Articles

“You have to say it: the rosary keeps you from falling any lower.” Raoul* – a language-loving retiree, an overqualified Lebanese-Canadian family man living under the constant threat of unemployment – says it matter-of-factly, without going into detail. In May, the month the Church dedicates to the Virgin Mary, stories of help received through the rosary are countless. For Fahed F., a native of Kesrouan, his marriage would have remained childless without the rosary and visits to the Marian shrine of Béchouate, in the Bekaa Valley. “Start praying!” the businessman suddenly hears inwardly just after handing his car keys to a worker he had sent on an errand. When the man returns – after discreetly repeating Hail Mary’s near the construction site where his laborers were working – he learns that his car had skidded on the rain-slick Metn highway and might have plunged into a ravine had a large bush not providentially stopped its course. In their own way, such testimonies echo the words of Pope Leo XIV, who traveled on May 8 to the shrine of Pompeii in Italy to mark the first anniversary of his pontificate. “The rosary,” he said, “is the prayer of the poor (...). It contains the essence of Christian theology.” Above all, he added, it embodies the dogmas of the Incarnation and Redemption. Indeed, gathered in passing conversations, these testimonies suggest that the rosary truly is “the prayer of the poor” – heaven’s all-purpose prayer, the one people instinctively turn to at any moment and in every circumstance: to obtain a grace, stop a war, ease childbirth, find the strength to rise again, pass an exam or avert an accident. A Tradition Dating Back to the 13th Century The recitation of the chaplet and the rosary traces its origins to medieval Europe. During the campaign against the Albigensian sect in the early 13th century, the Virgin Mary is said to have appeared to Saint Dominic and explained that prayer – more powerful in defeating heresy than polemics or warfare – was the weapon that must be used. The faithful, she instructed, were to repeat ceaselessly: “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us poor sinners!” This is said to be the origin of the rosary. One allegorical account holds that the Virgin Mary herself handed Saint Dominic the precious string of knots or beads now seen hanging from the rearview mirrors of so many cars. In monasteries, illiterate monks were thereafter instructed to recite the rosary’s 150 Hail Mary’s while gradually learning the 150 psalms of the Psalter. Composed of five decades of Hail Mary’s, each punctuated by an Our Father and a Glory Be, the chaplet is a repetitive prayer. The rosary originally comprised three chaplets, enabling the faithful to meditate on the fifteen Joyful, Sorrowful and Glorious Mysteries. In this context, the word “mystery” refers to a central episode in the life of Christ. At the beginning of the 21st century, John Paul II added a fourth set of five so-called “Luminous Mysteries,” though their recitation remains optional. Each decade is accompanied by meditation on one of these mysteries from Christ’s life. To make the rosary more accessible – not only to clergy but also to lay believers pressed for time – the Church assigned specific groups of mysteries to different days of the week, allowing the full rosary to be spread over three or four days. Rooted in History Its deep roots in the Church’s history give the chaplet unquestionable spiritual legitimacy. Its greatest strength lies in its accessibility. It adapts easily to each person’s worries and available moments. Admittedly, experience shows that its repetitive nature can at times lead to mechanical recitation – or even drowsiness – and that completing the chaplet often requires an effort of concentration. Yet that effort is rarely unrewarded. A powerful source of support in life’s many hardships – health crises, professional setbacks and anxieties of every kind – the chaplet can also lead believers toward new depths in the Scriptures and into a genuine personal encounter with Christ. “The greatest miracle of the rosary is the one that takes place in the heart,” says Marielle, a Maronite mother raised in a family where the chaplet was recited every day. She admits that, as a child, she almost always fell asleep during prayer and still does not know how to pray the rosary on her own. “With my husband,” she says, “we often manage to turn it into a moment of grace, of conversation, of encounter with the Lord and powerful intercession. We bring all our worries into it.” Changing the Course of History But the “Queen of Heaven and Earth” does not merely assist individuals. She also seeks to lead entire peoples, continents and the world itself to her Son. Her intercession – particularly through the rosary – is believed to be capable of changing the course of history. The textbook example often cited in this regard is the role attributed to the rosary in the famous naval Battle of Lepanto (Ionian Sea, October 7, 1571), which pitted the Ottoman fleet of Selim II against the ships of the Holy League coalition led by Spain and the Republic of Venice. With 187 vessels lost out of 251 engaged, and more than 20,000 men killed, the outcome of the battle was considered providential. That day marked a decisive halt to Ottoman expansionism. Consequently, Pope Pius V established October 7 as the liturgical feast of the Rosary. The former Arab-Muslim presence in Europe left the continent with two beautiful reminders: Lourdes and Fatima. The village of Fatima, in Portugal, bears the name of the Prophet of Islam’s favorite daughter. Behind this unusual