When Will Lebanon's Leaders Come to Their Senses?

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

I follow the situation in Lebanon closely, and I see the sectarian leaders’ and their media’s astonishing capacity for bickering, quibbling, and sterile argument, for busying themselves with the pettiest and most trivial of matters, the shortest-sighted, the least valuable, the least useful, and the most harmful to the Lebanese people, to Lebanon’s present, and to Lebanon’s future. Lebanon’s leaders and their media never tire and never grow weary of invective and counter-invective, of insult and counter-insult, of abuse and counter-abuse, of defamation and counter-defamation. What astonishing stamina, patience, endurance, persistence, wakefulness, and focus they show in tearing Lebanon apart and destroying it, and turning the Lebanese people into warring factions that reduce Lebanon to kindling.

You move from one Lebanese media outlet to another, and you hear the same phrases and see the same insults, only with the names changed. Anyone who has reached my age cannot help but remember the Arab radio stations of the 1950s and 1960s. The Arab radio stations of that time were a kind of “screeching match,” filled with shouting, screaming, invective, slapping, belittling, distortion, and defamation, to no benefit whatsoever — indeed, with great harm inflicted on the Arab nation across all its fiefdoms.

It seems Lebanon’s leaders are quite comfortable with this continuous, uninterrupted invective, as though their leadership could only be realized through it. I have never once heard a Lebanese leader praise an idea held by his domestic rival, and I have never heard a media outlet say something good about an opinion expressed by one of its opponents. All I hear is a continuous, pouring bombardment of foul language and the dregs of speech. Leaders who never let an opportunity for invective pass without seizing it, showering their rivals with insult, vilification, defamation, mockery, cursing, and abuse.

…the plain of Lebanon and the mountains of Lebanon, as though each of them were saying to himself: “I have no leadership without sectarianism and confessionalism.” They shelter behind fragmentation in order to remain failed leaders, and they insist on spreading grudges and hatred, because in doing so they find people who will applaud them.

Lebanon is the only Arab state that has defeated Israel, yet it seems to me that Lebanese hate victory and insist on defeat. It is understandable that defeat tears people apart and fragments their unity, but it is not understandable that victory should fragment the people of Lebanon. Arab peoples feel invigorated when the president of Venezuela, or Argentina, or the South Pole speaks out against colonialism, Israel, and foreign domination, yet in Lebanon they do not seem to feel invigorated even by the defeat of Israel. The Lebanese should have raised their heads after their victory to think about their unity, their progress, the elevation of themselves and their homeland, and the elevation of their nation. I have never seen, in history, a people that fragmented after a war crowned with victory, except the people of Lebanon. The Palestinians did fragment, it is true, but under the weight of failure. The victory achieved in Gaza in the “Winter War” (or Israel’s failure, if you prefer) did not unite the people of Palestine, but it did not scatter them any further either; in Lebanon, however, there is a fierce insistence on the continuation of scattering, division, and fragmentation.

My assessment is that the Lebanese people do not need sectarian leaders, because they are the primary and foremost cause of Lebanon’s fragmentation. Lebanon needs non-sectarian leaders, possessing enough knowledge and expertise to manage the country in a unifying way rather than a consociational one. Lebanon is great through its sons and daughters, and it possesses among its competent people, scholars, experts, honorable men and women, noble men and women, wise men and women, and men and women devoted to Lebanon’s future, enough to lift it out of this wretched internal impasse.

The matter calls for a bit of shame, and it would be better still with a bit of modesty. This is not how peoples are led, and this is not how homelands are built. Mercy for Lebanon is called for.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “متى سيعقل زعماء لبنان؟” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.