Pity the Nation

While reading about Lebanon today I run across this poem by the early 20th century Arab American poet Khalil Ghibran:

Pity the nation that is full of beliefs and empty of religion.

Pity the nation that wears a cloth it does not weave, eats a bread it does not harvest, and drinks a wine that flows not from its own winepress.

Pity the nation that acclaims the bully as hero, and that deems the glittering conqueror bountiful.

Pity the nation that despises a passion in its dream, yet submits in its awakening.

Pity the nation that raises not its voice save when it walks in a funeral, boasts not except among its ruins, and will rebel not save when its neck is laid between the sword and the block.

Pity the nation whose statesman is a fox, whose philosopher is a juggler, and whose art is the art of patching and mimicking.

Pity the nation that welcomes its new ruler with trumpetings and farewells him with hootings, only to welcome another with trumpetings once again.

Pity the nation whose sages are dumb with years and whose strong men are yet in the cradle.

Pity the nation divided into fragments, each fragment deeming itself a nation.

The poem can speak to many countries but it certainly I think reflects on Lebanon's situation.

I was going to write more on Lebanon but I this Guardian article really just sums everything up. It is certainly essential reading for any delusional idealist conservative. ( Hahahahaha 'idealist conservative used to be an oxymoron no longer with Bush and his follower many of whom still believe WMDs are waiting to be found). The Neocons are just dying for support over there in the Middle East. Their new pin-up boy Walid Jumblatt glowing quotes on American democracy have been frequenting the right wing blog echo chamber. Unfortunately they forget that it was Syria that engineered Jumblatt’s raise and he did turn against them when politically expedient. And even better he wasn't too impressed when that 'Jew' or Paul Wolfowitz made it out alive of his Baghdad hotel room after it was the subject of a rocket attack.

Jumblatt vision of democracy certainly isn't an open, free or fair one either I'm sure because if it was then he would be asking the Hizbollah to ran Lebanon and ne probably doesn't want that. Man the Shia and Hizbollah must be stoked on more democracy. They were actually represented in government when the first elections were held in the early 1990s.

How it is now the Shiites are allocated 27 seats out of 128 or 15%. Of which Hizbollah has 13 seats and will almost certainly increase that number in the May election reinforcing its position as Lebanon's largest political party representing Lebanon's Shia who are that countries poorest and more historically oppressed citizens. Of course Hizbollah would be biggest if the Shia got a fair number of seats that represented the 40% of Lebanese who are Shiites.

But hey I'll be realist even though American taxpayers paid with their treasure and children's blood for an Islamic Shia state based on Shria law in Iraq they probably will not accept Hizbollah having any role in Lebanon for some reason. My solution this is unrealistic and will not happen but here it is. At absolute minimum Israel pulls out of the Shaba farms area depriving Hizbollah of its main excuse for keeping its weapons. To take that further Israel finally comply with UN resolution 242 and boost out of the Golan taking its illegal settlements with its and finally negotiates peace with Syria and receives official recognition and security guarantees. Nw it is not in Syria interest for Hizbollah to remain at war with Israel.

Syria then leans heavily on Hizbollah to restrain its activities. Iran at this point has more influence with the Hizbollah and has restrained them recently. American security guarantees and full diplomatic relations would easily convince Iran to call on the Nasrallah (Hizbollah leader) to have his militants and impressive rocket force to be absorbed in the Lebanese Army like the other militia had done. Hizbollah's political and social organization is now fully legitimate in the eyes of the West as it is obvious it derives it power from the people it represents not merely from their impressive amount of weaponry.

Of course all highly unlikely as with a full Israeli withdrawal from their bloody occupation in the West Bank and Gaza where a 40 year reign of terrorism and oppression has failed to squash the Palestinians aspirations for freedom and self-determination. But hey I guy can dream eh.