We need to stop trivializing the expression “mini civil war,” even if that trivialization has some justification, since nearly every week we encounter events that could rightly be described as a “mini civil war.” Just last week, we used the term to describe a social media clash sparked by Christmas decorations in downtown Beirut. Before that, we used it for the Tayyouneh clashes. Then came the daily online fights over Hezbollah’s weapons. And today, we apply it to the roaming confrontations between Sidon, Beirut, and Tripoli on the anniversary of Bashar al-Assad’s flight.
We have cheapened the Civil War by invoking it in mazes that fall short of the “nobility” of wars we are, in reality, incapable of waging. Hezbollah, as the sole armed sectarian force, is incapable of initiating a civil war, given the blows it has suffered and the targeting it continues to face. As for the Lebanese Sunni community, which rose yesterday to celebrate the fall of Assad’s regime in Syria, we tested it during the events of May 7, 2008. It showed little resistance; Hezbollah occupied its areas, humiliated their residents, and killed dozens.
Yes, today’s scene differs from that of May 7. Shiites feel besieged. Sunnis have caught their breath after the victory of their “brothers” in Syria. Christians share with Sunnis their hostility toward Hezbollah, yet share with Shiites a fear of the dominance of the majority. All of this, however, is not enough to ignite a civil war. Who would fund such a war? Who would invest in its outcomes? The planet is broke. Iran is besieged. Saudi Arabia is not on the same wavelength as the emotions of Lebanese Sunnis, even though we struggle to understand its sidelining of Saad Hariri, who alone, it seems, is capable of restraining Lebanese Sunnis from drifting toward options beyond the borders.
But our inability to wage a war will not spare us its consequences and outcomes. When incapacity becomes the foundation of civil peace, it means paying the social and psychological costs of war without actually fighting it. Demographic sorting, financial collapse, corruption, and failure; the mafias of electricity generators and garbage on the streets; tensions along the airport road and in every zone of sectarian friction, all of this operates without a civil war.
Hezbollah’s weapons prevent the establishment of a state capable of containing the risks of a “mini civil war,” but new elements have begun to emerge in this context. If the weapons issue remains politically intractable for Christian forces, Sunni Lebanese indicators have started to surface in light of the Syrian developments. This community, violated by the “resistance’s” weapons for more than two decades, now feels that the time has come to move from the position of victim to that of perpetrator. Who would have imagined celebrants of Assad’s fall heading toward the vicinity of Beirut’s southern suburbs, raising the new Syrian flags?
Only the bankruptcy of parties and sects shields us from a civil explosion; yet we are living through the consequences of that explosion in installments. The road between Sidon and Beirut was not safe yesterday. Those heading to the airport to welcome their children returning for the holidays were besieged by motorcycle demonstrations celebrating Assad’s fall, and by counter-demonstrations from Hezbollah supporters.
Lebanese, after failing to live together, have decided to live with the conditions produced by that failure. When the southern suburbs were being bombed, Beirut was preparing for the holidays. Yesterday, the tensions on the airport road did not disrupt nightlife in the city’s entertainment districts.
This is not a “mini civil war.” It is a way of life we have continued to navigate for more than twenty years, twenty years during which we have been unable to wage a clear, straightforward, and clean civil war. We failed to do what our predecessors managed to do with clarity and determination, even though they were less agitated than we are and more willing to live together.
