Women's Cooperatives in the South of Lebanon

Women’s Cooperatives in the South of Lebanon: Under a neoliberal state, a case study of organizing against foreign aid Organization: Asfari Institute for Civil society and citizenship, American University of Beirut, Lebanon. Country: Lebanon Contributors: Jana Nakhal This research paper was submitted to "Rural Women Cooperatives and the Quest for Empowered Citizenship in the Arab World" call that was launched by The Environment and Sustainable Development Unit (ESDU) in collaboration with The Asfari Institute for Civil Society and Citizenship. The draft was presented and discussed during Daam workshop “Building an alternative associational model for egalitarian development towards empowered citizenship” in September 2016. Introduction It has become usual to overhear people speak of foreign aid agencies -under the form of International Non-Governmental Organizations and Non-Governmental Organizations (INGOs and NGOs, I\NGOs) - as a prospective source of material support. They are easily perceived as a neutral manifestation of the international presence in the region. In the south of Lebanon, nobody knows the exact name of each of the I\NGOs working in different sectors and what they are responsible for: for people, they are ‘the French’, ‘the Italians’, ‘the Spanish’ and others. The absence of the state1, lovingly-referred to as a ‘laissez-faire’ policy of leaving the less- privileged absolutely defenseless in a market open for all kinds of interventions, has not only 1 http://www.al-akhbar.com/node/24062 http://www.al-akhbar.com/node/203347 weakened the working class economically, but has also detached it from the state: the state has - deliberately- lost its role as the major service-provider, and marginalized communities do not ‘expect’ anything from it anymore. Their subsistence of communities outside Beirut2 has long go been connected to ‘other forces’ active on the ground: political parties3 and post-war-created I\NGOs. We argue that accepting services from these two sources, something people are commonly not enthusiastic about, is a survival mechanism, to replace a state that has long ago chosen not to be present. This paper is the result of a four-month ethnographic research in the southern village of Srifa, with women and men of the village, and women from the Srifa Atelier, the village’s cooperative producing handmade cotton and silk handbags. In this paper, we will discuss the presence of foreign aid agencies in the margins (rural areas) and how the haphazard creation of cooperatives leave the community dependent on aid, an enduring lack of resources, and weak organizational structures which disable the production of real political socio-economic alternatives. They have also produced an uninformed version of cooperatives, which doesn’t conceive any criticism to the capitalist system, the absence of the state, individualism and anti-communal sentiments, but rather form smaller businesses for a minority. Furthermore, the engagement of I\NGOs in the “cause” of supporting and “empowering” marginalized communities remains questionable to those receiving their aid. We have worked with the Srifa community in order for us to explore the political and socio- economic situation the region. We tried to investigate the community’s conception of foreign aid, how they define their relationship with the state and finally the internal organization of the cooperative and what is needed to re-activate that cooperative in the best way for the village. The research is oriented around questions concerning the absence of the state and the role of foreign aid agencies, financially-productive activities in Srifa, the cooperative’s organizational structure and the creation of an alternative. Answering these questions took place throughout our stay in Srifa, where we tried to form an engaged academic practice, writing as much as supporting the organization of women and youth. With the cooperative women, we have tried to start by widening the perspective on the system, in order for them to start questioning aid and dependence. 2 Gaspard, T. K. (2004). A Political Economy of Lebanon, 1948-2002. Boston: Brill. http://www.untag- smd.ac.id/files/Perpustakaan_Digital_2/POLITICAL%20ECONOMY%20A%20Political%20Economy%20of%20Lebano n,%201948-2002.%20The%20Limits%20of%20Laissez-faire.pdf 3 Cammett, M. (2015). Political Dimensions and Sectarianism securing social services in Lebanon. (Arabic) http://www.lcps-lebanon.org/featuredArticle.php?id=58 In this paper, we will present the methodology followed, with an overview of the case study, an analysis of the Lebanese laissez-faire neoliberal economic discourse, the role of foreign aid agencies, and the alternatives generated in Srifa. All along this paper, we will be also presenting an overview of the community’s perspective on subjects mentioned above. Framework The situation of cooperatives and unions in Lebanon is quite precarious4. What we have witnessed following the civil war is the destruction of cooperatives, not only due to the war itself, a weakened economy (specifically in rural