1/15/2015

POST NO.5

How we can make things better for ourselves in Lebanon

In my previous four posts the readers may have found me too harshly critical of the performance of most of our leaders in Lebanon since independence, and strongly bemoaning the near absence of any serious attempts by civil society to address these issues. They may cite the proverb that says “la critique est facile mais l’art est difficile” (criticizing is easy but performing is hard). This is why, in this fifth post, I shall do my best to try and briefly summarize what, I believe, happened in our country since 1945, what were the causes of our failures, and suggesting how we can remedy them in the short and in the long run.

1.- A glance backward

Let me start by throwing a quick look at the past seventy years and consider the conclusions that we may draw from that exercise. For that purpose, I have arbitrarily divided the entire seventy years period into three main phases:

Ø  The pre-civil war phase (1945-1974). During these first thirty years, corruption and mishandling of public funds were widely spread, though some efforts were made to combat them, especially during the Fouad Chehab Administration (1958-1964) that produced some noticeably good and innovative initiatives. Unfortunately, after the end of his mandate, the old evil habits soon returned, most of the reforms that he introduced were abandoned, the plans, were relegated to the archives, the Ministry of Plan ceased to exist, and was replaced by the CDR., an institution that was used to partially solve some of the problems, leaving the other half unsolved and the wounds in the country’s Administration pestering.

Ø  The civil war (1975-1992) In 1975 the Civil War broke up in Lebanon following the famous Ain El Remmaneh bus incident. Some half million Palestinian refugees eager to find in Lebanon a replacement for their lost State in Palestine rose against the established order, aided and supported by the Moslem population. Their famous slogan: “the road to Palestine passes through Jounieh” only served to add fuel to the fire, and some eighteen years of murderous infighting and destruction ensued that engulfed the entire country and butted half of the population against the other.

Ø  The post-civil war phase (1993-2014) The Civil war ended with the typical Lebanese compromise based on the concept of “La ghaleb wa la magloub” or “no winners and no losers” that left almost everybody unsatisfied, with the exception of a band of war profiteers who constituted a new social class in Lebanon eager to keep hold of their illicit gains and increase them as much as possible. This policy subtly became the credo of an entire new generation for whom only immediate or near immediate personal gains prevailed and no consideration was given to the rest of the population who were left to fend for themselves. This new credo and attitude gradually spread around and moved from the top of the pyramid down to its roots. Lebanon soon became the region’s “Far West” where every strike was allowed as long as one had enough “friends” and “protectors” in high places.

Some people may object to such a brief description of seventy years of Lebanese history and claim that my outlook of the events is biased. Allow me to stick to my views and claim that all that we are complaining about today comes as the result of our lax past behavior. Even, the privileged five per cent of the population, who consider themselves immune to harm through their present wealth, should realize, by now, that this may no longer be the case in the future. The examples of burning Syria, Iraq, Libya, and Yemen, to cite but a few cases, are there to prove it. The French proverb, ”Tant va la cruche a l’eau, qu’a la fin elle se brise”, illustrates that truth perfectly. When some of our leaders, ingrained in their military upbringing, call for jailing all the corrupters and the corrupt, some people ironically remind them that there are too many of these thugs around, and, in Lebanon, our penal system is not large enough to house them all.

On the other hand, reading through that necessarily brief relation of modern Lebanese history, people are bound to ask the perennial question: “OK, so what are we supposed to do, assuming that the author is right in his interpretation of the events?”  In the next paragraph I have tried to answer that question. Maybe you will find it useful to relay to your interlocutors.

2.- How can we turn impediments into assets?

If one reads my numerous writings on the subject and particularly the recent ones that are published on the following addresses: http://www.a-planned-development.blogspot.com, and at  http://www.5-can-help-save-Lebanon.blogspot.com, in addition to my web site that can be reached at http://www.cpi-lebanon.org , one is bound to notice that, since my return to Lebanon in 2005, my outlook on things in general and on solving the Lebanese conundrum has not changed an iota. There is only one way to make things right in this country. How to redress the wrongs is fully described in the above publications and in hundreds of other facebook, linkedin, twitter, and blog posts.

To provide a succinct answer to question number two above I simply propose to enlist the help of the very people who consciously or inadvertently contributed to create the hellish situation in which Lebanon finds itself stuck presently and ask them to simply help us reverse course. Without providing further details, I am sure that they would promptly understand my meaning. In any case, a great deal of suggestions as to how it should be done can be found in my above cited publications., particularly how we can repay entirely our Public Debt by 2032.