When Do You Know If The Ship Is Sinking?

When looking back at the events leading up to the 1975 civil war, it seems obvious that something awful was about to happen. ‘Couldn’t they have seen this coming’, you wonder?

Clouds gather above the mountains

I wonder how – in fifty years from now – people will look back on the period we currently live in. ‘Couldn’t they have seen it coming’, they may ask?

I don’t know what’s coming, so I can’t tell you, but things are not looking good right now. I’ve been blogging since February 2005 - which in retrospect seems to be the date when the future changed for this country -, and although I’m always positive, I can’t say I’m writing a whole lot of optimistic stuff about this place. So if you’d reread me in fifty years, you could say that I felt that something was changing. I don’t know what the near future holds for Lebanon, but I’m not holding my breath.

Maybe it is because I live with someone who predicts doom. But when you talk to friends, the overall tone is pessimism. Whenever you hear someone say they got a job abroad, the reaction is ‘lucky you!’ A friend that married a foreigner and moved to her husband’s country was told ‘at least you’re out of this place.’

It’s like the ship is sinking, and everyone is trying to get off. Is the ship really sinking? I don’t know. When do you realize – while on a sinking ship – that the thing is sinking? When people are abandoning ship? In that case; were sinking! When the horizon is skewed? When things are floating around you? I don’t know. But things are not going right.

Some time ago, in early 2006, I was speaking to a colleague, when he mentioned he had recently interviewed Sleiman Frangieh and that Frangieh had told him they were back in the business of buying arms.

Just some things I saw today while driving in the mountains above Beirut.

Roots

I shrugged it off. Frangieh is an old-timer when it comes to militias. He runs the northern mountain Christians, is closely allied to Syria (his Dad fled to Syria once when he was charged in a murder case and found refuge with a certain Assad family. Yes, ‘those’ Assad’s), and during the civil war he had organized a militia (actually his dad did; Sleiman inherited it) called the Marada Brigade, or more officially, the Zghorta Liberation Army

A pumpkin patch (It's almost Halloween)

After the civil war all militias (except Hezbollah) handed in their weapons and continued life as official political parties with seats in the parliament.

And then yesterday I read this; ‘In Lebanon, Mr. Suleiman Franjieh, a Christian opposition leader, was blunt. He told Assafir that his Marada party was arming to prevent another Ehden & Safra massacre. (The one the took the life of his family back in the civil war)’ at this blog.

On the same road; an 'umbrella' pine forest.

And lots of green.

He’s not the only one. The past two weeks several reports have come out from a various number of sources, including (unofficially) the UN, that more and more of the old fractions are preparing for the worst case scenario.

Hezbollah of course never stopped, and is – according to Israel, for what it’s worth – stronger then it was before the 2006 summer war. And now it seems that the druze of Joumblat, and the other druze contingent of Arslan, the sunni Future Movement of Hariri, and the Christians with Aoun are also in the market of some assault type equipment.
In some cases training camps are mentioned, and Aoun’s (as always) people got caught on camera in full regalia, complete with camouflage paint, which the party dismissed as just’ having fun and playing around.’

The only ladies wearing the facial veil (see side right of picture) are tourists from the Gulf countries.

Dutch blogger Riemer words it very well, when he says ‘There is an atmosphere in the country that doesn’t bode well. The thing is that every single aspect is something to shrug off. Combined, however, they show a pattern that is dangerous. It feels like events have been set in motion and before you know it, they take a course of their own.’

It would be such a pity. This place is so special. Nevertheless, its’ better to be prepared, in case the ship really sinks.