Lebanon takes a step backward

Years back, when the memory of Lebanon's civil war was still vivid, Druze leader Walid Junblatt told me in an interview that he considered the safeguarding of his religious community as his primary concern. Lebanon, he said, would always be a collection of sects, and not a nation in any real sense.

Although I had been a member of the National Movement, a coalition of leftists and Muslim forces, led by Junblatt, and previously by his father, Kamal Junblatt, I was only slightly disconcerted.

By the end of the civil war, even die-hard idealists who had believed in the rhetoric of a modern, democratic Lebanon advanced by the National Movement, realised that the lines of conflict in that land were drawn along sectarian lines. In 1990, after the dust settled, and after an estimated 170,000 deaths, Lebanon was a divided nation, suffering two capitals: east and west Beirut.

The city centre was totally destroyed, turned into no-man's land. The area had become home to a huge and casual rodent population, where tropical size trees busted through the pavement. No longer the land of religious tolerance and coexistence, Lebanon was now a divided nation.

A few weeks after I spoke to Junblatt, I interviewed Rafik Hariri for an article for the Washington Times — only days after the multi-billionaire was appointed prime minister for the first time.

On a personal level, I found Hariri to be an extremely charismatic man, generous in the way he displayed his wealth, but also down to earth, and genuinely affable. When the hour-long interview ended, I left thinking I could be one of his very best friends.

That feeling lasted for a couple of hours, until I sat down to write my story and come to grips with what he told me. Hariri had drawn a map of his vision for Lebanon that seemed too naive, and idealistic. He called it Horizon 2000. Within less than a decade, he told me, the war-torn country would be a tourist destination, with a new airport, new infrastructure, and a beautiful new city centre.

He had made a few billion dollars in a few years, I thought, so he was obviously not naive; so I concluded that he must have thought I was — typically underestimating the intelligence of a reporter!

Lebanon a tourist destination? A thriving city centre peopled by Christians and Muslims? That evening I wrote a cynical article, deprecating the man and his views.

My cynicism faded with time. Hariri did build a new airport, a new road infrastructure, and launched the rebuilding of the city centre in a manner that earned it numerous awards.

In 2009, Beirut was at the top of the New York Times list of cities to visit. Christians and Muslims are back, comfortably sitting side by side at the thriving cafes of the city centre. The bells of St George Cathedral toll in harmony with the call for prayer from the adjoining Al Ameen Mosque.

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No other Lebanese in recent history has been able to do what Hariri did for his country, in terms of bringing its people together. In the days following his assassination, huge numbers of Christian mourners turned out to light a candle at his grave, an unprecedented event in a country where people are accustomed to mourning only their own.

Neither Hezbollah's Hassan Nasrallah, nor Christian leader Michel Aoun, nor Junblatt will ever enjoy Hariri's stature as a statesman. Because these men choose to treat Lebanon as an agglomeration of sects, only their co-religionists will care what happens to them.

Over the years, I had the opportunity to meet with Hariri a few more times, and the chance to know him better. I believe he would be saddened to see himself or his son identified today as just a Sunni leader. While indeed a religious man, and proud of his ties to his sect, he saw himself, and wanted others to see him, as a Lebanese first.

Those who killed him may have finally succeeded in destroying his dream; the country is now once more teetering on the brink of sectarian strife. This is more reason why his killers should be brought to justice. I have seen comments in this newspaper, and in others, suggesting that it would be better to let bygones be bygones. Pursuing the course of justice, some argue, will inflame sensitivities and worsen the situation.

Obviously this is ridiculous … the suggestion that the findings of an international court should not be made public or respected because they may irritate the accused or the killers. The alternative is to give in to intimidation by criminals who will forever hold the country hostage.

Ridiculous.

This week, Lebanese politicians from all sides drove another nail in the coffin of Hariri's vision of a nation for all. We are back to those dark days of sectarian politics, and the pragmatic, albeit depressing philosophy of Junblatt.

 Ramez Maluf is a former editor of The Middle East Times and Beirut's The Daily Star.