Death of a billionaire PM

Rafik Hariri was Lebanon’s bulldozer. A buccaneer. A bruiser. Built like a heavyweight boxer, he looked more butcher than billionaire. His father was a dirt-poor, Sunni Muslim tenant farmer, who worked land near the south Lebanese port of Sidon.

The French architects of the Maronite Catholic-led Grand Liban had reluctantly granted Lebanon its independence in 1943, a year before Rafik Hariri was born. The formula under which the Maronites agreed to relinquish their French protection and the Sunni Muslims to refuse union with Syria would succumb repeatedly during Hariri’s life to strains from outside. In 1948, Israel expelled over 100,000 Palestinians, most of them Sunni Muslims, to Lebanon. If granted citizenship, they would have upset the country’s sectarian population balance. Next came the call of Arab nationalism, Palestinian liberation and, lastly, Islamic fundamentalism. Although he took part in Arab nationalist demonstrations with fellow students, Hariri devoted less time to politics than to escaping poverty. Progress towards a degree in accounting ended in 1964, when he left for Saudi Arabia with a second-class education. He returned 25 years later with a world-class fortune.

By the time he was assassinated, on St Valentine’s Day 2005, he was the richest man in Lebanon. He was also one of the richest in the world, friend of presidents and kings. He moved from Arab nationalism to become champion of an independent Lebanon — a position that his death did much to reinforce among his co- religionists who had historically sought union with Syria and the wider Arab world.

Hariri had the boundless self-confidence and the need to prove himself that comes with the self-made man. His natural humility, however, meant he never hid his peasant roots or neglected those who had befriended him in his poverty.