The moment for the national statehood of Armenia to emerge to avoid a Lebanese Scenario and destiny is NOW

Original article found on:

https://www.aravot.am/2023/04/03/1332524/

I want to start this article, by a tribute of gratitude towards the republic of Armenia, who despite all the storms and strikes it endured, it could stand still and firm and manage to provide a safe sanctuary to the Armenians of the middle east, Syrian and Lebanese Armenians

I want to allow myself to thank the republic on behalf of all Lebanese Armenians, because it proved to be the salvation for those of us who came to the fatherland, especially those who came to Armenia before the great collapse of Lebanon

It is no secret that a huge percentage of Lebanese, especially when they are in their young age, dream and seek to immigrate from Lebanon to western countries, the USA, Canada, and Australia in particular, if we just look at the numbers, before the Lebanese Civil war, an estimated 300 to 350,000 Lebanese Armenians lived in Lebanon, it was one of the strongest Armenian communities in the diaspora, most of the lived in the capital Beirut, Armenians were a decisive force in Beirut, some estimated that 120,000 Armenians lived and voted in Beirut therefore they were the second largest group after the Respectful Muslim Sunni  sect in the capital, Armenian political party headquarters were based in Lebanon, in 2005, some  estimations reported that some 60,000 Armenians lived in Lebanon, because the rest immigrated

This was not the case of only Armenians, maybe more than a million Lebanese immigrated from 1975 till 1990, it is said that more than one million Lebanese live in Brazil alone

This is not the result of Lebanese lack of love to Lebanon, on the contrary, to this day, whenever I enter a new street in Armenia, my mind starts to compare it to a Lebanese street, so often I see myself in Lebanon ion my dreams, when we Lebanese gather (Armenian of Arab) we keep listening to Lebanese music, Lebanon has its charm, no one left Lebanon out of absence of emotional attachment, but as a result of a practical calculations, because ever since the 1950’s, and especially after the 1970’s, every one acknowledged the lack of stability in Lebanon, on a magnitude of levels, lack of political stability was the dominant scene in the 1950’s which involved to a revolution in 1958, which was stopped by the interference of the USA Marines, but this only postponed the real issues, and Lebanese knew we are only postponing our problems, not deeply dealing with them

Political leaders are certainly to blame, but in my opinion and the opinion of 50% of Lebanese in the 1970’s the root of the problem lied in the absence of a unified vision that was committed to consider the Lebanese interests of highest priority, and that the Lebanese must seek and attend what lies in the interest of Lebanon, but unfortunately the other half of Lebanon disagreed and considered this approach a kind of extreme nationalist approach, and an attempt to isolate Lebanon from it’s Arabic world, and here the catastrophe started, and the great virus of Lebanon took over : Compromise

Lebanese have this saying, which they think ends all problems and it is a practical wise realistic approach , the slogan “la ghaleb walla maghlub” which means, Neither victorious nor defeated, and by working on this formula, they only and always deepened their problems, only delayed and postponed them, and the catastrophe that Lebanon witnessed in the year 2020 is only one of those occasion they tried to deal with their problems, by this “let us delay, until something comes up” formula, which never worked actually

Lebanese leaders preferred to avoid confronting their differences and the compromise started, first they avoided argument and welcomed Palestinian Armed groups, which later on started to act on their own and jeopardize Lebanon by fighting the Israelis who had occupied Palestine, from the Lebanese border, Israelis retaliated and Lebanon paid the price by losing its stability on security level, Lebanese Left and Muslims, in solidarity with the Palestinian demanded that Lebanon allows Palestinians to freely run their activities, Christian who never argued that the Palestinian struggle is a righteous one, demanded that Palestinians be restrained, just like they were in Syria, Jordan and Egypt, but compromise was the dominant player when Palestinians started to threaten Lebanese internal security, Lebanese avoided to settle the matter, and signed an agreement with the Palestinians which allowed them to freely carry on their military activities, and this led to the outbreak of Lebanese Civil war