toponymy lies the enduring memory of Andalusia and the Arab presence on the Iberian Peninsula. Why Mary chose this village to warn of the tragedies of the 20th century remains her secret. What is known, however, is that she appeared to the three children who witnessed her as Our Lady of the Rosary and asked for its daily recitation. “The Noblest of Ladies” In the case of Lourdes, an oral tradition recorded by chroniclers suggests that the name may derive from the Arabic word “warda” (rose, flower), through the shift of the Arabic consonant “waw” into the French liquid consonant “l”. It is also conjectured that the Massabielle grotto, where the Virgin appeared to Saint Bernadette in 1858, takes its name from the Arabic “as-sabil”, meaning fountain or spring. These details appear in a chronicle recounting how, in 778, Emperor Charlemagne, returning from his campaign in Spain, was halted in the Pyrenees before a fortress held by a prince named Mirat (an anagram of “amir” or “emir”?), who resisted both demands to surrender and offers to be made “count and knight of Charlemagne” while retaining all his possessions, on condition that he accept baptism. As a last resort, Charlemagne’s chaplain, the Bishop of Le Puy, after fervently imploring Our Lady of Le Puy, was granted permission to enter the citadel as an envoy. Aware that Muslims hold the Virgin Mary in great esteem, he offered Mirat, if not submission to Charlemagne, at least acceptance of “the noblest Lady who ever lived” as his sovereign. Convinced by the proposal, Mirat declared himself ready to lay down arms before the servant of Our Lady and receive baptism, on condition that his county would never owe allegiance, either for himself or his descendants, to anyone but her alone. Charlemagne confirmed the agreement, and Mirat was baptized by the bishop of the diocese of Le Puy. This encounter marked the end of the “Reconquista” in France. Striking Testimonies These testimonies are striking. Through their influence and reach, Lourdes and Fatima stand as sacred relics, almost as promises. The sanctuary of Lourdes will continue until the end of time to bear the mark of the Virgin Mary, the “warda sirriya” or “mystical rose” of the Litany of the Rosary, as Mirat the Saracen once wished. Let us conclude by noting that the Catholic Church can only rejoice in the holiness of the popes who have governed it for more than a century. Yet the evident multiplication of Marian apparitions over the past hundred years also suggests that she has deemed it useful to intervene directly in the course of history. In the Middle East, she has been reported in Cairo (1968), Beirut (1970), Damascus (1982) and Mosul (1991). For nothing escapes Mary – neither our personal conduct nor the troubling times the planet is going through. As we see in Lebanon and elsewhere, her warnings remain as relevant as ever. In Lebanon, a civil national holiday was even created to symbolize coexistence, borrowing from the Virgin Mary the Feast of the Annunciation (March 25). For, fortunately, the final word always belongs to her. “Were God, in His anger, to break the world, I would bring Him its pieces,” are the striking words she is said to have once confided to Father Jean-Édouard Lamy, a French mystic and missionary (1853-1931). Yes, the rosary is indeed the image of the “Servant of the Lord” – the praying embodiment of the spirit of service – and the assurance that fervent, sincere prayer surpasses in effectiveness “polemics and war.” A “prayer of the poor,” a prayer for all purposes, and even, as the Virgin Mary herself is said to affirm, a prayer to remake all things. (*) First names have been changed.

The first draft of the memorandum of understanding between Washington and Tehran that was leaked to the press and media on Saturday evening sparked widespread outrage on Sunday. Many Republican senators, including several heavyweight members of Congress, as well as analysts, commentators, and influential circles warned against the serious geopolitical consequences of this proposal. Some did not hesitate to denounce on social media what they unanimously called a 'capitulation of the United States to the Islamic Republic of Iran'. Did this outcry and these warnings coming from all sides online push President Trump to apply serious brakes to the approval process for the memorandum, or did the White House chief realize that certain clauses were indeed unacceptable and detrimental to the credibility of the United States as a superpower? On his Truth Social network, Trump posted an AI image of an F-15 carrying a bomb with the words in English, 'thank you for your attention to this matter': a threat of possible return to war if Iran does not accept US conditions. It is certainly difficult to provide an answer to such a question, but this does not change the facts: on Sunday, President Trump clearly indicated that he had instructed US negotiators to 'not rush' in concluding the memorandum. 'Both parties (the US and Iran) must take their time to reach a well-studied text,' the American president clarified, indicating that 'negotiations are continuing on certain details and certain issues.' 