Vicious triangles

1958: Insurrection breaks out in Beirut.
Headlines read: Muslims push government to join Unites Arab Republic. Christians reach out to Western allies.
4 dead, Dozens injured.

1975: Insurrection breaks out in Beirut.
Headlines read: unidentified gunmen fires on church in Christian Beirut suburb. Militia retaliates on Bus of Palestinian civilians.
34 dead, Hundreds injured.

1990: Insurrection breaks out in Beirut.
Headlines read: Lebanese Army clashes with Lebanese Forces.
300 dead, Thousands injured.

150,000 were brutally killed in the Lebanese civil war, my uncle was one of them

100,000 were permanently handicapped by battle injuries, my father was one of them.

900,000 were displaced from their homes, my family was one of them.

A quarter of a million emigrated from the country, I am one of them.

Shiite, Sunnis, Maronite and Druze ruthlessly divided in hostility, violence and crime reconcile under the fate of one same scar: that of a child without a parent, that of a sister without a brother, that of a wife without a husband.
And Beirut lingers in the hopeless echo of a silent grief: that of a mother without her sons.

The soundless sigh of a thousand graves is more stringent than the loudest cry of a million living.
And Beirut drowns in an abysmal fall as the last drops of her competent labor force, her voluptuous markets, her vibrant economy, are drenched from her veins only to nourish the prosperous rise of foreign cities that surround her.

One would think that enduring days of pounding rifles and nights of rattling buildings would be sufficient to awaken the need for citizenship and accountability.
That each community would demand the Rule of Law sheltering the country from the perils of civil unrest.
But the toxic culture of sectarianism prevails.

One would think that the leaders of this precarious nation would recognize the flaws of a system that fosters mistrust, nepotism and corruption and acknowledge their own illegitimacy as a product of that system.
That they would remedy to that defect through a much needed representative electoral law.
But the preservation of their own power is far more important than the basis on which to build a solid nation.

One would think that a nation repeatedly shattered for more than half a century where land mines remain buried in contested areas, where tanks still roam the streets on the lookout for arms smuggling, would solemnly swear to cleanse itself from vicious bullets and fatal rhetoric.
But tolerance and integration lags far behind mistrust and cynicism in the race for national reconciliation.

2008 : Insurrection breaks out in Beirut.
4 dead, dozens injured.