Beirut: It took the Lebanese fifteen years of sustained slaughter to satisfy their insatiable political appetites, though their skills, dubbed “Lebanisation” by scholars and journalists, paled in comparison with the current onslaughts in Iraq, Syria, and elsewhere.
Forty years after the start of the most recent civil war on April 13, 1975, Lebanon remains a democratic state although what defines it today is precariousness due to external factors. Even the high number of the estimated dead [150,000], wounded [200,000], and mentally affected [at least a million], were now mild figures compared to the horrendous casualties throughout the Arab World we are witnessing today.
For many Lebanese, the civil war was an inconclusive event, and although the Ta’if Accords which allowed a political solution to finally stop the war, few meaningful changes were introduced.
No efforts were made to settle on a post-civil war identity, as scores of missing Lebanese remained unaccounted for, many believed to be lingering in Syrian prisons.
Lebanon’s complex relationship with Syria predates Damascus’ entry into the Lebanese civil war in 1976. Syria at that time, under the leadership of Bashar Al Assad’s father, Hafez, viewed its entry and ensuing occupation as an opportunity to rule ‘one nation in two countries’.
The Syrian Baath regime ended up staying in Lebanon, with a heavy military presence even after the war ended in 1990. Lebanese factions unfortunately participated in a vicious cycle of internal battles under Syria’s imposed iron will.
Lebanese turned against each other, goaded by their Syrian backers, which lasted in its ugliest forms until 1990 and then into more manageable forms afterwards, after former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri persuaded Arab and international allies to give Beirut room to breathe. Under his leadership, large sections of Beirut were rebuilt and water and electricity were once again available as some foreign investments returned. In fact, after Israel pulled out of most of Lebanon’s south in 2000 Lebanon witnessed golden era.
Hariri was assassinated in 2005 in a devastating car bomb believed to be carried out by the Al Assad regime and Hezbollah militants, although a Special Tribunal in The Hague is still prosecuting the suspects in absentia and a verdict has yet to be reached 10 years later.
The assassination returned Lebanon back to its divided past with two strong and separate identities forming: March 14, a coalition largely Sunni and Christian in its composition and vehemently anti-Syrian, and March 8, a coalition largely Shiite in composition with some Christian groups that were pro-Syrian.
The period following Hariri’s death was dotted with a series of political assassinations and a Hezbollah imposed war in 2006 with Israel that saw immense devastation and destruction, particularly of Lebanon’s southern region.
Despite the violence, Lebanon ironically became a rare example of a stable Arab country compared to other regional states embroiled in continuous chaos and civil war such a Libya, Syria, Iraq and Yemen.
Forty years later, Lebanon retains a few attributes of its past, including a will to endure political paralysis and restore its weakened democratic institutions.
At least half of Lebanese are pushing for Lebanese nationalism that would champion the country’s pluralism of over 13 different religious, sectarian and ethnic groups.
However, the Lebanese continue to struggle politically, approaching close to one year now without a president due to political paralysis largely a result of the ongoing Syrian conflict next door. Unemployment has also been exacerbated by the heavy influx of Syrian refugees escaping the conflict and Lebanese continue to pay the price of external factors.
Lebanon has largely avoided being completely drawn into the conflict although there have been many violent incidents inside Lebanon as a result. However, the Lebanese will to not relive the misery of its civil war past has prevailed for the most part. When Damascus pulled its troops out of Lebanon in April 2005, many mistakenly concluded that the Lebanese would quickly resort to renewed warfare. That did not occur, at least not yet, because a solid half of citizens understood that freedom worth fighting for was also worth living in full.