To Sayed Hassan Nasrallah: The Withdrawal in Favor of the Real Opposition Saves Lebanon

September 30, 2020

The “National Bloc” and “Citizens in a State” issued the following joint statement:

First of all, just as a reminder, we’re not concerned with what the French president is saying, nor the U.S. administration, or anyone else in Saudi Arabia and Iran. We are also not involved in what you have said about the club of former prime ministers, and they were your partners in power and you are still meditating on their own good and a renewed partnership with them.

As an opposition, we did not believe in outside intervention to resolve the Lebanese crisis, although states have interests, not friendships. We are convinced that Lebanon must solve its problems. Every external intervention in Lebanon’s recent history complicates matters, and we have all the necessary political and administrative competencies in Lebanon.

When we met the French President Emmanuel Macron during his first visit to Lebanon, we voiced our recognitions to the French people for helping the Lebanese people and stated to him: “How do you rehabilitate a regimethat has ruined Lebanon for the past 30 years? “.

The regime, of which you are a cornerstone for30 years now, with its failure and looting and quota-sharing and sectarianism and foreign allegiances, calls for international intervention and the imposition of its conditions. You said that the parliamentary blocs represent the sects, true, they represent citizens only to the extent that they are alienated by their fear of each other, and are divided by their need to beg for benefits in exchange for their loyalty to sects. Sectarian parties no longer feed on the distribution of benefits but rather on instilling fear and anxiety.

As for the government you desire which “respects the norms and the popular will”, what norms and respect for the popular will are you talking about? Do these mean the persistance of the sectarianization of the regime and its deceiving of popular demands and  impoverishing and humiliating citizens through clentelism ? How can this self-renewing regime fight corruption, as you say, and for the last 30 years it has been unable to condemn one corrupt but rather was the main factor in the spread of corruption or in tolerating it at the very least, despite all the statements, promises, disclosure of facts and reports to the competent authorities? We do not agree on President Macron’s paper, which you all agreed on. Because it calls for a “mission government.” The mission government is the contradiction of the transitional government, the fomer’s goal is to rehabilitate a fallen regime and retrieve a delusionalgolden age by recovering the confidence of foreign capital that was supposed to be invested in the productive sectors generating jobs.The latter is to establish a real, just and strong state and found its civic legitimacy based on its citizens’ confidence.

Acknowledging an error is a virtue, and withdrawing from ruling positions in favor of the real opposition to form a transitional government with exceptional legislative prerogatives that puts the train on the right rescue track is honorable. Lebanon and its citizens do not have the luxury of trials the results of which are known in advance when  a total collapse is folding upon us and the poverty and hunger are swarming in every village and neighbourhood.

As for saying that the reason for holding on to power is to protect the resistance in the face of the israeli enemy and the political presence of a sect: the real protection will come only from the Lebanese and the internal solidarity and not from the outside, and certainly not by severance from the rest of the Lebanese.