'Time is on our side,' he asserted without further details. If the memorandum draft sparked so much criticism, it is because it appeared, according to the version that reached the media, to satisfy Iran across the board, namely: cessation of hostilities and unlocking part of Iranian assets (nearly $25 billion) without any formal and official Iranian commitment concerning the main American demands on nuclear matters, uranium enrichment, ballistic missiles, the fate of Iranian proxies, regional stability, or also the case—completely overlooked by US negotiators themselves—of political prisoners and mass executions of teenagers, young people, and university students. According to the version of the agreement disclosed Saturday evening, nuclear and enriched uranium matters were to be 'discussed' only during a 30 or 60-day truce period. Given that these matters have actually been under discussion for 20 years, the memorandum draft presented no guarantees regarding a definitive settlement of this dispute pending for more than two decades. Hence the wave of criticism that emerged on Sunday. It should be noted in this context that the preliminary agreement proposal would provide for the reopening, without conditions, of the Strait of Hormuz during the 30 to 60-day negotiation period, as well as an effective ceasefire in Lebanon, which Israel contests. In Lebanon, the ceasefire in question Questions remain open then, particularly regarding the other front, between Hezbollah and Israel in Lebanon. What is known is that there is a clause in this framework agreement on a ceasefire in Lebanon, 'with the right given to Israel to prevent Hezbollah from rebuilding its arsenal'. According to observers, Israel, which had thus far ignored ceasefires negotiated directly with Lebanese authorities in Washington, could hardly contradict a directive coming directly from the American president in the context of negotiations on the main front in Iran. All reports coming from Israel show growing concern about the outcome of this conflict. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu doubled down, asserting that "Iran will never possess nuclear weapons." According to information provided to Israeli media on Sunday, Netanyahu allegedly pressed Trump for freedom of action on all fronts, particularly in Lebanon, and reportedly received his approval. Questions remain open. What does the cessation of hostilities mean? Will it include Israeli withdrawal from territories occupied during this conflict? What does this right granted to Israelis to prevent Hezbollah from rearming mean? Will it keep Lebanon in a perpetual state of neither war nor peace? And what about Hezbollah's disarmament, decided by the Lebanese government, if the party believes it owes the ceasefire to its Iranian ally rather than Lebanese authorities? And above all, what is the future of these direct negotiations between Lebanon and Israel? It should be recalled that before Sunday's dramatic developments, all eyes were on the first Lebanese-Israeli-American security meeting in Washington on May 29, and the upcoming direct negotiations on June 2 and 3. Rubio threatens Qassem In Beirut, Hezbollah leader Naïm Qassem said in a speech that "the people have the right to take to the streets, overthrow the government, and resist with all their strength this Israeli-American project." Qassem again called on the Lebanese government to abandon direct negotiations with Israel, seeing it as a "gain without reciprocal benefit for Israel," and reaffirmed Hezbollah's refusal to disarm. Qassem's remarks provoked a sharp reaction from U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who condemned "in the strongest terms Hezbollah's irresponsible call for the overthrow of the democratically elected Lebanese government." He denounced what he called "a deliberate campaign to destabilize the country and maintain power." Rubio stated in a statement that the movement "is actively attempting to plunge Lebanon back into chaos and destruction." According to Rubio, "the threats of violence and overthrow made by Hezbollah will not go unanswered. The era when a terrorist group held an entire nation hostage is coming to an end." American sanctions This week also saw American sanctions against numerous Hezbollah figures, including lawmakers and former ministers, as well as, for the first time, military officials from the Lebanese Army and General Security. The sanctioned military personnel are all considered close to Hezbollah or the Amal movement, with the American statement specifying that they owed allegiance to these parties as much as to their institutions and that they communicated sensitive information to them. The message to Hezbollah is nothing new, but the message sent to Parliament Speaker and Amal chief Nabih Berry is clear. His "grey" position in recent Lebanese developments has earned him this American warning. The message is also directed at the Lebanese Army, which is sending a delegation to Washington next week and which has often been criticized for "suspected complicity" with the Shiite militia. Will the army be forced to reconsider its delegation and reassess its positions? As for General Security, Interior Minister Ahmad Hajjar has asked the director general to conduct investigations into the officers in question. Meanwhile, on the ground, the situation remains explosive in the South as civilians pay the price: dozens of deaths have been reported this week. Entre-temps, sur le terrain, la situation reste explosive au Sud alors que les civils payent le prix: on déplore des dizaines de morts cette semaine. Civil Defense announced Saturday the collapse of its main building in Nabatiyeh under Israeli airstrikes. The Israeli military declared throughout the week that it had destroyed Hezbollah infrastructure and expanded its operations to the Bekaa Valley, while acknowledging casualties among its soldiers and officers caused by the Shiite party's drones. Over the weekend, Israeli evacuation notices multiplied for dozens of villages and towns, both in the South and in the Bekaa Valley.

