There is something not right about the Lebanese security services' deployment plan in the Southern Suburbs. Government officials said, and Lebanese newspapers headlined, that the state "regained" the Suburbs from the grip of self-security. The plan consists of deploying internal security members along the checkpoints erected by the Hezbollah armed men on the entrance ways of the area following the Roueiss bombing mid-August. The party's members are also supposed to retreat from those checkpoints. There seems to be a good reason for celebrating the return of the official security forces to the Suburbs in light of the daily skirmishes between the citizens who grew weary with "self-security" measures. People are happy that the armed militias will no longer be in sight and that the visitors of the Suburbs will no longer have to sit through meaningless and humiliating questionings. However, this happiness is met with another fact, one that failed to make its way to the media. The state did not regain the Suburbs from the "self-security." The truth is, the "self-security" actually appointed the state institutions to carry out its own agenda. What seemed like a settlement between the legitimate Authority and the forces of the fait accompli is in reality a swap between the shape of the power of a declawed Authority and the consolidation of the security-related and thus political differentiation of one specific area. In reality, no one expects the internal security forces to interfere and break the weekly armed inter-familial clashes between the tribes who control the alleys for instance. The question to be raised at this point is: If the above mentioned bombing allowed for the deployment of the self-security forces under the guise of official powers, why wasn't a similar plan implemented in Tripoli following the two bombings that left a much higher number of victims than Roueiss? If the answer to this question is that the Suburbs have a "specific sensitivity" because the commanders of the "Resistance" are present there, then this calls for another question: since those commanders deny Israel's responsibility for the bombing – knowing that Israel is the reason behind the existence of the "Resistance" - doesn't this mean that all the Lebanese areas inhabited by only one religious group are threatened and doesn't this call for an exceptional treatment at the security level? Logically, the official authorities must preserve people's security equally in all regions. This is a basic mission of any sovereign Authority, which leads us to another question: who has sovereignty? This flow of questions reminds us of the saying "a state of exception" and a state of siege. The armed party in the Suburbs has imposed a siege there under the pretext of the area's exceptional situation and the besieged fortification (Masada) that the enemy is targeting from all angles. The party controlling the Suburbs today failed to provide a single indication to its desire to let go of its actual control over the area and its people. Actually, it is quite the opposite. This whole matter is taking place in light of a general conviction that Hezbollah has the right to preserve the security of its areas. This means that other similar demands might be made by other groups who feel threatened. This is highlighted by the measures imposed on the Syrian refugees in some Christian villages; as well as the fact that the crime scenes of the two bombed mosques in Tripoli last month were left to the care of "the locals." In his book, State of Exception, Giorgio Agamben wrote about the progress of this issue and how the exception turns into a given. He also wrote that power moves from one body to another and social and political forces swap the right for control and power. The present regression of the "illegitimate" armed men in favor of the official Authority only means that the state of exception and the siege in the Suburbs will remain under the approval of the "Authority."
