Middle-east Arab News Opinion | Asharq Al-awsat

The Sit-Ins of 2007 | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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The Lebanese issue is becoming increasingly aggravated and the comments and successive events that follow continue to grow. It is now clear that Lebanese affairs are experiencing an increasing amount of complications and crises especially with the summer fast approaching that carries unpleasant surprises within.

The presidential crisis is in an intricate deadlock with no solution on the horizon, in addition to the fact that the parliament is closed and its spokesman prefers to stay at home rather than to create and launch the necessary parliamentary activity. Moreover, there are sectarian currents that condemn and threaten the government and threaten to take to the streets, yet they never explain the existence of tents and thousands of people who lay their bodies down in the streets of central Beirut for a number of months now on the pretext of taking part in a “sit-in”. Will there be more taking to the streets? A certain group refuses to re-establish parliamentary action, to open the door to proper and fair presidential nominations along with its refusal to support a democratically elected government. It even refuses to recognize an international tribunal to investigate the series of assassinations which are still charged against anonymous perpetrators. All these factors will further complicate the Lebanese crisis and widen the gap even more between the conflicting parties in a way in which a possible and acceptable solution is becoming increasingly difficult to find.

Will Lebanon that is famous for being the only democracy in the Middle East shift into being a minefield of sectarian tension and a legalized playing field for settling vendettas?

How poor this constitution of Lebanon is! We have everyone claiming that his/her stance is the only one that conforms to the constitution and that the others violate it. The Lebanese constitution has come to resemble the Bible in that there are so many different versions, with every party claiming that theirs is the correct one.

What has this sit-in actually accomplished on the ground apart from complicating issues further and minimizing confidence in the Lebanese economy and the stability of the country? Furthermore, there is a dangerous obsession that worries the sit-in group and a concern in the case of a presidential vacuum that will befall the country if no president is elected to succeed the current president, Emile Lahoud (whose persistence in power is still a cause of many controversies). In this case, the responsibility of governance will be devolved upon the prime minister for a transitional period. Thus, this frenzied wave of programmed and systematized attack on the prime minister and accusing him of charges that defy logic is no longer strange.

Pushing Lebanon to the brink of the abyss, and the enjoyment of witnessing the tremendous build up and the severity of the fall; is an illness, or more specifically, a case of psychological “sadism” that is more likely to be found among patients of mental illnesses and not parties and representatives of responsible political movements. The persistence of this farce will transfer the responsibility of governance from the hands of the Lebanese people to the hands of the international community. I hope that every person taking part in the sit-in is pleased with the results of the sit-in and what has happened in the country as a result of such action. I hope that every member of the sit-in is pleased with the number of migrants who have left Lebanon after the beginning of the sit-in. I hope that they are pleased with the number and size of investments that have turned away from the country for good, depriving the young Lebanese of decent livelihoods. Lebanon continues to fall deeper and deeper amidst the stubbornness of irresponsible groups that play with the future of their country. These groups do not have the capacity to maintain the independence of their positions or their speeches. Lebanon is caught between two images that the famous Lebanese singer, Fairouz, once sung about. On one hand, there is a Lebanon that is “strewn with fire and dynamite,” or, on the other hand, there is a Lebanon that “come snow or sun, love remains its dawn and the sun remains its freedom.” The Lebanese people will have to choose out of the two before someone else decides for them.