Jumblatt”s call for restraint offers Lebanon a chance to recover
MP Walid Jumblatt has handled the slaying of Lutfi Zeineddine, a supporter of his Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) killed following Saturday”s March 14 rally in downtown Beirut, as well as anyone might have asked.
The apparent political overtones of the incident made it more likely that the Druze chieftain would speak out in harsh terms – but more necessary that he refrain from doing so. He has chosen the latter course, and while that in itself does not mean that Lebanon has fully recovered from the domestic political crises that have plagued it for the past several years, it does mean that the convalescence can continue.
For generations, the leaders of Lebanon”s various factions, parties and tribes have lived by the feud, a self-defeating habit that has only made this country more inhospitable to its citizens and more inviting to its enemies. Needless to say, killings don”t end vendettas, and vendettas don”t change people”s minds about matters on which they have strong opinions. All they produce are funerals, orphans and pretexts for the next killings.
Jumblatt”s call for restraint offers a chance to break this bloody cycle, but only if it is recognized as a sign of maturity rather than one of weakness. In fact, given the "strong state" that he and his March 14 allies profess to desire, the MP”s call for the matter to be handled by the authorities lent credibility to one of the few positions that unite them. To have failed to express confidence in the government”s security forces and law-enforcement capabilities would have sent precisely the wrong signals, putting the lie to a key March 14 principle and possibly encouraging some of the PSP”s more hotheaded members to take the law into their own hands. What might have happened next is anyone”s guess, but if Lebanese history demonstrates anything, it is that tit-for-tat violence has a way of acquiring its own momentum.
At this stage, no one man will change the course of that history by himself. Indeed, Jumblatt himself has been known in the past to go over the top with his rhetoric. On this occasion, however, he has done the right thing – and both his March 14 partners and their counterparts in the March 8 camp would do well to emulate his performance. Only if and when such displays of good judgment are too common to be newsworthy will we have any chance of seeing an end to the needless deaths that precipitate them.
In less than four months, Lebanon is scheduled to hold parliamentary elections whose import goes far beyond the matter of winners and losers: With partisan tensions running high, the conduct of the polls will say much about this country”s ability to sort out its problems in a civilized, non-violent manner. If this "democratic process" is to be worthy of the term, all sides will have to take Jumblatt”s restraint – and their own commitments at Doha in May – very much to heart.