Ancient and Pre-Ancient Lebanese
Hazem Saghieh Al-Hayat - 28/08/06//
The old tone, revived and brought to the fore by the mutinous endeavor, speaks of ancient, corrupt Lebanese politicians. It disfigures them, reminds them of their actual sins, defames them, or magnifies real faults within them.
And as usual, an arsenal of leftist, doubtlessly 'progressive', rhetoric is happy to provide us with directions - by the standards of the late Lenin - as to who the people's 'friends' and 'enemies' are.
The ancient Lebanese, with his corrupt, mercantile, and Phoenician texture, has no place in the current age that is rising with a new dawn embodied in a new Lebanese. It is the revolutionary season sale, ushered by the 'historic victory' achieved by Hezbollah.
Just as in the Tolstoyan 'War and Peace', wars lead to others in a continuous cycle, with tidal waves of displaced people, while the world burns and falls into ruins on the eve of Doomsday. This is how a new dawn is born, comrades! Between a helmet and a scull, flowers blossom.
For the pervious world is an Old Testament world morphing into a new chapter of its geological phases, preparing for a new republic and a new public. Waiting for a miracle: the 'Mahdi' (Hidden Imam), a savior, and a deliverer.
Those insignificant corrupt people, who lose sleep over earthly possessions should clear the way for those who lose sleep solely over history.
Those who shed tears, like Fouad Siniora, should fade away, abandoning the scene for those who do not even bleed when cut.
But Hitler, Stalin, and Khomeni were infatuated by history. For them, property and material commodities were meaningless. Corruption never came near them and they never approached it. Doubt never arose, even in the minds of those who hated them, to accusations of corruption. Their only cause was existence itself, along with immortality, obviously. And for existence and immortality, they exercised an iron-fisted, organized, cohesive and dynamic leadership. They controlled their cliques and loyalists as one does with hand watches. They invoked a sense of reverence from their followers that ordinary politicians fail to do.
As for how much their leadership was worth: not tens of thousands or even millions of dollars, but millions of people.
There is no doubt that Hassan Nasrallah and Hezbollah are followers of this school of thought. Both enjoy a sort of solidness, cohesiveness, and dynamism that were not known to the history of political life in Lebanon.
However, Lebanon is not in need of all these qualities except to prolong endurance during wartime, and consequently, to do away with politics. In small amounts, these qualities could serve to clean political life, provide standards by which it is to be monitored, and add a degree of seriousness to it. In excess, these qualities not only kill politics, but life and freedom in a country that thrives on diversity, contraction, commerce, tourism and the knowledge of languages.
As for newness', a quality that revolutionists and mutineers always like to associate themselves with, it is nothing more than 'ancientness' but with a different name.
This is because the 'reactionary' politicians of yesterday were more tolerant in attitude and moral values, and had less loyalty to the past and respect of the religious dogma. They also revered what they believed in a less fanatical zeal. They are, also, less harmonious in form and appearance; in what they eat and drink; in what they do and say; and are, therefore, less insistent on distancing themselves from other social bodies, and distinguishing their blocs from others.
That is why, I dare say, the ancient Lebanese see in Hezbollah more ancient Lebanese than themselves. For Hezbollah's pre-ancient Lebanese have no qualms in sacrificing everything for the sake of their dilapidated past. In contrast to the ancient Lebanese's 'rural consciousness', Hezbollah's Lebanese appear to have the 'consciousness of the outskirts' that has lost the values of the countryside, yet never gained those of the city. This is not a model to be followed or propagated by 'progressives.'
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