The cry of the nonagenarian Stéphane Hessel in his pamphlet Indignez-vous! had awakened millions of young people to a form of liberation, after reading in that slim volume: “You have the right to anger, to refusal, to opposition.” But that cry was certainly not enough. It was at most an impulse that drove them into the streets to confront the social, political and cultural conflicts of their time. Things have genuinely changed since then, and one of the greatest victories of the dominant forces has been the discrediting of the words “activist” or “dissident”, labels sometimes deployed to attack young people who had managed to achieve substantive progress. Today, the idea of renewed youth engagement is celebrated. But when young people do engage, their attempts are discredited or ridiculed in favour of compromises that sidestep the fundamental legitimate motivations. This justifies the growing repression by authorities intent on containing any emergent change, and who repudiate democracy as an inherent necessity of social pluralism and the diversity of ideas. The struggle is no longer a simple affair, and its complexity continues to grow with the profound transformation in the nature of conflicts. Realities shift and mutate without ever consolidating, and face a genuine threat that takes every form of violence, political, economic, social and security-related, extending to the erosion of biodiversity, climate change, epidemics and pollution. This is something essentially different from the form of “traditional oppression” seen in totalitarian regimes. Conversely, populations submit without question to transformations driven by capitalism, technology and industry, contrary to the principles, ideas and philosophies of the Enlightenment that had established great truths. Contemporary oppression resides in these liquid societies that are rapidly collapsing and swallowing everything with them, the bonds, the tragedy, the anxieties. Any questioning of the meaning of order, individual freedom and human rights within the structure of democratic societies is immediately perceived as absurd or pathological. The dissident who challenges the way the world runs is now looked upon as a madman or a fool, accused of inventing a new reality that bears no relation to what is supposed to sustain existence, namely money, likes and power. This triumph of functions serving consumerist, propagandistic or populist ends represents a form of oppression radically different from those of the dictatorships of the past, precisely because there is no longer any direct adversary. The enemy was once identifiable, composed of military men, feudal lords, exterminators of indigenous peoples and racist patriarchs. This is why there was a general wave of liberation, a feminist counter-culture and Guevarist and indigenous liberation movements. The struggle against dictatorship is not simple in itself. But today, complexity becomes crushing in the face of injustice and the destruction of lives, in a world where there is nothing visible or immediate to achieve, and where isolation makes commitment profoundly sorrowful in a confrontation that operates through power relations traversing professional life, the bank account, the mobile phone and the domestic artificial intelligence. Political elites have come to resemble a vast enterprise for the distribution of privileges and benefits, rather than bearers of a coherent vision of the world, and the level of political cadres has slipped towards policies disconnected from reality. As for those who follow their desire to engage in the struggle, they always risk their lives a little. There is something quite Spinozist about this, which gives engagement a profoundly melancholic image, caught as it is between moments of pleasure, love and rest and the threat of a despair that devours societies. This is why it is so difficult to find the desire, the momentum and the necessary energy. The pessimism of young people today is profound, convinced as they are that the worst is inevitable and that institutions have failed to adapt to accelerating change, which calls for a “shock in politics” encompassing the simplification of procedures and the reduction of the State’s role, as well as institutional reforms such as financial transparency and the redistribution of power. And everyone mocks initiatives that attempt to reinvent the world in some form of idealism. This does not preclude setting concrete objectives, without cultivating the temptation of illusory promises aimed at forestalling the disillusionment of failure. This illusion of omnipotence inevitably leads to disillusionment. The State cannot and must not do everything. And the excess of politicisation of society is harmful, sustained by the illusion that individual salvation will come from politics. The situation is appalling. People are poor, hospital subsidies are being cut, migrants and universities are under attack, and demonstrations are being suppressed. All of this results from a failure to prioritise the battles, because everything is interconnected. One cannot separate the rise of extremist thought from political crises, discrimination and inequality (and none of this occurred without the consent of a silent majority). The authorities in power most often dispose of a majority they exploit to destroy everything, especially when anti-democratic leaders gain power through legal channels while inverting the discourse against those who defend democracy. During her campaign, Kamala Harris described Trump as a fascist danger. He countered by calling for his own election as the saviour of democracy. The same thing happened in Brazil: Bolsonaro, who had attempted a coup, sought to place himself among the oppressed, while Viktor Orbán in Hungary attempted to establish a regime under the name of “illiberal democracy”. These figures, and others such as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Russian President Vladimir Putin, fit into this populism whose contours have expanded across the world. They invoke the phantasms of the Second World War, attack the mingling and meeting of peoples through openness to ethnic, religious and political minorities, while promoting repression and establishing a gradual hierarchy among human lives, simultaneously destroying opposing forces and ideas in order to rehabilitate the ideologies of the past. Consecrating the death of the heroes of the Enlightenment and the end of the era of pluralist ideas, they attack the press and the judiciary, depriving citizens of the instruments of democratic work. The world has never known hatred as radical as today’s. It was supposed that this alliance between the two ruling classes, the authoritarians and the intellectuals, would lead to a balance of power and the consolidation of a harmonious society. The natural elites could have effectively