If you ask me, the root of the problem is a matter of awareness, which should have started from school and education, countries who do not focus on educating their citizens that their country is the most sacred, and that it’s welfare is of the highest and maximum priority, and the exclusive quest, after that countries may and should support and in stand in solidarity with other righteous struggles, but never on the expense of their national security, stability and welfare

Lebanon did not focus on providing national awareness to its citizens in 1975, and as a result all Lebanese lost and while it was the Christians who felt defeated when the military war ended in 1990, Christians were defeated and lost their political power, but Muslims did not win, it was the foreigners who won, and the Syrian regime occupied Lebanon until the year 2005, and during that time, it managed to spread the misconception that only the Christians who lost the war politically opposed its presence, while Muslims welcomed it, bit on every occasion, Muslim Sunnis exploited every event that media covered to express their resentment of Syrian occupation (A football match in 2000 between Lebanon and Syria which all the TVs covered, the Lebanese Muslims made very anti Syrian occupation expressions over TV, a huge fight broke up, it was said that Syrians made mass arrests a few days after the event inside the Lebanese Muslim Sunni areas)

Anyway, in the year 2005, the Lebanese Sunni Muslim strongest leader and the former Prime Minister Raffik Harriry was assassinated, On march 14 2005, 100s of thousands of Lebanese Christian, Armenian,  Druze and Sunni citizen demonstrated against the Syrian occupation, a coalition was formed, known as the forces of 14 March, the Syrian Army left Lebanon under the popular pressure, and the pressure of the United nations security council resolution 1559,which stated that All foreign Armed groups and all local Lebanese Armed groups must disarm, in 2005, it seemed that Lebanon would once and for all recover and take the path to become a normal country and state, where the Lebanese legitimate national Armed forces and the state, elected democratically by the people, will reclaim its national decision and take charge of its destiny

But once again the curse of “Neither victorious nor defeated” principle took over, and once gain we proved that we Lebanese choose suicide and catastrophes instead of thinking on a national and state level, where the nation must be the highest priority that Lebanese must be loyal to, now Lebanese Muslim Shiaa parties, who had demonstrated on March 2005, thus forming what is known as 8 March forces, in favor of the Syrian Army presence in Lebanon, made it clear that other Lebanese must not go further with their demands, among which the issue of the disarmament of local Lebanese groups, because the Lebanese Shiaa Hizbullah party has an armed group estimated 40,000 strong, which is far more powerful than the entire Lebanese Army, especially in terms of military advanced weapons, and now, maybe the remaining Lebanese groups were wise not to go any further and risk a civil war, but if on the first stage their policies were acceptable and reasonable, wise and realistic, soon every one used this equation to lead Lebanon into the catastrophe of 2019

I would have agreed that 14 March forces were patriotic and wise to choose compromise to avoid a civil war, but soon, very soon, they proved their typical nature of political opportunism, hypocrisy and the Lebanese approach of regarding political leadership as a means marketing and business, not a national mission, soon came the elections and part of 14 March went alone and allied with Hizbullah and 8 March, the Druze and Sunni leaderships in particular, forming an electoral alliance, (The quarto alliance, two shia parties, one Sunni and one Druze) that would ensure the Muslim parties would decide 70% of Christian deputies, one of the two major Christian parties, the free patriotic movement, who has insisted for years it refuses to be labeled as a Christian party but a secular civil national party, suddenly declared it is the champion and defender of Christian parties, and based a huge part of its electoral program attacking Hizbullah weapons, the other Christian party, the Lebanese Forces,  (both parties were part of 14 March coalition) did not oppose the Sunni/Druze orientation and even joined the quarto alliance, but in a manner that proved it is only a follower,

Opportunism carried on its peak, the Sunni major party, the future movement started defending the Hizbullah weapons, insisting that it is an internal matter that will be resolved through internal dialog, and they said that by doing so, they will convince Hizbullah to return to Lebanon (Hizbullah declares it is loyal to Iran regime) the Christian Free patriotic movement attacked Hizbullah weapons, two month after the elections, the Free patriotic movement signed an agreement of understanding with Hizbullah, where it claimed it will convince Hizbullah to give up its arms

Now the Sunnis/Druze and the other Christian party started criticizing Hzbullah weapons, while the Free patriotic movement defended it passionately

