The Christians
Suddenly and without any prior notice paving the way to this transformation, General Michel Aoun and his bloc began to talk about “the Christians’ interests” without any consideration of the need to refine rhetoric, even sectarian rhetoric, to suit a group concerned with keeping up appearances in front of other Lebanese groups. First, the Aounist bloc started the post-Doha Agreement period with an intensive advertising campaign promoting the following slogans: “Aoun restored the rights to their holders,” and, “Aoun restored the rights to Christians.” This naïve expression, which is a distortion of the truth, also has alarming implications, among them, that that the rights which have been lost in Lebanon are only those of the Christians, as if a Shia citizen whose son was killed on his way to school does not have any rights, or has rights that are not the type of rights which the Aounist bloc would fight for and restore.
At first, we said this was a post-Doha whim, a moral compensation for the loss of a central ambition to accede to Baabda’s presidential palace. But this advertising campaign was followed by the activity of the bloc’s MPs, centered on the narrow conviction that what was accomplished in Doha is limited to seizing parliamentary seats in Beirut and annexing them to districts with Christian majority. This allegation contradicts the slogans [announced] by this same bloc, which has always turned against his own slogans. The injustice in the Taif Accord, mentioned by the bloc, is restricted, therefore, to moving some parliamentary seats from Mazraa district to Ashrafieh district. Everybody in Lebanon is aware that this wasn’t the Aounist bloc’s achievement, and that the Future Movement’s consent to divide Beirut was also required by its alliances with forces more Christian than the Aounist bloc and more attached to the meanings of Christian representation, even in the bad sense of the word.
The main problem is that the Aounist bloc wore the dirty gloves a bit too late. Indeed, one of the few positive attributes of this bloc is the ambition that has overcome more than once the sectarian connotations. But today, while civil division is at its peak, it is recalling the choices of the Christian parties, knowing that these parties have been working for years to dismiss the reputation which has stuck to them since they launched these slogans. After all, doesn’t the slogan “Aoun restored the rights to Christians” recall the expression that prevailed during the war: “The security of the Christian community comes first”?
Aoun’s major problem is that it will not take long for Christians to realize that his allegations are deceitful, and they probably know it already. The key Christian position, supposed to be protected today after 20 years of marginalization, is the presidency of the republic. Aoun started his battle against the president of the republic, Michel Sleiman, on the first day of the latter’s term. The squabbles over the government’s formation are only attempts to show the president that he is not the strongest Christian. This will ultimately hinder the recovery of the “Christian” presidency to its position in the Lebanese equation. This will be Aoun’s mission, while his bloc’s MPs declare on television channels that “Aoun restored the rights to Christians.”
Hazem al-Amine