August 4 is a day of remembrance and all days are days of struggle

August 4 shall not be remembered as the anniversary of a crime, because the crime has been ongoing since August 4, 2020 until August 4, 2021.

On August 4, 2020, an inhumane crime took the lives of more than two hundred Lebanese citizens and immigrant workers, and injured thousands, not to mention the destruction that affected half of the capital and the horror that shook the entire country.

On August 4, 2021, a political crime is under way to complete the destruction of all that was spared by the explosion, consisting of preventing justice from being done, in the name of gross immunities and authorizations granted and denied, which have no other purpose than to legalize the crime. This reminds us that the de facto authorities built their legitimacy on impunity, on the basis of community rights rather than human rights, by granting themselves a blanket amnesty for the crimes of the civil war as if nothing had happened, through the establishment of a tight set of mutually reinforcing immunities, after the desperate population had accepted anything to stop the killing.

In commemoration of the first anniversary of the port crime, we are called upon by several parties to participate in various forms of gatherings in remembrance of this tragedy.  Recognizing the serious efforts and sincere intentions of most, we chose not to participate in scattered rallies, especially with the involvement of a number of the regime’s parties, trading on the blood of the victims and the tears of their families, after bankrupting society and squandering its resources and savings.

Because the families of the victims are the first to be stricken by this tragedy that has affected the entire society, on August 4, 2021, as Citizens in a State movement, we will be by their side to comfort their sorrows and support their actions to lift immunities, all immunities, starting with political and security immunities and not stopping at religious ones, whose objective is to cover past crimes and future tragedies for more blood and tears.

Today, we are inspired by the struggle of the victims’ families and their awareness of the urgent need for a real, capable and effective state. Like them, we demand a state that treats society as a society, and citizens as citizens. We denounce the state that bribes its way to legitimacy from looted funds, or that threatens and intimidates once the sources of funding have dried up.  Without a true state, that is, without a civil rights state, and no matter how hard some brave judges try, there will be no way for true justice to be served.

Tragedy is not inevitable. In this case, the port explosion is a crime. Hope is not an illusion. It is in the clarity of vision and in the strength of will. Politics is a responsibility. It is there to prevent tragedies, not to exploit them.

August 4, 2021 is a day of remembrance for the victims of a crime that affected the whole society, but August 4, 2021, and every day, today, tomorrow and the following days, will be days of struggle, to build a future that does not repeat the tragedies, but that we deserve as a society and as individuals.