Voltaire attributed to the French philosopher Nicolas Malebranche the phrase "the imagination is the madwoman of the house" (meaning the madwoman of the soul), to emphasize the importance of reason in seventeenth-century classical thought and eighteenth-century Enlightenment philosophy, which later extended into the modern era.
However, the tragic collective experiences of the twentieth century and the present one do not suggest that the collective mind is in any better shape than the imagination when it comes to discerning truth—not scientific truth, but societal, political, and historical truth, which decides the fates of nations.
Examples are plentiful. One of the most striking is how an entire nation known for its strict rationality, such as the German nation, embraced racial Nazi ideology as a means to dominate Europe and the world. That gamble led to the Second World War, which in seven years claimed between seventy and eighty million lives, caused indescribable economic, urban, and cultural destruction, and led to the collapse of European global dominance...
One recalls the interplay of imagination, reason, and memory while observing the intellectual confusion prevailing in the Levant today, particularly within Lebanese society. Yet, in light of reason and memory, the Lebanese issue is remarkably clear: there is a society that has sought, since ancient times and still today, freedom, cultural advancement, openness to modernity, and human quality of life.
Successive generations from 1861 to the present have benefited from this course—distinct from its security-driven and controlling surroundings—building themselves upon its unique achievements in life and knowledge, and relying on its ability to withstand regional projects that tried by all means to absorb it, yet failed.
There is no doubt that the Palestinian cause is a supreme cause of justice. But the responsibility of confronting and resolving it rests at least on the vast Arab world and its population of 500 million people.
Is there any orientation more irrational than the one that placed upon tiny "Land of the Cedars" alone, for sixty years—from 1965 to 2026—the burden of "liberating Palestine"? This surreal course led to an endless series of tragedies and disasters, bringing Lebanon from its status as the "Switzerland of the East" down to the bottom of the abyss, while Israel grew increasingly prosperous and powerful—militarily, scientifically, technologically, and economically.
Is there any patriotism in exploiting the sole window of freedom provided by the Lebanese experience to ruin that experience and the country for nothing? Those who constantly invoke the dream of "Greater Israel" do not remember that the 1949 Armistice Agreement was consistently respected by both sides prior to the launch of Palestinian guerrilla operations from Lebanon—especially before the "Cairo Agreement," in which the Lebanese state was forced to surrender its sovereignty over part of the South to the Fatah movement, after which the slogan "The road to Jerusalem passes through Jounieh" was raised in its face.
Nor do they remember that in 2000, Israel withdrew from Southern Lebanon without negotiations and unconditionally, calling for a return to the 1949 Armistice. Its withdrawal pleased neither Hafez al-Assad nor the Iranian axis, which occupied and mined the liberated South, culminating in the current disaster.
Despite all this, history repeats itself. Thousands of followers of Wilayat al-Faqih in Lebanon, alongside their allies among Baathists, "official" Communists, Syrian Social Nationalists, "resistance-aligned" Marxists, the Muslim Brotherhood, and others, remain attached to the exact same path without reconsideration, despite their deep contradictions.
Furthermore, the allies of the Iranian axis among traditional political forces in other sectarian communities still long, implicitly or explicitly, to re-establish the axis's influence in Lebanon to serve their interests, allay their fears of accountability, and cater to deep-seated historical animosities within their environments.
These feelings reach indescribable extremes, such as when a Lebanese monk declared in an interview about the concept of the state and Hezbollah's weapons that he opposes handing the party's arms over to the state because it is the strongest force and the one that put Lebanon on the global map. The significance of this statement is that it is not merely an isolated personal opinion; it reflects a tangible trend within one of the monastic orders manifested in various ways.
What links the spirituality of this ancient order—open to modernity, knowledge, freedom, and compassion for centuries—to the doctrine of Wilayat al-Faqih? Nothing. It is merely narrow, obsolete internal alignments of one against another, long surpassed by time—a state of total disorientation.