guided the working class and the youth, offering them both order and meaning, and sharing with them the privileges and benefits. This is what did not happen, according to the anthropologist Georges Dumézil. History is today replaying this flawed division in the competition between elites. On one side, the commercial, nationalist right, which likes to present itself as anti-intellectual, embodied in the United States by Donald Trump and the Republicans. On the other, the educated, liberal, transatlantic left, represented by the Democrats. But Trump’s supporters also rely on hundreds of experts and academics gathered in powerful think tanks. And the ultracapitalist programme they defend, in a fierce defence of social hierarchies through the extreme concentration of power and wealth and taxation favourable to the rich, does not differ greatly from the programme followed by Democratic economists. The truth is that these multiple elites have an interest in exaggerating their differences in order to alternate in power, even if their fundamental choices differ very little (Kevin Brooks). Elites have not always governed the world. In the wake of the social revolutions of the nineteenth century and the rise of universal suffrage in the twentieth, the popular classes and their trade union and political organisations succeeded in imposing a deep social transformation, sometimes through direct access to power (as was the case with the Swedish Social Democrats from 1932 to 1976, the British Labour Party in 1945, the French Socialists and Communists in 1936 and 1945, and the Rooseveltian Democrats in 1932), and more generally, from 1910 to 1990, this driving dialectic made it possible to place the reduction of social inequality at the heart of political conflict. This class order collapsed between 1980–1990 and 2010–2020 in Western democracies, beginning with the complexification of the social structure and the spectacular rise of territorial fractures, which undermined the autonomy of states and, with it, the political choices of social-democratic parties. To emerge from the current crisis and the illusory confrontation between elites, the left must renew its ambition and bring together the popular classes from all regions, while acknowledging that elites are united against them. This is the only way to restore the possibility of genuine alternation in power and to confront the disintegration of democracy.

Lebanon is witnessing today a farce that has turned, in reality, into a tragedy. At the heart of this farce lies the insistence of a Lebanese faction organically linked to the "Islamic Republic" of Iran on presenting negotiation with Israel as "humiliation," while the real humiliation consists in doing everything possible to entrench Israeli occupation and serve it. All that the legitimate authority in Lebanon — represented by President of the Republic Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam — has sought to convey is that the "humiliation" of negotiations is in fact an act of honour and patriotism, whereas the "humiliation" of occupation is nothing more than a service rendered to Israel and to its enterprise of occupation. Whoever denounces the "humiliation" of direct negotiation with Israel, as Hezbollah does, evades any question related to reality and to what a country is going through whose fate has been cast to the winds. Lebanon has indeed been cast to the winds since a time bomb installed itself within it: more than one million two hundred thousand displaced persons from the South, scattered across different regions of the country, of which Beirut constitutes the primary concentration. Outside of negotiations, there is no path to defusing this time bomb, whose only antidote is the return of the displaced to their villages and towns, one way or another. This return to localities that are largely devastated remains the sole means of saving Lebanon from the fate of a failed state. No other way exists than direct negotiation to achieve this objective, rather than boasting of "resistance" and its weapons, which are precisely what brought occupation back. It is important to distinguish between real humiliation, on the one hand, and the attempt to erase the "humiliation" of which Hezbollah speaks, on the other. For humiliation lies in serving the Israeli occupation, not in working to be rid of it. One must recall, every day if necessary, that the Israeli occupation of the border strip in southern Lebanon ended at this very time of year, in 2000. Israel had then decided to withdraw in implementation of Resolution 425, judging that such a withdrawal, confirmed by the Security Council, was not at odds with its interests. Since that Israeli withdrawal to the Blue Line, the former Syrian regime, backed by Iran, sought to keep southern Lebanon as a convenient mailbox for the exchange of messages with Israel. The Hebrew state saw no obstacle in this, particularly since its permanent objective was to focus its efforts on the West Bank. Proof of this was Yasser Arafat's failure to replicate in that territory the experience of the Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon. Abu Ammar paid dearly, at the time, for the "militarisation" of the Intifada. The historic leader of the Palestinian people did not understand that Israel was prepared to sacrifice hundreds of its soldiers in order to retain parts of the West Bank, while it had been willing to withdraw from southern Lebanon in exchange for security guarantees. Those guarantees were indeed secured, before Iran promptly violated them, intent on affirming that the Hezbollah card remained in play and that the return of the Lebanese army to southern Lebanon was not on the agenda. Up until the war of "support for Gaza" that Hezbollah launched at Iran's request on 8 October 2023, there was no Israeli occupation. In the wake of that war, the occupation was limited to five points. It was the war of "support for Iran," begun in March of this year, that provided the pretext for an extension of the Israeli occupation, for further destruction and for new displacements. Hezbollah defends its position by arguing that Israel would have attacked it regardless, independently of the firing of six rockets that followed by a few days the assassination of "Supreme Leader" Ali Khamenei in Tehran on 28 February 2026. These claims might carry some weight were they not a reflection of a profound ignorance of politics and the balance of forces at play, on the one hand, and were Hezbollah not harbouring the desire to retain its weapons as an instrument of intimidation over the Lebanese, on the other. Confessional and militia weapons have never been anything other than a scourge for Lebanon and the Lebanese, and for Lebanon's Shia in particular, given that they have never been capable of playing any role whatsoever in the protection of the