what has changed since the end lebanon’s civil war?
What has changed since the end of Lebanon’s civil war?
By Hazem Saghieh
lebjournal.com-On the thirty-third anniversary
of the civil and regional war in Lebanon, there
are many signs for an observer to stop at.
Among them, for example, is that the overall talk about the war does not distinguish between the war then and the semi-war situation that is lived today. This lack of distinction is both right and wrong at the same time.
Right, because the deeper cause of the war is still there, even when the names of the political parties, forces and groups have changed. More specifically, that cause is preventing Lebanon from becoming a nation and a state by playing on its domestic contradictions and by exploiting its indigenous underdevelopment to punish it for its relatively advanced civil society, consequently maintaining it as a battlefield for the feuds and the whims of the regional contestants. From this perspective, the hyped talk about the resistance, Israel and other issues amounts to a form of deception that relies on ideology in order to serve mythology.
Yet it is also incorrect, not only for a technical reason associated with the circumstances and the names and functions of the players, but also because a new element has been added to the rationale of the same conflict as well as to its consciousness and its forces. While the no-state project has renewed itself with the assassination of Rafik Hariri, the state project has expanded its local and foreign bases despite its weakness, limitations and significant defects: partly as it was joined by the majority of Sunnis and Druze to it, in addition to the high level of identification between the March 14 Movement and current civil society (intellectuals in the widest sense, doctors and engineers as the recent syndicate elections show). It is also partly seen by the very fact that the Lebanese question occupies a prominent position in various Arab and international calculations as was evident from the recent Arab summit in Damascus. By definition, this results from the understanding of the magnitude of danger coming from the Lebanese “battlefield” and the realization that in the Hezbollah era, the “Ayn al-Rummaneh Bus” has become a regional “bus” that threatens the entire region at the security, economic and political levels.
It is no exaggeration that this last factor is represented, among other examples, by the unconditional apology from the Palestinian Liberation Organization to Lebanon, and the emergence of a few and symbolic responses but which have significant implications. The fact that some Christian figures signed a similar apology to the Palestinians and the emergence of an atmosphere of reconciliation between the Palestinian Liberation Organization and the Lebanese Kataeb Party, namely the two forces which started the Lebanese war in 1975, is highly indicative.
This is because a Christian faction, growing wider than ever, has started to associate the assault on the state project and the regional structures and balances, and hence, an assault on the nation-state system in the entire region and not only the Lebanese nation-state project alone. A transformation of this form amounts to challenging the narrow minded rural consciousness and replacing it by an encompassing strategic thinking. It is not surprising, therefore, that in their attempt to stop this transformation, a few are resorting to the “Palestinian refugee settling conspiracy” and betting on it.
The Palestinian political project, on the other hand, is no longer based on the liberation of Palestine from Lebanon or Jordan. In other words, it is no longer oriented toward conflict with national and domestic groups in countries where the Palestinians reside, nor is it oriented to clashing with state borders or with international legitimacies and laws. The Palestinian project is now based on a specific state and territory, both which it seeks with the power of tedious political and diplomatic efforts. In this sense, national consciousness in Lebanon and Palestine are similar as they have settled at the idea of the state and the demand for it. However, to sabotage this pursuit, Hamas is involved in a heated race to complement the efforts of the Lebanese blackmailers and their “refugee settling conspiracy.”
The objective in both cases and countries is to obstruct the formation of the state. New forces have emerged but the goal is still the same.
Source: Al Hayat
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