Will we (the people) become like them (the revolution)?
December 1, 2006
Beirut, a city whose spirit and freedoms breathe life into the region.
I've tried to ignore the Lebanese political scene this past week or so (it was getting a bit repetitive), but it's impossible to ignore Fouad Siniora's announcement that tomorrow's demonstration in Beirut by the Lebanese opposition amounts to a coup. Siniora did not feel that the previous mass demonstrations by the previous opposition (to which he belonged) had been a coup; in fact, the so-called March 14 movement calls it a revolution. I wonder what makes it different from the March 8 movement. And let me state loud and clear that I am not taking side with either movement (and that includes, obviously, the "corrective" one); if I did, it would be neither with the side Israel prefers, nor with the side that brings theology into political life. I guess I need more choices.
I am also tired of this obsession with the Hariri tribunal, as if it were the only issue of importance today; call me naïve, but I believe there are other reasons as well for the political impasse in Lebanon today, and it's certainly not all about Hariri, regardless of how much March 14 try to hammer it in. Granted, these assassinations should all be investigated, but what about all the other events in the country? Like it or not, Hizbullah does have some other issues, to put it mildly, following last July's "events" (to put it even more mildly).
In any case, after observing the Lebanese political scene, in particular over the last 18 months or so, I think the March 14 movement has the dubious honor of having caused the loss of all the sympathy it had first gained after the assassination of Rafik Hariri. In my opinion, this is mainly because of the way it failed to differentiate between Syrian regime and Syrian people (becoming outright racist at times), and because of its silence during the barbaric Israeli aggression of Lebanon (its official silence that is, as it appears there was lot of wishful thinking for Hizbullah's defeat).
This loss of regional sympathy on the popular level is pretty much what the Bush administration achieved with its actions after 9/11. True, it's on a much smaller scale in Lebanon's case, but that's still quite an accomplishment.
This led me to have some worrying thoughts about the possible behavior of Syrians in similar situations. What if when we Syrians finally get "democracy" we end up bickering like idiots and not solving anything, letting the country run to waste? What if we let form take precedence over content? What if we get so stupid that we start blaming every single thing going wrong in the country on those who ruled it shortly before we took over? What if the remaining warlords (slash businessmen slash politicians slash parliamentarians) start getting rid of one another ("fakhar" like, as we say in Arabic), taking advantage of the fact that everyone will automatically blame the previous rulers for these crimes, whether or not they did it?
What if we go into mass hysteria when one of our leaders is killed, forgetting all our past criticism of him, living in denial about the state of our economy and foreign debt, and only remembering his multi-billionaire's vision of our capital's downtown? What if we lose sight of the values we fought for all these years when the unjust rulers ruled? What if our intellectuals, writers and activists all suddenly decide to ignore those who for years defended their cause and wrote about it at great risk to their personal freedom? What if we ignore a joint declaration they have taken great risks to publish in support of our cause, and look the other way when they are punished for it?
What if we begin to mix between people and rulers, and what if we start taking it out on poor workers, beating them, killing them, burning their tents? What if we start speaking of the rulers' compatriots, or co-religionists, as if they were to blame for our years of hardship? What if we start treating them all in one way (a bad way), forgetting that they suffered as much as we did from these rulers, even if they came from the same background?
What if we start doing what they are doing? I've always thought Syrians had learned from their neighbors (in Lebanon and now in Iraq) never to fall into the temptation to take revenge or to fight on sectarian or other God-forsaken terms. I'm not so sure, however, that the temptation to bicker stupidly and endlessly has gone; in fact, if there's anything our sycophants know how to do, it's waxing poetic about leaders and repeating useless slogans ad nauseam while the important issues are ignored. Imagine if they start using these "skills" to reinvent today's "responsibles" as tomorrow's visionaries, and if they start to fight one another and paralyze the nation ... now that really would be the end of us yet.
