Press Release
A Week of Paralysis in Education and Public Services Economy in Lebanon: The Economy of Giants, Leaders and Thieves
(Translated)

Lebanon is still experiencing paralysis in state institutions, including schools and high schools, because of the strike declared by the Union Coordinating Committee (UCC) starting last Thursday continuing for a whole week. The strike comes in protest against the report of the Parliamentary Committee which recommended deducting a percentage of salary previously agreed between the UCC and the Authority. Staff began a series of demonstrations culminated with a major demonstration on Wednesday at the capital. The UCC is threatening further escalation, particularly the threat to disrupt official examinations. In this regard, we comment the following:

If we look at the economic situation of Lebanon we find it very complicated. Atop suffering from capitalist economy crisis rampant throughout the whole world, it currently suffers much more from the policy of corruption and squandering, which is aggravated by the exacerbated crisis of the Lebanese entity.

As for the suffering of the Lebanese economy from the capitalist system, the capitalist system inherently leads to the concentration of wealth among a few money-giants due to this system managed to grasp the acquisition of most of the country's wealth. As the capitalist system does not put any controls or restrictions on the development of huge wealth owned by the capitalists, rather, it also gives way to the types of contracts and transactions that lead to further concentration of wealth in their hands. The most prominent of these contracts are usury contracts of the banks and the shareholding companies. If we add to all this the fact that the sects' leaders who share positions in the state have looted, by the influence and the immunity they enjoy, a tremendous amount of public money and public financial resources to achieve their own interests and to consecrate their leadership, we would come to realize how complicated is the problem of economy and finance in Lebanon.

Thus, the political sectarian game mixed with the capitalist system in Lebanon gave a way to the money-giants and the sects' leaders, to use their money and influence, to gain access to political positions. So that the legislative power to be representing them, even though the people may presume that they are represented, and that the executive power becomes a tool in the hands of these giants to achieve their own interests. Thus, the House of Representatives is prescribing laws that suit them and achieve their interests, and the Executive Branch, particularly the part controlling the financial decision, spend a large portion of the public treasury on projects propelling public funds into their own pockets. It was no coincidence that the employers and owners of the financial institutions and banks are the ones who stood in the face of the demands for increasing staff salaries, assisted by their representatives from within the executive and legislative branches.

Regardless of the extent of the eligibility of the employees' demands and the legitimacy of the strike, it is known in economics that raising the wages of low-income employees is a factor in moving the economy, which is suffering from a recession. Because raising their salaries will increase their purchasing power, and will turn these salaries to working capital in the local markets, reflecting positively on the economic movement. The only requirement for this is to ensure adequate resources for the public treasury for paying the salaries. So, does Lebanon suffer from a lack of these resources? In fact, imports of the state's public treasury are sufficient for multiple the required series of ranks and salaries. This is regardless of what is legitimate and what is illegitimate from these imports that are not taken into account the Halal or the Haram. However, these imports include some that is ravished by the money-giants and the authority before arriving at the Treasury. It also include what they loot from within the Treasury; through the so-called debt service, which pumps most of the general budget funds to the state's creditor banks, i.e., to the big and the small usurers, and through contracting out phantom or quasi-phantom projects enjoyed by the rulers or their concubine whales. This is in addition to the different forms of robbery, looting and the brazen and traditional embezzlement in this country. The capitalist economy is the economy of money and its giants; it is not the economy of humans and the society. It is in Lebanon the economy of thieves and sects' leaders as well as all other giants.

When the Islamic state is established and the Islamic economics and its fair policy are applied soon, with the will of Allah; people will see the huge difference between the current unjust economic reality and the economic legislation which is legitimized by Allah to the people. It is sufficient that the economic policy in Islam is built on sophisticated humanitarian grounds, most important of which is expressed by the Quranic verse:

[كَي لا يَكُونَ دُولَةً بَينَ الأَغنِياءِ مِنكُم]

"So that it will not be a perpetual distribution among the rich from among you." ]Al-Hashr: 7[.

And Allah the Almighty has spoken the Truth, when He says in His Noble Book,

[وَلَوْ أَنَّ أَهْلَ الْقُرَى آَمَنُوا وَاتَّقَوْا لَفَتَحْنَا عَلَيْهِمْ بَرَكَاتٍ مِنَ السَّمَاءِ وَالْأَرْضِ وَلَكِنْ كَذَّبُوا فَأَخَذْنَاهُمْ بِمَا كَانُوا يَكْسِبُونَ]

"And if only the people of the cities had believed and feared Allah, We would have opened upon them blessings from the heaven and the earth; but they denied [the messengers], so We seized them for what they were earning." [Al-A'raf: 96[.

Ahmad Al-Qasas
Head of the Media of Office Hizb ut Tahrir
Wilayah of Lebanon