For the umpteenth time, there were no more than a dozen people gathered to protest against a purely political crime, surrounded by a larger group of photographers and "civilian" and official security men. This was seen two days ago during the sit-in organized to condemn the killing of the young man Hisham al-Salman in broad daylight on Sunday in front of the Iranian embassy. A quick glance at the people present helps to recognize the same faces that tirelessly participate in all the similar actions. The situation was the same during several protests organized by civil activists, most of which were related to the developments of the revolution in Syria throughout more than two years. We believe that the modest participation in these rallies has many reasons, which combined, are preventing their transformation into active and efficient action. Naturally, there is fear of clashing with the Syrian regime's supporters who were summoned by the loyalist parties to disperse the previous gatherings, reaching the point of shooting at the protesters the way it was blatantly done by the defenders of the Iranian embassy a few days ago. And in light of the security forces' abstinence from protecting the demonstrators, this fear is escalating and turning into paralysis. In addition, many Lebanese observe any call to take to the street through the looking-glass of sectarianism, considering that all issues in Lebanon - even if they are using distant countries as their arena - are sectarian issues. Some are thus stating that the Syrian revolution is a Sunni cause, just as they perceived the Yugoslavia war for example as being an attack on the Orthodox, or the battles waged by the American troops in Najaf as being an aggression against the Shiite shrines, while remaining silent when Fallujah was besieged. In other words, a vertically-divided society cannot produce broad perspectives. However, this remains a shallow diagnosis. What Lebanese society primarily lacks is not visions and analyses, but rather the simple identification of national interest. Hence the question: does the protest against the killing of a peaceful demonstrator in front of a foreign embassy – regardless of his name, his sectarian identity, or the state to which the embassy is affiliated – constitute a threat to the citizens' safety and security and to the state's sovereignty? What can be deduced from the media outlets and the journalistic reports is that the Lebanese are deeply divided over such questions. Indeed, the following classification instantly emerges: It is fine for a Shiite to kill a Shiite. If the crime takes place in front of the American embassy, it cannot be disregarded, but if it takes place near the Iranian one, the surrounding circumstances should be taken into account. It is useless to say that the multitude of pretexts featured in the aforementioned answers reflect a deep discrepancy in the interpretation of the meaning of the state and sovereignty, and even the meaning of the citizen and the basic freedoms guaranteed by the law and the constitution, such as the right to free expression and peaceful demonstration. The next level of this interpretation reveals that wide factions among the Lebanese do not share palpable political, economic, and social interests in the context of the same scale of values, and consequently in the context of a coherent cultural and moral perspective. In reality, the "Lebanese nations" are living in autonomous republics, while the state's role does not exceed that of the United Nations, which has no other job but to ask the contributors to settle their subscriptions in order to continue upholding world peace.
