I support your decision. I hope you keep it.

What a lot of people don’t understand is that by acknowledging him, you acknowledge a huge segment of the Maronite community… Just like the Hariri family with the Sunna, Hizballah with the Shi’a and Jumblatt with the Druze. That’s the way it is in Lebanon. No one is saying its perfect… I am not saying that I like it. But that is simply the way it is!

This fact is very seldom appreciated by Lebanese who debate politics among each other. All too often, you hear venom being spurted from peoples’ mouths directed at certain leaders. Those words, in my opinion, do more harm than good. The reason: when you curse or praise a leader you tread a very thin line between the leader himself and the community he represents. Therefore if you insult the leader of someone from another sect, you make him defensive because he is not sure whether you are insulting the leader or the sect. Ultimately, the point you then try to push through will simply hit a brick wall because you have made that person defensive.

This thin line is what has complicated the issue of Lahoud and his presidency… it is what complicates reforms in Lebanon, official appointments, and, in fact, the majority of transactions in the country. It is, in one word, Sectarianism.

We have to work against it, but at the same time, if we don’t acknowledge that it exists, we’ll simply be shooting ourselves in the foot and will end up doing more harm than good. In light of that little essay Mustapha, quodos for putting the banner up. I know that it must have been a tough decision, and that you expected to get a lot of heat. You definitely have my vote!

THIS IS THE LIST OF COMMENTS I GOT SO FAR:
==========================================

Anonymous said…

Why did you put a picture of fascist mass murderer Bachir Gemayel on your site ?
Don’t you know how many persons this guy slaughtered in cold blood ?
I am sure many of his victims were named Mustapha just like you. He killed them just because their name was Mustapha.
This guy was a CIA agent and a Mossad agent. He might have made a couple of beautiful speeches when he got elected but he will remain a fascist warlord. He brought Sharon to Beirut. Shame on you Mustapha.
PS. And don’t give me the crap about “national reconciliation”. A war criminal is a war criminal and national reconciliation will only be effective when the Lebanese stop admiring war criminals and searching for attenuating circumstances for their beahviour.
Read some History Books Mustapha. Does Black Saturday ring a bell? Tall el Zaatar ? Ehden massacre ? Safra massacre ?

Mustapha said…

Anonymous:

“Forgiveness is not an emotion, it’s a decision.”
–Randall Worley

SALIM said…

Today marks the anniversary of the Sabra and Chatila massacres, where 3000 innocent women and children were brutally murdered by the LF, Tigers, Cedar Guards and other so-called defenders of the “security of the Christian Community”.
We owe it to the slaughtered children to keep their memory alive. And Mustapha, may I remind you than archbishop Desmond Tutu rightly pointed out that “there can be no forgiveness if there is no confession and no recognition” of the crimes committed. These guys do not even regret their acts. Check out yesterday Cedar Guards communique.
Go visit the LF forums. When these bastards repent, we might forgive.

Mustapha said…

I will let this issue be subject of debate for a bit.

if at the end i got convinced that “forgiving does not mean hanging someone’s pin on your chest”, i will take the pin down.

what’s your opinion?

Anonymous said…

You should read Bob Woodward’s book “Veil”, a history of the CIA.
You’ll see how Woodward, the world’s most famous investigative journalist judges Bachir, whom he called “a baby faced mass murderer”. Woodward explains how Bachir became a CIA agent when he did an internship at a law firm in the US. He would receive money and orders each month and report back to Langley. He was simultaneously a Mossad agent ! And those LF morons think he is a Lebanese nationalist ! a paid member of two foreign intelligence agencies !

rr said…

anonymous and salim,

the ethical standards and practices of the arab/muslim world are against fascists, criminals, and mass murderers now?

Lidia said…

I agree with the above posters. You should remove Jummayyil’s picture.

hummbumm said…

Gemayyel was a killer, no question, but there are lots of killers in the M.E. overall as well as lebanon. At least Gemayyel is dead. Keep the poster, he was no worse than the rest. Lebanon was a civil war, war being the operative word, that meant killers on both sides. For every Tell Zaatar there was a Damour. There were also the quiet executions that took place by both sides at impromptu checkpoints that killed thousands. the list of missing is still long and it is spread evenly among all lebanese.

khaled said…

I for myself was with forgivness, but reading Salim’s post he is right “there can be no forgiveness if there is no confession and no recognition of the crimes committed.”

