Took Place During The July War Only

In his famous book "The German Ideology", Karl Marx speaks of change in the society, more precisely on real change taking place through social interaction. This is the role placed on the Marxists through out the world to be done. Lebanon is not a different situation (even though the Stalinist Lebanese Communist Party is there, it sold out its ideology/sciences). The aim of this post is to equate both reactionary camps and denounce them as stabbers of the working class.

I tackled how each leader isolates his sect (and I still say his rather his/her becuase of the situation that only the male political figures got their goons on Sectarian basis) and acts the defenders of the Sect. The media (Radio/TV/Newpapers) works more on dividing the public opinion. Noam Chomsky argues that the media should simply report the public opinion, and not create it. His arguement was based on the US media in specific and anywhere the Media breaches its major role. Actually, John Steward Mill Jr. argued that the Media should be as objective as possible despite the odds facing the reporters. Trotsky argued that the Media should be as informative and objective as possible as well, since the facts reflected what would be part of the history archives.

In Lebanon, you would see on Future TV (Harriri-Sunni based) which family opposes the "opposition" while the extreme case would be al-Manar (Hezbollah - Shiite based) refering to the Government as "Unconstitutional Government". The varieties of channels also target specific audiences. Hence, as I argued last week, each Sect/Audience lives in a world of their own.

Now I mentioned on the title of this tiny article that Real National Unity did occur, and I meant it. The only time national unity occured is during the July War. The basic interaction took place from the refugees fleeing the Dahhieh region and the South due to the brutal aggression of the Israelis towards the Christian areas in Achrafieh. I will not go into details how long it took to get those schools to open (as I actually wanted to place this section within my Lebanon, Israel, and Class Struggle series), but the first wave of refugees faced major social difficulties; at least the refugees who fled to those areas. Some supermarkets over even refused to even sell them their commodities. Locals in several areas simply shut out their doors and pretended they were never present. The displaced also expressed fear, due to the fact that it is the first time they enter a "Christian" area, and some even expressed fear of being killed. I couldn't believe it when they said so (and vice versia btw), so for the first time in my life I refered myself as a sect and told the refugees: "Listen, I am labeled a Christian on my passport, do I appear like a scary creature?"

Our team units everywhere had to break this cultural difference. The refugees in general were Shiites since Israel was bombarding Shiite populated areas mostly. The mothers or girls were embarrased to be regarded as "low-life" creatures, since the myth among the Sects goes by that the Christian community is superior. Some have heard insultive comments regarding the veil. Nevertheless, as the war became bloodier, those refugees and the locals in the Christian areas (well in reference to Beirut) interacted. I highly recommed the website Samidoun for details on such interactions. I know some stories would be stunning about how both "sect" streets feared each other, but in the end humanity called. I am not sure whether humanity or nationalism struck at the same time, since the more the war was lasting, Hezbollah during the war got more support as the Israeli Army recieved damage. Plenty of Sects interacted with each other, and the major complaint I have was blocking the entry of Palestinians living outside the camp to enter the schools because they lacked the Lebanese Passport, but we broke through that problem where we were present.

People forgot their Sect differences and political "Lebanese honest" demands. The majority of Lebanon are after all Lower Middle and Lower classes. Nobody bothered to hear the political disputes of the Sect leaders and "intellects" like those opportunists General Aoun, Saad Harriri, Samir Jaajaa, Ghazi Aridi, S. Frangieh...etc. The dividing means were cut out. The media was not reaching the ears of the majority of the Lebanese. The audiences thought that hearing their words are a waste of time since none of them can do anything during the war. Actually, most of the Lebanese were worried on:

1) Where the Israelis were bombing
2) How many were killed
3) What villages were under siege by the Israelis
4) Damages inflicted on the Israelis
5) What was going on in the international level.
6) No Sect was threatened by the other
7) Viewing the Zionist army as the enemy and did not politicians to tell them so

The supporters of Hezbollah seem to forget that it was not only their weaponry that allowed the Lebanese proletariat to stand victorious in face of the Zionist aggression, rather it was the Civilian resistance which brought food, medicine, psychological treatement to the children, and everything else. After all, 1/4 of the population was displaced. Some people working on relief didn't even know that the war was over till days later because they didn't have time for them as they were busy doing medical checklists on the displaced.

Now when the great divide returned? After the war was over of course! The politicians sought to isolate the Proletariat as Sects again, and the supporters returned like followers to hail them. Real national unities transcend the elites' policies and programs. Those who call for National Unity like Nasrallah & Jaajaa (and all the rest of the duo camps) would not want real national unity among the Proletariat because then they would be out of business. Even their priests and clergies would be out of business.

No War But Class War!!!

MFL