Lebanon: A failed society

Khoot, slang for off their collective rockers, is my favorite word to describe the Lebanese. This is not an insult by the way, but rather most consider this term a badge of courage, evidence of their stubborn refusal to bow down to the rules or to someone else’s will. Many Lebanese see themselves as free spirits, as nonconformist rebels, in truth most are boastful inconsiderate bullies.

More than ever before many Lebanese behave in ways, even abroad, that make the rest of us cringe and hang our heads in shame, case in point a smoker onboard a flight who refuses to put out her cigarette despite a flight attendant’s calm insistence and in the face of the passenger’s rudeness. “Respect yourself,” if you hear those words in Arabic know that you are in for a shouting match that may end in a fist fight or some form of macho posturing. If you reply by reciting the rules, or with calm logic and reason you will likely be at the receiving end of an avalanche of obscenities and personal attacks.

This is Lebanon, sadly, the country has fallen so far since its much extolled golden age in the middle of the last century that it is all but unrecognizable. In fact manners and standards of debate and interaction between members of the general public and among politicians have deteriorated more in the last twenty years than they had over the 15 years of combat during our 1975-90 civil war. It is these standards that protect society more effectively than any law no matter how draconian and no matter how strict its enforcement.

Even at the height of civil war, leaders of warring factions kept lines of communication open between them. Today, leaders of opposing camps appear to have permanently closed these channels; they cannot even agree to put their difference aside in order to give this country a government.

Those who strictly follow one faction often, though not always, present their case without understanding the argument fully. All they know is that their clan, village, region, sect, or party support Mr. X over Mr. Y and they are given prepackaged reasons why one is better than the other in case they are asked. But if they find themselves in an open debate with a moderately intelligent opponent they struggle to find a clever and logical retort and their argument and debating style quickly deteriorate into a series of personal attacks against their opponent. In fact, these personal attacks have escalated on some talk shows to verbal insults and glasses of water being thrown in the faces of political opponents across the table, at which point the combatants stand up and struggle to find any projectile in the studio to throw at each other.

This new sport is akin to gladiators in an arena and people may find it amusing and entertaining, but in fact it is a worrying sign that our society has become a failed society. Our State will unlikely become a failed State because there simply isn’t a strong State to begin with. In fact, much of the State remained largely intact during our 15-year civil war but was simply irrelevant to the situation at hand as militias ruled the streets.

We are living in terrifying times where no man, woman or child feels safe or secure, where crime, from purse snatching to kidnapping, has skyrocketed, where people struggle to find work while competing for low paying work with refugees from Syria that by many accounts have hit the one million mark. We have no government yet and we are unlikely to have one soon. It’s almost certain that we will not have parliamentary elections this summer, and jobs, even in the Gulf ,are becoming scarce and hard to find as are tourists from the Gulf.