Lebanon’s Revolts: Was it What the Country Needed? - Uprisings as a Tool for Resurrecting the Country

Opinion Analysis by Reine Abou Antoun, Featured Writer

July 24th, 2021

One trigger, one start ... what about the target?

“Liberté! Égalité! Fraternité!” was what the French use to cry, leading to the removal of France’s hereditary monarchy system. However, this abolition wasn’t simple, nor was the removal of the British monarchy from America, also known as America’s war for independence. In fact, fundamentally, they were intellectual wars and effectively, military wars.

Motivated by several common events - which are historically recognized within the preliminary stage of a revolution, according to the historian Crane Brinton - this could leave the Lebanese people uncertain when it comes to specifying their real state. For instance, one could think of the October 17th revolution that was triggered by a series of cumulative events and erupted as a result of the taxation on the “WhatsApp bundle”; Lebanese were supposed to protest severely for various momentous decisions issued over the years. Thus, the ambiguous reasons behind this revolution puts its durability into question. Whereas, the American revolution was warmed-up by escalated tensions for more than a decade between American colonists and British authorities, which led to the taxation of the colonies (notably the Stamp Act of 1765, the Townshend Acts of 1767 and the Tea Act of 1773) and were met with heated protests among many colonists as well as them calling for their rights.

Yet, in France, in 1789, a huge famine, hungry peasants roaming villages and towns, high inflation and nobles becoming targets, were the first triggers of the French revolution, which is exactly what happened in Lebanon, two years ago.

More specifically, 863 thefts and robberies were recorded in the first half of 2020, which is up from 650 for all of 2019 as recorded by the International Security Forces (ISF), while noting that the Minister of Interior and Defense declared that the ISF are uncapable of controlling the crime rates. Moreover, the inflation rate reached a dramatic level of 110.24% in April of 2021 according to the Centre Administration of Statistics. On the other hand, the same forces keep blocking individual protesters time and time again, the latest of which were on the 13th of July, where the relatives of victims of the August 4th blast were manifesting in front of Minister Mohammad Fehmi’s house, calling to lift immunities for justice, as well as others protesting in front of banks, where they are demanding to be refunded with their money, and the list goes on!

As a result of the above-mentioned Lebanese circumstances, it is frankly the time to put the dilemma of a “revolution” in the right place, especially given that the Lebanese events are still present within the preliminary phase of a revolution, in addition to constant rejection from the government.

So, should the Lebanese citizens jump to conclusions by calling this a revolution in the first place? In political theory, this would be referred to as an ongoing uprising, at most a “spring”.

Seeking to new levels amid special conditions

A notable rising of the Beirut Bar Association backed with the BA of Tripoli took place over the last three months which combats the Lebanese judicial authorities when it comes to justice, transparency, lawful investigations and accountabilities. That is a major reform that the country is in dire need of, and this represents an outstanding beginning for a comeback as it resembles the Third Estate in spirituality – this refers to the National Assembly that took place in France in 1989, when they decided to force the noble population to give up its privileges as well as having power over citizens’ basic rights. In this way, it seems that Lebanon has a chance of making a drastic turn and change of events.

However, there still is an ancient national legitimacy playing a great role in avoiding constant progress that would lead to a complete change of the ultimate corrupted system. More specifically, it has always been backed up by an international legitimacy that keeps taking advantage of it, in order to accomplish its interests in the Middle East. However, foreign interventions shouldn’t be blamed for the country’s internal repeated failures.

Besides, the current economic crisis in addition to more than 55% of the population being trapped under the poverty, strongly dates back to the past few years.

In 2011, the Lebanese Balance of Payments (BOP) started to collapse due to an increased amount of importations in order to bring in more dollars, which keep the Lebanese currency afloat. This gradually increased in the following years, finally reaching a record-high amount in 2020: $9.6 billion according to a financial engineer.

Nevertheless, none of the political parliamentary parties bothered to implement any sort of reform. This indicates legitimate engineering of economic deterioration.

Hence, the uprisings that have and will continue to occur are threatened with frustration.

Hold the rise and keep moving forward

Since then, the power of the Lebanese uprisings has been threatened with failure.

Originally, as a democratic regime, Lebanon is most likely to handle the uprisings’ continuity productively, since it does not possess the best military power, nor the potential to “frappe comme le foudre, vol comme l’éclat ”, as said by Napoleon, nor the solid economical basis to recover from the “reign of terror”, as was the case in 1795-1799 – The Directory; whereas, more independent entities are strongly standing out for justice, intellectual awareness, as well as the spreading of a popular legitimacy in the most influential category of the Lebanese society, yet with the same morally and financially affected class – the electors. A new chapter shall be written.

In efforts to overthrow the corrupted system controlled by the “monarchy” of mafias, shouldn’t the legislative, judicial and executive authorities be constitutionally implemented? Isn’t a “Louis XVI et Marie Antoinette execution” necessary? An uplifting should take place through the most powerful exercise of democracy: a majority of reform intellectuality storming the boxes of the 2022 elections.

Democratic uprisings ensure progress

Starting from the calls for justice and initial human rights from the BA platform, and the public education entities, whereby, according to the World Economic Forum, Lebanon is ranked globally as the 4th best country for math and science education, to the occasional independent legislative committee present in the parliament (the draft law of decentralization of 2014, which is not exclusively against the passive authority, yet where a powerful opposition could be born, where also more coordination and more legislative assemblies may effectively attract the trust of the population, which is very crucial to reach a reform intellectuality majority in the Lebanese society) - change must be put into place. Moreover, the important thing to note here, is that rejection is an integral part of freedom, and freedom is an absolute act of ongoing opposition before unlawful acts. This affirms that the concept of a revolution in Lebanon is still far away from reality, and principally, the barrier is a matter of time in addition to a cultural radicalization.

After all, “If you wish to gain an idea of what revolution is, call it Progress; and if you want to acquire an idea of the nature of progress, call it Tomorrow.” This is from “Les Misérables”, which enforces the idea that the events that occurred as a result of the October 17th revolution should not dial down. Conversely, an intellectual improvement with an adequate practice in the upcoming days should be witnessed, rather than jumping to fake conclusions which may obstruct the essential roads of amelioration. In other words, they should be considered as the start of the path towards CHANGE.