Abbas Beydoun has an unpublished text titled in French: “Maladresse,” in which he speaks about his life as being a long series of clumsy events caused by his lack of concentration and focus. This is where the title comes from. Abbas, who is lying today on his bed, suffers from fractures all over his body, after his distraction and clumsiness turned into a topic for self-sarcasm, and the good mood turned into a tragedy for his family, friends and readers due to a car accident. Abbas, the poet, the writer, and the critic, is not only a witness to the interaction between broad culture, the rare talent and authentic modesty, and a confused daily life. He is also a witness to our general clumsiness and stupidity and inability to run even our most basic affairs. We were in need for his intelligence and far-sightedness which reveal the paradoxes and ambiguities and the lies presented as final and absolute facts, in order to us to see the depth of our predicament with ourselves. We are for example working incessantly to restore the reasons that have been eliminated for civil enmity and for group infighting, as though we feel nostalgia that makes us recall, restore, and reproduce disasters. The reasons behind the current round of verbal assaults and implicit threats are not clear for many Lebanese. It is said that the “issue” of the indictment expected to be made by the Special Tribunal will ignite a sectarian strife once again, and will pave the way for an Israeli war that destroys Lebanon completely. It is also said that such a war requires an internal support provided by the 14 March group parties who will not hesitate to provide the enemies with any information, logistics and security support they need. But the war-intelligence scenarios and stories, whether true or false, are not enough as we still need to look to what goes beyond periodic crisis which we miss to fall in whenever we start to feel that our country has made one step toward recovering from its various and chronic diseases. It is a suicidal inclination that pushes us to an abyss which continues to expand and deepen. The uselessness of wagering on the rationalization of the Lebanese and the wisdom of their leaders and their tiredness and boredom from wars in which they act as protégés and the civil war and the various kinds of invasions was revealed. This did not prevent more experiences from which Lebanon only emerged weaker and more fragile. This has been said before many times, but it did not lose its ability to express the truth. All the above-mentioned facts raise the question which involves undermining the maturity of the Lebanese and the stability of their state: What is the definition of national interest? Usually, a group of founding and legislative texts put by the states when they are first established, including constitutions, laws, basic regulations, and pacts, as well as commitment to international treaties, give an answer to the question of the interest. The daily political life and the exchange of power and the civil society committees and the elections and independent media usually represent tools and means to rationalize, control, and tailor the national interest to benefit the majority of the citizens. Needless to say, such an objective definition is not enough to contain the feuding and conflicting “national interests” and the sides which believe that they are entitled to come up with a definition, one which has never enjoyed the consensus of the Lebanese or at least anything close to this consensus. In fact, we are revolving in a circle of clumsiness, confusion, and arbitrariness in which our country is exposed to huge risks. What is worse is that the Lebanese share this shame with many brothers who pursue the same ruinous track.