Thus the de facto status quo was preserved, both Lebanese Hizbullah and Palestinian camps keep their weapons

All this is a typical part of the Lebanese compromise game, 14 March had 72s members in parliament, while 8 March 56, but Hizbullah weapons hindered the natural democratic process, the majority did not dare to elect a president, typically moving by the No one defeated logic, because it feared Hizbullah intimidations

Twice, 14 March won above 70 seats in parliament, but failed to rule, “national unity governments “ were formed where the government could not decide directions because part of the government opposed the decisions and  the Lebanese government always avoided internal confrontation,

As a result, the country executive, legislative and judiciary institutions were paralyzed, twice, Lebanon did not dare to elect a president for years, and every government took months to form, in order to “preserve the national equilibrium and equation”

Corruption was on its peak, it is said that Hizbulla allies never feared to be hold accountable, because they enjoyed the protection of Hizbulla, a force stronger than the state itself, it is also said that, in return, forces who claimed to demand Hizbulla disarmament, found the situation convenient, because they would carry on their corruption, and blame it on hizbulla weapons paralyzing the state

Thus an equation was created, most parties indulge in corruption, and neither party can hold the other side accountable, added to that the sectorial extremism, if anyone accuses a leader of corruption, the religious group that he belongs to, stands up to his defense,

Finally, and what caused directly the financial collapse

Added to all this problems, Lebanon once again chose compromise and welcomed more than 2 million Syrians, a huge number for a country with 4 million Lebanese and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, in a 10,452 square large country (I think Turkey itself, a 80 million country only welcomed 1 million)

Plus Hizbulla decided to go and fight along the Syrian regime, and now Arab gulf countries boycotted Lebanon economically

The direct collapse reasons

Lebanon had huge internal and external debt, maybe 80 billion at the time, for a country which has no agriculture, no industry, no trade, no export, a country that only imports and relies only on services and tourism (which halted as a result of gulf countries boycott), now there is this theory that the Lebanese state  finances had dried up, and it asked the Lebanese banks to lend it money, now in theory, the Lebanese banks were known to be very secure, and the central bank had ensured everyone that in case any bank goes bankrupt, the Lebanese central  bank covers up the damages to the depositors, but as it seems, Lebanon, who always chooses to delay its problems, declared it will give high percentages to depositors,  and a lot of people even from abroad deposited in Lebanon, now Lebanon who is used to delay its problems until something comes up, was expecting financial loans from abroad, mainly Cedre conference, but only this time their luck run up and the conference did not give Lebanon a dime

Now here the game, as it seems was exposed, and when Lebanese depositors asked the bank for some money, there was none, because Lebanese banks or the central bank had gave their money as loan to the government

Now all this is speculation and an analysis, an enigma and a mystery, what we know is that suddenly in the year 2019, the lifesaving of the Lebanese disappeared, and the dollar which was equal to 1515 Lebanese pounds, started to go up without restraints, until lately it reached 100,000

What is really stranger for me is the fact that, tens of thousands of Lebanese started a peaceful revolution against the ruling class, that same ruling class was able to gain some 100 seats in parliament in the 2022 elections,

What we saw last week and today, in my anticipation, is only a single chapter of what we will keep witnessing in Lebanon, this time it was because the retired military personnel protested, because the state wants to give them their pension, by counting the dollar as 63,000 – while they demand that the dollar be counted as 28,000

To conclude, I want to say, that this is the result of a nationwide approach to delay dealing with courage with a nations problems, postponing only led to deeper problems, for leaders who always hope that something will come up, instead of focusing on building their national statehood

This is the result of a nation, where a lot of its leaders rely on the foreigner, instead of national sincere consensus and solidarity

Image source :
https://www.voanews.com/a/tear-gas-clashes-as-lebanon-protesters-try-to-storm-govt-hq/7016156.html 

Peter Manoukian
Lebanese Armenian Blogger

Armenian Version of this article :

Ժամանակն է հաստատել մեր ազգային պետականությունը՝ լիբանանյան ճակատագրից խուսափելու համար