After the Assad regime fell and the emergence of Sharaa as the new leader, Syrians were inundated with talk of “optimism” and “pessimism.” But, to a large extent, so were the Lebanese, as they had also witnessed a change to their governance.
These two concepts, optimism and pessimism, are largely arbitrary and reductionist: they suggest that a person’s mood (and perhaps his psychological disposition) is a substitute for objective or realist analysis of facts and events.
However, given the prevalence of this issue, and for the sake of argument, it might be worth getting on the bandwagon and venturing to list the following factors behind what we call optimism and pessimism, at least in the context of Syria, Lebanon, and the Levant more broadly:
1-The optimist focuses on political power, what politicians say and do, and, sometimes, what is said on television. The pessimist, by contrast, focuses on inter-communal relations, and more can sometimes be learned about these dynamics by looking beneath the surface than above it.
2-The optimist highlights the developments unfolding in capitals, and perhaps major cities as well; that is, the optimist emphasizes “public opinion.” The pessimist, meanwhile, highlights the situation in the countryside and the periphery, that is, the half-public, half-private sentiments that are usually not considered “public opinion.”
3-The optimist counts on foreign support and believes that it reinforces the stability of a given regime or political arrangement, while the pessimist builds his conclusions on their view of the political power that will receive this support and what it will do with it, as well as which of the existing economic channels this support will ultimately flow into.
4-The flow of goods, the consumption of technology, and perhaps even a revival in tourism, raise the optimist’s morale. The pessimist, while they could overlook the question of producing goods and technological innovation (which they see as a better indication than consumption), does not overlook mainstream perceptions of these goods and technologies and the culture surrounding this consumerism.
5-The optimist believes that prevailing social practices and ideas (kinship systems, religious reform, women’s rights, the status of minorities) are unimportant; at best, they are seen as secondary questions that can be deferred until after the “pressing tasks” are completed. The pessimist, on the other hand, believes that these practices and ideas are the broader environment in which the fate and trajectory of politics is determined. They may indeed be deferred, but being armed with a firm stance on such matters from the outset, in the pessimist’s view, offers a guarantee for good political practice.
6-The optimist is not very concerned about whether or not a public debate emerges. Consequential political forces, in his opinion, have nothing to do with such debates and their substance. The pessimist, on the other hand, believes that without such debates, the sorts of dynamics that could allow for meaningful, sustainable change will never emerge, nor will public participation in the political process broaden. Accordingly, the optimist tends to focus exclusively on traditional political forces. Without ignoring those forces, the pessimist’s pessimism is reinforced by the weakness of civil society (associations, institutions, parties, unions, and ideas).
7-Consumed by short-term power balances, the optimist tends to ignore questions of justice, assuming that, one way or another, the strong will manage. As for the pessimist, they see neglecting justice and closing cases on false grounds as a pathway to deepening victimhood and perhaps fueling vengeful impulses that are bound to be translated into action, if not tomorrow, then soon after.
8-The pessimist feels a deep sense of humiliation watching Israel enforce its control over the region’s airspace and decisions, and he is pained by the fact that the policies being pursued do nothing to put an end to this state of affairs. His pessimism deepens further when the optimist behaves as though this is exactly what he wants: either because it "exposes" the extent of Israel’s belligerence or because it creates an opportunity to incite resistance against it.
9-The pessimist’s despair deepens as he sees states failing to emerge in our part of the world, due to the absence of any real societal consensus, concluding that they might never emerge and assert their sovereignty or secure their borders in the face of sects, tribes, and clans. The optimist, meanwhile, might link their emergence to an iron fist, sectarian or ethnic, backed by foreign actors, and he could even glorify sects and tribes and their “authenticity.”
10-The pessimist focuses on the conditions of our societies and states and finds them to be miserable and without prospects for the future. Thus, he insists on revisiting the deep-rooted problems with our social structures, social contracts, and the frameworks of our crumbling “coexistence,” reconsidering them if this reassessment shows a need to do so. Confident that “the people” would never allow it, the optimist warns against taking this kind of revisionism too far. Indeed, salvation is possible and easy because it requires nothing more than removing a ruler, amending a constitution, or improving the public sector. The optimist, then, is optimistic about “the people,” though his imagined people rarely resemble the real one. The pessimist, by contrast, could be pessimistic about “the people” itself, both the real and the imagined.
This is not to say that the pessimist demands everything to become optimistic, but he does demand positive beginnings or signs, and he finds only the opposite. As for the optimist, what he asks for is simple because it looks very self-evident; but that is also why, in the face of setbacks, he falls into disarray as his optimism crumbles and a sense of betrayal and disappointment leads him to despair.
