Home >> Middle East >> Syria & Lebanon

     Email   Print 

Lebanon's collective apathy that will continue to kill

Rabeh Ghadban - 6/1/2008

I had prepared to write a piece on the strategic outlook of Lebanon’s near future. One that tried to make sense of the confusion that has clouded the recent events in Lebanon. My parents grew up in this country and I returned here a year ago to pursue a professional career, hoping that I would better understand my attachment to this unpredictable state. I spent the previous year before my arrival in Beirut writing a thesis about Lebanon, studying the need to incorporate Hezbollah and Shia aspirations more appropriately into the confessional system. I argued the need to implement reforms, such as a new electoral system and a cooperative plan for security to gradually move away from our intransigent sectarian framework. To me, it seemed easy. A gradual shift was needed away from confessional power-sharing toward a system where elected representatives would also be responsible to a national electorate rather than just a sectarian enclave. This would help diminish the monopoly of power by zu’ama and be a constructive first step toward creating a collective Lebanese national identity – something that is largely absent beyond rhetoric, and in fact is a necessary precondition of our system of governance, known more widely as consociationalism.

My research made me believe I was aptly prepared to assess current events and contribute to the progress of this country. Accordingly, I actively engaged in civil society and began work at a reform institution, but I was still uncertain of the effectiveness of my efforts. The shameless developments of the past week, however, have forced me to question all that I wanted to believe to be true. The dangers of Lebanon’s subversive political paradigm and its inevitable invitation of conflict have been brought to the fore, only to be eclipsed by a state of insouciance, as euphoria has swept through the country upon news of a peace accord and the election of a new president. This concomitant interplay of these improbable opposites has proven to me what I was too afraid to admit: Lebanon suffers from a clear case of a ‘memory for forgetfulness.’

With the memory of the war seemingly forgotten, the Lebanese population and our political leaders yet again will almost fail to learn from price of conflict, taking the dangerous risk of leaving the question of sectarianism open-ended and without a clear solution. My personal testimony through the recent conflict shows that although tensions have been pacified by the illusive edification of the Doha Agreement, sectarian identity will supersede Lebanese statehood so long as the population remain vacillate toward calls for change.

The emotional rollercoaster that has accompanied the recent events has turned me away from the foggy strategic forecast that I had started to write and that many academics have engaged in the last week, each one contradicting the other in an imbroglio of analysis without any concrete steps forward. It disposed of the blind idealist in me, which would normally not justify acts of violence and appose the use of arms. It purposely leaves out the editorial that has framed blame in a context of power politics between the United State’s regional objectives and the nascent Shi’a crescent. And it definitely doesn’t pretend to understand, nor compare, the government’s sudden decision to alter the status quo against Hezbollah and actively confront its mounting influence against the violent actions of the Party of God and their sanctified call to maintain their weapons. My story does, however, invoke a question that everyone in this country must ask themselves if there is to be a future of coexistence.

What are you willing to do to prevent the next round of conflict?

As chaos erupted, I found myself disconnected to what was unfolding in the streets just below my apartment. Silence was only intermittent, broken by the sound of gunfire and explosions, confirming that Beirut had once again slipped back into civil war. This usually bustling city was brought to a standstill and tormented by masked men and young juveniles who, bereft of the memory of the previous civil war, were trigger happy and looking for a fight. Questions raced through my head. Could Lebanon really exist as a single entity or would be better for us to admit defeat and retreat back into separate enclaves? Can the silent majority really forge a country free of proxy battles and unaccountable political elites that incite communal fear? In this moment of uncertainty, as the fate of the country was tested, my faith in its future, too, was put into question.

I spent much of the first night listening to the piercing crackle of gunfire and woke up in the morning to a live battle taking place a block away. I watched intently, missing only popcorn and candy, not wholly able to believe that I this was not just a movie. Captured by the sound of gunfire, my relatives decided it was time to make our way up to my home village of Aley, located east of Beirut in the Chouf mountains. Here I thought I would be much safer because it is strategically located, assuming the mountains would be unfettered by the conflicts of Beirut. I arrived to Aley to find my calculations to be incorrect. Within hours, fights broke out in town and I was forced to spend the night in the kitchen as gun shots and heavy weaponry had been fired less than 50 yards away from my home, as the deafening reports reverberated through the house.

