Former minister and international financial expert Adel Afiouni says that “changing the system and reform from within, working with elements of the ruling class and to make gradual progress in the hope of saving the country, is a theory that has failed a thousand times.”
This assessment by a former minister whose experience led him to refuse a post in the current government resonates today. It seems like the country is almost immune to change at a time when recovery and stability hinge on real solutions to two pivotal issues: the monopolization of armament and reform.
Lebanon’s intractability stands out. It continues to resist change, despite the cataclysmic storm in the wake of the “Al-Aqsa Flood” catastrophe, the Lebanese earthquake following the criminal war of “support,” and before them the deliberately engineered financial collapse that impoverished the country and humiliated its citizens.
The state’s performance presents a bleak picture, even a year into President Joseph Aoun’s term and eleven months after the formation of Nawaf Salam’s government. The president’s inaugural address, followed by the ministerial statement on the basis of which the government received parliament’s confidence, included promises and commitments that unleashed a wave of optimism that the country had not witnessed since the Taef Agreement was signed over 35 years ago.
From the very first moment, it was clear that this challenge demanded a rupture with the domineering establishment responsible for squandering Lebanon’s sovereignty and the replacement of the “normal state” with an “estate” shared by the militias of money and arms.
It was evident that the restoration of sovereignty, in its two dimensions, is the ultimate priority. One is asserting the sovereignty of the state and its forces across the country, so that Lebanon can regain its global standing and wage a diplomatic battle that exposes and constrains the enemy’s ambitions to end the occupation that illegal arms had summoned. The second is building financial sovereignty, which is also crucial for restoring confidence, by rescuing people’s deposits and restructuring the banking sector, doing away with the “zombie banks” that mirror the country’s corruption.
Financial sovereignty requires genuine reform which shows the world that a transparent system has been established in Lebanon, ensuring that the money of depositors and investors is in safe hands and holding accountable those who enriched themselves at the expense of the people.
420 days since the “ceasefire agreement” and 330 days since the formation of this government, “significant but insufficient” progress has been made on restricting arms south of the Litani. Lebanon does not have the luxury of taking its time to implement the agreement: disarming Hezbollah across Lebanon and dismantling the infrastructure of all non-state actors, some of which operate under the cover of scout groups. That is how to assert sovereignty and allow state forces to take responsibility for protecting lives and land.
The empty show of force must be stopped; that is, those in power must break their silence over the lunacy of Hezbollah’s secretary-general, Naim Qassem. “Disarming us... you’ll have to wait a long time,” he insists; and in response to the president’s call for rationality, “Resistance is the most rational,” and “rationality is making concessions to Israel but preserving our strength.” Here, he looks past his and his party’s responsibility for dangerous concessions in the ceasefire agreement that have granted the Israeli enemy the “right” to attack the country whenever and however it wishes. It continues to kill and destroy amid the absolute impotence of Hezbollah, which had pleaded for a ceasefire at any price, even signing on to an agreement that makes no reference to the return of the displaced and the liberation of prisoners.
It is clear that Lebanon is not being re-founded after decades of dependency, corruption, and subjugation. Faces have changed, but the collapse has not stopped. Merit has largely been ignored and the regime has mostly succeeded in covering up corruption and safeguarding the sectarian spoil-sharing system.
The country’s problems certainly won’t be addressed by a few cosmetic changes with marginal impact.
These authorities claiming to govern under the banner of “reform” have done nothing of substance and preserved cronyism. It is no exaggeration to say that the defeat Lebanon suffered in the catastrophe of the “support” war has been addressed with approach that merely manages the repercussions, whereas the natural response should have been a clean break everything that caused the defeat and the collapse, whereby citizens stop paying the price for “plunder” and accountability replaces impunity.
Despite the inclusion of technocrats, corrupt networks call the shots, and the country has failed to adapt to the new reality; they “have learned nothing and forgotten nothing,” to borrow from Talleyrand’s characterization of the Bourbons.
They leapfrogged over the requisites for restoring confidence. The draft “gap” law imposes arbitrary haircuts on deposits to reduce costs on the thieves, thereby exacerbating suffering and perpetuating the country’s isolation.
They have effectively removed crimes of theft, fraud, and money laundering from the penal code, clashing with both the depositors and the International Monetary Fund. As for those who looted public and private funds, they launched a campaign to seize Lebanon’s gold reserves. Replacing the word “gap” with “theft” strengthened their position of refusing to give back even a small portion of what they stole.
The latent October 17 uprising remains the framework for leading Lebanon out of the era of power-sharing, subjugation, and misery. It did not fail; rather, it broke barriers and removed the fig leaf concealing the shame of a mafioso alliance.
Despite repression and starvation, the October 17 uprising derives strength from its commitment to the constitution and its implementation. Today, it must rise to the challenge of launching an initiative that presents an alternative to the Lebanese and removes the burdens of collapse and the squandering of sovereignty from the shoulders of the general public.
