By Lea Moukadam | Editor-in-Chief
The year is 1982, the midst of the Civil War. Politicians are using religion to justify their actions, to fool people into thinking that their decision is for their sect’s best interest, for the protection of their religious community. They misuse religion and build a “protective shield” from other groups to keep their position as head of their parties while citizens fight on the street defending their “honor”. This embezzlement of religion is projected onto neighbors, friends, and strangers causing conflict, segregation, war, hatred, and death that is carried on through generations. They play a role, fighting and threatening each other, and leading their people to the frontlines of the battlefield. But behind it all, they’re moving tokens along the monopoly board, impersonating enemies in the play that we call Lebanese politics and deceiving the nation.
The year is 2023, the midst of the economic downfall. Politicians are using religion to justify their actions, to fool people into thinking that their decision is for their sect’s best interest, for the protection of their religious community. They misuse religion and build a “protective shield” from other sects to keep their position as governmental figures while citizens fight on the street and online defending their “honor”. They justify their actions based on religion, excluding parts of the population that they were elected to represent. 48 years later, the monopoly game is still ongoing, as constant, and as sturdy as ever before, as they each build their own empires at the expense of Lebanese families living in demeaning conditions.
For some, the time is according to daylight-saving time, for others, according to the prime minister’s decision. And for the rest, the clock is stuck in April of 1975, where the second hand stood still then and there and never moved again. Time never stops and for no one, but we are frozen in time, stuck in the past. We float in time while quarreling about the same matters and talking about the same actors on the political scene for the past 50 years while the hands of the clock move forward.
These actors are warlords that have rebranded themselves as governmental representatives. They passed an amnesty law to forcefully obliviate the crimes they committed and to keep themselves in power. This leads to a moral hierarchy between the participants of the war where “political, diplomatic and religious figures” are seen as victims and are served justice for the crimes committed against them while the rest is left silenced with their stories buried under the rubbles of destroyed Beirut and the unidentified remains of the 15-year-long war.
The individuality of politicians is recognized by law; where any crime committed against them should be lawfully condemned in court, whereas the rest of the population is governed by oblivion of the events of the war. This is only a political tool that is used to create and control the masses and that has been used by the parties of the conflict since 1991. The issue is that we have consciously permitted this amnesia to govern us, and allowed for our stories to dissolve into the void to be part of the mass instead of presenting ourselves as the individuals we are. We have traded our individuality, our narrative for the sake of “reconstruction” and “reconciliation”, but all that we’ve done is that we’ve consciously disintegrated our stories to take part of the collective picture.
Postponing daylight-saving time is a distraction, amongst others, diverting from the real and long-standing conflict in the country between the militia in power and the population. A distraction from the symptoms of the tumor that’s been propagating throughout Lebanese history. This is a political tool used to create and control the masses that has been used by the politicians in power. The issue is that we have consciously permitted this political scheme to distract us, for this amnesia to govern, and to further push us into the mass by erasing our individuality and narrative.
Vis-à-vis the war, we’re only statistics. More than 100,000 fatalities is just a number instead of it being more than 100,000 stories ended. 17,415 disappeared due to the Civil War is just a number instead of it being 17,415 stories, 17,415 narratives.
Vis-à-vis politics, we’re only part of the mass.
With the continuous fall of the Lebanese lira, the continuous governmental corruption, the perpetual failure in electing a president, the negligence of the events of the Civil War and the amnesty granted for the crimes committed, the suppression of calls of awareness, the censorship of free journalism, the failure in granting justice and accountability for the families of the missing and forcibly disappeared, and the deterioration and collapse of the country, we are part of the mass, floating through time instead of embodying and acknowledging the stories that we’ve experienced in the past, and that we are enduring in this encore of history.
Due to the youth that’s born into that mass, that doesn’t know its past, or rather knows a biased, subjective, and tailored version based on the sect they were born into, it fails to see past the scripted lines and roles of the mafia in power, which decreases its chances of understanding the present. This lack of awareness or interest in uncovering the truth leads to history repeating itself as we are witnessing today and playing a role in it this time, only it’s 50 years later.