Akram Nehmé

Hezbollah, which for years made the entire country tremble with its weapons, its men and its threats, has now been reduced to smearing Maronite Patriarch Béchara Rahi through armies of anonymous accounts, false bravado and insults typed from behind a screen. Even the way they fall has become small. Why this rage? Because the Patriarch simply reminded them of something that has become unbearable: Lebanon belongs to the Lebanese. A simple sentence. A normal sentence. And yet they can no longer silence it. So they strike at thin air, like someone who feels the ground slipping beneath their feet. This is not a sign of strength. It is precisely the opposite. Movements that are sure of themselves do not need to send anonymous individuals to attack a man of the Church. When arguments are replaced by mud, it is because, deep down, one already knows that part of the battle is lost.

In recent days, seeing the army withdraw from certain southern villages like Rmeich, Ain Ebel, Debel, or Qlayaa stirs something inside that is hard to name. It's not just sadness. It's older than that, deeper, as if this retreat confirms an intuition we've long suppressed: that of a country slowly slipping out of itself. In cafes, in the messages we send each other in the evening, we feel that something has cracked. But emotion, however accurate it may be, is not enough to understand what is happening. And as long as we remain immersed in it, we see nothing. An army is not meant to commit suicide. It is meant to last long enough to still be useful when it truly matters. Sending men without cover against an overwhelming power is not courage. It is ordering their death while calling it bravery.

Lebanon lives under pressure, caught between what strikes it from without and what holds it back from within, and with time, what was once exceptional has become almost normal. The real problem is no longer merely what comes from elsewhere; it lies in this incapacity to cut through, in this suspended moment where the State sees perfectly clearly what must be done and yet cannot bring itself to take the step. It is not a failure of understanding. It is a fear that has settled in slowly, fed by a history in which every internal confrontation has left scars too deep to be ignored. When a country has known war, it develops not only reflexes but carries traumas, deep-rooted fears, survival mechanisms that push it to avoid, to circumvent, to defer, even when that very flight becomes a danger in itself.

Everyone has someone in the family who left to study abroad. A son, a daughter, a nephew, a niece. Tuition fees were paid, teeth were gritted, pride was felt. Degrees were earned. They went to work in the Gulf. We called it success. Today, that story is drawing to a close. Gulf countries have decided to prioritize employment for their own citizens. It is their right, and it is a deep-rooted trend, not a temporary measure. The major economic vision programs — Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030 among them — are designed precisely to reduce dependence on foreign labor. Lebanese workers there have begun receiving termination letters, and many of those still in post find their contracts quietly unrenewed.

They have precision missiles, but they have no blankets for the children. This is not an oversight or a logistical failure — it is a choice. Cement was not used to build shelters to protect families; it was used to dig tunnels to protect rockets. In this logic, a warhead holds strategic value, while a civilian is considered replaceable. You simply produce more. Demography becomes, in this way, a form of arsenal. And the suffering of those civilians is not a failure for those who run this system. On the contrary, it becomes a tool. A mother weeping in a school before the cameras of the entire world produces a powerful message that spreads on its own: look at what they are doing to us. What one rarely says is that the enemy did not destroy the shelters. There simply never were any.

In Lebanon, money opens almost every door. It speeds up decisions, simplifies procedures, brings down many resistances. Yet there is one door it cannot open: the door of dignity, the door of genuine respect, the kind that cannot be bought. He knows it, even if he prefers not to admit it. He succeeded quickly, very quickly. Too quickly. A newly rich man, fortune arriving before recognition, money sometimes opaque, sometimes plainly dubious. Despite the assets, the connections, and the outward signs, he lives with a persistent unease: something is missing. A legitimacy. A place. The feeling of existing as something other than the one who pays.