Weapons in Lebanon are not just the cannons, rockets, and rifles that Hezbollah hides in its warehouses, tunnels, and depots, nor that pile of rusty arms we saw crammed into a truck after being collected from the Burj al-Barajneh Palestinian refugee camp south of Beirut. Weapons are, above all, a psychological structure embedded in the collective consciousness of a large part of the Lebanese people.
For more than five decades, arms have accumulated as a communal ritual, a pillar of psychological balance cemented by highly complex equations. Fifteen years of civil war were followed by more than three decades of ministerial statements that shielded illegal weapons. Before that, there was the Cairo Agreement and the early signs of training camps set up by parties preparing for war. Weapons became an idea dominating the emotions of entire communities. True, the degree of attachment varies from one group to another, but the idea still appeals even to those who have never touched a gun, seducing new generations who never lived through war.
Disarmament is an act of excision. It is not merely political—it is almost anthropological. This truth explains the bewilderment of political, sectarian, even cultural and media circles when the issue of disarmament is raised. For weapons are not only a sectarian advantage; they are also a psychological equilibrium. In this sense, disarmament feels like stripping away what the majority of Shiites, some non-Shiites, and segments of the leftist elite—who are not necessarily loyal to Hezbollah—consider to be a guarantor of security, akin to what a tribe feels when it is forcibly settled and subjected to authority beyond its sheikh’s domain.
More than fifty years of “armed resistance” have shaped a collective consciousness in which weapons became a protective pillar against imagined defeats. They became a condition for sleeping soundly, free from anxiety.
It’s true that weapons have brought us nothing but defeat, devastation, and oceans of blood. Yet they also became our only anthem. We have cultivated arts that glorify the gun—songs, music, paintings, and slogans, from “Weapons are the adornment of men” to “These are the weapons of the men of God.”
Weapons are planted in the imaginations of generations far removed from militias. They are the relic of a lost cause; indeed, they have preceded the cause, and even become the cause itself. One can strip Palestine from many people’s consciousness, but it is much harder to strip away weapons. This is perhaps best illustrated by the debate over Hezbollah’s arsenal today. The weapons are more important than their purpose, more important than their function. The idea of weapons overshadows their reality. We know Israel destroyed much of Hezbollah’s arsenal, yet it never destroyed the meaning of weapons to the party. Without arms, Hezbollah would be just another political party, but its power lies in being exceptional.
Weapons also embody the imagined strength of the sect as perceived by others. There is a stark difference between an armed Shiite and an unarmed one in the mirror of other communities, in every arena of daily life. Other sects—those without arms—have projected onto us the image of hiding guns under our car seats.
We must also observe the military aesthetics in the rituals of those who disarmed. The Lebanese Forces surrendered their weapons, but their commemorations and festivals still evoke the imagery of past arsenals. Nostalgia for arms is part of the consciousness, if not subconsciousness, of new generations of Lebanese Forces supporters. This does not mean the group will return to armed struggle, but it highlights that the era of its birth remains its core memory. Likewise, we were surprised to discover that the Progressive Socialist Party still had weapons depots, which Walid Jumblatt ceremoniously handed over to the army in a solemn, even sorrowful, ritual.
And what of the “leftists” who surrendered their weapons, despite claiming to have broken free from Hezbollah’s orbit after the October revolution? They have little else to wield in their struggle with Israel besides “the gun.” For them, politics is weapons, the Palestinian cause is weapons, the conflict with Israel is weapons. Their only memory of their cause is tied to arms. We are not talking about rusting rifles or unseen rockets, but about the Kalashnikov sanctified by the song “Keep Your Weapon Awake”, and the baptism it represented in a collective consciousness layered over five decades.
It is not certain that Deputy Commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, Iraj Masjedi, relies on this emotional legacy when he says, “Hezbollah’s weapons are the weapons of the Lebanese people and will never be removed.” Yet his words, while provoking rejection among many Lebanese, will also resonate among the “men of God,” and find sympathy in circles that have not yet processed the trauma of losing arms. Meanwhile, Tom Barrack, who celebrated the government’s decision to monopolize weapons, does not care about our tormented relationship with this inheritance of arms. He is carrying out his country’s agenda here, unaware that among us are “children of weapons” who do not even believe in the Guardianship of the Jurist, but were nonetheless shaped by an American University of Beirut education that sent them forth carrying the message of arms.
After fifty years of weapons, the state suddenly awakens and declares the exclusive right to bear them! What do we do with all these ideas, this musical legacy, these paintings? This is not mere nonsense—it is theater, novels, poetry, and even Rita, the iconic figure separated from her lover by a rifle.
This is not how the camels are brought to water, Nawaf Salam. The story is deeper than that ridiculous banner in Hermel accusing you of treason. The story is perhaps deeper even than Hezbollah’s arsenal. It is about how we deal with the weaponry planted in our collective consciousness. Scrap weapons that never brought us a single victory still help us cling to them.
A friend once told me: “I haven’t carried a gun in over thirty years, but every day I wake up with the disappointment of not finding a rifle under my bed.” Confronting this disappointment must be part of the decision to place all arms under the authority of the state, while Washington and Tehran negotiate the price of weapons—and of the scrap they leave behind.
