The most famous citizen in this fragmented republic is called the indictment. Although it is recent, its roots are deeply established. It is more renown than Fakhreddine, our pride; Jibran Khalil Jibran; the date of independence, which we have forgotten; April 13, 1975, the date of the first phase in this broad war; the dates of our wars and truces; the dates of the assassinations that stud our glorious national march. It is more renown than the Taef agreement; the Doha agreement; tabouli and kibbi nayyi; more renown than those “young boys” who take TV screens by storm and increase viewers' blood tension and glucose and nervousness levels, not to mention political blindness and sectarian and confessional rabblement. Your neighbor in the plane asks you: “Do you think the indictment is imminent?” When you reply that you don't know, disappointment shows in his eyes. He says he has a lot of work that he cannot postpone and that he will try to hastily finish, before “the indictment causes the airport to be closed”. Truth be said, I was not busy with national concerns during my flight. I had with me the book “The Druzes of Belgrade – The story of John Jacob” by colleague Rabih Jaber. I had started reading it at night, and the compelling narration and brilliant language made me turn one page after the other. When I felt sleepy, I decided to continue reading it on the plane. Rabih Jaber revisits the historic wounds of the Lebanese mountain with a penetrating and baleful eye that involves the reader with covert and blatant statements about the risky living on the demarcation lines. My neighbor was aware that I was engrossed in my reading. His concern drove him to interrupt me, but I wasn't bothered. He is not the only one whose life is poisoned by the anticipation of the indictment. When the plane left London, Lebanon was in a quasi-normal state, as it was never normal. The country was still sleeping on the S-S pillow, and people didn't know that the night had stolen the pillow. The country was still living in the shadow of the “national divergence government”, and Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri was getting ready to visit the White House the next day. When the plane landed in Beirut, my phone was bombarded with text messages. The S-S umbrella beneath which the Lebanese had hidden for the past months as they feared the issuance of the indictment, has ceased its work. Thus, Lebanon found itself naked with no umbrella or pillow. It has often lacked in its history a reassuring umbrella and a comfortable pillow. The power of decision exploded early amidst the national hostility government; the government of snares, traps, and lost amiability. Thus, it rapidly moved from the stage of the inability to meet to that of the inability to exist. The power of decision, the power of decision, the power of decision. A man deferred the renovation of his apartment pending the indictment; a woman postponed buying new curtains; another man delayed his dentist's appointment; and another woman postponed getting pregnant so that her baby wouldn't get caught in the indictment's repercussions. It is a pleasant country where institutions dissolve as rapidly as sugar in water. When it is standing on its feet, it unable to take a decision. This applies to the presidency, the prime minister's office, and the esteemed parliament, which acts as if the crisis was taking place in some faraway country. I roam now in the indictment's country; it is abandoned and fragmented. It pretends to be unified and sleeps in “regions”. The guardian of the thorny marriage in it is the inability to divorce. It is a beautiful and worrisome country; a pleasant and booby-trapped one. Its inhabitants tore at the power of decision like ruthless people tearing at the limbs of a young boy. The boy died, and each got a piece of him. The Lebanese power of decision is dead. With no power of decision, the country's teeth chatter in anticipation of the indictment. Nevertheless, it is a pleasant trip career-wise. Journalists are attracted by troubled countries just like coffin-makers exult at funerals.