country. Their sole function has been to serve the occupation. When the Hebrew state, in the year 2000, judged that it was in its interest to withdraw from southern Lebanon, it did so — Germany having served as intermediary at the time. Hezbollah failed to grasp that Israel had changed in the wake of the "Al-Aqsa Flood," the attack launched by Hamas from Gaza, nor did it understand that its weapons, now in the service of occupation, could no longer be countenanced. Weapons remain the origin of the problem and the source of every affliction in Lebanon. The simple fact is that Israel no longer needs them today, whereas it was formerly indifferent to the question of who controlled southern Lebanon — just as it was indifferent to who controlled Gaza, willing to allow Qatari funds to flow to Hamas as long as that movement was contributing to the entrenchment of Palestinian division. A single formula now sums up the Lebanese situation. The weapons held by Hezbollah are the very expression of humiliation, in that they play the role assigned to them in legitimising Israel's extension of the occupation and the ongoing displacement of populations. These populations are the Shia citizens of the South, turned into that time bomb which threatens every attempt at Lebanon's recovery. Weapons have failed to confront Israel, but they have succeeded in undermining Lebanon from within. Such has always been the function of Hezbollah's weapons since their inception — weapons to which falls the responsibility for all the wars Lebanon could have done without: beginning with the war of the summer of 2006 and up to the war of "support for Iran" and the catastrophe it left in its wake, at every level… a catastrophe that has now become a threat to Lebanon's very existence.

American President Donald Trump stated a few days ago that the Iranian regime has been "pulling the wool over our eyes (the United States and the Western world) for 47 years." One could reasonably add that in the current context, it is essentially public opinion in several Levantine countries that is being misled, particularly given the flood of information on Saturday about the imminence of a "memorandum of understanding" between Washington and Tehran, from which it appears, at least judging by the leaks to the media, that President Trump seems to have essentially given in to Iran's main conditions. On this Saturday, May 23rd, certain media outlets and satellite channels have continuously bombarded the public, at a frenetic pace, with information and leaks that are contradicted a short time later. The most striking example was the information provided by the Iranian Foreign Ministry, whose spokesperson indicated in mid-afternoon that "ending the war is an operation that will take time" and that "a quick resolution is unlikely." Reflecting a hardline position on substantive issues, the spokesperson was careful to assert that the Strait of Hormuz question "does not concern the United States" (sic!) and that the nuclear file will not be addressed in any preliminary agreement on a cessation of hostilities. This same spokesperson, not hesitating to contradict himself, stated half an hour later that there was a "trend toward rapprochement" with Washington, specifying that an agreement protocol is "in the final stages." And to further mislead the media and public opinion, this same Iranian Foreign Ministry also noted, at the same time, that "we are very far away, but at the same time we are very close (!), from an agreement with the United States." The US Position On the American side, Secretary of State Marco Rubio mentioned "a chance" that the Iranian leadership "accepts an agreement" with Washington. A somewhat surprising statement, given that it should rather be the US Administration that "agrees" to make the concession of concluding an agreement with Iran, and not the other way around. The attitude of senior US officials in recent days suggests that the United States appears to be "begging" the mullah regime to "accept an agreement," thereby giving the misleading perception that Iran is the victor and is imposing its conditions and the concessions the US should make. In any case, President Trump estimated the chances of an agreement or a resumption of military operations at 50-50, stating that he would only sign an agreement, which he believed was close, if he obtained satisfaction on all the demands presented to the Iranians and if the text "took into account Israel's interests." His statement on this matter was, however, somewhat contradicted by the leaks to the media concerning the broad outlines of the emerging memorandum which, if they are truly confirmed, would mean that they actually satisfy the Iranian positions in their broad lines, thus marking a clear American retreat in several respects. The agreement in question would indeed provide, according to information leaked to the media, for a definitive end to hostilities without the nuclear file being addressed, without enriched uranium being transported out of Iran, and without any commitment from the Revolutionary Guards concerning the fate of Iranian proxies and the end of the destabilization campaign in the countries of the region, not to mention that the vital question of political prisoners—numbering in the thousands—and mass executions by hanging of Iranian teenagers and young people appears to be completely ignored. These provisions, if confirmed, would constitute to a large extent an almost total alignment with the Iranian position and a serious setback for the US Administration. Trump's consultations In his various public statements on Saturday evening, the White House chief indicated that he will make his decision on Sunday, May 24, regarding whether to conclude the agreement or resume military operations, after consulting with his closest advisors as well as with the leaders of Gulf countries, Turkey, and Egypt. Late in the evening, he was also scheduled to have a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. As negotiations intensified to finalize the text of the draft agreement, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi was to contact Hezbollah's Secretary-General, Sheikh Naim Kassem, by telephone to reaffirm the Islamic Republic's "firm support" for the pro-Iranian party, emphasizing in this context that Iran insisted on a ceasefire in Lebanon being one of the clauses of the agreement negotiated with the United States. This Iranian position, which was added to the momentum of recent regional diplomatic negotiations, prompted Netanyahu to convene the leaders of his government coalition for an urgent meeting scheduled to take place late Saturday evening. It was in this fevered climate that US official sources indicated overnight that the White House chief should announce his decision on Sunday regarding the draft agreement with the mullah regime.