No one from both sides regreted their acts. no one gave appoligies……

So I believe that UNTILL THEY DO SO, I DO NOT FORGIVE..

When someone dies, even assassinated, he does not become an angel.
Jmayel has undeniably a criminal record. Whether he would have changed is uncertain. On the one hand, we have seven YEARS of daily brutalities and racist speeches, on the other hand, we have seven days of nice speeches about unity.
I think acts speak louder than words. And his rethoric in his last days should not make us oblivious to the crimes he committed. NY Times Journalist Thomas Friedman estimates the victims of Bashir at 70.000, including thousands of innocent civilians

More comments:

Lidia said…

hmmmbmmm
You write : “Keep the poster, he was no worse than the rest”
I do not agree with this logic.
You want Mustapha to keep the photo of a killer (you recognized he is one) simply because he was not the only criminal ? !!!
In this case, why not post a gallery of all war criminals ?

Raja
Your reasoning is not false but there is a big problem with it : it legitimizes the war criminals by giving them a sectarian shield. According to this logic, we can no longer criticize any murderer because he is supported by some members of his sect. This is unacceptable.
I am a Christian and I’d like Mustapha to remove this photo because Bashir does not represent me. He took the leadership of the community only after he slaughtered all his opponents. We can’t just say : “it was a war”. There were brave leaders like Raymond Edde and Albert Moukheiber and many others who rejected the war and refused all militias. Why not put a picture of Raymond Edde ? He was a real patriot, a Christian who did not have blood on his hands, he opposed all occupations and was an staunch ennemy of Israel.

Well the war is over. Everybody can pardon everybody. But it does not mean we have to celebrate and praise the warlords. Rafic Hariri was a man of peace who was assassinated while he had never carried arms. Bachir was the head of a militia. When you head a militia, you should expect to die violently and it does not make you a hero.
I have no personal grudge against Bachir. To me, he’s just like all other warlords. But why should we celebrate these fellows ? My grandma was shot by a sniper during the war while she was going to run errands for her family. Why not a pin of my grandma ? She died at Mathaf and we don’t even know from which side the bullet came.
The real resistants are the Lebanese people who went on with their lives while the militiamen were killing each others, and only helping foreign interests.

All of them have blood on their hands:

Basher el Gmayel - Kataeb
Ibrahim Kolylat - Morabitoon
Elie Hobaka - His own LF
Kamal Shatila - Public Conference
Walid Jumblat - PSP
Nabih Berri - AMAL
Abu Arz - COG
Sulaiman Franjie - Marada
Samir geagea - LF
Michele Aoun (using the army as a cover).
and many many more

I wonde why dont they appolegize?

It is simple..

We have no problem with the fighters.. the fighters did not know what they were doing, there should be national unity with all of them…

But why dont the leaders do a brave step and appologize?

a point I would love to see
many many others.

When Bashir took power, he tried to become a national leader.
He was an effective military leader - in fact, the the best during the war - and is to be respected alongside other effective leaders like Hafez el-Assad.
Being allied with the CIA or Mossad is completely irrelevant. Others were allied with the KGB, Revolutionary Guard, and Stazi. Your allies don’t define you, especially when you are the weaker party.

He was a man of his time. In a time of all out war, he still worked for the nation, although according to his own beliefs.

This would be a much different conversation were he alive. The closest comparisons are to the other militia leaders: Geagea, Hobeika, Dany Chamoun, Jumblatt, Berri, Etienne Sakr, Sharon, Arafat, Georges Habash, Hafez al-Assad.
Was Gemayel a more effective military leader than them? Yes.
Was Gemayel a better politician? Debatable.
Did Gemayel rise above his position of sectarian militia chief? Yes.
Did the others? Geagea and Hobeika did, but the others have not to this day.

