Hazem al-Amin

Public affairs in Lebanon are so frivolous that only the populace can put up with them. One look is enough to make you feel the insult and disdain leveled by politics not only at your intelligence, but also at your dignity, a word that has returned to the Arab political dictionary thanks to popular uprisings. Up until less than a year ago, the expression “Thank you, Qatar” adorned the streets of Lebanon’s south, and Qatar was the darling of rejectionist press, “elites” and societies. This culminated in Speaker Nabih Berri’s famous wordplay, in which he compared Qatar to countless droplets of much-awaited rain.

When going from Beirut to the South nowadays, one will not encounter any sign similar to the one raised by the “Resistance society” in honor of the state of Qatar. Rather, a giant sign hangs on the outskirts of the town of Kafra, but whoever put it up did so upside down so as to convey that he is recanting his thanks to the state that rebuilt his village!

The rejectionist press, which had previously elevated Qatar from the ranks of a Gulf state to those of an oasis and a dream, diabolized this “petrodollar” state overnight. In so doing, it used the same ideological arsenal as the one used to confront its enemies. Al-Jazeera went from being the sole holder of truth, knowledge and ethics to being a mouthpiece of “imperialism” reeking of hatred and poison.
All this was caused by Qatar’s transition from being an ally of the Syrian regime to being its foe and by Al-Jazeera’s coverage of the uprising in Syria in a manner that displeased the regime.

Still, an observer of the troubled rejectionist scene as a result of the Syrian uprising will not be surprised by such facts (turning the sign upside down and the press transition to insults following years of glorification). Rather, the surprise comes from the ease of “sweeping down on Qatar.” It happened automatically at the same level and speed with which Qatar dissociated itself from Syria. Indeed, Qatari Foreign Minister Hamad bin Jassem al-Jaber al-Thani went to Damascus and met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The two men disagreed, so the former returned to his country, and “Thank you, Qatar” signs were brought down in South Lebanon. On the following day, rejectionist newspapers took their Qatar-loving and Qatari readership by surprise by calling on them to review their feelings regarding that state. This happened suddenly without any transition respecting the intelligence of those who listen to such rhetoric.

The funny thing is that the “Resistance society” adopted sharp emotional stances on Doha, its TV station and its government. Its transition to a wholly different attitude is tantamount to a lover staggering away from his beloved. While love might justify staggering, politics makes no allowance for it, especially the kind of politics that abides by the diktats of logic and reason. Accordingly, the satire against Qatar nowadays is closer to hallucination in a vicious circle than to politics as an expression of community interests.

Still, this would all be acceptable if we bear in mind that Qatar was elevated to the status of an oasis state only to be brought down to the rank of a “petrodollar hell” with much the same ease characterizing various other aspects of the rejectionist rhetoric. In this respect, we are merely describing something that has happen and will inevitably happen again.

This article is a translation of the original, which appeared on the NOW Arabic site on Friday September 2, 2011