This series of articles offers a wide-ranging overview — both thematic and chronological — of the various relationships between music and the space of the City across the ages. The first in the series, divided into three parts, examines the origins of the bond between music and 'the' political — both as concept and as practice. It is in eighteenth-century Europe that the debate on music and freedom steps briefly outside its relationship with the sacred to resume an explicitly philosophical form, as it had in the time of ancient Greece. And the credit belongs essentially to Jean-Jacques Rousseau. History has certainly retained him as one of the pillars of Enlightenment political philosophy, but his dual condition as composer and musicologist remains largely overshadowed by his philosophical legacy. Rousseau, for whom music is not an aesthetic question separable from the moral and political one, develops in his Dictionary of Music and in the Essay on the Origin of Languages the thesis that melody, bearing the natural inflections of the human voice, is the original language of the passions. It represents a language anterior to reason, immediately communicative, founded on shared emotion rather than on the articulated concept. Consequently, the sophisticated harmony of the European courts, with its learned counterpoint and academic conventions… all this is, in his eyes, nothing but corruption of that original purity. A music reduced to a social artifice, in a sense, which has lost contact with the very nature of the human voice when it still exists outside power, its discipline, its constraints. The Rousseauist position, well beyond any aesthetic consideration, is fundamentally political. Natural music is the language of freedom, whereas institutional music is nothing other than the funeral oration of voluntary servitude… Diderot and Music as Founding Order Denis Diderot, who is not without sharing with Rousseau this fundamental intuition concerning the link between music and natural feeling, brings to it however an additional dimension, social and collective, of musical experience. In the articles of the Encyclopédie that he devotes to music and genius, Diderot conceives of sound no longer merely as the language of individual passions, but as what makes possible a 'sensible community.' In this light, music becomes a space of emotional sharing anterior to all political convention, where men experience their common belonging before formulating it in terms of rights or contract. What Plato formulated in the prescriptive register of the ideal City, Diderot transposes into that of shared sensibility, making music an anthropological condition prior to any social contract, where the Greeks had made of it merely an instrument of governance. What Diderot does, in Rousseau's wake, is properly revolutionary. With him, music becomes a founding element of the political order, which it precedes. It no longer operates in reaction to an order, but participates in its elaboration. It is precisely this founding power, music conceived as the matrix of political community and anterior to its conventions, that Kant will regard with growing mistrust. Kant and the Mistrustful Voice of Reason These reflections Immanuel Kant reads, no doubt, with the admiration he holds for Rousseau and Diderot… but also with suspicion. And for good reason: the emotional power of music, its capacity to act on the body and the soul before reason has had time to intervene, constitutes for the philosophers of the Enlightenment its fundamental virtue. For Kant, it is precisely this that is a source of threat. A music that bypasses rational judgment to speak directly to the passions renders men, in his view, available for collective enthusiasm as much as for individual freedom. Kant is not entirely wrong. Nor are Rousseau and Diderot. This philosophical tension between their readings — music as natural vehicle of freedom against music as vehicle of emotional manipulation — prefigures a binary that will traverse history, from La Marseillaise to totalitarian hymns, from the negro spirituals to the Nuremberg rallies, and from civil rights concerts and Vietnam War protests to the recycling of pop songs as promotional propaganda at electoral rallies… La Marseillaise , precisely, will vindicate both the Rousseau-Diderot reading and Kant. Born in 1792 as a revolutionary war song, it is perhaps the first, or one of the first, modern examples of a music that fabricates a political community in the very act of singing. The song thus produces a popular will, transforms individuals into an organised collective united by the single fact of sharing a rhythm and a melody. In this sense, it is the demonstration of what Kant dreaded above all, since the euphoric sentiment that the melody and words cement in the group does not distinguish the just from the unjust or the liberator from the conqueror. It confirms, in the same movement, Diderot's intuition: music precedes the contract, it fabricates the people before the people endows itself with institutions. What Kant senses with dread in the emotional power of music anticipates, in a certain way, the passionate sense of History that Hegel would soon theorise, he for whom History does not advance through rational deliberation alone, but through the passions of men who, often without knowing it, serve as instruments of the World Spirit. The future does not entirely prove him wrong, since the same music that sings the freedom