One cannot deny that he was a visionary during horrendous times. The closest comparison is probably to Michel Aoun, although Aoun did not commit massacres.

That said, the image you have placed atop your website troubles me. Regardless of what Bashir means to Maronites, he is not a unifying figure.
Regardless of Hariri’s actions during his life, he brought all of us together in the event of his death. Bashir’s death did not do that to any extent.
The world would be a different and perhaps better place had Bashir lived. However, even in death Hariri has given his life for a better Lebanon.

Hariri never shed anyone’s blood. He may have taken part in under the table business deals and made pacts with Syria, but he never sought to harm the people of Lebanon through weapons.

I don’t think I can feel comfortable with the Bashir pin. Rene Muawad would be a much better replacement, although he is not an equivalent symbol.

A pin you should have up, however, is that of Musa Sadr. He, more than anyone else, worked to break down the differences between sects and empower the disenfranchised of Lebanon. His loss is probably the greatest one we have suffered.

BTW,
Reconciliation does not begin with apologies in Lebanon.
We might see a whole slew of apologies when sectarian protection is no longer the cause of the day.
I doubt Berri will ever apologize.

To go along with my comments on Bashir, I would hope that you would not put a picture of Jumblatt up just because it means something to the Druze. Same goes for Nasrallah, Arafat, Sharon, etc.
Unity does not mean making all leaders and symbols equal.

Good post Lebanon.Profile

I agree with almost all your points, except with this one : “Being allied with the CIA or Mossad is completely irrelevant. Others were allied with the KGB, Revolutionary Guard, and Stazi.”

Being an agent is not the same as having “allies”. The Lebanese warlords were used as pawns by the superpowers and naively thought that they were “allies” of the US or Syria or Israel. They were agents and when they disobeyed their masters or angered their opponents’ masters, they were physically eliminated.

Bachir was idealistic or naive (or stupid) enough to think the Israelis were helping him for his eyes only. While he was a puppet in their hands.

My vote goes to taking off the Bachir pin and placing pins of Mussa Sadr and rene Muawad and those few with clean hands

LP,

I’d also like to think that Hariri united Lebanese when he died. But the question is: for how long? Hariri never killed anybody, but as you yourself mentioned, Bashir was a product of his own time. He is also a Maronite leader, and again, I should emphasize, I think that Mustapha put the pin up there as a gesture to members of the Maronite Community.

Again, I don’t think anyone should view or “read” Mustapha’s pin in a literal manner. Mustapha is not (or at least, I don’t think he’s) trying to reveal to us a secret, long-time allegiance to Bashir. Rather he is sending a message to a group of individuals who he feels need reassurance with regards to his personal neutrality.

Dr. Vic,

I love your posts… please post more! I’m so thrilled that you’re a member of our blogging community. If only there were 10 Dr. Vic’s in this blogosphere, I’d be in heaven!

Victor, you and your kurdish crap, unbelievable…. LP good post, agree with you on Sadr, as well that in the end pairing of gemayyel and Hariri is inappropriate, given one was a warlord, you are right Lidia.

i suggest you put a pin of Hannibal Lecter. At least he was smart and had a lot of class, unlike Jummayyil

To quote “Ghawwar EL-Tosheh”: Balad kella za3ama, min wen bjiblak sha3b?

I say take it down. And once the Mehlis report is out, take down Hariri too.

Have we none but dead leaders to rally around?!

Dear M -

I suggest you put a pin of Sheikh Pierre Gemayyel instead of the idiotic Bachir, and one of the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia to replace Hariri’s: as the French say, “better deal directly with God than with his Saints and servants”

Cordially,

Roy J. Elkhoury
a.k.a. Nuke Qoreytem Now!

Wake up Muçtafah, the “spirit of March 14″ doesn’t need “to be revived”!

