Crushed, red rose petals speckled the pavement in downtown Beirut this Feb. 14 as thousands of people gathered in Martyrs’ Square to commemorate the assassination of former prime minister Rafik Hariri, whose violent death in 2005 sparked a revolution among grieving, yet hopeful, Lebanese.
But it wasn’t just rose petals that looked broken Sunday afternoon.
Sure, people cheered and waved flags. Yet many of them looked disenchanted, sullen. In Lebanon’s web of changing and complicated politics, their leaders have let them down.
In the weeks following a fateful Valentine’s Day five years ago, when former prime minister Rafik Hariri’s motorcade was bombed on the road lining Beirut’s coast, activists held a series of massive rallies collectively known as the Cedar Revolution, named after Lebanon’s national symbol the cedar tree. The Cedar Revolution revealed the extent to which people supported the beloved Hariri, who was called Mr. Lebanon for his philanthropic principles and efforts to redevelop Beirut after it experienced massive destruction during the 1975-90 civil war.
The revolution’s principles were based on independence, freedom and sovereignty. While Lebanon is technically a sovereign nation with a constitution, government and U.N. recognition, external influence on the country’s political system has led many to argue otherwise. The U.S.-designated terrorist organization Hezbollah maintains significant control through its weapons, supplied by Syria and Iran. Moreover, the national army cannot enter Hezbollah-controlled areas in South Lebanon, the southern suburbs of Beirut and the Bekaa Valley. Also threatening sovereignty is Syria’s influence through its ties to Hezbollah and to armed Palestinian groups, not to mention the lack of border demarcation with Syria.
Because of various threats Hariri received before his 2005 death, many accused Syria of being the mastermind behind his assassination. Hariri also had close personal and financial ties to Saudi Arabia’s ruling family–something displeasing to Syrian politicians who did not want other countries interfering in Lebanon. The accusations by members of the Cedar Revolution pressured Syrian troops to withdraw from Lebanon after nearly 30 years of military and political control, and protesters demanded that an international platform be established to investigate Hariri’s murder.
Since the revolution of 2005 these two demands have been met. But recent events show that their significance has been diluted and that the values of democracy some Lebanese leaders once stood for are drifting out of sight.
Not far from the rally’s main stage on Sunday stood 47-year-old Naha Rafia holding a sign that read “Return my Vote.” Her protest was a message to Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblatt, whose followers are largely of the Druze faith, considered an off-shoot of Islam. Jumblatt was once a member of the March 14 coalition–named after the date of the largest 2005 anti-Syrian rally. After last year’s parliamentary elections, however, Jumblatt separated himself from the anti-Syrian movement and reconciled with the pro-Syrian March 8 movement in a move that confused and angered many of his supporters. “Our leaders are not sticking with what we want,” said Rafia, who voted for Jumblatt because he was part of March 14.
But Jumblatt isn’t the only politician who is compromising his stance in the country’s ever-changing political game. Even a recent move by Prime Minister Saad Hariri, who came to power after his father’s death, raised eyebrows. In December 2009 he met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus–a visit some say undermines both the principles of the Cedar Revolution and the pending progress of the U.N.-backed International Tribunal. “It leaves the movement with no platform,” a professor at the American University of Beirut recently told me.
Critics fear that the recent reconciliations are allowing Syria to creep even further back into Lebanon’s political sphere. Many believe that March 14 has not stood firm on the issue of Hezbollah’s weapons, a means by which Damascus can maintain a certain level of influence.
But while some may be losing faith in their leaders, it was clear on Sunday, as faces painted with the national flag dotted the crowd, that Lebanese haven’t lost faith in each other. “The people haven’t lost the values, just the leaders,” one demonstrator said. “This is the fifth year that we’re here because the people stick with it.”
Others, many too young to remember the day Hariri died, rested quietly, shading their heads with Lebanese flags, seemingly unmoved by the spirited music projecting loudly throughout downtown. Sitting curbside in the space left largely unoccupied by demonstrators, they were no inspiration to a country whose government has yet to achieve full political control.
But perhaps this diminished fervor in a country where deep sectarian and political divides once plunged Lebanon into a fifteen-year civil war and later into various episodes of internal conflict is a good thing. Lebanon’s past shows that it is during the most unstable periods that robust political demonstrations are at their finest. So, in Lebanon’s current moment of peace, maybe people just don’t feel moved to flaunt their political beliefs. If the matter of Lebanon’s full and continuing sovereignty rests on hope for leaders, however, then this Valentine’s Day might have had a real reason for heartbreak.
Sarah Lynch is a multimedia journalist based in Beirut, Lebanon. She founded a nonprofit organization that works to help increase literacy in developing nations.
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