Tribune. The August 4 explosion in the port of Beirut may have claimed fewer lives than one might expect – 208 – but it has spread death everywhere. In the air, in the looks, in the strength to communicate, to speak, to listen, even in the desire to complain. Beyond the incalculable number of injuries, collapsed roofs, blown businesses, she carried the feeling of humiliation to its height. The abysmal absence of power in the aftermath of the disaster, its displayed indifference had the effect of a second explosion. This silent explosion, without image or benchmarks, raised the amazement. The disarray, the rage paralyzed the population instead of throwing it into the streets.
He had to not only heal, rebuild, repair with his bare hands, without means, without support, but to mask himself, to protect himself from the virus and to learn to continue while the past faltered. The result was an impressive dose of individual courage, as always, but also a huge regression in terms of political protest: logically summoned to unite, the forces were on the contrary divided, atomized. It must be said that in addition to the pandemic and the economic and social catastrophe, which exposes a significant part of the population to famine, the presence in the territory of an over-armed political force – that of Hezbollah – makes it almost impossible to negotiate an internal balance.
Justify the unjustifiable
The clique in power – all men – finally embodies a phenomenon that does not answer a word: a formless and perfectly operational form of indigent power and satisfied helplessness. The six main Lebanese clan chiefs – two Shiites, two Maronites, a Druze, a Sunni – made their fortunes by emptying the state coffers “fairly” and without qualms. Although they take turns, and to varying degrees disagree about almost everything, they all have in common that they agree that neither of them is worried. They have the same way of moving backstage and playing dead on stage, the same contempt for the contempt they inspire.
All benefit from the cover of confessionalism to justify the unjustifiable. It is precisely here – in the area of confessionalism – that lies the political bankruptcy of Lebanon and the entire region. This balance of power, conceived in 1920, had a raison d’être during the fall of the Ottoman Empire. He doesn’t have it a century later. No minority will be protected in the future if it is not part of a secular political project. The non-separation of religious affiliation and the exercise of power is a calamity. It de facto compromises the notion of citizenship, social cohesion, the coexistence of differences, the building of a State.
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