13 March 2006

Commentary

As Lebanon's troubled national dialogue gears up for its second round Monday, its surrounding spectators hold almost as much interest as the actors once again preparing to take the stage. The cast in this rendition of "A Dialogue Made in Lebanon" is varied.

There are international directors standing behind the curtains an almost fatherly look on their faces as they watch their "children" play out their roles. Those characters contain little room for improvisation and more than one interest rides on the lines they utter.

Regional prompters are at the ready to jump in, script in hand in case one of the actors flounders.

The actors are bold, with some more experienced on the world stage than others. One or two seem desperate to hold onto the status quo, while another one-year-old group, headed by a veteran performer, is eager to embrace the new script that has been written for them by the Lebanese people.

And beyond the footlights, the faceless, expectant local spectators await. A public ready to be amused, ready to be entertained, ready to put their livelihood on the line, but already building predictions and betting wagers on the twists, turns and finale of the plot.

After the short interim, during which the actors have re-read their lines and re-confirmed their positions with the directors, the play is ready to resume - this time with a notch more tension as it approaches its climax.

But the theater is old. This is a region that has seen many plays acted out and its boards are weary. Its roof is leaking and it has been sold to too many directors ever ready to make their show the season's most talked about pi?ce de r?sistance - the one with the most controversial actors, the thickest plot line and the most unexpected twists.

But really, this is not a play. Nor is it a game where everyone goes home, unaffected by the final score.

This region is edging perilously close to the precipice.

On a smaller scale, Lebanon has been veering ever closer to an out-and-out conflict that so far has desperately and precariously been reined in. One false step from any direction can turn this comedy into a tragedy.

The performance is intriguing. The main teams see Syria and Iran on one side, with the U.S. and France on the other. The brotherly Arab countries are somewhere in the middle, trying to referee the game. Lebanon is the ball. And of course, the most controversial team of all - Israel, all in a league of its own, on all sides at once for the past 50 years or rather on one side for a while, on another for a while longer, and a winner either way.

So let's take a look around.

Emerging patch-work phrases like "clash of civilizations" get bandied around on a daily basis in an attempt to explain a phenomenon or rather a political and religious struggle for power between the teams that has left this part of the world in shambles.

After the riots and killings in retaliation for the publishing of the controversial Prophet Mohammad cartoons, the divide between West and the East seemed too palpable for words.

The stately French President Jacques Chirac, during his visit to Saudi Arabia, called it a "clash of ignorance" between West and East.

The Gulf state of Qatar hosted a much-publicized and much hyped conference gathering big players in the region and the world to discuss this clash of civilizations and educate those not in the know. As with any UN-sponsored conference, it came out with a vague "working plan," which omitted key issues previously noted on the agenda.

Even before that, Iran's first reformist president, Mohammad Khatami, made the Dialogue of Civilizations the focal topic of discussion on his recent visit to Beirut, where he talked in his flowing Arabic about Lebanon's shining example of coexistence.

The late Pope John Paul II said of the Lebanese on his departure from the country: "I urge them to continue in this direction, by giving an example of harmony between cultures and religions, in a society where all the people and different communities are considered equal.

"May your nation, whose mountains are like a beacon on the sea coast, offer the countries of the region a witness of social cohesion and good understanding between all its cultural and religious constituents."

Yes, Lebanon. The model of co-existence so talked about all over the world. The shining beacon on the sea coast.

But scratch the surface and you see a microcosm of the same clash of civilizations, clash of ignorance and rejection of the other that has become the world's latest pet peeve.

It is only now, decades later and decades too late, that those in the upper echelons of Lebanon's political class have come to the realization that they are not really a representation of a cohesive social structure.

Lebanon and its national dialogue. The first ever dialogue that is "Lebanese-Lebanese," with "no foreign interference at all and is taking place on Lebanese soil for the first time in the country's history."

These words have topped the headlines in the country's newspapers and television screens. On the lips of its desperate public and its proud politicians. In the speeches of international and Arab ambassadors here after they emerge from hours of meetings with the main participants in the dialogue.

These words are reinforced time and again. Spoken repeatedly as though something to be proud of.

Lebanon is not a young nation. These words - if true - are not something to be proud of. They are words which should be said with chagrin. With an acceptance from the country's politicians that this process, phase, concept, is so long overdue.

They should realize, wake up, to their public's mocking words and disbelief that "we have been asking for this for a far longer time than it is comfortable for you to admit."

But admit it they have - or so they say. March 14, 2005 the name that the new coalition here bears so proudly - was formed in the streets of downtown Beirut. Not by the politicians. It was the people who said: "Finally, you listen. You no longer have a choice but to listen."

For a while after that, they stopped listening again maybe bar the one veteran leader, ahead of the others, who was loudly proclaiming "we have lost our chance, the one chance the people gave us to be a model of co-existence, an antidote to the clash of civilizations."

Surprisingly, they received a heaven-sent second chance on February 14, 2006, when the people, so desperately in need of a real political class, took to the streets again in a significant enough number to deliver a slap in the face to their sluggish politicians.

Today, those leaders resemble the Qatari conference. The big boys are assembled, each one with his bank of information and instructions. Each one trying to educate the other on his point of view and bridge the divide to form a united nation. They are on the stage and ready to roll, baby.

In the meantime ... looking a little further south another little problem festers. Sidon's waste dump sits, much like the play's audience, ready, expectant yet slowly but surely crumbling at the foundations to create a mass problem for the nation.

Sidon is, today, according to its mayor who has waited like all politicians until the last minute to speak out in a state of emergency. The dump is no longer just the city's problem. It's the nation's problem. It's also Syria, Turkey and Greece's burgeoning problem as the waste slowly makes its way to their coasts.

Something else is now also in a state of emergency, exactly like Sidon's dump although a little more on the hush-hush Lebanon's economy.

Early last week as first round of the dialogue kicked off and as downtown closed off to business and profit businessmen held their silence over the consequences this would have on an already downtrodden economy.

Yet but one week later, that political decision was dropped like hot coal.

As the reality of the dialogue's economic consequences kick in, and as the Arab brothers' timely funding trickles to a minimum with the tottering of the "inter-Lebanese talks" and with their own stock market-crash worries, our businessmen abandoned their politically induced silence and scurried from one politician to the next begging for financial reprieve.

Hence, the country's moribund economy will now be added to the dialogue's agenda as per the finance minister's promises today.

Well, at least one can say that it made it through to the last or what should be the last round.

No more dawdling, no more breaks to confer with leaderships and no more failures for Lebanon's political "elite."

The clash of civilizations, Lebanon's national dialogue, Sidon's dump.

There doesn't seem to be much of a connection there. But look a little closer. The actors although all 100 percent Lebanese - share nothing but a gaping divide which they need to patch up quickly and satisfy their people.

They are there to represent someone, lest they forget, and that someone needs to live and to eat.

And Sidon's dump? Well Sidon's dump needs to be cleaned and Lebanon too has to pick up its waste and its $40 billion debt-ridden feet so its neighbors and its own citizens can take its demands for "freedom, independence, sovereignty" and its "Independence Intifada" a little more seriously.