areas and outside the capital) but also by the Saudi-created businessman prime minister Rafic Hariri’s introduction of neoliberal policies.5 We have more than 1400 cooperatives around Lebanon today,6 the majority of which are agricultural. A large number of these cooperatives are inactive,7 created for the simple reason of receiving donations, grants and materials. The absence of the state,8 following neoliberal policies, can be perceived as the first and foremost reason behind the crisis in which the cooperatives find themselves. The southern village of Srifa displays a politically, economically and socially-vibrant community. A famous producer of tobacco and olives, the village has a tobacco cooperative controlled by Hezbollah and Amal movement9 and an olive cooperative in which Hezbollah, Amal and the Lebanese Communist Party share the leadership. The village also has a women’s cooperative which produces handmade cotton and silk bags. A quick visit to the village can show the extent of economic activities managed by women –they are responsible for the whole tobacco production in families- who are also socially and politically active in this rural context. In Srifa, it is the women who win the municipal elections for the political parties: they organize electoral campaigns, social gatherings and visits. The effects of I\NGOs on the creation, organization and work of cooperatives,10 are not limited to those of dependency,11 lack of participation,12 and “free market fundamentalism.”13 Instead of 4 http://www.al-akhbar.com/node/276532 5 http://eprints.soas.ac.uk/14240/1/Baumann_3400.pdf 6 http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---arabstates/---ro- beirut/documents/meetingdocument/wcms_210753.pdf 7 http://www.al-akhbar.com/node/17657 8 http://www.al-akhbar.com/node/75689 9 The two main sectarian shia political parties. 10 Hancock, G. (1989). Lords of poverty: The power, prestige, and corruption of the international aid business. Atlantic Monthly Press. 11 http://ai2-s2-pdfs.s3.amazonaws.com/2049/9c5f4de805429ea19a96a0c3a99896a2b1fc.pdf 12 Moyo, D.(2009). Dead Aid: Why aid is not working and how there is another way for Africa, Penguin, London. 13 http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.1033.9172&rep=rep1&type=pdf supporting the creation of cooperatives based on an understanding of communal engagement and non-hierarchical organizational strategies, I\NGOs are supporting a certain neo-liberal form of cooperatives,14 which looks quite similar to small businesses, and is guided by exclusivity. The members of Srifa cooperative for instance, never voted for the committee of three women who manages design, implementation and treasury. The cooperative was started by an Italian INGO who didn’t even conduct an economic research on the region, but simply chose to train them in sewing. It then chose three women to head the cooperative, and took the cooperative to several fairs around the country. When the INGO’s project was over, the cooperative’s work was discontinued as the women were unable to contact fairs and exhibitions. Other than supporting state erosion,15 the presence of I\NGOs helps in reinforcing class dynamics between the cooperatives’ recipients of aid on one side, and consumers on the other. The class difference – along with rural-urban dynamics too- between the Srifa cooperative members and women who can afford to buy their handmade handbags is large, and it was one of the reasons why the cooperative women couldn’t contact fairs to insure a space and sell their work. While the project concentrates on the cooperative, understanding the village’s community is quite crucial. The organizational strength and political awareness of the community members will be supportive in developing a cooperative which presents an alternative to the current wave of I\NGO dependency.16 This project has shifted its focus from an overview of political actors and parties and their intervention in a rural women cooperative, into the conception of the state’s and foreign aid agency’s roles, actual organizational structure of the cooperative and community-generated alternatives. Researching the Srifa women cooperative allows us to better understand the village, uncover who the main economic producers are, and how is this production shared amongst the different actors, classes and members of the community. Methodology and research question The project is based on ethnography. After conducting desk research, we have moved to Srifa and started participant observation for four months and conducted non-structured and semi-structured interviews with women and men from the Lebanese Communist Party (LCP), women who are members of the cooperative, housewives, and tobacco and olive farmers. The informal discussions 14 http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.973.2483&rep=rep1&type=pdf 15http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.934.7862&rep=rep1&type=pdf 16 Wood, R. E. (1986). From Marshall Plan to debt crisis: Foreign aid and development choices in the world economy (Vol.

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