill/ invoice (Fattura) and Table (Tawleh/Tavola). The Italian influence also changed the face of the Lebanese landscape. The influx of Italian architects, builders and artisans since the time of Fakhreddine contributed to the infiltration of Italian motifs into Lebanese architecture. One ornate example is the red-tiled roof, which is pervasive across both Lebanon and Italy.
Parallels between Italy and Lebanon exist in the formation of the two states. Both countries spawned from an aggregative unification process, based on historical notions of a mother Land. In other words, the cobbling together of regions, duchies, principalities and emirates that may have existed contiguously in the past.
In Italy, this occurred via a long and violent struggle for independence known as the “risorgimento” (resurgence). The risorgimento was spearheaded by General Giuseppe Garibaldi, producing a modern state templated on the historical Kingdom of Italy. In Lebanon, independence from mandatory France witnessed much less bloodshed. The boundaries of the modern state were legitimized by an ideology of “neo-Phoenicianism” or congruence with the ancient state of Phoenicia. In both cases, the passage of time diverged the character, culture and religion of the modern state from its historical antecedent. This has left plenty of room for interpretation and has precipitated disunity to varying degrees.
Most readers will know the story of Lebanon’s civil war; however, fewer will be aware of the fractious nature of the Italian state. The North/South divide in Italy is stark; crudely speaking, the agricultural south has a much lower GDP, standard of living and infrastructure than the industrial north. One also senses a great disparity in culture between Northerners and Southerners. If someone asks Francesco’s father where he is from, he is Sardinian first and Italian second.
This uneasy North/South cohabitation generated a plethora of separatist movements, including the right-wing Northern League. The Lega Nord campaigned vociferously for the separation of Northern Italy from a South they deemed economically liable. They lambasted the flow of Italian Lira southwards and aimed highly charged epithets against Southerners. For example, Lega Nord founder, Umberto Bossi proclaimed – “Africa begins at Rome.”
The Northern league also hurled accusations of criminality towards Southerners, “soldi dal nord, mafia dal sud” (money from the North, mafia from the South). This theory is, of course, as soft as a tiramisu. In 1994, vast swathes of the Italian political elite were indicted and arrested on charges of corruption. The corruption network spanned the deepest depths of Italian government and encompassed business magnates and mafias. Many of the alleged culprits were paradoxically Northerners, including Prime Ministers Bettino Craxi and Silvio Berlusconi. 4-time Prime Minister and “bunga bunga” party patron Berlusconi has been accused on over 60 separate occasions of mafia dealings, corruption, bribery, embezzlement and child prostitution. Indeed, the lines between above-board politicians, notorious mafiosos and deep-pocketed tycoons could not be more blurred. In essence, you can get a lot done – taht el tawleh / sotto la tavola.
Speaking of the mafia, its conception, entrenchment and finances draws parallels on both sides of the Mediterranean.
In mid-19th century Sicily, a well-organized crime network, the mafia, was the ruling force behind any and all activity. The private armies formed by the mafia, also known as the mafie, extorted protection money from landowners. What this essentially meant was the following: a mafioso walks into a bar and tells the owner, “You’re going to give me 10% of all of your profits”. Rightfully, the owner is outraged by such claims wondering why he would need to give up 10% of his bottom line. The mafioso answers with, “Caro (the Italian equivalent of “Habibi”), you need to pay us 10% to protect you”. The owner, still confused, asks who on Earth he would need to be protected from. The mafioso simply answers with, “If you don’t give us 10%, you’ll find out”.
For any Lebanese reading, this may sound eerily familiar. It resonates particularly well with Lebanon’s political militias during the 1975 Civil War. Cinemas and gas stations would have an additional tax applied to them that would go to funding the militia. Both the mafia and the Lebanese militias were thus able to build complex financial structures to pay their fighters, or their mafiosos and went so far as to institute their own shadow governments entirely. Both the mafias and the militias intimidated electors into voting for their preferred candidates and if you didn’t, regardless of whether you were caro or habibi, you weren’t going to have a long life ahead of you.
Italy’s monetary policy and finances had to change in the late 20th century to allow the nation to join the Eurozone. A transition from the old currency, the lire, to the euro was needed. With the lire consistently losing its value in the years leading up to the conversion to the euro, Italian exports were flourishing, as was government debt… Some Italian policymakers, namely then-Director General of the Italian Treasury, Mario Draghi thought that adopting the euro would enforce a discipline unto the Italian government as they would no longer be able to print their way out of government deficits. This unfortunately didn’t come true with Italy’s budget deficits only getting worse.
The euro also adopted a completely miscalculated exchange rate with its predecessor meaning that Italians were left with an overvalued currency for their local economy. This meant that exports shuttered which, paired with ever-irresponsible fiscal spending, spelled bad news for Italians.
Not unlike Italy, Lebanon’s adoption of the dollar currency peg in 1997 also ended up spelling disaster for the country in the long term. The currency peg was never adjusted in over 20 years leading the government to subsidize the lifestyles of the Lebanese People. This led to rampant government spending and ultimately an economic and financial meltdown in late 2019. The government issued bonds in foreign currency to shore up central bank reserves thereby ensuring that the Lebanese Lira was covered by its dollar counterpart. When the government defaulted on these Eurobonds in March 2020, the whole system came crashing down.
Currency adjustments are vital, especially in a developing economy and the cases of Italy and Lebanon have both taught us the importance of setting, and most importantly, maintaining an accurate exchange rate.
To conclude then, for better or for worse, Lebanon and Italy have been mutually inspired into fragile modes of governance and getting things done - taht el tawleh / sotto la tavola. Fakhreddine carried over a host of Italian traditions from Tuscany, which included culture, architecture and statebuilding. As time went on however, both Lebanon and Italy witnessed a systematic deconstruction of the institutions that comprised the essence of the state.
References
https://www.reuters.com/article/italy-mafia-idUSL6N0ALDMN20130116
https://www.reuters.com/article/italy-lira-nostalgia-idUSL6N0KN38V20140115
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/jeasmedarcherstu.3.4.0428?seq=1
https://www.jstor.org/stable/622429?seq=1
https://www.jstor.org/stable/4540351?seq=1
My Way: The Rise and Fall of Silvio Berlusconi, documentary directed by Antongiulio Panizzi and screenplay by Alan Friedman
The Phoenix Daily also conducted interviews with numerous Italian economics and finance students to get their perspective on the Italian Economy, namely Daniel Comploj at Bocconi University