The Lebanese government's announcement that "Hafez al-Assad Avenue" will now be renamed "Ziad Rahbani Avenue" was not just the replacement of a street’s name with another; it was the replacement of one conception of the world with another. That is probably why the decision drew so much controversy on social media and in the media, with the debate becoming all the more charged by its timing, minutes after the deliberations of the cabinet session on seizing illegitimate arms had ended.
Many of the ministers who approved the decision do not share the late musician and artist’s political views, nor do some of the fan base who celebrated the decision simply because their "rival," Ziad Rahbani, deserves the honor. Just days earlier, Rahbani's funeral brimmed with political "rivals" there to pay their respects to the artist and human being he was. Notably, his commemoration took place in a region with no political ties to the deceased.
The fact of the matter is that this way of seeing the world is a return to a tradition that Lebanon had known the pre-civil war era: not reducing people to their political positions, and thus having the capacity to see them as beings with other, richer dimensions. As such, the national curriculum introduced students to poets and writers who had expressed bitter animosity for traditional Lebanese framework.
Among them were Arab nationalists like Rashid Salim al-Khoury, Syrian nationalists like Fouad Suleiman and Said Takieddine, and communists and friends of communists like Omar Fakhoury and Raif Khoury. In the same vein, the circulation of newspapers and magazines that any narrow-minded Lebanese would consider a threat to Lebanon (including monthly magazines such as “Al-Adab,” weekly magazines such as “Al-Hurriya” and “Al-Hadaf,” and daily newspapers such as “Al-Muharrir,” “Al-Safir,” and “Al-Nidaa”) was authorized between the 1950s and the 1970s.
On the other hand, those with the other sort of mindset- a mentality politicized to the core that combines tribal instincts and totalitarian ambitions- were annoyed that Rahbani’s had been celebrated by those who disagree with his politics and whose politics he had disagreed with. They were also dismayed when the poet Said Akl was honored following his death ten years ago- not for any consideration related to his work as a poet; their discomfort stemmed purely from his political positions. For decades, these people have been a cultural auxiliary to the guns of Hezbollah and Syrian security agencies, dictating to the Lebanese which books they could translate or read, as well as which films and plays they were allowed to screen and perform, all on the basis of the narrow political criteria they favored.
These people, who in reality wanted to honor Rahbani for his political positions and the impact they had had on his art, favored naming none other than Hamra Street after him, under the pretext that he had lived there. However, with some bad faith, which is "good sense" in this instance, we can assume that this suggestion has a dark motive: turning the tribute to Ziad Rahbani into a means for getting rid of Hamra Street and its name. Basic familiarity with the history of this cosmopolitan street, whose flourishing is inseparable from the presence of the American University of Beirut and the foreigners (some of whom were kidnapped by Hezbollah) who have resided in it, is enough to get the sense that this is no innocent proposal.
As for objecting to the removal of Assad senior’s name, it falls into the same interpretation. Assad has only one face: the face of an authoritarian officer who seized his country through a military coup, subjugated it and governed by the sword. He never succeeded in anything like he did at humiliating the Lebanese, after the Syrians. In this sense, the street bearing his name (or the name of Qassem Soleimani or Khomeini...) is a reminder that the Lebanese will remain governed by this relationship that politicizes their view of the universe while stripping them of politics and continuing to isolate them from the world.
It is thus impossible to split Assad and his experience to distinguish between the different sides to them, to say that we hate his politics but love his singing, admire the dexterity with which he played an instrument, or his love of nature...
When it was decided that his late son, Bassel, should be granted the face of a “Fares” (knight on horseback) he eliminated his competitor who alone the title.
As for Bashar, the other son and his father's heir, he was not equipped for the only dimension attributed to him, the political dimension. It was clear that his shrivelled persona, devoid of meaning and dimensions, was all that we and he have.
Before and beyond this, any attachment to a tribute to Hafez conveys hatred for the Syrian people and everything they had suffered at his hands before they destroyed his statues and tore up his posters. Indeed, when the Lebanese themselves, in 2005, launched an insurgency against the infamous Syrian-Lebanese security regime, they removed monuments to Hafez and his son, Basil, in several regions of the country.
The hope, today, is that this recent decision will inaugurate a bi-pronged shift in how we assess the matters present to us in our lives, on the one hand, and, on the other, whom we pay honor and celebrate. Will we bid farewell to the celebration of one-dimensional politicians and military men who regularly and unreluctantly resort to vicious oppression? Honoring such people is characteristic of slaves and slave morality.
