Lebanese political leaders have been warning about and dreading the events of Sunday and Monday when the Syrian conflict was finally exported to the streets of Lebanon. At least five people have died in the port city of Tripoli in vicious clashes between supporters of the Assad regime and the Syrian rebels.
This overflow of Syria’s violence is tragic on a number of levels. However perhaps the saddest element is the proof of how little the Lebanese have come to reassume the national identity which was blasted apart in the 26 years of civil war that began in 1975. The scars of that conflict are too deep to have stayed anything other than livid. At the peak of its prosperity in the 1950s and 60s, the country gave many appearances of unity, though wealth was increasingly concentrated in a powerful elite. The disparity in incomes in no small measure gave birth to popular unrest, especially among the country’s Shias, which eventually found expression in the violent confrontation between communities.
Syria was quick to interfere in Lebanese politics and although Damascus’s influence was finally diminished with the end of the civil war, its doleful and destructive presence did not go away. Thus Lebanon is now having to endure the painful echoes of Syria’s past meddling, with the export of its conflict to the streets of Tripoli.
The Lebanese government has sent troops to stop the fighting and one of its soldiers has already been killed. It must be hoped that this effort to quell the conflict in Tripoli will succeed before the violence spreads elsewhere, most dangerously to Beirut.
The problem of course is that Lebanon remains an armed camp, with all communities hanging on to weaponry for self-protection, on the debatable basis that the Lebanese police and army remain unable to guarantee security. The most damaging example of this refusal to accept the primacy of the Lebanese state and its security forces is Hezbollah, which maintains its own private army. Still dwelling on their defeat of the Israeli incursion in 2006, Hezbollah, backed by Iran and Syria, continues to maintain a state within a state.
It is a tragedy that six years on from that victory, Hezbollah leaders have not seen fit to integrate their fighters into the regular armed forces and have still not adopted a purely peaceable approach to their country’s complex politics. When the Assad regime in Syria comes to an end, as it most assuredly will, the Lebanese should look to a different future in which the communities disarm and work together as Lebanese first rather than members of different groupings. Rivalries can be pursued and worked out by argument and compromise in the corridors of power, not on the streets with bullets and rocket-propelled grenades.
Unfortunately, the longer that Bashar Assad and his people cling to power in Damascus, the greater will become the risk that the conflict will be reflected bloodily in its neighbor. All Lebanese should be asking themselves if they really want to return to anarchy or instead press on with the tough but achievable task of building themselves a peaceful and prosperous future.