Adonis Diaries

Two negations don’t constitute a nation?

What if the list of these pairs is ridiculously long?

What if the political system is structure as Mafia organization and turfs? How “citizens” can institute a pseudo State?

Lebanon never managed to constitute a viable State, even if recognized by the UN in 1946, before Israel existed as a State.

On March 10, 1949, Georges Naccache, the Lebanese journalist and owner of the daily L’Orient, published his editorial stating that reaching a political consensus that Lebanon is neither a Western state Nor an Arabic state cannot be a viable basis to forming a nation.

Actually, this consensus was the consequence of two foreign negations relative to Lebanon:

1. The Christians realized that the West will never seriously consider Lebanon society and composition as anything close to western culture and civilization

2. The Moslems admitted that the larger and more populous Arabic States have no misgiving about Lebanon adopting Arabic culture and sticking to general Arabic political positions.

But the list of pairs of negations is very long, and most of them are not in the hand and possibilities of Lebanon to close the gap.

Actually the two halves of Lebanese communities (currently three parts) on each issue cannot fathom any commonality between themselves: It is hard to figured out any common grounds to unite the Lebanese on a single issue, political or otherwise.

For examples:

1. Lebanon is neither a Capitalist economic system Nor a Socialist.

Tiny Lebanon in size and population will never be capable to build any infrastructure that cater to a capitalistic system of production and exportation.

Whatever fortune a certain middle-class managed to accumulate before the civil war in 1975 (that lasted 13 years) was Not made by simple and straightforward transit exchange of goods and services from the West to the neighboring Arabic nations. It was the small added value in “packaging” the imported goods before re-shipping them.

Currently, and for the last 2 decades, the political system catered to the Gulf Emirates and Saudi real estates development in Beirut. The Downtown of Beirut and its seashore are no longer accessible to the common people.

In any case, not a single political party in Lebanon, even the oldest communist party formed in 1920’s, believes that the caste system of Lebanon will consider any kinds of socialist ideology.

2. Lebanon is neither a centralized state nor a decentralized institution.

Actually, even the most basic of decisions (relative to municipality responsibilities) has to be taken by consensus in the government. And the decisions executed by the militia leaders of each sectarian canton.

The central government collect the dues of the municipalities and refuse to relinquish them back. In the last two decades, the municipalities dues in the $billions have vanished in the pockets of the militia leaders.

Garbage collection and management was handled as the Italian mafia did 2 decades ago. Our mafia is the government and the Parliament themselves.

3. Lebanon has neither and independent legal system nor a totally submissive justice system in the hands of the politicians.

By the constitution, the legal system is the 3rd separate power in the land. Experiences have demonstrated that justice is a phone call away by any politician.

4. Lebanon is neither pan-Arabic nor an Islamic caliphate.

Many Sunnis are rallying to this notion of Islamic caliphate that was upheld by Daesh or ISIS. This reaction was brought by the failure of Egypt Gamal Abdel Nasser of realizing a sustainable pan-Arabic reality.

The Shi3a of Iran have their Wilayat Fakih.

The Shi3a of Iraq have their Murshed Ayatollah Sistani

India has the largest Shi3a-kind of believers way over 200 million due to the Mogul occupation who revered the direct descendants of the Prophet Muhammad

5. Lebanon is neither a State-owned nor a totally privatised economic system.

In the last 2 decades, the system has been doing its best to bankrupt all the profitable publicly owned enterprises in order to buy them cheap for the militia-run private parties.

The Lebanese are forced to pay twice for electricity, water and every basic facility: Once for the State and once for the private providers owned by the militia mafia organizations

6. Lebanon is neither with Hezbollah for national resistance to Israel nor with Saudi Arabia for allying with the enemy.

7. Lebanon was neither with the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization) nor with Syria of Hafez Assad

8. Lebanon is neither a strong bureaucracy nor a weak one…

The bureaucracy in Lebanon is meant to bribe the public servants so that the citizens pay for what the State should be doing. Bribery and corruption at all levels and in all the institutions in order to have a simple lousy transaction be stamped.

9. Lebanon is neither a democracy nor a pseudo democracy.

Lebanon is ruled by 19 officially recognized religious sects who have the responsibility of keeping track of the citizen private status from birth to death.

Since 1946, Lebanon failed to institute a valid State to all its citizens.

And diplomats wants the world to believe that our political system is a very stable one and immune to radical extremism.