Groundhog day

As Lebanon celebrates 82 years of independence, it once again sits on the brink of an existential crisis

This weekend, Lebanon celebrates 82 years of being Lebanon, 82 years since we told the French that we wanted to faire cavalier seul. At the time, General Sir Edward Spears, the minister to Syria and Lebanon, declared that the Lebanese “sprang from a civilization much older and higher” than their colonial masters and for a moment, we lived up to the star billing, creating an impossibly glamorous, multi-lingual entrepot with a rare facility for doing business.

But any periods of prosperity and optimism we might have enjoyed, have been regularly decimated by war, occupation, malignant foreign influence, political instability, assassinations and assorted national catastrophes. In fact, since those heady days in 1943, there have been 78 governments, that’s almost one a year, and it is tragically obvious that we are still very much a work in progress.

So what better day to highlight our multiple shortcomings than November 22, a day in which, with a seemingly zero sense of irony, we proudly roll-out our armed forces in a glittering parade, while conveniently forgetting that our current malaise lies in the state’s inability to do its job.

It is nearly one year on, from the appointment of the so-called dream team of former army chief, President Joseph Aoun and the international human rights judge, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam. And despite the fact that a weakening of Iran’s influence in Lebanon and the relocation of the Assad clan to a Moscow apartment block, created a clear opportunity for the country, as the famous Brexit slogan said, to “take back control”, Lebanon faces impossible choices, once again imposed by external actors.

Israel, which appears to be taking full advantage of doing whatever it likes whenever it likes, still deploys trigger-happy troops in five strategic positions in South Lebanon; its drones fly over the country, regularly carrying out targeted killings in broad daylight that not only make the Lebanese understandably jumpy, but also add weight to Hezbollah’s claims that all this demonstrates why a Resistance movement was, and still is, necessary. It is quite staggering that the Israelis cannot see this, unless of course it is exactly the excuse they need to maintain a presence in South Lebanon and create a permanent buffer zone for their northern border.

The government has few, if any, moves left to play. It, quite understandably, doesn’t want a shootout with the occupying Israelis, but doing nothing risks eroding its credibility and might make Aoun in particular, look like Zionist stooge. It’s hardly a good look.

Moving to disarm Hezbollah on the other hand, something the US and the Israelis are blithely pushing for, might ignite a civil war. Again, not ideal. But the added fear is that if we don’t do it, the Israelis will. And yet, the inescapable truth is that the issue of the last remaining weapons in the hands of non-state actors are the overarching obstacles to genuine sovereignty and a properly independent nation.

So where are we? The latest plan that outlined a commitment to disarm all non-state actors, including the Palestinians, set no deadlines but came with the inevitable caveat from the government that it might need ‘additional time and effort’. Let’s see. It might just buy us some time, although for what, we aren’t sure. Basically we’re f*cked!

After 402 years under Ottoman rule and 23 years of French authority it is easy to understand Lebanon’s desire to shape its own destiny. And it's also easy to see why we thought we could succeed. We are after all the smartest people on God’s earth, or so we like to believe. But Independence is not just simply being a sovereign nation that can take its seat at the United Nations. For Lebanon, it means eradicating the last vestiges of regional and international opportunism that has consistently sought to exploit our soft sectarian underbelly. It means thriving on our own steam and on our natural instincts. If we can do this, and it’s a big if, we can once again be the vibrant, prosperous nation of which Edward Spears spoke, whose exciting potential the world has had only teasing glimpses.

As we’ve no doubt said every year for 82 years, our destiny is in our hands. It is up to us to seize it.