Lebanon's Most Unique Dynamics of Power

Taking a look at the situation, it can be nothing but hilarious. For example, two camps always fighting each other for a “real Lebanon” is funny. In fact, I do not recall anything funnier than such claims. Several people (perceived also on the blogs) would attack one camp without approaching his own with its own corruption. They call it “Fighting For Lebanon”. More so, seculars are not welcomed to speak against both sides because it contains certain truths that would disrupt their realities. For example, Hezbollah’s resigned Minister of Labor, Mohammad Fneish, messed up the Palestinians for real in Lebanon by enforcing a law which dictates that Palestinians would be treated as foreigners, hence forth they can’t seek financial aid in universities. Now, 8th of March would not go focus on that detail since Hezbollah is resisting the Israelis. Well, I got news for these people, they are not a resistance movement, they are a political party. Seniora, on the other hand, has messed up badly in the past, specially when he speculated that 5% Value Added Taxes (VAT) would decrease Lebanon’s overall debt by 50%, it simply boasted revenues by 15-20% while 90% of the government’s revenues remained on-going towards covering the interest rates (then). Now, again, why these facts are not highlighted?

The answer is simple, they are not highlighted for the fact that each camp’s blind followers consider this camp as the lesser evil compared to the other. How many times have you heard that “all of them are bunch of thieves but these people are better than those!”? To be exact, some people even take for granted that a new civil war coming, and dividing Lebanon into Cantons is the best solutions, which means that neither camp really loves Lebanon. Co-existence is non-present in Lebanon. Furthermore, one camp would make the other traitor and preach dialogue. Well, we know that certain issues, there will be no dialogue.

The most hilarious thing is for example when 14th of March promote themselves as resistance to Israel, the nation that butchered cold-heartedly 1300 Lebanese, but then their leaders fly to Washington DC to ask for assistance. Actually, they promote a strong state but failed so far (sadly) to protect their own figureheads. 8th of March/Opposition are not that better as well. Let us put it this way, why Aoun suddenly is obsessed that the “people should vote directly for their president” when Hezbollah are his allies? Why Hezbollah celebrate Iran’s holidays? (well we know the answer to that one). Worse, why Bashar el Assad picked up Hezbollah’s military victories over the Israeli Army as if his own (despite the fact Bashar el Assad's real size appeared when two IAF planes flew over his head prior one week to the July War?!

That is one sided story of a Marxist thinking out loud, but if they all love Lebanon so much, can someone tell me why neither the Opposition nor the Government (who both have extensive funding to rebuild the South) didn’t so far even plan to build bomb shelters and emergency devices at the (or at least at the) front villages with Israel to minimize the bloodshed of Lebanese civilians in case another war breaks out? What, UNIFIL, the Lebanese Army, and Hezbollah would protect them against IAF planes and IDF artillery? Shame on all the Lebanese politicians for thinking so low of their people!! Worse, shame on the people who keep them in power!

MFL