Tensions are so high in Lebanon, in every possible sector - sectarian, political, social, financial - that an explosion is bound to happen. It is no longer a matter of "if", what is difficult to foresee is the how and when. When pressure is applied on a system, common sense dictates that something has to give, something has to open up to dissipate the pressure.
Right now, and always comparing the current situation with its predecessors (since I have experienced the many ups and downs of Lebanon for the past several decades), one of the principal means by which a tense situation is defused is, unfortunately, violence. Throughout the country's past contemporary history, and given the multiplicity of actors (local, regional and international), any spontaneous or manufactured incident can lead to a blowup which could very likely degenerate into an all-out breakdown and descent into mayhem. And as often as the past tells us, it is only following such a blowup that solutions are found under duress. While these solutions bring an end to the tensions, they are not final or definitive because they deal with the symptoms rather than the root causes.
Perhaps it is a trait inherent to haphazard nations like Lebanon that the actors are unable to sit down in a time of relative peace and negotiate a forward-looking solution for the next phase in the nation's history. Instead, the political immaturity of the people and the political class of Lebanon have consistently led to catastrophic transient settlements to crises, and when viewed from the high altitude of history, it is clear that the country continues to ricochet from one crisis to the next. The chain of crises and temporary solutions is so long that people forget how they got there in the first place, i.e. they forget the root original cause.
I grew up with the stories of my parents' generation and their own parents. My grandparents were born in the 1870s-1880s right after the civil wars and massacres of the 1830s-1860s. Their children (my parents' generation) were born after World War I (1914-1918), which saw Lebanon decimated by the exactions of the Turkish Ottoman occupation and famine, and they grew up under French rule during the League of Nations mandate of 1921-1943. World War II (1939-1945) followed, and my generation was born soon after, only to come of age and be traumatized by the wars of 1967, 1973, 1975, 1982, 1988, with the Taif Agreement putting the lid on the boiling pot through the 1990s to the present day. Of course, with the periodic eruptions of political instability and violence in 1996, 2000, 2004-2005, 2008 and through the revolution of October 2019. My own children's generation was then born in the midst of uncertainty and exile during the 1980s an 1990s. There has never been a time in Lebanon's modern history where one generation was born and died within a time span that was free of violence. How can a country remain viable, how can a people be psychologically normal, when every generation experiences repeated existential traumatizing upheavals?
As far as I remember from the days of my childhood, Lebanon was muddled into the Arab nationalism crisis of the 1950s and 1960s (Abdel Nasser of Egypt), the Palestinian Revolution of the late 1960s and 1970s, the Israeli invasions of the 1970s and 1980s, the endless Syrian interference, invasions, occupation and undermining of stability throughout the decades since the 1943 independence and through the mid-2000s, the Iranian meddling via its Hezbollah militia's desire to fight a long-term war against Israel (1991-present), etc... And at every step of the way, solutions were drawn that put a heavier lid on the boiling pot, which would boil over again at the next phase. From the Baghdad Pact of the 1950s, the Cairo Accords of 1969, the massacres and urban warfare of the 1970s and 1980s with their truces, ceasefires, massacres, and failed peacekeeping missions, the Taif Agreement of 1989, the fake peace and military eruptions of 1996, 2006 and 2008, the Doha Agreement... And now what portends to be the final breakdown and dissolution of the Lebanese State and the near certain death of the Greater Lebanon fallacy drawn up in the 1920s.
This existence of Lebanon always on the edge of the abyss is stunning, yet acknowledged and recognized by almost everyone with an interest in the country. According to political analyst Nasri al-Sayigh, “No one can predict the return anytime soon of the military violence to Lebanon, however, the Lebanese live under the weight of permanent violence arising from standing in sectarian and political formations and media violence. These phenomena provide ammunition for a future battle which would be postponed pending the calculations of politicians about the gains and losses from unleashing the latent violence.” (Quoted in Lubnan fi madar al-unf, Samir Khalaf, Dar al-Nahar, Beirut, 2002).
Lebanon is plagued by its many religious identities that crush the emergence of a national identity. This character is pervasive in the country's DNA, and is, in my opinion, the sole obstacle to an exit from the cycle of violence. Defenders of religions will say whatever they wish to claim that religions promote wisdom and morality, and could not be the drivers for the savage state in which Lebanon continues to flounder across the centuries. But they forget that in Lebanon, religious identity defines the citizens' relationship with their government and state institutions. So, yes, while religion itself is not the direct cause of Lebanon's ailments, the fact that religious identity supersedes national identity is itself the underlying cause for the torment of the country.
The complexity of Lebanon's social makeup is such that one is, sooner or later, led to reject the existence of a Lebanese national ethos, a prerequisite for nation building. Instead, we conclude after much intellectual and mental wrangling that Lebanon is better defined as an amalgam of mini-nations, stitched together like multicolored Lego blocks over the puny territory they inhabit, but without ever cementing into a one-color melting pot.
In fact, one is obligated to take the next leap: If I want my children's children to grow up as the first intact, non-traumatized generation, LET THESE MINI-NATIONS SEPARATE FROM ONE ANOTHER. Let each draw its territory, preferably in agreement with the other mini-nations, but with bloodshed if necessary, to produce a patchwork of independent and socially homogeneous mini-states. Something like Switzerland, but non-confederated. We are not mature enough politically to deliberately come together into a confederation. I'd rather see Monaco, Lichtenstein, Luxembourg, Andorra, Vatican, San Marino.... right next to each other. The secession of Pakistan from India, then of Bangladesh from Pakistan, or the creation of Israel, etc., were possible after massacres, population transfers and exchanges, yet no one today decries the fact that these countries enjoy much more stability than Lebanon, specifically because they separated into homogeneous populations. Granted that they were political monstrosities at the start, but they have fared much better than Lebanon. I am tired of the marketing formula that Lebanon is an experiment in tolerance, pluralism and shared living: It has not worked. People are not guinea pigs with which to run political and moral experiments.
No comments:
Post a Comment