"Since we were defeated in a war, which we had caused, that led to humanitarian and material disasters, as well as the occupation of our land and the displacement of its residents,
And since we are not trusted by the Arab and Western powers who have the capacity to provide economic support to Lebanon, including the help we need to ensure the reconstruction of the South,
And since Israel’s withdrawal from our land would be made more difficult, and even could be scrapped, if we were to take on a prominent role in public life,
And since Syria, which borders our country to the north and east, has expelled our friend Bashar al-Assad, giving rise to a new order that we do not reassure and that does not reassure us,
And since our Iranian patron faces fatal risks,
And since the majority of the Lebanese people do not want to see us occupying a leading position in this new phase...
For all those reasons, we should be rewarded with the Ministry of Finance and the third signature that comes with it, as well as the right to appoint all our sect’s representatives in government."
No one actually made the arguments above. Nonetheless, this passage essentially sums up the actual but unspoken “rationale” of Nabih Berri and Hezbollah’s position. It is a “rationale” rooted in the powerful nihilistic disposition at the heart of our political culture: the more a faction loses and the more devastating the damage it inflicts upon itself and others, the more it deserves to be rewarded. Through this consciousness, the implicit “rationale” is elevated into a norm, compelling us to see things the same way as the proponents of this “rationale:” to call defeat a victory, loss a gain, and weakness strength.
However, there is another dimension to this issue: Berri and Hezbollah maintain their monopoly over the representation of their sect, as every single Shiite deputy in Lebanon’s parliament, without exception, is beholden to them. This means- and this will continue to be the case until there is an opportunity for weighty opposition to emerge from within the sect itself- that a faction’s interest has diverged with the national interest in a way we have never seen before. Moreover, this is not merely a question of irreconcilable abstractions or political programs; rather, it is a sharp broader struggle between rationally pursuing the collective good and impulsive sectarian nihilism. The serious dilemma that emerges as a result goes beyond politics in the conventional sense to reach our social contract, and it goes beyond questions about the composition of the government to expose the fragility of our “national unity” as such. While we are awaiting an alignment of events that solves this dilemma, the demand that we see things this way- aside from its irrationality, absurdity, and negative implication for the public good- remains deeply factional and irreconcilable with any national vision or interest.
Similar toxic winds, albeit less damaging and dangerous, are blowing from the Christian position. As part of the torrent of slander directed at Prime Minister-designate Nawaf Salam and two of the ministers who are expected to be named as part of his government, Tarek Mitri and Ghassan Salameh, we see a slur resurface every now and then: they were once “leftists.” Often- and this is the case now- those behind this “critique” dig up statements made fifty or sixty years ago to prove that there is a “fifth column” in our midst. Many may have serious reservations about the way the government is being formed, or about the figures being targeted or others, but this particular objection says far more about those making it than its targets.
There is no need for me to prove that I am not a leftist. However, the only real implication of this- by definition McCarthyist- “criticism” is that the person being criticized is problematic because he is not “like us.” To be us, to be “pure” and “thoroughbred” (terms associated with horse breeding), one has to be born that way, proceeding along his divine blessed path without thinking, experimenting, suffering, striving, or changing. His consciousness must be automatic, inherited from his father and grandfather, much like pre-Islamic poets inherited their tribe, raiding when it raids and behaving rationally when it does.
This exclusionary politics blocks off any intellectual or cultural breeze from blowing in the direction of our small world, its large insults, with its singular focus on sectarian polarization. This narrow parochialism deprives the faithful of any personal experience that could enrich their community and its self-sufficient identity and culture- and mind you, perpetual self-sufficiency often leaves the self-sufficient decaying. On top of that, this ready-made comprehensive sectarian consciousness announces its frustration with the pluralism that, in other instances, it claims to uphold. For the thousandth time, what we accept is for others to be exactly like us, not only in the ideas they have inherited but also in personal histories that reflect no deviation whatsoever from this inherited legacy and its effects.
This mindset, besides its factionalism that seeks to mold others in its own image and on its ideals, ultimately backfires and brings ruin. One only needs to recall past civil wars- recent and distant- and the role that imposing a single, uniform identity on all played in these conflicts.
Regrettably, this is where we find one of the worst forms of Lebanese consciousness. Also regrettably, it remains among the strongest common denominators of the country’s warring sects.