It’s clinically dead by now, killed by Saad’s racist Hambali politics in Tripoli and ‘Aqqar and Djumblatt’s overt anti-Christian bullying in Parliament

The cold corpse of your so-called “spring” simply needs to be buried alongside that of fake martyr Rafic

Rajlu-al-Qais

Dear BS artist:)

You obviously are free to do as you wish with regards to pins and posters of individuals as way of showing respect to convey the spirit of March 14 as you say. But, wouldn’t it be more prudent if you are going to engage in such activity that you may encompass all individuals whom Lebanese identify with. How about the pin of Walid baik? I, for instance, identify with Artino Artinyan. He most defiantly was at the March 14 rally, where’s the pin of my guy? Should I understand that you disrespect me by neglecting to put Artino’s pin? Where’s my reassurance?

By the way I agree with Jurn El Kibbeh. I would much rather see the pins of Mustapha, Raja, Doha, Lebanese.profile, and the rest of us rather than dead folk.

Mostafa,

These two photos have been raised alongside each other for most of the “Cedar Revolution”, with the photos of Geagea, Aoun, Dani Chamoun, Hasan Khaled, Rene Mouawwad… and Akel Hashem, the second man in Lahd’s Militia, assassinated by HA around March 2004.

What I want to say is that photos don’t really matter. It is their significance to people that matters. I agree with LP that Bashir is not a unifying figure. I even think some people will take offence if you associate Bashir with Rafic Hariri.

One more note is that Hariri represents national unity more than March 14, at least if you consider the non-participation in March 14, who still looked at Hariri as a national leader and wanted the truth but didn’t trust the “Cedar Revolution”. If I believe the talk about the death of the spirit of March 14, then I’m sorry to say those people were right.

I personnally was surprised and a bit offended when I came back to this site and saw the picture of the Gemayel thug.
I suggest you take it off.
Many Lebanese hate everything he stands for (Lebanese Fascism, Collaboration with Israel, Thuggish Militia Rule…)
But then again, I am a half-blooded Lebanese-Palestinian, so his supporters probably consider that my opinion doesn’t count, as my blood is not as “pure” as they’d like.

This is a great debate. I updated my recent post on reconciliation to note it.
You’re right, it’s interesting that we came to the same conclusion at the same time.

Blogger from Bloggistan,
It took me aback that you think our pins should be posted, but I agree. Rather than worship dead men, we should take up the cause on our own.

The tragedy, as As-Safir wrote, is that the changes to Lebanon going on right now are not being instigated or made by Lebanese. Our fate is being sewn in Paris, New York, and Washington. We, the people, are not making any decisions. I feel as powerless as I did under Syria, except now there is no excuse.

LP, I don’t have any answers as you might have noted on my blog-shmlog. However, if I may recommend one thing for those residing in Lebanon, and whatever the hell they wish to call themselves i.e. Phoenician, Arab, Armenian, or Timbuktun and that is: if you want to stop feeling powerless, like minded people need to come together pronto. Unlike March 14, organize on your own and refrain from the calls of “leaders” or politicians to do so. Don’t wait on Mehlis, Jumbulat, Nasrallah, Sfeir, Hariri, or balout to march and make your voices heard. We have legitimate grievances and demands and we don’t need to associate ourselves with any one of those bozos. If you think the world listened to us on March 14, in my humble opinion, pick any date in the future and the key word here is ORGANIZE and see the reaction from the world community. Any uprising orchestrated by any Lebanese politician is a farce in my opinion and I believe the opinions of many around the world. So, take what you can from this opinion and recommendation and do what you will with it. I like to use this baseball analogy from the movie Bull Durham, “if you build it, they will come.” If you build this organization the right way, I assure you we and the rest of the world will come.

Not Bull Durham. Field of Dreams.

Field of Dreams. More appropriate don’t you think? :)

Mustapha,

You cannot have national reconciliation and “forgiveness” without acknowledging the mistakes and the horrors of the past. There’s no moving forward if everybody suddenly faked amnesia and did not try to learn from past mistakes.

That’s why the March 14 spirit feels hollow to some. I think the good intentions are there, but it’s fragile if its so called leaders do not step forward and admit to their past mistakes and ask the Lebanese people for forgiveness.

It pains me to see Bashir’s pin up there because I cannot personally forget what he and his thugs did in the name of Free Lebanon. I studied history, and I know that the other side did equally horrific things (so don’t start people).

