The armed clash that took place in one of Beirut's regions a few days ago and reaped victims has brought up questions on the political, security, and social reality in the land of the cedars, which was thus assured that its structure needs every few years wars, settlements, and fabrications. This is in light of information on the heavy deployment of weapons in the hands of people, including those who are not affiliated to any political movements or parties. This is also despite the criticism expressed by all leaders against armed factions and calls for easing political tensions and bickering through the media, and their description of the “delicate phase” through which Lebanon is passing, the “frail” regional situation, the “ambiguous” international stances… and other “positive” declaration that seem to come from another world with no relation whatsoever to what is actually taking place on the ground – or perhaps it is just an attempt to cover this. If we were to use the daily reconciliation stances and talk about the characteristics of coexistence, the beauty of deep national unity, the pleasure of participation and unified front against the Israeli threat and the benefits of improved Arab relations – if we were to use all this as a standard to judge the current trends of the politicians in Lebanon, they would appear “nobler” than their citizens, who still remain in that place where those politicians got them before they suddenly pulled back and left them there. Some pundits even assure that the large public mobilized by years of sectarian tension that is tailor-made to every village, town, and city, and that created demarcation lines among districts, neighborhoods, and sometimes even within the same building, and led in some regions to a geographic repositioning to ensure demographic “purity”, almost can't believe the words uttered by the leaders about détente, fraternity, and announced wish to turn the page. Rather, the public considers to be a “betrayal”, or at least a “camouflage” imposed by dire circumstance sonly known to the politicians. Hence, citizens consider they need to be permanently ready for a new round of the continuing war that comes in episodes. The amount of insults that were said, the intense attacks that were waged, the great number of epithets that were used, the depth of ditches that were dug, the intensity of the hatred and bullets that were shot, the fecundity of the incitement methods that were adopted, were “genuine” to the extent that they cannot be easily wiped away. They were able to awaken the deep fears of the sects and groups, and extract their deep instincts and remove them from the “hell” of coexistence to the “blessing” of retirement and drawing the borders of groups. They will not easily accept to see someone come forward after all that happened and say that things have changed and that the barbwire between minds and tongues must be removed; that calls for disarming won't be left unheeded; that the army has a broad political cover for facing the two camps of consensus and those that are outside the scope of dialogue. The Lebanese and the whole world have listened to the same mantra for more than three decades: you love each other, but there are organized and uncontrolled elements that constantly try to ruin your agreement and forcefully drag you into general civil massacres. It is true that you are sometimes driven behind them, but your national instinct rapidly awakens and prevails over conspiracies. However, the ugly truth is that if the Lebanese were to search for “controlled” elements among themselves, they wouldn't find anyone.
