From the seizing of the arms shipment in the North; to the heightening of the political and sectarian conflict; and to the repeated armed family clashes, Lebanon seems to have lost its ability to release the pressure that has been building up inside and that is coming from its surroundings. The differences concerning the law that must be adopted for the parliamentary elections next year, with respect to adopting the proportionate voting or not; the campaign launched by the Free Patriotic Movement against the President of the Republic two years before the presidential elections amidst Sunni-Shi'i tension; and the ambience generated by the attempted assassination of Samir Geagea all fall within two contexts: The first context is an internal socioeconomic one where the prices of goods and services seem to be on an unprecedented and unexplainable rise except for the pretext given to justify the rise in prices of oil and gas. Needless to say that the meager salary increase that was the subject of a heated (yet absurd) political battle did not help to cool off the state of societal boiling. The only way that this state is being expressed is through additional siding by the sectarian leaders. Thus, the main socio-economic issues have become part of the polemics of the politicians who know that the renewal of the sectarian regime implies controlling the Lebanese people's livelihood, health, and education. This situation prompts the youth to feel highly frustrated as they find themselves in front of closed horizons, broken ambitions, and incapacity to act and to affect the politicians similarly to the youth of the Arab spring. The second context consists of the situation in Syria, which is still the same, thus pushing a number of forces to take the necessary arrangements allowing them to remain in their power positions in the political and security areas following the expected change in Damascus. Misguided are those who believe that the current “majority” – which seized the power in well-known circumstances – will let go of power at the fall of the Syrian ally. Some sides rather believe that the time has come to test the ability of these forces in performing their regional tasks (since these forces were established, funded, and trained for that purpose) in protecting the regime of Bashar al-Assad and repelling any attack against the Iranian nuclear program. The picture grows even darker with the state of vacuum experienced by the unions and the fact that almost all the unions are affiliated to sectarian “references” that only care about taking advantage of the pressure from which wide masses of the Lebanese people are suffering. This is accomplished through starting skirmishes controlled by the small politicians (politicians with limited ethics and vision) who are completely detached from the reality. On top of all this pressure stemming from the depths of the Lebanese society, come the obscenities of the politicians of this time, which threatens of “a dark hunger and a red death” (as per the hadith). These obscenities are only indicative of the surrendering to time and its fluctuations with no ability to perform conscious actions or to establish a higher interest for all the Lebanese people. The Lebanese have no consolation in this miserable situation of theirs and they have no way out of their endless wait save for meditating about their multi-faceted suffering and its reasons and moving from the useless whining and complaining to political work, which is based on defining one national interest that brings all the Lebanese together and shields them from being exposed, once again, to the hurricanes of the nearing regional fierce battles.
