Let Us Avoid Victories
Hazem Saghieh Al-Hayat - 29/08/06//
The victors in the latest war in Lebanon are as anxious as the defeated. They are trying to convince us that they did not start the war and that they were victorious. They are also trying to convince us that they are not an extension of Syrian and Iranian policies. They anxiously attack intellectuals and artists and send them to the 'dustbin of history' (by the way, where is the 'dustbin of history'? Just so the intellectuals and artists do not get lost!). They keep lamenting 'victory in time of defeat' and a 'revolutionary achievement in a non-revolutionary environment'.
You see them pelting their stones at the Arabs, Europe and the international community. France enjoys the lion's share of these stones, because it will have the lion's share in protecting Lebanon through extensive enhanced forces. Tomorrow, who knows, Turkey might also vie with France in being criticized, because its neighbors, Iran and Syria, will count to a thousand before attacking the soldiers that it may dispatch.
This is like drawing blood from a stone and resisting a flood of emerging facts, which require Hezbollah and its allies to consider and think deeply into what is of use. The most the recent war brought was only political defeat.
While the victors, those before and after Napoleon, erected triumphal arches under the sun, from which they viewed the revelers, this is the first victory to be followed by the victor going into hiding. Brave and respectable Shiite voices began to emerge and raise questions about that victory.
After Jihad Zein, Loqman Selim, Mona Fayyad, Hani Fahs, and others, the Mufti of Tyre and Jabal Amel, Ali al-Amin, has restored the situation to normal. He stressed on the 'full' sovereignty of the State and the Shiites' 'full' Lebanese identity.
According to al-Amin, political and social problems could only be solved peacefully, gradually, and within a State that has control over the tools of violence and force.
Because he is in the heart of the country, he knows more than Seymour Hirsch and those who have based their judgment on 'general strategic equations': claiming that there is an unprecedented victory, or hastily equating Israel's loss, compared to its arrogance in past victories, and Hezbollah's 'victory'.
Ali al-Amin witnessed the pain, the tragedies, the calamities and the humiliation resulting from an aggression that was possible to avert. And because he did not want, unlike others, to exploit the death and destruction in the interest of victory, he unequivocally said that what happened was tantamount to disaster.
But the voices of people like Mr. Al-Amin need supporting voices from other communities. These voices should encourage Lebanese Shiites to publicly declare their pain and condemn Hezbollah's approach. The Lebanese formula, the Lebanese Charter, and the Taif Agreement are not sanctities. The important issue is not this ruler's sect or that official's sect. It is adopting final and binding standards in political life.
The first criterion, of course, was to put Lebanon outside military conflicts, and to stop turning it into a 'battlefield' of regional conflicts. Only this will ensure the existence of a homeland and guarantee the unity of the Lebanese sects, whatever they are, while preventing uncertain victories that are celebrated on the ruins.
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