The spirit of March 14 is naive but young and fresh. To preserve that freshness, and to shield it from the dirt of those before us who chose the path of murder, Mustapha, either put all of them up there, including Jumblatt, Aoun, Franjieh, Karame, Nasrallah and Berri, or none at all. I personally prefer the red and white flower of hope to all pins. After all, this “revolution” was supposed to be a coming together of well-intentioned and forward looking spirits, and not a forced collage of clashing pins.

You should put pins of real heroes like Habib Chartouni and Nabil Alam. Thanks to these bold young men, Lebanon did not become an Israeli puppet state. We owe them our dignity.

Israeli puppet state, syrian puppet state, what is the difference? Now on to more important news, lebanon qualified for the world championships in basketball by placing second to China (Yao Ming and Co) but beating everyone else there. A great result! that is cool!

To tell you the truth, I don’t understand what is so March 14ish about BG. Forget about his crimes - most of the other politicians have similar ones - I’m not going to take them into consideration. I viewed the Hariri pin as a symbol of martyrdom AND of the unity he seemed to bring. I never viewed the pin as some Sunni leader being pinned up. So why have BG? Is it just “to acknowledge a large segment of the maronites” as raja states? If that is the reason, then the pin is misplaced, because you are implying that Hariri is a purely sunni/muslim (and please dr. vic, don’t start with all this wahabi cliche) symbol. I am honestly trying to understand the relation here. Is it because he discussed unity towards the end of his death? How much of that do you believe? If this is the reason, then you should put up Kamal Jumblatt of Moussa Sadr before put BG, because they spoke and worked towards some sense of unity. If you are placing pins of leaders who were martyred for lebanon, then the number of pins is automatically longer.

However, if you have placed the pin to convey the same meaning as the hariri pin, then it is misplaced, because it does not have the same connotation. It actually takes away from the implicit meaning of the hariri pin, and changes the context. If that is what you had in mind, then sure keep it. But I doubt that was your intention.

I don’t have an opinion on this issue. Bashir Gemayel was a violent man and was responsible for the death of a lot of innocent people, but so was the environment in which he had to fight.

Bottom line is that when the state failed to protect the Lebanese both from external and internal armed groups, it created a vacuum that allowed the creation of militias. The Lebanese who let the creation of the Fatahland and pressured for the Cairo agreement (people like Karamé or Kamal Jumblat) in the 60’s are more responsible for the war than anybody else.

But I agree with Doha that the past is past and that we have to accept the representatives of the other communities wether we like them or not.

Sill, I don’t think that the LF are a threat to democracy or to the Muslims the way Hezbollah and political Islam are to the Christians.

All pins should be taken down. We should stop the cult of the individual once and for all. Hariri was a great man, but did he truly unite the lebanese people? he sure didn’t while he was alive. People were as divided about him as they are about any other politician. His death brought them together? yes, but only as far as the syrians and the secret services were concerned. Did it truly unite them? Look around you and you will know. Divided as ever. Still stuck on sectarian tribalism, still looking for martyrs and heroes in the rubble. Bring down the totems ya Mustapha. “Sheikh Rafee2″, “sheikh bashir”, “el hakeem”, “el general”, “el istez”, “walid beik”,”sleiman beik”. The list goes on for ever. As if we were programmed to be sheep. And destined to be martyrs. What a mascarade.
So for the love of Lebanon, Mustapha, no more iconolatry. The flag yes, the masses of march 14th yes, the map yes. We need to be reminded of who we are, what we did and can do as a people if we really stand together, and the beautiful country we were given and are still passively giving away.

Thermocrime - everything you say is true. We should just move on.

After reading all the above, I might have a solution. to many it wil lsound lame..

everyone learns from their mistakes, and I know that Bashir , Geaga, jumblat, etc.. followers have learned from the mistakes of war.

So why not let the dead politicians be symbols to their followers? We know that their followers will not follow their mistakes.. they will always look at the bright side of them.. the national speech they gave and not the masacares..

So I suggest we do the same… they are dead.. so honour the dead by mentioning their good deads and NOT to forget what they did, as we should learn from their mistakes….

The verdict is out.
Please see the next post.