Ignoring A Lesson From History: A Prevailing Desire To Fix Syria's Ba'athist Model In Lebanon
14 October 2014
By Diana Moukalled
Two videos that went viral in the last two weeks
summarize the current situation in Lebanon. The first
one shows the execution of the third Lebanese soldier
from among the military personnel kidnapped by the
Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and Al-Nusra
Front terrorists. The video showed the latter
murdering soldier Mohammad Hamieh as other soldiers
collapsed and pleaded for their lives.
The second video is that of Syrian refugees rounded up
and being made to lie face down on the ground in the
town of Arsal. Among them there appeared to be an
amputee who was seemingly being kicked by a Lebanese
soldier. The video also apparently showed other
soldiers kicking and humiliating the rest of the
refugees.
The Lebanese army did not deny the authenticity of
this leaked video, which showed some of its soldiers
violated the army's rules of conduct.
Truth be told, the video of the execution of Hamieh
summarizes the situation of the hijacked Lebanese
state, a state that has had its decision-making power
taken away. Meanwhile, the second video shows how the
state attempts to cover its inability to confront the
reasons behind its crisis, and that it seems as though
it thinks that the only way to restore the balance is
to mistreat refugees under the excuse of fighting
terrorism.
The two examples are not the only incidents
circulating on the Internet. Photos of Lebanese
soldiers beating up and humiliating Syrian refugees
and destroying their belongings under the excuse of
looking for wanted men continue to surface. Of course,
the state aimed to excuse these actions by saying they
were carried out as part of efforts to crack down on
terrorism.
It seems the trend of submitting to the military
boot—which has become popular in several countries as
it is considered salvation from chaos and extremism—is
increasing in Lebanon. We have once again ignored an
important lesson from history: insulting others and
tyrannizing over them produces terrorists of all
kinds.
Syrian refugees quickly responded to the second video
of Lebanese army violations and protested in front of
the Arsal municipality building, raising slogans of
ISIS. Those in the Lebanese army command are making a
fatal mistake if they think that the appeals of the
kidnapped soldiers and the horrific footage gives them
carte blanche to intimidate Syrian refugees.
The army is apparently committing violations against
refugees without any hesitations whatsoever, and so
far nothing has happened to suggest that these
practices were individual violations. The army has
neither announced that those responsible will be held
accountable, nor has an apology been made. More
importantly, this happened amid a widespread lack of
political debate and media coverage, so disapproving
voices have remained faint. Perhaps there is a
prevailing desire to fix Syria's Ba'athist model in
Lebanon.
The Lebanese army, dear to its people's hearts, should
be careful. This brutality is not how you protect a
country. Rather, this is how you destroy it, or at
least what is left of it.
Diana Moukalled is a prominent and well-respected
TV journalist in the Arab world thanks to her
phenomenal show Bil Ayn Al-Mojarada (By The Naked
Eye), a series of documentaries on controversial areas
and topics which airs on Lebanon's leading local and
satelite channel, Future Television. Diana also is a
veteran war correspondent, having covered both the
wars in Iraq and in Afghanistan, as well as the
Isreali "Grapes of Wrath" massacre in southern
Lebanon. Ms. Moukalled has gained world wide
recognition and was named one of the most influential
women in a special feature that ran in Time Magazine
in 2004.
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