The Time to Dare to Speak!

Should we mourn Ali Khamenei? Shall we join the procession of the grieving, or perhaps name an avenue in our capital after this martyr? In their complacency, our governments once even gave the name of Hafez al-Assad to a busy street, celebrating in sæcula sæculorum his so-called golden age on our land.*

After all, the Iranian Supreme Leader did indeed shape Lebanon and rule it just as the usurpers Assad—father and son—did. And even if it was through intermediaries, he left indelible marks on our history, violating our institutions and tearing apart our uniquely fragile social fabric. For decades, our country was nothing more than a Syrian-Iranian condominium, a strip of land along the Mediterranean where Damascus and Tehran simultaneously exercised their joint sovereignty.

Our successive heads of state, our prime ministers, our commanders-in-chief, and their second-tier aides—those gray eminences—saw no problem with this arrangement as long as their respective interests were safeguarded, their camarilla prospered, and their close relatives could build financial empires and vast real-estate fortunes.

Fear Imposed and Profit Promised

The axis of defiance (al-moumana’a) did not abandon the Lebanese stage after the withdrawal of Syrian troops in 2005. Having penetrated the state since the mandate of Elias Hrawi, it had installed its “creatures” at every level of the civil and military administration. It had infused its poison and corroded the machinery of the state. Worse still, it imposed its official narrative upon the media.

Whether willingly or not, we had to adopt its single line of thought glorifying the “Resistance.” We ended up chanting its refrains almost involuntarily.

The collaboration of our elites was only natural: as everywhere in the world, it was driven by the fear imposed by Hezbollah and by the profits it allowed people to hope for. The free press remained muzzled, and the ordinary citizen gradually developed a bad habit—that of no longer calling things by their proper names. Silence—whether called muteness or discretion, that politeness of cowards—did the rest.

But now, at this precise moment of American interventionism, at this breaking point, what prevents the Lebanese—rebellious as they are—from exclaiming:
“It is enough! Iranians out! Your henchmen behave here as if in a conquered land!”

The Apology of Physical Liquidation

The American bombing has settled accounts with Allah’s vicar in Tehran. Mitra Hejazipour, a chess champion and Iranian refusenik, openly welcomed the news. In her “insolence,” she did not restrain her exultation—unlike many of our political leaders who live in fear of a backlash.

“For decades,” she said verbatim, “millions of Iranians have awaited the end of this man and what he represented. Nothing will bring back the victims of this regime; nothing will erase the shattered lives, the torture, the executions, the humiliations. But after forty-seven years of this criminal dictatorship ruling Iran, this is the first time…”

Lebanese who remain gagged by fear—disguised as temperance—take example from Mitra Hejazipour, or from our pop star Elissa, who dared to call Hezbollah a terrorist organization.

An Iranian woman and a Lebanese woman have dared. What are you waiting for to denounce the unbearable?

*The street was later renamed after Ziad Rahbani, commemorating a memory far more melodious.