BEIRUT | Mourning by the gigantic explosion of August 4, ruined by the economic crisis, prisoner of a breathless political system, Lebanon fears for its survival as it marks its centenary in sadness.
No official ceremony is planned to commemorate the proclamation, on September 1, 1920, of the State of Greater Lebanon by the French mandatory authorities from the Residence des Pins.
It is in this emblematic place that French President Emmanuel Macron will meet on Tuesday the representatives of a political class that desperately clings to its privileges.
Its mission, less than a month after the explosion (at least 188 dead, more than 6,500 wounded) will be to convince them to save the country by finally accepting essential political and economic reforms.
Ahead of this new trip, his Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jean-Yves Le Drian did not go by four ways: “The risk today is the disappearance of Lebanon”, he said. .
In a country where the population has recovered after many tragedies, this time the abatement seems total.
“This is the biggest crisis experienced by Lebanon. It is even worse than the civil war (1975-90), estimates Rose Ghulam, 87, whose house was destroyed by the blast of the explosion that disfigured Beirut.
“Our leaders have no conscience, they are not honest, how can they rebuild our homes? We have to change them all, ”adds the retired teacher, born under the French mandate.
Point of no return
For many Lebanese in the fight against the corruption of their leaders since the protest movement of October 2019, the explosion, due to a huge amount of ammonium nitrate stored in the port of Beirut according to the authorities, constitutes a point of no comeback.
Politicians, aware of the presence of this high-risk material for years, have passed the buck and have not been accountable to the public until then.
The whole of civil society accuses them more broadly of not having been able, 30 years after the end of the civil war, to build a rule of law.
“The political system is at its wit’s end. Everyone says we can’t go on like this, including the political actors, but they are trapped. This system acts like a mousetrap in which they are stuck, ”says academic Karim El-Mufti.
If the country experienced a golden age in the 1960s, its history is above all a succession of political crises, interspersed with episodes of violence. The current economic crisis, the most serious in its history, has brutally impoverished the population in a few months, pushing more than half into poverty.
“The breaking point has been reached,” said the teacher-researcher in Political Science and International Law.
Main questioned: the system supposed to distribute power equitably between religious denominations.
Inherited from the Ottoman era, it was eventually to be abolished by the Taif agreement in 1989, which ended the civil war. But nothing was done.
On the contrary, the distribution of the highest positions – head of the Christian Maronite state, Sunni Muslim prime minister and president of the Shiite Muslim assembly – has been taken to the extreme.
Now it paralyzes the state. No more decisions, no more appointments, even at the lowest levels of the administration, can be taken since it is necessary to obtain the agreement of the politicians of the multiple communities.
On Sunday, President Michel Aoun announced that he wanted to work for a “secular state”, but this declaration risks remaining wishful thinking.
“Lebanon is in danger of disappearing,” warns Mr. Mufti.
Soon “midnight”?
Due to its extreme fragmentation, Lebanon has always been a sounding board for conflicts in the region, such as the current standoff between Iran and the United States.
In the history of Lebanon, “foreign interference has always existed, and we have a culture of increased clientelism,” explains researcher Dima de Clerck. “We are not a united people, we always need a foreign sponsor.”
The historian also notes “the absence of a national collective memory for the benefit of memories carried by the different identity groups”. Which is why, “we don’t have unified history textbooks,” she stresses.
Faced with this gloomy picture, what remains of the October 2019 uprising, experienced by some Lebanese as a quick moment to shape a national transcommunity feeling?
“What is needed (…) is a new social contract. But no one has the keys. Neither the political groups, nor the oppositions, nor the international community ”, says Karim El-Mufti.
Is it already too late? “It’s midnight to a few minutes on the clock at the end of Lebanon. But it is not yet midnight, ”writes Emilie Sueur, co-editor of the daily. L’Orient-Le Jour.