True independence only comes when we are able to take responsibility for our own actions.
Next week, president Suleiman will be making his first official trip to Syria. Yesterday, the Israelis told us that the Lebanese government will be held responsible for Hezbollah’s actions. Also, M.P. Michel Aoun declared from parliament that the people of Lebanon, its government and its resistance are all one entity.
Is there anything in common between these events?
At the heart of them are the fundamental notions of independence and responsibility. The stakes in Lebanon have become too high and the Lebanese citizens will have to soon make some choices and accept their consequences.
To illustrate my point, let’s talk about Israeli overflights over Lebanese territories. By all measures, they are internationally illegal, and in a sense we have the “right” to shoot them down as Hezbollah had suggested. Yet for some quirks in history and international norms of fairness, Israel happens to be a military power with the capability of destroying Lebanon and getting away with it.
The choice every single Lebanese faces is this: Do we want to be right and keep our dignity at the expense of our lives and that of our children? Or do we want to stay alive and suck up the occasional air violation as a trade off to our prosperity?
To many, this isn’t an easy choice. But it so happens that we have to make it in the next general election. Do we want to vote for leaders who believe that “the people of Lebanon, its government and its resistance are all one entity,” knowing what the consequence of that vote might be? Or do we want to vote for leaders who want to “stay away from trouble” like Mr. Seniora, even at the expense of our national pride and dignity?
Israel has made it clear that we can no longer blame Syria and get away with it. This time, we have to be careful because we are truly responsible for our choices. We can’t whine, we can’t protest the unfairness of it all, we can’t blame anyone else. It is a difficult choice but we have to make it.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is the true meaning of independence.
Hello, my name is Mustapha and I've been blogging about Lebanese society, business and politics since February 2005.
Steif….most of the Lebanses have no dignity at all,they’ll sell their soul to the devil like they are selling their bodies to the Saudi princes for a fistfull of dollars from the Clean Money…
Or do u think if we dissarm the resistance,Israel will stop harrassing Lebanon…
As Michel Shiha once said it :”Israel in peace is more dangerous than Israel at war with Lebanon”….
I don’t sleep peacefully knowing that some Lebanese have their weapon out under the resistance name….but if i hav e to choose well Death Before Dishonor….
I think dignity is the most precious of all human possessions….
Ohhhhhhh so u wont begin harrasing me about the Lebos that are selling their boddies to Saudi and Khaliji people,and think i said that to humiliate Lebanese and Khaliji at the same time…
It’s a fact,10 days ago about a dozen boys and girls where arrested,after their parent got worried knowing they are spending wild money,and going out constantly without their consent till late hours and informed the police,under the chrage of prostitutionand drug dealing for some verry rich tourrists living in fancy hotels….
The guys are between 15 and 20,they are from Tripoli and everyone living in Tripoli knows them….
Well said about independence and responsibility, Mus.
You are wrong, however, about the choice facing Lebanon. It’s not between prosperity and honor.
It is between civilization and barbarity. Lebanon – oops, sorry, the Party of God’s Cretins – is threatening Israel with genocide. Civilized people tend to be unhappy about genocide. Barbarians embrace it.
This is the real choice of Lebanon. And the fact that even you cannot see it is indicative of Lebanon’s choice… already made, isn’t it?
Israel is full of sh*t.
YES Hezbollah must be declawed at all costs, yes its divine dirtbag Nasghallah SHOULD end up flailing at the end of a rope, and yes baboons like GMA must take up residence in the funny-house. But Israel is still full of sh*t and would still be pissing in the wind if it thought that by attacking Lebanon it will rid us (and itself) of Hezbollah. The Summer of 2006 is ample proof that Israel bombed the wrong country (though IT WAS NOT unjustified in doing so.) But if Israel is SERIOUS about cutting the sh*t, it needs go to the source, NOT THE SYMPTOM. BOMB THE HELL OUT OF SYRIA (and Iran) FOR A CHANGE, and see the Hezbollah baboons go back to selling chicklets and yellow-rags on the “autostrade”.
