The Syrian revolution has unleashed many Lebanese voices, each of them expressing an implicit vision for Lebanon, its issues and its future. First, there was, and still is, the voice of subservience and allegiance to the Syrian regime. This, as clearly demonstrated by the experience of Michel Samaha, is a voice with intelligence connections that does not deserve to be discussed or taken seriously. Then there was, and still is, the voice of fear, which in most cases is Christian, but also Shiite to a lesser extent. While some of the outspoken voices in this category intersect with the intelligence-linked segment mentioned above, this does not negate the existence of real concerns, with its broad headline being over the growing Salafi phenomenon, whose cartoonish nature does not seem to prevent it from spreading further. But the problem here is that the voices in this category have so far been unable to formulate a modern and democratic vision for a pluralistic community, where the various segments can live without fear or racist exchanges. Thus, we see them drown in an inch of water, so to speak, and fall into the mess of the Orthodox proposal for the electoral law, or worse, into political and practical stances that are opposed to the Syrian people and the will of its majority, like Hezbollah has done. These voices were, and continue to be, subject to appropriate and deserved criticism. However, another Lebanese voice that supports the Syrian revolution deserves in turn to be criticized. This voice, which is mostly Sunni but not exclusively so, and which covers a narrow cultural sphere, believes that history begins with the Syrian revolution, and that there was nothing before and nothing else after. Yet despite the paramount and exceptional importance of that revolution, and the sheer magnitude of its impact on the entire region, an apocalyptic worldview as such cannot be relied upon. Indeed, by doing away with essential parts of history, this tendency often seeks to uproot essential parts of reality as well. This lesson has been revisited time after time, ever since the French Revolution, which was chronicled from scratch, at the very least. And to be sure, this worldview ends up denying any meaning for Lebanese discussions and concerns, including the issues of minorities, either because the Syrian revolution cancels out what stood before, or because the Lebanese interlocutors themselves are banal. But even so, the banality of the interlocutors does not automatically lead to the banality of the issues being discussed. The fact of the matter is that the question of minorities in the Levant has never before emerged so clearly, and their complexities so obviously, as they have done with the Syrian revolution and the climate it engendered. Ultimately, one of the criteria by which this revolution will be judged on the long term will be how it shall deal with the question of minorities in its country, and the Levant at wide. Having been forced, unluckily, to clash with those minorities, the Syrian revolution must nevertheless not ignore a complex problem that the history of the Levant may not be understood without, and that the region may not progress without addressing. This is not to mention the democratic worth of the proponents of democracy should they dismiss the latter or come to believe that it is superfluous. In the frequent settling of scores with the Lebanese idea, the latter is reproached for being “trivial." But the Lebanese formula, despite much of the “triviality" that mires it and its symbols, may well be the least bad among the formulas used to organize relations among the communities of the Arab Levant. It is feared therefore that reservations over the Lebanese formula, after being exaggerated, may be a sort of an indirect way to seek tyranny and uniformity, especially when they attribute major flaws to such formulas, instead of attributing them to the ability of the rival communities to get on board with those formulas, or their lack thereof. It is also feared that this view, which abridges national identities, also implies tendencies for regenerating subservience, but this time to another regime. Most likely, the weak Lebanon is stronger than it is thought for the simple reason that the entire region is in the process of Lebanonisation.
