The Messages of Celebration

To know the misery of the Lebanese, one must examine the ways in which they celebrate. The leader of the sect appearing on television is reason enough for heavy gunfire, and the same applies to such a leader being elected or appointed to a state position.

What the inspired leaders will say on their television “appearance” does not matter, as firing gunshots from light and middle-weight weapons, as well as rocket-propelled grenades, begins the moment the honorable leader appears on television screens. The necessity of having emerged victorious from an election or having successfully fulfilled one’s duties matters even less. What matters in this spontaneous show of hidden feelings is the message which competing and opposite sects and groups should interpret carefully.

At odds with the truth are those influential leaders who claim to oppose the random gunfire festivals that liven the days and nights of Lebanese politics. The preparations made by supporters, in terms of the distribution of ammunition, weapons and fireworks (which used to be considered children’s playthings before they evolved to become more like explosives), reveal what is really going on behind the scenes of the forces that condemn what their partisans do after their fits of happiness end. However, doing one thing and saying the opposite is a firmly established tradition in political practice in our country, in addition to the fact that the cost of one of these celebratory parties is far superior to what simple supporters could bear.

As for the content of the message which the competing sect must understand and realize the underlying meanings of, it is based on two elements, the threat of physical force, and spite, usually accompanied by insults. Human casualties, which do not rarely include deaths, alongside the massive material losses, may or may not enter into the calculations of the organizers of gunfire celebrations, yet they in any case represent an important part of the message addressed to opponents. Indeed, part of it says: we are able to harm you when we rejoice, so beware of our anger, which seems small when compared to what it would be in times of adversity. This is to detail the first part of the message of celebration.

The second part of the message can be summed up by the fact that Lebanese groups have reached a degree of crystallization and agglomeration around themselves that effectively prevents the success of any dialogue, if assertions of their own strength, in weapons or in demography, are not present in its margins and in its main body, not to mention the poetry recitals that praise high quality as opposed to poorly produced and poorly packaged quantity.

A sample that could be heard between shots of gunfire and detonating “fireworks” last week says: “if you think that you have won the elections, be certain that we will crush you the moment we get the chance, as we did on May 7, 2008”. And the response: “but we will return to defeat you and force you to remain in your narrow and suffocating sphere.”

And such is the case, that a dialogue set up by weapons, population count and sectarian and racist delusions cannot – or rather should not – result in what would resemble a forthcoming national unity.

Some argue that Lebanon’s problems are deeper than threats exchanged through messages of lethal celebration, and that what is ultimately at stake is the meaning of Lebanon as a state and a homeland, and of its role in the Arab region. The soundness of such an argument does not refute the fact that it is a partial one, in the sense that it is not right to reach a discussion over the direction which the Lebanese will take, before the Lebanese themselves decide to walk together in the first place, rather than fight and slaughter each other symbolically if they are unable to actually do so.