No one in the Christian areas of Lebanon should make any move to disturb the - so far - civil peace still prevailing in those areas, in contrast to the fratricidal killings going on everywhere else.
This is the time to prove the political maturity - if it does exist - of the Christian politicians and the Christian people. Former militia gangster leaders, party leaders, or army generals should all seize this moment to reflect on the disastrous consequences of shoving the Christian areas into the fire currently raging in the Muslim parts of the country.
Political divisions are fine, but those divisions should not translate into street fighting. This is the moment in the 40-year history of the Lebanese War to prove to the world and to the critics of the Christian resistance against the PLO and Syria ( and those who stood behind them East and West) that the war was not a "Lebanese Christian right wing conspiracy against the poor and downtrodden Muslims". 40 years ago, the Christians of Lebanon took up arms to defend their country, to defend the idea of their country, to stand against those who were trying to sell Lebanon to the PLO and Syria... They did not take up arms to defend their "privileges" or out of hatred to the Muslims and the Palestinians. They took up arms to defend the very Lebanon that is agonizing today.
The people who are killing one another today are the same people who were all allied against the Lebanese Christian resistance, allied with Syria, with the PLO, with Saudi Arabia, and yes, with a West eager to get rid of Lebanon and make it a substitute for Palestine, so the Israelis won't have to worry about returning the Golan or compensating the Palestinian refugees.
I never liked the Christian militias any more than I liked all the other militias. They were all gangsters, rapists and thieves. I lived among them for many many years at the height of their "glory". But I do not mix the cause of Lebanon with the conduct and behavior of the criminals who sometimes led the resistance. They are very different things. I always believed in the idea of Lebanon the way the Christians defined it and practiced it. I am, however, sorry about how the Christian resistance conducted itself during the War.
The Christians of Lebanon had a good cause, but they lost the war because they failed at marketing their position. The picture of a Kataeb militiaman stepping on the corpse of a elderly Palestinian woman in Qarantina with the cross dangling from his neck and the icon of the Virgin Mary glued to the butt of his rifle... this picture was plastered all over the Western press, and that picture cost the Christians the war. On one hand, they claimed to want to defend a free and tolerant Lebanon, but nothing in their prosecution of the war was free or tolerant. Violence against one's armed vicious enemy may be justified in times of war, but it can never be justified against unarmed civilians to whichever side they may belong.
We lost our country, but we also lost our dignity and honor. It is not easy to cast a generalization on any group of people like this, because there were many people and groups who fought with dignity and honor: The Lebanese army soldiers are in the front on this, and also parties like the Guardians of the Cedars who fought with nobility and integrity, but never violated the basic rules of human rights and never sought any political gains from their fight. Today, they are the only ones to live in forced exile all over the world, who cannot return to Lebanon because of their integrity, and who lost everything but their honor, while all the others - criminals and otherwise - are back and in power. That fact alone says a lot about the risks facing Lebanon.
But today, the divisions in the Christian camps must stay in the realm of the political. WE DON'T WANT ANY MILITIAS OR GANGS IN THE STREETS OF CHRISTIAN LEBANON. Keep it calm and safe the way it is today. The future of the Christian community is being tested, and anyone who dares makes a move in the wrong direction will send the last bastion of freedom in the Muslim Arab world down the drain.
Hanibaal
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