A few hours of quiet, a couple skipped heart beats, and a night of clutched hands between family members. It was official – the movie was over and I had survived my first war experience.

One day passed with relative calm, but the following day, a Sunday, did not prove to be as peaceful. The fighting was resumed on the mountain, this time on multiple fronts that ranged from Choueifat up to Aley, to Bayssour and Kayfoun and also later that night in Al-Barouk, encompassing both borders of the Chouf mountains. It became clear that there was a real threat and I unwillingly found myself stuck between two ideals. One that is informed by my educational background and upbringing which taught me to use logic and reason over violence, and the other which recognized that my home, my family and my people were under attack and it was my duty to defend my land.

It was a disturbing transformation. I came to Lebanon as a reformist and threatened to leave it a militiaman. I had reached a crossroads. I was told I may have to kill the very opponents I had advocated to entrust greater participation. I was scared. That night the situation appeared irreversible. I was a fighter in a civil war, militia vs. militia, and I didn’t have a choice.

My dream for a new a Lebanon, where sectarianism would not supersede the interests of the state, disappeared. I realized that if war continued, I only had my community and my za’im to protect me. The army was impotent, the government were helpless, and I had lost all faith in the very state institutions I had so vehemently defended up until this moment. On this unforgettable night, I placed aside everything that I knew to be right and contemplated my capacity to kill.

Thankfully, the answer to that daunting question was left unanswered, as news came that the attack was called off and an agreement had been reached. But if the attackers had come to my home, what would I have done? Would I have picked up a pistol and shot? This point of cognitive dissidence will undoubtedly haunt us for a long time. To think that I may have picked up arms reveals the desperation I felt, left alone and unprotected by the state, selfishly hoping that army’s call to disarm the mountain would fail. To think that night, for that one moment, I was willing to exchange so thoughtlessly my humanity and aspirations of reform for a weapon.

My transformation is a chilling prospect. It embodies the exact repulsion that will inevitably resurface with the passing of time and our willingness to forget. That night I found my self standing up for my co-religionists, my sect, before the interests of a collective people. I found myself with the exact obtuse mentality I was disgusted with when I first arrived. I found myself consumed by dissent for this country, enraged that it had forced me to become a product of hate.

Now I ask myself: where do I go from here? I can only hope this question is being asked by each and every citizen of this country. However, I fear it is not. The often celebrated Lebanese spirit – one that is credited for its persistency to endure difficult circumstances and is known to keep on living even in the face of uncertainty – seems to be no more than a façade. To believe such fallacies will only prove to disappoint, as to praise our misgivings to be an act of courage and resiliency only perpetuates a superficial and a defeatist truth.

The silent majority who want change and a life free of conflict, no longer dependant on communal nepotism, remain mute and unwilling to take action against our crooked political dynasty. For this reason, Lebanon’s potential to prosper looks grim and difficult at best. For this reason, I have begun to lose faith in my homeland. Disappointment shrouds my thoughts; not of the oft-blamed politicians but of the people of this country. Instead of speaking out against our misfortune, we have accepted it as an unchangeable truth, a necessary tax on our love for this country.

Lebanon has lived a lie for too long, marked by apathy amongst the majority of the population and a devious willingness by the minority in power to manipulate our trust. Without standing up and demanding reform and expecting accountability and responsibility in governance our freedom from violence will be short lived. Without recognizing that a state away from sectarianism offers our best hope for mutual security, people in Lebanon will increasingly be faced with same dilemma I experienced this week: either pick up arms and fight or escape this reality by leaving the country. When the safety of latest agreement erodes and this decision presents itself again, remember my plea for action, because it will be too late to blame anyone but yourself.