All that is happening today is not  preordained destiny, as it could have been avoided

Even before the crises hit, we had warned that the stubbornness of the ruling parties of the regime would bring the country to its current state of collapse. Since the last parliamentary elections, we had warned that the price of a gallon of fuel would reach 300,000 LBP – and that the same trend will apply to other goods and services.

Back then we were labeled pessimistic by some, while others ridiculed us.

This is neither to say that we take pride in being right nor it is to score points as the society collapses and is being threatened in its livelihood and safety. Rather, we say this to emphasize that the foundation of governance should be built on anticipation through knowledge building and being proactive, as well as confronting the political and financial interests that took decisions, years ago out of incompetence and over the past year with full knowledge, to crush society in an aim to preserve their influence.

Above all, we say this to reiterate that we are still capable of avoiding what is currently happening. It is still possible to live in a country where people’s dignity is preserved, not in a country where people are used as fuel to be consumed in the endless struggle for power.

We are highly suspicious that the current happenings are neither innocent nor the result of a manufactured crisis alone. But it is the result of a deliberate political decision intended to pass one last unpopular decision in preparation for the next act: to declare the formation of a government, which will be sold as a productive salvation government in the face of the consequences brought by social collapse.

The government resorts to humiliating its own people to reinvigorate a false sentiment of legitimacy to the regime that creates tragedies to later comfort the people with crumbs and is willing to use the security apparatus to repress them when necessary. Let us not forget that the decision to stop the subsidy made during a meeting of the Higher Defense Council?

We suspect that these efforts are seeking to recreate the events of 1992 when the announcement to float the price of the Lebanese Lira in preparations for the elections, which brought into power the first of the troika governments led by Rafik Hariri, positioned as a rescue government.

All that has happened could have been avoided, and it is still possible to do so.

What lies between the Lebanon we currently see and the one we deserve are the parties of the current regime whose members did not hesitate to shed blood during the war to preserve their influence.

Today they are not hesitating in the annihilation of an entire society for the same purpose.