The list of prohibitions in Lebanon keeps getting bigger while the issues which journalists, writers and citizens are prevented from tackling, whether in writing, reading or in speech are growing increasingly diverse. Indeed, each morning, new headlines are annexed to what can and cannot be talked about out of concern for civil peace or out of fear over being legally pursued or attacked by the non-official monitoring apparatuses which are nowadays multiplying and procreating. After the Lebanese-Syrian relations file was pulled out of circulation due to the defeat and collapse of the March 14 forces, and following the ban imposed on the discussion of the arms of Hezbollah, especially after the discoverers discovered a new job, i.e. the defense of Lebanon's wealth in oil and gas (?), and in light of the emergence of the threats of cultural normalization from Gad el-Maleh to Amos Oz, it was no surprise to see the recovery of the climate which prevailed in the second half of the 1990s and the accession to the choir of the one voice. The latter choir thus resumed its activities with vigor and vitality and devised ways to link any position that is not to the liking of its strongmen to funds coming from Washington or instructions issued by the government of Benjamin Netanyahu that is directed left and right. Some suggested the discussion of the issues related to the rule and the Lebanese political system, but it turned out that any discussion extending beyond the exchanged national lying regarding "the necessity to rally in the face of the urgent foreign threats and the difficult and sensitive stage" and affecting, even if slightly, the relations of the sects and the future drawn up by the Lebanese for their sons, bluntly meant an instigation of the next round of civil war. Others created interests related to equality and social justice, trying to shed the light on the great discrepancies affecting the living standards of the Lebanese and the social and economic divide endured by the weaker and poorer factions. However, the latter did not secure the expected success and soon found out that the social and economic issues which were intensively used on the eve of the 1975 war, no longer attracted the audience, which found the string that moved the unions and workers associations and rendered them mere tools in the hands of the dominating sects. This does not mean that the social issues and demands are not serious, but rather that those calling for them were unable to drag them away from the claws of the political-sectarian apparatus. As for the issue of homosexuals, which a group of writers believed deserved to be tackled and taken out to the spotlight, some came out to say they did not feel about their homosexual reality as they felt after the liberation of South Lebanon from the Israeli occupation, assuring that the issue of the homosexuals could not be placed ahead of the liberation of the Shaba'a Farms and the Kfar Shouba Hills and that any attempt to depict this matter as one of personal rights and civil freedoms was completely void. Maybe one of the reasons behind the retreat affecting the margin of freedom of expression and thought in Lebanon, rather the state of suffocation that has started threatening its existence, is the inability to develop the governance in it. In this context, one of the facets of this impotence was seen in the parliament's refusal to lower the voting age in the municipal and parliamentary elections. We can say at this level that there is an indirect link between the aforementioned refusal and the insistence on keeping the Palestinians deprived of their civil rights, while it is unfortunate that the sides which opposed the two projects are almost the same. Nonetheless, the stalemate and the inability to introduce the necessary change into the Lebanese legal and constitutional structure, is allowing our countries to be torn apart by the monitoring apparatuses of the half-educated, by quasi-politicians and by traders dealing with all sorts of products and values.
