Sunday 3 June 2012

To Hell With the Silent Majority

Army men take cover behind a car during clashes with armed assailants in Caracas, Beirut. (Photo: Marwan Tahtah)
 

Published Wednesday, May 30, 2012

These are difficult days for the Lebanese. Nobody is standing on solid ground. Everyone behaves as though they know best about the ins and outs of the current situation. There’s no place for the unassuming. Every individual, group and faction believes it possesses the immutable truth, and that the others must either accept and yield to their views or be demonized.

We are experiencing the symptoms of civil war. The Lebanese long for another round of violence. It is not true that only a minority want that. The masses themselves only applaud and cheer speakers who raise their voices. Blood only boils to the sound of bullets fired into the air.

As for those who describe themselves as a silent majority, and then find people who claim to speak in their name, they are nothing. They are the zero in mathematics, the void in life, and the margin in any political text. They are the fuel in every war or battle. Those who claim to belong to this majority are but members of a large herd, which takes pride in grumbling but does not dare go further.

These silent ones are the crux of the problem. They are the real reason for every ravage suffered by Lebanon, and for what it is now set to suffer again. Those who preach the virtues of emulating Christ’s crucifixion, but not his revolt, deserve the oppression, humiliation and neglect that result. They deserve being thrown into the corner, alone and aggrieved.
River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian  
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