When delinquency turns dangerous
Last week, a group of youths stabbed five youngsters in the Beirut suburb of Ain al-Remmaneh. In most countries, an incident on such a small scale would have been answered by no more than grieving for the victims’ family, and the reassurance of the support of the community. But this incident, which pitted a handful of Ain al-Remmaneh residents against those of Shiyyah, has unleashed the political passions of many Lebanese who have looked at it through the lens of sectarianism. The fact that Ain al-Remanneh is a Christian district, while Shiyyah is mainly populated by Shiites, has propelled initial acts of simple delinquency into the country’s toxic political ground.
Political leaders are in part responsible for having accustomed Lebanese to resort to the sectarian grid of analysis to interpret everyday realities. They have too often defined their own political aspirations along the sectarian divide, at times encouraging the tensions between sectarian groups to make political gains. It is only natural for their electorate to resort to the rhetoric with which they have been made familiar.
Sectarian motives were seemingly absent in last week’s incident and previous ones of a similar nature. Yet many Lebanese have been quick at drawing comparisons between both episodes that suggest we could see a repeat of Lebanon’s bloody sectarian strife.
This debate, instead of providing an explanation of the violence, has only deflected the public attention away from addressing the very issue that underlies the repeated incidents of a similar nature – it is the weakness of the Lebanese judicial system by which criminality is often left undeterred that should preoccupy us, not the hypothetical sectarian motives behind the crimes.
That is as a result of Lebanon’s political climate, the initiatives of the few who are tempted to resort to personal revenge to right the wrongs, instead of being faced with widespread condemnation, are validated by the partisan political climate.
Accusations that sectarian opponents resort to violence thus risk turning into a destructive self-fulfilling prophecy – what was initially no more than petty criminality is responded to by sectarian violence, and becomes just that.
This vicious circle is all the more encouraged by the political class’ use of the sectarian divide to acquire political capital, while leaving aside more essential questions of state-building, chief of which is the necessity of reinforcing the independence of the judiciary.
If the recent violence in Ain al-Remmaneh tells us anything, it is that in order for Lebanon to aspire to be a healthy democracy, it will have to address the sectarian bias that undermines its judiciary.