Dancing and Singing on Board the SS Lebanon as it Sinks

The French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, said via a Reuters interview today that Lebanon was like the Titanic, that it was sinking and the Lebanese seem oblivious to the full tragedy that has befallen them, Lebanon is the Titanic he said but without the Orchestra. I humbly disagree with the minister. If the whole world falls silent, the sound of our Daf and Tabla and Oud and our native voices will keep on singing boisterously, Covid be damned! No Sir, in Lebanon the music shall not fall silent! It hasn’t yet nor shall it ever. 

I think France, the patronizing former mandate authority in Lebanon, is the last country on Earth that has the right to complain about our leadership and our system of government. After all, it was with a French pen that the impossible Greater Lebanon was forced into existence, it was French draftsmen who drew lines on our sacred soil and said "this land belongs on this side of the border and that land belongs over there." It was the French and their absurd idea of an insular Maronite state loyal to and aligned with French interests that gave birth to this awkward national mishmash of sects and ethnicities, a compromise that evolved to become the Lebanese Republic, with top political offices reserved for one sect or the other. If anyone is to blame for our impossible and unimaginable situation it is France, a country that so enjoyed playing amateur imperialist all around the world!

Let us leave M. Le Drian to one side for now and discuss our current predicament in Lebanon. We all know where we are going, we all know what awaits us, the unimaginable, the murky depths of national destitution and a prolonged economic depression if we do not form a government and begin to implement reforms immediately. I doubt there is anyone who doesn't know this. However, we never asked if that is at all possible amid the current climate of international divisiveness that exists, of which France is most certainly a part. 

Lebanon cannot make any meaningful headway in any direction to institute serious reforms without at least broad understandings ironed out among the main regional and international players. Here, I refer to France and the United States and Iran and Turkey and Russia and Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf countries. And right now, we are the furthest from seeing any kind of accord or understanding evolve among these powers. So, Lebanon will remain stuck without a government, at least without a government capable of serious reform. 

 Now, why do we find ourselves in this situation you may well ask. It’s the same old story with the same old answer, the tragedy of small countries is that they are unstable and short lived, at best they are ignored internationally, at worst they are used by global and regional powers to jostle for political gain, even if they have to use these small countries as cannon fodder in limited short lived proxy wars. 

Today, the globe is dotted with small countries and many salivating proto-empires waiting to gobble them up. Why are people losing hope in Lebanon and migrating abroad, if they should be so lucky? Everyone may give you a different answer. For me, it’s my final acceptance that small countries like Lebanon will never be free from external meddling and inborn corruption and small-minded politics. We will never be free of the countless obstacles to our economic recovery and prosperity. 

That is why I personally favor the abolition of all small countries in favor of large federal states, which are far more efficient. Think of one of the most successful Arabic speaking countries, the United Arab Emirates, had the seven individual emirates that make up this country remained sovereign and independent, they would have achieved very little for their people. United, on the other hand, the whole country today basks in the warming glow of global recognition and respect, as they enjoy a successful and prosperous free market economic system that is the envy of South Western Asia and the world. 

As the citizenry of small countries, we see ourselves losing out big time, we see ourselves having to accept to be third class human beings, denied opportunities and avenues of wealth creation that are more widely accessible in larger more developed, more stable countries, all because we don’t belong to countries that are respected internationally. For many Lebanese, this is unacceptable and so they pack their bags and migrate to greener pastures and a more promising future for their children. 

Sadly, countries like Lebanon are built on uncertain ground. Such countries like Lebanon or Yugoslavia (a one-time non-aligned powerhouse) or Belgium (in the dark ages before the EEC or EU), are basically good for nothing (no offense intended), nothing that is except being flints to be struck and from whence sparks may be generated to start local fires that destabilize a region or instigate a proxy war with another power. Our citizens are given no serious consideration and are only useful when being blown apart as cannon fodder all to benefit the interests of regional or international powers. Citizens of such a country, more often or not, are brainwashed and victims of well-aimed propaganda and as such owe their allegiance not to their supposed homeland, but to the power in whom they place their highest hopes for a bright future, a future that never materializes sadly. 

So, for many in Lebanon today waiting for our "savior’s" arrival, Emmanuel (not the Christ Child, but the President of France), for those who are hopeful in the appearance of a second French mandate, I’d hate to disappoint you, but nothing will come of this visit, nothing that didn’t emerge in the last one at least. So, my dear third world Lebanese, stop clutching at straws, stop hoping for things to magically get better and don’t be shocked when they get really, really, I mean seriously really bad. Either get busy changing things or if you can’t, and for many we are truly powerless, get busy working on emigrating to a better country that will give you the opportunities and the respect you never found in Lebanon.