Lebanese are the Losers


Lebanon with its green pine mountains and a coast of 120 miles on the Mediterranean, was the most preferable place for the tourists to go and a famous centre of trade for all kinds of goods and it was a meeting place for businessmen and traders. But during the 1970s and 1980s, it was a meeting place for war trading.

It is a dear part of the Arab world. It affects and is affected by the changes in it. It embraced about half a million Palestinian refugees.


Lebanon with its 10452 square km area was the capital of the Arab culture through the past years; mainly in 1970s. most of the school text-books were printed in Lebanon. Moreover, other books were issued in it. Free press, translated films and various programmes are issued in it.


The early Arabs adopted the Aramaic alphabet which was used in today’s Lebanon about 3,700 years ago, to Arabic. Arab scribes put dots over some of the letters which were alike and invented and produced the alphabet of 28 letters which the Arab use today.


Lebanon, the country which had a strong economic, now it has collapsed one. It was the state of safety. But since 1975, when the first spark of this civil war started in April with the famous bus event, it became a land of fear and conflict which left more than 150,000 people killed and one million, a quarter of the population, displaced and left a considerable amount of damage and ruins.

For the sake of the vagabonds, orphans and disfigured people, the Lebanese have to make sacrifices for those people and for the sake of Lebanon. The national interest must take over and the Lebanese have to criticize themselves in stead of criticizing others or even each other. They have to look at their mirror to see themselves more clearly and they have to work to serve the national interest rather than the interest of an individual.


In this conflict every country has its own aims and interests and in any case the Lebanese are the losers. Some countries work for the partition of Lebanon which is yearning for peace, unity, stability and security. Others wanted to complicate the political situation in the Mid-east and to block and hinder the peace process. As for Israel, it is fuelling the war in Lebanon to mislead the world’s opinion about what is happening in the occupied territories and to make it as a mask for its crimes. It also worked to link it to the Arab-Israeli conflict.


The Arab League and through the Supreme Arab Tripartite Committee ( SATC ) worked very hard to let the Lebanese deputies gather in Taif in Saudi Arabia and discuss their problem which resulted to sign the National Charter for Reconciliation. The SATC promised to continue its efforts to let Lebanon achieve its goals through the Taif Accord.


A lot of Lebanese sacrificed their souls for the sake of Lebanon. Rene Mouawad, 64 years old, and the ninth president of Lebanon was killed in a bomb explosion, only 17 days after he was elected. He was the second president who paid his life as a price for peace in Lebanon during the bitter civil war.

In 1982, Bashar Gemayel was killed in a bomb explosion, only a few days after his election.

Mouawad was elected as a president of the republic by the Lebanese deputies who are the representative of the people until further notice and those members of the parliament supported the Arab League peace plan. mf.

. Mouawad who was the minister of education in 1980, organized examinations for Christian and Muslim students whose studies had been interrupted by the war and in 1981, he established a ” Zone of Legitimacy ” where all students could sit their examinations. So, the universities of Lebanon remained a beacon of knowledge and culture in the Lebanon’s sea destruction.

But the peace process in Lebanon can go forward despite the killing and the Lebanese have to work for their unity by abandoning differences at this critical stage to end a long period of misunderstanding, civil war and bloodshed.

Despite the deep divisions that have fragmented the country, the Cedar trees remained the symbol of Lebanon and the symbol of the strong will of the Lebanese and of their aspirations to bring stability and reconciliation between the various parties in their country after several years of the bitter civil war that fuelling not only Christians and Muslims but also Christians and Christians, and Muslims and Muslims .


The Lebanese have to give priority to the restoration of unity, independence and sovereignty of Lebanon on its entire territory to resume its role as a leading centre of civilization and culture for Arab nations and for the world.

So, they have to look forward to seeking for far agreement, not provisional one, and through negotiations and understanding. The best framework to achieve their aims is the Taif Accord which was accepted not only by all the Lebanese deputies, but also by the Arab League and the world.


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830 words

written by Salem Mraheel. Quraisha