"everyone is entitled to their own opinion, not everyone is entitled to their own facts" - Daniel Patrick Moynihan.
In Lebanon as in
Bahrain, a regressive Sunnite regime treated shiites as second class citizens. This is what provoked the emergence of Hezbollah.
The fact is that Sunnite marginals (who don't by any means represent Sunnites) are accused of 9/11. They are affiliated with Saudi Arabia, today's oppressive backers of Banana Republics in Tunis, Egypt, and Lebanon before that. They are also
allies of the US. The revolutionary association of women Afghanistan tells us that the US simply alternated backing this type of
extremist groups in Afghanistan. Hezbollah on the other hand are shiites, and the Lebanese equivalent of the Zapatistas. No one could support their social cause, of racism against shiites in Lebanon while they were violent in the 80's, but now westernized Lebanese Christians like me have understood what triggered Hezbollah, and to reverse this process and make them feel respected within the Lebanese democracy. This lead to the 2006 memorandum of understanding between Hezbollah and Lebanese nationalists.
We are all ultimately responsible for every group of people that snaps, because we crush them with our indifference to their rights. We now know better, and we don't owe the US to stay frozen in the past: we enter the phase where we strongly define Lebanese citizenry in Lebanon, and no longer be available to a foreign-provoked civil war again.
This was entirely negated by the US media, the Lebanese citizenry movement in particular. Advocacy for true Lebanese citizenry was triggered in 1989, by Michel Aoun, leader of the anti-Syrian (pacifist) liberation movement in Lebanon. This movement was unlike the after-the-fact "anti-Syrian" pro-west government that waited until after the Syrian occupation ended to claim a pro-west (but never a pro-Lebanon) stand. It's also an anti-religious segregation movement, which denounces the :divide and destabilize" strategy used against Lebanon. It counteracts segregation through dialogue and bridging differences, with Hezbollah and every Lebanese faction. Aoun's movement was the driving force that lobbied to have the US sign the Syria accountability act in 2003. Unfortunately, the US only sided with that movement in 2005, to expel the Syrian occupation, in order to seemingly colonize Lebanon in their own turn. All of this goes entirely over the head of those who scream "get rid of them", in good old
holly war fashion, and the
STL tries to distract Lebanon from its new citizenry focus.
The memorandum of understanding between the patriotic party and Hezbollah (2006) is a multi-step program where they disarm and re-define themselves to better fit in a democracy. This was suspiciously blacked out by western media. This understanding also proves to us that we're not stuck, being a civil war waiting to happen. We can now become a country. Up to this day, we don't understand why the US vilifies anyone who doesn't want to be a Saudi colony and reduces them to an outdated Hezbollah stereotype,... it is all very shady. Lebanon identifies with Tunis, Egypt and others to come, who don't fall f saudi-backed sectarianism. They are also rejecting corrupt governments.
Note: I've used the equivalent of the N word by using religious labels here, but only to speak in terms still used in the media today. Like many
nationalists , I reject sectarian labels and advocate equal rights for all Lebanese.
