By Joseph El-Khoury
As a generally peace loving individual I should rejoice over the signing today of a mutual non-aggression understanding between two feuding factions in Lebanon. But I am not!
So Hezbollah and the 15 or so Salafist (read Sunni hard-liners) groups have finally agreed to settle their theological and ideological differences through ‘rational’ dialogue as opposed to Rocket Propelled Grenades. It took dozens of casualties to get to this point and the fact that the Salafists couldn’t find enough in common between them to join hands under one banner should be enough to predict the chances of success. Can a duly signed sheet of paper resist the instinctive fundamentalist urges to eliminate any discordance through fire and steel? Even putting my cynical attitude to one side the answer is still a resounding No!
But even if it did work, I will still be far from happy. It is hard to feel part of such a historic moment where One Muslim decides not to spill the blood of another Muslim…when one is not a Muslim. In fact I should probably be more concerned. For when spilling someone’s blood seems to be the only way forward in the struggle against Zionism and Imperialism a simple statistical calculation will make it obvious that this blood is more likely to be mine now than it was last week.
On a practical level the choice of interlocutor puts the strategy of the resistance to the test. Once committed to reassuring the Christian Street it revelled in the assertion by its Aounist Allies that the real threat came from Sunni extremists lurking behind the respectable façade of Hariri’s Future (Al-Mustaqbal) Movement. While the latest evidence from Tripoli confirms that on a local level these groups might have at least cooperated if not fused militarily, the signature of the accord with Hezbollah gives the impression that the Salafists are now on an equal footing with the Shiite group. A fact that will not escape its secular detractors but more importantly the Christian electorate in the run-up to the 2009 parliamentary elections.
Reflecting further, it seems this agreement is a reminder of a time when killing a goat belonging to one tribe might get you into serious trouble but slaughtering the entire herd of another tribe was considered OK for some strange reason only understandable to a few elders. Morality had nothing to do with it but prejudice, hierarchy, kinship did. Centuries of philosophical soul searching, Enlightened Monarchies, nationalist movements, Socialist revolutions, Liberal Reform have led to a Tribal gathering held by a small number of bearded men in an obscure Hotel.
I despair! Call me Old fashioned but I am hoping for a return to a basic universal civil contract that guarantees my human rights as a citizen of a modern state.
So Hezbollah and the 15 or so Salafist (read Sunni hard-liners) groups have finally agreed to settle their theological and ideological differences through ‘rational’ dialogue as opposed to Rocket Propelled Grenades. It took dozens of casualties to get to this point and the fact that the Salafists couldn’t find enough in common between them to join hands under one banner should be enough to predict the chances of success. Can a duly signed sheet of paper resist the instinctive fundamentalist urges to eliminate any discordance through fire and steel? Even putting my cynical attitude to one side the answer is still a resounding No!
But even if it did work, I will still be far from happy. It is hard to feel part of such a historic moment where One Muslim decides not to spill the blood of another Muslim…when one is not a Muslim. In fact I should probably be more concerned. For when spilling someone’s blood seems to be the only way forward in the struggle against Zionism and Imperialism a simple statistical calculation will make it obvious that this blood is more likely to be mine now than it was last week.
On a practical level the choice of interlocutor puts the strategy of the resistance to the test. Once committed to reassuring the Christian Street it revelled in the assertion by its Aounist Allies that the real threat came from Sunni extremists lurking behind the respectable façade of Hariri’s Future (Al-Mustaqbal) Movement. While the latest evidence from Tripoli confirms that on a local level these groups might have at least cooperated if not fused militarily, the signature of the accord with Hezbollah gives the impression that the Salafists are now on an equal footing with the Shiite group. A fact that will not escape its secular detractors but more importantly the Christian electorate in the run-up to the 2009 parliamentary elections.
Reflecting further, it seems this agreement is a reminder of a time when killing a goat belonging to one tribe might get you into serious trouble but slaughtering the entire herd of another tribe was considered OK for some strange reason only understandable to a few elders. Morality had nothing to do with it but prejudice, hierarchy, kinship did. Centuries of philosophical soul searching, Enlightened Monarchies, nationalist movements, Socialist revolutions, Liberal Reform have led to a Tribal gathering held by a small number of bearded men in an obscure Hotel.
I despair! Call me Old fashioned but I am hoping for a return to a basic universal civil contract that guarantees my human rights as a citizen of a modern state.
The West is often accused of using double standards in international politics. That is certainly true. But they are not the only ones. Some expatriate radicals do not miss a chance to “spit in the water they drink”.
