Hazem Saghiyeh

It is no secret that the Lebanese are divided over extremely essential issues both within and outside their country. Their division is only natural and is a right they have as free individuals and citizens.
Therefore, some of them support the Syrian regime and others support the rebellion against it. Some enthusiastically support Iran in the event of a foreign strike and others eagerly support a strike on Iran, saying that it is a quintessential condition for Lebanon’s salvation.
This is all legitimate, healthy even.

The wretched thing is for the Lebanese people’s division over these issues to turn into inter-Lebanese fighting. It is for a Lebanese party to involve the country – in terms of war and violence – in this or that conflict regardless of the other party’s will and without referring back to the state, which is supposedly the institution that synthesizes national unanimities and the sole decision-maker on war and peace.

The behavior that immerses the country in surrounding wars and conflicts without referring back to other parties in the same country has but one denomination: Despotism. This despotism is extremely costly because it covers life and death, existence and lack thereof.

The Europeans have already dealt with a similar matter since before the 1648 Peace of Westphalia: Back then, open continental conflicts – be they over religions or dynasties – were confronted with the case of Switzerland, which was formed by opposing German, French and Italian communities.

It was natural that each of these communities would stand for the people it originated from, thus transforming European wars into a Swiss civil war destroying this small country.

The solution was found in Switzerland’s neutrality, which was later reaffirmed with the Vienna Conference following the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815. This neutrality allowed Switzerland to avert this small pluralistic nation the disastrous results that took the rest of the continent by storm with World War I and World War II. This would not have been made possible were it not for the sharp distinction between natural and legitimate emotions and wishes on the one hand and, on the other, military participation in conflicts and the conclusion of war and security alliances.
Lebanon’s situation today urges one to give the Swiss model some thinking now that the region is laden with lethal conflicts, some of which have a potential of becoming nuclear ones. This wish, however, is countered head-on and rendered impossible by the wish to meet tensions halfway. This same wish to allow the conflict to include everyone has already found its most sublime expression in Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah’s speech a couple of days ago.
And we, of course, are not in Switzerland!

This article is a translation of the original, which appeared on the NOW Arabic site on Monday November 14, 2011