OMG. Can you believe Samir Geagea’s running for president?
The horror. The disgrace. The shame. Let us go turn in our passports (worthless as they are) right here, right now.
Samir Geagea’s nomination for president was met with an onslaught of histrionics that the Lebanese political scene hadn’t seen in a very long time.
We had photoshopped Israeli posters.
People acting like Civil War know-it-alls when they, in fact, know nothing at all. Granted, this happens all the time but it always finds its way to surface whenever Geagea does something. As a future medical doctor, I shall dub it Geageatis.
Twitter hashtags with every combination imaginable to attack Geagea’s judicial records.
Newspaper editors freaking out like pregnant teenager girls who hail from the Bible Belt.
And so and so forth.
You know what’s in common between all of the aforementioned reactions? They reflect the well-rooted hypocrisy of people who have perfected double standards. And isn’t that what Lebanon is all about?
Samir Geagea is a war criminal. Samir Geagea has a tarnished history. Samir Geagea went to jail. Samir Geagea is sectarian. Samir Geagea is this and that.
But the fact of the matter is that those same people digging up Geagea’s past also turn the blindest of eyes to the past of their favorite politician and warlord and person who hasn’t even gotten a brevet degree yet but is practicing politics anyway.
They are the same people who chant their politician’s name off rooftops whenever he has an aired speech. They are the people who empty riffles to celebrate such speeches, regardless of the passerby who might get hit by their stray bullet.
They are the same people who defend war criminals whenever those war criminals serve their purpose. They are the people who have been defending Bashar el Assad for the past three years as he worked his way through a six digit body count.
They are also the same people who would put forth anything championed by Lebanese parties like Hezbollah who, lately, have only been dabbling in the war mindset that we supposedly don’t want for our country through people like Geagea. Or is war in the eye in the beholder?
They are the same people who proclaim secularism as a headline to sound cool and modern but fall back to their old sectarian habits whenever push comes to shove.
Can you envision a Lebanese future where someone like Samir Geagea is president? Can you even fathom how dissociative that is from the reality of today’s Lebanon? You know, the Lebanon where Tripoli was in a state of war up until last week but no one cared; the Lebanon where everyone is getting armed again; the Lebanon where a government took a year to be formed and is basically stillborn even now; the Lebanon where there’s no economy, no hope and no prospects for a future; the Lebanon that is still talking about Samir Geagea and the other warlords he played with way back when even today.
Yes, in such a Lebanon, someone like Samir Geagea and every single other politician being proclaimed as the next president wouldn’t make the natural selection for the presidency.
No, I don’t think Samir Geagea is the best possible candidate to become the next Lebanese president.
No, I don’t think him getting nominated for that position, however trivial such a thing actually is in Lebanese politics, was the right move.
I don’t even get why everyone is entering our own version of Game of Thrones for the Baabda Chair when they all agree that it’s borderline worthless. Perhaps it’s comfortable for gluteal muscles?
I don’t have a say in who becomes president anyway and neither does anyone else including those who have been throwing bitch fits over the past few days, but I have to say it has been quite entertaining to see the borderline mania that has overtaken those people. Who knew Lebanese politics can elicit this much excitement still?
The reasons I don’t think Geagea should be president is simply because he is part of the current perpetuation of a status quo that I cannot I agree with. It’s because him as president will perpetuate this status quo for six years to come and I don’t think our country can handle such a thing anymore. It’s because I think it’s high time other people take up a position of power to challenge the current system, be it within their own sects or within the broader framework of Lebanese politics.
The same reasons why I don’t think Geagea should be president also follow to Aoun, Frangieh and Gemayel, which are being called around as the Maronite Four. Perhaps you should use your future as an argument instead of digging up pasts no one wants uncovered and instead of bashing the part of the civil war class you don’t agree with while secretly swooning over the part you do agree with.
I’ll give you this, though, the craziness is comical.
Filed under: Lebanon
