Of  Treason, Denial, & Temporary Salvation
By: Elias Bejjani
LCCC Media Chairman
18/2.03

The presidency of His Excellency General Emil Lahoud is in its fifth year, but remains without a plan, with no substance, and without any direction. This presidency is like a sinking ship in a stormy sea, at the mercy of the waves battering it from every which way, broken up in many places, and with no hope of salvation.  The President's deceitful no-policy politics stripped him of any credibility, especially when he does one thing and its opposite in spiteful, improvised, and vengeful decisions, making him end up on the opposite end of where he started.

This presidency has no logic. It asks people to erase their memory in order to forget that the president promised in his inauguration speech that he will not go after a single journalist during his term in office. But without a wink, he shut down the MTV station for parochial reasons fueled by hatred and fear, without the least care for 450 employees who became jobless overnight. His Excellency arbitrarily condemned the TV station to permanent closure and sent its employees and journalists on the street in order to give his son and son-in­law the political influence they failed to earn from the people, and sacrificing in the process the nationıs interests and freedoms,

His Excellencyıs commitment not to put a journalist in prison has been carried out in reverse, and few are the journalists that have not been on trial or in prison during his years in the Presidential Palace in Baabda. Their crime was to openly reveal the truth and resist the Syrian occupation in the most peaceful and civilized ways. The journalist Habib Yunis is an example to follow in that regard. The pinnacle of keeping the promises he made at his inauguration speech came with the arbitrary arrest of Dr. Adonis Akra on February 11, 2003 and the confiscation of all copies of his book "My Name Became 16" in which he tells the events of his arrest in August 2001.

History teaches us that the most outrageous follies are committed out of greed, hatred, and abandon to instinct, and to attain positions, riches, and thrones. The historical record is full of names of leaders who committed treason against their nations, students who conspired against their teachers, princes who stabbed their fathers, brothers who killed their brothers, friends who reneged on friendship oaths, men of the cloth who defiled the sacrosanct and broke their vows, and disgruntled leaders who drove their people to perdition. History repeats itself by repeating events and actions, albeit with different persons and at different times, knowing full well that no people on earth has survived with secular or religious leaders who were cursed with every sunrise because of the wickedness, conspiracies and disavowals they have committed.

The deceitful practices to which politicians and clergymen devoid of their humanity subject our people, both resident and immigrant, are nothing more than treason stemming from a lack of faith and a breakdown in values and morals. Therefore the ordinary Lebanese should feel justifiably proud of their own convictions when they see the traitors of the nation and the Diaspora parading themselves in their newly acquired positions of prestige. The Qandils and other applause-for-hire mercenaries are mere dwarfs who are now becoming even smaller after betraying the trust placed in them and taking their example from Judas Iscariote. The ultimate failure of the occupier is that in spite of all the oppression it could not attract a single leader or politician "of quality", but instead went fishing from a pool of pseudo-men.

There was no surprise among the Diaspora at the latest positions of some public figures and clergymen prompted by those who have trampled on their historic responsibilities. Desperate positions were presented as "petitions" to keep afloat those who drowned in the mud of adulation and cornered themselves into positions at complete odds with their surroundings. The exploitation of the one communityıs patron saint celebration to try and keep the drowning individuals afloat was uncovered and became the source of pity on those who planned and implemented it.

The fruit does not fall far from the tree. Those who are presently designated to fracture and destroy the Diaspora will soon change allegiance since they always follow whomever furthers their own interests. Let those who hired them remember the Gospel of Matthew (23, 15),  "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel land and sea to win one proselyte, and when he is won, you make him twice as much the son of hell as yourselves."

In the end, no matter the harassment and threats, and in spite of the economic crises, our freedom-loving people remain staunchly attached to their faith and deeply committed to their conviction that the nation will emerge victorious from its nightmare. Our people will continue to reject and curse those hypocrites saying with the Lord to Judas "Woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that man if he had not been born" (Matthew 26-24).

The Lebanese people have started planting fig trees by the roadsides, in the fields, and in the forests for the traitors to use them on Judgement Day. The hour of reckoning is coming.

(Translated from Arabic by: Joseph Hitti & Nabil Khoury)