I meant to add that what I said above doesn’t mean that the monkeys in the national assembly and Lahous part deux (aka as Michel Sleiman) should not be held accountable for Hezbo’s idiotic hubris! THEY MUST! AND ISRAEL SHOULD BOMB THEM TO SMITHERINES FOR ALL I CARE. But after recently re-reading Etienne de la Boétie’s “Discours de la servitude volontaire”, I wouldn’t mind cutting them some slack; reluctantly some slack. Adonis perhaps interprets de la Boétie best here ??????? ??????? ??????????? ?????????? “???????” ????? ?????????? “?????????” ??? ???…
Arabs and those infected by them (namely the Lebanese, who although not Arabs themselves, have integrated and assimilated the Arabs’ pathologies) prefer servitude to freedom. Like Steve said (and Adonis and de la Boétie), Freedom comes with responsibilities. Servitude, on the other hand, is comforting to Arabs and those contaminated by the Arabist ethos. With servitude comes the perk of laying the blame onto the “other”, “Allah” (heyk baddo rabbna), “colonialism” (the risible overused excuse of the Arabs), ah, and the obligatory “Zionist” and “Western” imperialist.
Still, I think Israel should send its fighter-jets northeast, not northwest.
There is no dignity in allowing a party to operate outside your control while being willing to accept the consequences of their actions. There is no dignity in fighting wars outside the people’s authority but doing it knowing full well that the people will pay for your actions. These are the things that threaten our pride and dignity — not a plane in the sky.
To illustrate my point, let’s talk about Israeli overflights over Lebanese territories. By all measures, they are internationally illegal,
Although the U.N. currently disagrees (it has not yet justified its position), paragraph 15 of UNSC 1701 can be interpreted as authorizing Israeli overflights. Israel certainly has seen it that way since day one. It is one of the few parts of 1701 that explicitly goes beyond Chapter 6 limitations.
Well…LNH said it all, bang on. (like usual).
Israel has overflights precisely because of Hizballah.
You talk about Israel being irrational. Let us not forget, the last war was due to irrational actions from our side, not theirs.
If Hizballah really wants to mess around with them, well, all is fair in love and war. We made Hizballah, whether we like to admit it or not. And our creation will be our downfall unless we dismantle them. Unfortunately, we can’t. They are the only group in Lebanon with a movement, a core belief. To me they resemble the Zionist movement pre-1948. Funny how we are our own worst enemy. We are forever doomed to live in exile in Ghana, UAE, USA, Canada, France because that is how we shaped our own destiny. All the while, Iranian influence moves to shores of the Mediterranean. And we sit here, writing about it.
We are forever doomed to live in exile -
Maybe. The conflict expressed on this blog is that between a tribal grab-it-all-for-my-group mentality and one based on rule-of-law. The solution to the Lebanese dilemma thus seems obvious to me – but it requires a change in thinking by Lebanese themselves, especially by exiles like PR and AK.
It must be hard to be a rationalist in Lebanon these days. You look at Egypt and Jordan and surmise that peace if the way to go yet your national identity is “resistance.”
And it must be tough, even dangerous to be a dissident against resistance and de facto perpetual war.
How could a movement to move to peace even get started?
Perp – bloody sad, this is. And the Lebanese are well and truly buggered.
The only thing this particular arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard has in common with pre-1948 Zionism is the illegal arms.
Perhaps you might find solace in knowing that in exile, you can at least retain the good parts of the Lebanese culture and pass them on. Who knows, maybe 2000 years from now your offspring will return to the desert that was Lebanon and make it bloom again.
Oh, and if you must compare Hizballeh to Jews, compare them to the Sicarii: murderous thugs high on religious fervor and power, killing anyone not them, destroying anything they cannot own.
You said:
“Do we want to be right and keep our dignity at the expense of our lives and that of our children? Or do we want to stay alive and suck up the occasional air violation as a trade off to our prosperity?”
I think that is the wrong question. Why the option of defending ourselves always means Hezbo’s reality?
I think we can use Hezbo’s capabilities under the Lebanese Government authority. No body is saying that Hezbo has to give their arsenal away and we have to raise a white flag. Although Hezbo is trying to tell people that. That is Bull Shit.
This business about the honor of Lebanon being damaged by the Israeli planes is like a woman being raped complaining that some body who is looking from afar and who is prohibited from approching the scene by her family and her relatives is dishonoring her.
We’re paying the price of our own weakness and inability to assert ourselves as a state. Instead, we have agreed to legitimize an armed militia which acts independently from the state while scheming to serve someeone else’s interest. Perhaps we deserve what we get and as some have suggested, we might one day learn that our own security lies in our own hands and by our own choice and not in anyone else’s. Sad that after so many years of war and destruction, we’re still back to square one.
“Or do u think if we dissarm the resistance,Israel will stop harrassing Lebanon…”
Does Israel harass Jordan, Egypt or Turkey?
The only logical way forward for Lebanon is to sign a peace treaty with Israel. Probably Syria will have to sign one first to make this possible. But, the sooner the better.
Lebanon, like Jordan, would still have a defense force – but it would not be constantly threatening its neighbours. (Which is what this word “resistance” means.