This country begets nothing but funerals. It bids farewell to one martyr and returns to the bickering and feuding while it awaits the fall of another. Neither the living nor the martyrs can unite it. This is a country that strips the martyr of his national halo. It draws limits to his blood. It turns him into the martyr of a confession, a region, or a neighborhood. It distributes martyrs along old and new demarcation lines. It turns their blood into an opportunity for more fallen martyrs.

A man looks at the wreckage of a bridge north of Beirut after an Israeli airstrike

Every Lebanese has a funeral etched in his memory and a memorial service he knows by heart. It is his tear, medal, reference, and tragedy through which he connects to the nation, to a part of the nation. It is the biased memory. It remembers one funeral while pushing another into oblivion. Such a memory can only be measured with funerals.

Every Lebanese has a funeral that sleeps in his memory. It sleeps and wakes up as his real compass. It is his book in which he can read the country’s affairs and his relations with the other who resides in it. It is the source of his assurance and anxiety. It is the key to his emotions, happiness, and rage. One carries the funeral of Rafic Hariri in his memory; another that of Kamal Jumblat, a third the funeral of Abbas Moussawi. One remembers the funeral of Rene Moawad, while the other remembers the funeral of Pierre Gemayel. A third remembers Hassan Khalid’s, while a fourth remembers Imad Mughniyeh’s.

Does the Lebanese have the right to turn his back to the sorrows of his neighbor, the neighbor with whom he does not share the same religious or sectarian affiliation? Does he have the right to ignore the tragedy residing in the other part of the capital or city? Does anyone at all have the right to classify martyrs, to glorify a few and condemn others? If all those martyrs are our blood and flesh without exception, does this give anyone of us the right to wash his hands of his other flesh? Do the martyrs of March 14 have the right to disown the martyrs of the July War? Do the martyrs of the July War have the right to deny the martyrs of March 14? If such denial is feasible, this only means that Lebanon is nothing more than a pretty but failed thought.

To classify a martyr as a martyr of part of the nation is tantamount to assassinating him, approving his assassination, or adopting a neutral attitude towards the crime all over again. To consider the tears in the neighboring street someone else’s business sets the stage for the separation of books, songs, and feelings. It sets the stage for a war that will inevitably come, if not now then later. It paves the ground for a clash among martyrs through the living and for wasting the blood of martyrs on the very day they fell. A nation that splits its martyrs in this manner is a nation where the fruits of the resistance are lost no matter how armed it is. A nation that scatters its martyrs on maps much smaller than the map of the homeland is a nation where the truth is lost no matter what tribunals are installed to defend it.

I write to declare my fear. The exchanged campaigns over the past few days made me more fearful of ethnicization as I was reminded of the disintegration of Yugoslavia, only in this case the pain is doubled because of the difficulty of divorce. The Lebanese has almost given up hope on his neighbor on the other street. Sometimes, it seems as if they both belong to different schools, different worlds, and different understandings of the past, the present and the future. It is as if each neighborhood is a prisoner of its own vocabularies, obsessions, aspirations, and funerals. It almost believes that real danger comes from the other neighborhood, and not from elsewhere.

I am aware that this country has survived two major earthquakes whose repercussions exceed its capacity. The first was the assassination of Rafic Hariri, and the other was the July War. Still, does this allow the Lebanese to watch their country as it slips towards explosion and disintegration? Isn’t the survival of the country more important than any demands, even if they were rightful? What use will the weapons of the Resistance be if the country is lost? What good will the truth be if it is revealed after the nation has been lost?

For months now, Lebanon has been split into two nations, deeply divided over domestic issues and in complete contradiction over their regional alliances. The impasse leads to nothing more than disintegration. Any attempt for a decisive ending will be suicidal. The absence of an exceptional figure who can reestablish communication between the two Lebanons is painful. Speaker Berri expressed the desire but showed no capability. General Aoun seemed to be out of the game altogether as he stumbled with his ambitions and calculations, thus losing his potential role as a savior after losing his chance to become president. The absence of such potential rescuers throws the ball back into the courts of Hassan Nasrallah and Saad Hariri who either must make brave decisions and compromises or slide towards a civil war that will inevitably threaten both the resistance and the truth.

Two Lebanons. Two camps. Grave sorrow and anxiety. A massive funeral in one, and a massive memorial in the other. A tear flows in the southern suburb of Beirut (Dahiya) for Imad Mughniyeh, and another falls in the Martyr’s Palace for Rafic Hariri and his comrades. Who will prevent the divorce between the two Lebanons and build a bridge between them? Who has the capability to unite the two tears? And where is the halfway between the living and the martyrs? g

Reprinted from Al Hayat