Hanin Ghaddar

The Syrian people are resisting a well-armed dictator who is backed by Iran and Hezbollah. Many in Lebanon are also resisting a well-armed dictator, one who is backed by Syria and Iran. The difference is that the Lebanese are followers who believe their leaders can still function as the opposition, while the Syrians have broken the chains of fear and have, once and for all, decided to act.

While the Arab street is confronting tyranny and paying a huge price for freedom, Lebanon seems to be on another planet. No one is willing to pay any price anymore to maintain the last shred of dignity Lebanese had. We took everything for granted and forgot that freedom is not a given, but needs to be earned.

Between 2005 and 2008, scores of Lebanese sacrificed their lives to achieve freedom and democracy. But today, it feels like the Cedar Revolution happened decades ago. Samir Kassir died in a car bomb explosion in 2006, hoping for the 2005 Independence Intifada to spread to the region. The author of “The Dream of Change” believed that "The Arab Spring, when it blossoms in Beirut, declares the time of roses in Damascus.”

Kassir’s words did not leave me. They haunt me with a bitterness mixed with hope. I feel bitterness because we failed ourselves and those who sacrificed for us. I feel bitterness because despite the fact that the Special Tribunal for Lebanon unsealed the indictment, we are still waiting for a miracle to happen instead of acting. But hope remains, because Lebanon, no matter how insignificant or helpless it feels today, cannot remain like this. We just have to reverse Kassir's dream; maybe when spring blooms in Damascus it will spread to Beirut.

Last week, Time magazine published an interview with one of the four suspects in the 2005 assassination of former PM Rafik Hariri. The man said that he is in Lebanon and that the Lebanese government knows his whereabouts, but will not arrest him. Hezbollah refuted the interview, and March 14 politicians said it shows that Najib Mikati's government is covering for Hezbollah to help the party escape international justice.

That’s it. Nothing but statements that will lead nowhere, while Hezbollah has taken the country and its citizens hostage since it collapsed the government in January. Why is it a surprise that a suspect in Hariri's assassination feels free to say that no one, not even the Lebanese government, can arrest him and bring him to justice? Were we seriously expecting this government to look for the suspects? The real surprise is that no one seems to care anymore, and that statements are the only tool the opposition is capable of using.

Hezbollah has turned Lebanon into a joke, a silly one at that. It should be outrageous to us that Lebanon was the only country on the Security Council that dissociated itself from the statement condemning the Syrian regime's brutal crackdown against the protesters there. It should be outrageous to us that when Lebanese demonstrated in front of the Syrian Embassy in Beirut, they got attacked by thugs, and that nobody protected them. It should be outrageous to us that these thugs are still walking freely in Hamra today, intimidating anyone who dares voice any kind of support for the Syrian people's freedom. It should be outrageous to us that Hamra has stopped being a free space where people can voice their opinions and is now a headquarters for Hezbollah's ally, the Syrian Social Nationalist Party.

All because too many compromises were made, from the infamous former national unity government, to the national dialogue and the Saudi-Syrian deal over Lebanon's ties to the Special Tribunal for Lebanon. Too many compromises turned Lebanon into a country that has no respect for itself or its citizens.
Is it too late for us to join the Arab Spring? There might be a chance if we could break the chains imposed on us by Hezbollah and by March 14's cowardice and incapacity to take bold initiatives.

Two months before he was murdered, Kassir wrote, “Comrades in opposition [March 14] new or old, go to the streets. You will hear the people’s concerns, and you will hear an urgent call for another kind of revolution, a revolution against the self, that will open the end of the Baath regime’s hegemony in Lebanon to the horizons of a modern state, a state for citizens, not a state for followers.”

Maybe it is not too late. If March 14 is too afraid to take the initiative, or has got their hands tied, the people, who are free from political calculations, should be able to do it for themselves.
If there were more protesters in front of the Syrian Embassy, the thugs would have hesitated before attacking them. And while the Lebanese government is responsible for protecting protesters, their fellow citizens should have joined in to boost their numbers.

The demands of the Lebanese, as divided as we are, might be too diverse for us to gather. But we must look for a connection, for it cannot be more urgent. For the first time in years, Lebanese from opposing camps gathered in the same space, Martyrs Square, earlier this month to voice support for the Syrian people. They weren't many, but they were there. The Syrian uprising should be motivation for the Lebanese, at least those who truly aspire for freedom beyond political divisions and calculations, to come together.

That is the only true cause now. The STL will take its course with or without us, but if we lose our will for freedom, we will lose ourselves. We need to hang on to the breeze of freedom coming from Syria, or else we will never forgive ourselves. We are not allowed to lose hope. If we do, then we deserve to remain in chains.

Hanin Ghaddar is managing editor of NOW Lebanon.