War kills twice. It kills for the first time when people of the same country wage war against one another, begetting a river of funerals, martyrs, widows, orphans and scorched homes. And it kills again when fire is ceased and the warring parties avoid learning their lesson. For in the absence of lessons learned, every truce is shaky, and peace becomes an occasion of waiting for the next round of war. War does not end immediately after a ceasefire comes to effect, or indeed by the mere exchange of embraces or observers' reports. War ends in earnest when its causes and courses are studied, followed by a plan for turning the page on the war by addressing its political, economic or ideological causes. The war thus ends with rational yet painful decisions. The worst that can happen is sugarcoating death, evading responsibility, and claiming that war was just a temporary setback, and that people have been actually complaining since the war ended of too much embracing. Or to claim that all that has happened was a foreign conspiracy that made its way in under cover of darkness, taking advantage of the ignorance of a group of people and weak souls; or that the country has emerged from the crisis stronger than ever before. Or even to say that what does not kill you makes you stronger, and that the whole issue is an attempt to target the leading role of the country. Thus – the claim goes - the storm came from outside, while those who live inside suffer in reality from an overabundance of joy, prosperity, freedom and security. There is no escape from war if it meant that it is the right of one citizen to vanquish another, and force him to sign a surrender document or the like, or if it meant the sanctity of your martyrs but the worthlessness of the martyrs of others. That is, if you consider their martyrs traitors, collaborators, deluded individuals, or addicts of hallucination pills and the slaves of foreign embassies. There can be no escape from war if you call only for your symbols to be strictly respected, threatening those who don't, while simultaneously trivializing and disrespecting the symbols of others. There is no escape from war if you hallow a tomb but contempt another. There is no escape from war if you believe that the shedding of the blood of others is a random incident, and if you question the assassination attempts against them as though regretting their failure. There is no escape from war if you invoke waiting for the results of the investigation as an excuse to avoid the unequivocal condemnation of assassinations as a policy. There can be no escape from war if you a turn a blind eye to a slaughtered family and a scorched home. And there can be no escape from war if you consider the death of your co-partisan a disaster, but the death of an entire dissident village a simple traffic accident, and started to accuse the sons of those who were killed of political exploitation only because they protested the murder of their parents. I write on the anniversary of April 13, 1975, i.e. the first shot fired in the Lebanese civil war. I watched a program during which youths born after that date were debating one another. The result was clear and painful: We did not learn the lesson. We did not dare carry out a serious reevaluation. We did not learn from the experience of allying ourselves with powerful entities, only to soon become pawns in their hands. We did not learn to respect the martyrs of others, and listen deeply to their concerns, fears and right to disagree. We want to vanquish the others, efface their features, and force them to wear one uniform. We want to subjugate them in geography, and drive their narrative out of history. I am not saying that it was the war of other people on the land of Lebanon. The Lebanese indeed partook, from their contradicting positions, in the largest suicide and assassination operation. But it must also be said that Lebanon was punished because it bore the features of an Arab spring that came early. Lebanon was an example of coexistence and mutual recognition. Lebanon had elections and its President left when his term expired. It had free press, and an independent judiciary. They realized early on the threat of the Lebanese spring, and its ability to spread questions. They thus punished Lebanon, broke it up, corrupted it, tore it apart and subjugated it. But here is the spring now, striking them decades later. War kills twice, the first time when it erupts, and the second when we refrain from addressing its causes. The Lebanese have not learned their lesson, so did the Sudanese learn it? What about the Iraqis, Yemenis and Somalis? And what about the Syrians? Continuing to deny the causes of wars and their lessons increases the odds of their continuation or resumption. Force is not the solution, and brutality is not the medicine.
