Echos of the Sunni Street

[taifoon]

Originally Posted by ozzie

I agree with your first point, but it seems to conflict with the final sentence. The last few days have proved that Lebanon is not about consensual power sharing.

Consensual power sharing was used very cynically by HA and some of its allies when the international tribunal was being discussed. Their version of consensual power sharing was do what we want or we walk out and then we'll accuse you of monopolizing power. They've done the same thing now. 'Do what we want, or else...'

The humiliation of the Sunnis is in direct conflict with another Lebanese slogan: 'No victor, no vanquished.' Aoun's attempt to say this was a 'victory for Lebanon' was hollow indeed.

I think the leaders may try to sound conciliatory and compromising to some extent (such as handing the decisions over to the army), but many people are angry.

Until we one day move forward into true democracy and not some distorted and tailored version of it, we will have to settle with what we have. Our problems stem from many sources. Consensualism is, together with an implementation, an act of interpretation. When political leaders understand that in lebanese dictionary political sharing means exactly this, we wouldn't have been where we are today. This not to confuse with the underlying meta-problems in the form of Hizbollahs arms, the need for a national definition and agreement on a common defense strategy etc..

[leb-wi-noss]

Originally Posted by LebanesePride

Well obviously when something like this happens, you cant expect sunnis to take an objective look.

An objective look would be to look at the behavior of the Future Movement and how it ruled the country, and then understand why this happened.

But again, no group in lebanon is willing to take such a perspective on their parties.

So i would say sunnis are feeling humiliated and vulnerable, kind of like what the FM has been making people feel for the past 20 years.
But thats irrelevant on the popular level, i must sympathise with the individuals, its no use to tell them the offices were handed over to the army, theyre gonna feel victimized.

Blaming what happened in the last 20 years is definitely not true. If you want the Sunnites in this situation to think logically, you have to talk logically. The reaction of some FPMers and their attitude is not helping in easing the situation. The same amount of hatred against the shi3a in the Sunnite streets is applying widely on FPM.
It's time for the moderate FPMers to step in, you never know what tomorrow is hiding.
An friendly advice!

[ozzie]

Originally Posted by taifoon

Until we one day move forward into true democracy and not some distorted and tailored version of it, we will have to settle with what we have. Our problems stem from many sources. Consensualism is, together with an implementation, an act of interpretation. When political leaders understand that in lebanese dictionary political sharing means exactly this, we wouldn't have been where we are today. This not to confuse with the underlying meta-problems in the form of Hizbollahs arms, the need for a national definition and agreement on a common defense strategy etc..

You're absolutely right. The flawed political system is very much at fault. Consensualism is needed within the system only because in actual fact it is fundamentally lacking. The tragedy is that all the misunderstandings over the past few years have led to more violence and division and now the needed reforms will be even more difficult to discuss and agree upon. I hope I'm wrong but I think the pro-government groups will be even less likely to want their leaders to make concessions now.

I commend HA for handing over positions to the army so swiftly. What will be their next move to ensure that other communities do not feel like they have been vanquished?

[Abufijli]

I spoke to a friend of mine who supports FM, he told me that they are very angry, furious. They believe HA had something to do with killing Hariri and all the other politicians who were assasinated, they fear a HA coup that will take over the country, and many of them have lost faith in FM and are looking for alternatives to protect them from HA.

A sad picture is painted by these things... Not sure how easy it would be to patch things up later.

[Dry Ice]

Ya shabeb, it seems that with all the defaults that political parties like FM had (and I am certainly not limiting defaults to FM itself but to all Lebanese parties), it is clear that having such a party is MUCH better than some of the other alternatives that we're witnessing today...

Let's stop sniping at each others as a minimum.

[Rexus]

Whoever turns away from truth perishes. Always keep that in mind FPMers.

[Ana]

I avoided talking to my sunni friends since this started - except for one ma7soub 3layna (i.e. mou3arada). Here's few things I can witnessed by looking at another forum:

- The rhetoric calling Al-Qaeda-like organizations has risen, even though it was high even before this entire mess happened
- In the first day, the morale was very high in victory - and that soon dropped significantly when reality struck. They actually thought they have a militias that are capable of fighting back i.e.fohood tareeq el jdeedeh, afwaj trablos etc etc...
- The opinion in WJ has swung from a "he played SH into this and withdrew from the battle" during the first 2 days to "they are defending their villages" now.
- People who respected HA still do and people who hated them before hate them even more now.

Here's what I expect:
- A MAJOR shift in military existance in FM. They basically had "murtazaqa" doing their dirty job and were paying them very little money. Many people will exit the movement (people who are not willing to bear arms). People willing to bear arms and fight will stay. They will get better arms and training.
- Al-Qaeda-like organizations will grow and flourish and calls to fight the Shiaa will do as well.
- A push towards extremism overall within the sunni street.

[rodolphe hajj]

HA did what he had to do
stop this culpability thing
if suunis want to turn to extremists to protect themselves that's their problem and they will face the consequences like they did when they supported hariri

[Inanna]

from what i saw, heard and noticed:

many beiruties consider what happened as an attack from shi3as against the sunna, so it was no longer HA against FM

many beiruties tend also to consider that blocking the airport is a personal issue, in a way that the airport belongs to them!

you know as people say, ma 7ada ma7al 7ada to know what they really felt, because what they went through was really hard,

but when all this over, the political and religious leaders should try to calm the spirits of the people on both sides...

[Dry Ice]

Originally Posted by rodolphe hajj

if suunis want to turn to extremists to protect themselves that's their problem and they will face the consequences like they did when they supported hariri

You're wrong, it's all of Lebanon's problem.