of peoples will soon accompany Napoleon's armies across Europe… Hegel, Beethoven and the Torn Dedication If one must choose an archetypal example to illustrate the tortuous and tormented relationship between music and power, it is surely that of Ludwig van Beethoven, because he lived it in his flesh and in his work, and because his disillusionment is emblematic of that which committed music will experience again, in different forms, both similar and different, in every generation. Beethoven dedicates the Heroic Symphony to Napoleon Bonaparte, in whom he sees what Hegel himself called 'the World Spirit on horseback.' The Revolution made flesh. Freedom become History. The symphony he creates commensurate with this faith breaks with all the formal conventions of its time… as Napoleon himself is a sequential rupture with what came before… or at least so one still believed at the time. Long, complex, unpredictable, it is traversed by an energy that resembles nothing that preceded it. It is certainly not dedicated to a victorious general. It is dedicated to an idea, the idea he represents. That Spirit which, Beethoven believes, will at last humanise history… When Napoleon crowns himself, Beethoven tears the dedication page. This small gesture, private and without witness, remains one of the most politically significant in all the history of music. Through it, Beethoven proclaims in fact all the splendour and decadence of what musical genius is in its contact with 'the' political. Music can believe in a political project, it can give it its highest form, but it cannot survive the betrayal of that project by those who embodied it, he already tells us, well before the birth of the music industry. It is not in the service of the men who represent ideas, but in the service of the ideas themselves. And when men betray the ideas, music must tear the dedication. And, if possible, the musician himself, if he has the courage, the lucidity, and the desire for coherence. A Universal and Timeless Lesson This lesson Bob Dylan will learn in his turn by refusing to be the mouthpiece of the pacifist movement — or of any other cause thereafter. Marvin Gaye will learn it by moving away from Motown to sing what Motown above all did not want to hear, the committed songs that threatened to scratch the smooth, mass-market image of the label. Or Nina Simone, leaving the United States, fleeing a climate that had become unbearable, marked by systemic racism, political pressures, and the boycott of her songs by the American authorities because of her intense commitment to the civil rights movement… Invariably, the gesture will remain everywhere the same, including beyond American shores: committed music knows, at a certain moment, that it cannot stay where it has been placed if that place is no longer worthy of trust. It then displaces its commitment, without renouncing it. It thus remains faithful to its soul, while realising that the medium, the transitory body that inhabited the melody, is inevitably fallible. It remains perfectly free… failing which it is extinguished, compromised. It is Beethoven himself who teaches us this, since despite his Napoleonic disappointment, he will not have done with the tension between music and political ideal. The Ninth Symphony , composed when he had become deaf, takes up the universalist, Weimaresque utopia of Friedrich Schiller, but transcended by his genius. Beethoven magnifies the idea that joy can reunite what history has separated and that sound can build bridges and extend hands where politics has created frontiers. And it is no accident that this Ode to Joy became, decades later, the musical fresco of the European Union, a political project founded precisely on the idea that what unites men beyond their national identities can take on an institutional form and create a different style of civilisation, against all odds. Significantly, the European Union chose to adopt an exclusively instrumental version of it, without Schiller's words, as if the melody alone were sufficient to express what words risked confining within a single language and national memory. By his gesture, Beethoven discredits the heroism of conquest in favour of the joy of universal humanism. This gesture itself, private, without witness, without declaration, constitutes no doubt the alpha lesson, perhaps the most precious that committed music has ever received. What Beethoven tells us is that the most radical political act does not necessarily require spectacular gestures, but can hold, in all its fullness, far from the glare of the spotlights, in the solemn and solitary silence of a room. It suffices to refuse to let the idea be abandoned to die with those who betrayed it. The torn dedication is thus the first modern manifesto of music's autonomy with respect to power, and of the artist with respect to the cause that had dazzled him. A political act in itself, before even being a symbol, it lays the true first stone of the history of committed music in all its complexity, at the threshold of the nineteenth century and well before the twentieth comes to reveal, beneath its murderous ideologies, all its ambivalences. By anticipation, Beethoven in fact proposes the antidote to the Wagnerian superman… but Hitler is completely deaf to Beethovenian Joy, swept away to mephistophelian madness by his Aryan Valkyries, their phantasmal rides and their apocalyptic dreams. Read also Music and Politics, an Ancient Marriage: Origins (1)