There are No Lambs in Lebanon to silence, Not even the Silent Majority
Posted by: adonis49 on: February 24, 2021
- MAHA YAHYA Feb. 4, 2021
The assassination of Luqman Slim underlines that the scope for dissent in Lebanon is rapidly narrowing.(More like widening with the increase of calamities that are Not resolved by any institution)
The killing of Luqman Slim is another bad omen for Lebanon. Luqman was not just any activist. (Very few Lebanese have heard of him, mostly the embassies were dealing with him and funding his institution Umam)
He was a vocal critic of Hezbollah (for over 25 years and he visited Israel too), who chose to continue living in his family’s home in Haret Hreik in the southern suburbs of Beirut, an area controlled by those whom he criticized harshly. (And lived in security and safety)
I met Luqman in 2004 with the late journalist Samir Kassir and Samir’s wife Giselle Khoury. (Late Kassir was assassinated by the Druse civil war leader Walid Jumblatt, as a matter of female jealousy )
Luqman, with his wife Monika Borgmann, had invited us to watch a private screening of a movie they had produced on the Sabra and Shatila massacres of 1982.
The debate that ensued was as harrowing as it was enlightening. It was the first of many interactions over the subsequent two years around the memory of the civil war, questions of accountability, and commemoration of the victims, and their importance for Lebanon’s future. These debates dissipated after Samir’s assassination on June 2, 2005.
Luqman was also a harsh critic of Lebanon’s political class, of the repression of the uprising in Syria, of Iran’s regional involvement, and of much else. (What about US invasion of Iraq? Of Israel successive pre-emptive wars on Lebanon…)
But he was also more than that. With Monika, Luqman went on to establish the UMAM documentation and research center in his family home. UMAM aims to inform the future (generation?) by addressing past atrocities.
Since 2005, the center has been collecting information and establishing a database for all those killed, or who disappeared, during the fifteen-year Lebanese civil war. It has also made documentaries and organized discussions on some of the most painful episodes of that conflict.
Their work is critical if Lebanon is to come to terms with the war’s legacy and is essential in determining accountability for the crimes committed during that time. (The Lebanese parliament decided to absolve all the civil war leaders and those who committed crimes against humanity. And these “leaders” are still controlling and ruling Lebanon since 1992)
This work carried out by Luqman and Monika was vital in a country where the political leadership is largely made up of those who fought during the war. Lebanon’s conflict ended with the mantra of “no victor and no vanquished.”
In 1991, parliament passed an amnesty law covering most of the crimes committed during the conflict. Militia leaders moved from the streets into government to occupy the state and its institutions. The history of the civil war was never integrated into school curriculums. Knowledge of the war has largely been defined by individual points of view, not by a collective Lebanese effort to remember the war to better transcend it.
To understand the killing of Luqman one must also look at Lebanon’s broader context.
Since October 2019, when the Lebanese took to the streets to protest against the corruption of their political parties and leaders, the country has been facing an economic collapse that has impoverished more than half the population and decimated the middle class. (Bankrupt State at all levels, politically, economically and financially)
Rather than addressing the sources of discontent, the leadership has remained unwilling to implement the reforms needed to unlock international financial aid, for fear that this would undermine their influence over their constituencies.
Lockdown measures associated with Covid-19 have only hastened this economic breakdown. Without outside financial support Lebanon will continue to sink into the abyss.
Ironically, by protecting their system and continuing with a business-as-usual approach the political parties have also signed its death warrant. That may not be a bad thing, but in the meantime millions of Lebanese will suffer terribly.
The catastrophic (electromagnetic pulse bomb) explosion in the port of Beirut last August 4 further increased the anger of the Lebanese and their vocal criticism of the political leadership.
Six months later, no one has been held accountable for what happened and the official investigation is going nowhere. For many Lebanese there was no question as to who was responsible, when protestors hanged effigies of their political leaders on gallows set up at a demonstration in Martyrs’ Square last year.
Luqman’s killing underlines that the space for dissent is closing fast in Lebanon. Over the past year or so, the political leadership’s tolerance for criticism has been decreasing as more and more journalists and critics have been taken into custody by the authorities.
Yet Luqman’s killing went much further. It heralded a return to political assassinations as a means of silencing those in opposition.
The crime has sent shock waves across Lebanon and beyond, especially among opposition groups and, more so, among most of the 19 officially recognized religious sects.
For many this brought back memories of 2005 and the years that followed, when Samir Kassir, Gebran Tueni, (Communist secretary general Georges Hawi, Mohamad Chatah, Pierre Jr. Gemayel, and many security officials… Pierre Jr. Gemayel was assassinated by agents who were dispatched from the US embassy and returned to the embassy. And why was Pierre Jr. assassinated? Because he expressed his opinion during the government meeting of valuing Hezbollah resistance during the 33 days pre-emptive Israel/US in 2006)
One wonders whether Luqman Slim would have been killed had Kassir and Tueni killers been brought to justice. (Lebanon never brought to trial Israel, US, France, England… perpetrator of assassinations, Not even lesser States such as Jordan, Saudi Kingdom or the Emirate..)
That is why we should have serious doubts as to whether those who assassinated Luqman will themselves be brought to justice.
Adonis Diaries 
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