These 46th commemorations of the beginning of the civil war are in the image of Lebanon itself, a country in permanent crisis that it is sometimes security, political as usual, economic as today.
Lebanon never actually learned to learn the lessons of April 13, 1975. Worse still, and if the period following the end of the civil war had not been that of an end but just an intermission in view of the various actors still in place. The price we paid for it was heavy, too high. 100,000 dead, 17,000 people still missing, but for all that, the Land of the Cedars had at the time the capacity to rebuild itself with the existence of a battered middle class but which still had the financial capacities and the necessary know-how. to carry out this reconstruction.
46 years after the start of the civil war to the day, 31 years after the end of the civil war, Lebanon actually still does not seem to have been ostracized from its old demons with warlords who continue to occupy the foreground. of the political scene and to decide the future of the Lebanese nation obviously with their interests, generally paid cash on their accounts first. Similarly, Lebanon is still subject to regional conflicts, the famous axes, which overwhelm both at the local level.
The confessionalization of a system has never been so exacerbated with even yesterday the remarks of a Christian religious leader who conditioned the audit on the formation of a government when other community leaders also go in support of the chiefs. policies of their community and thus interfere in a political conflict thus widening the divide thus dividing this country in 19 nations instead of bringing together. The sacred therefore mixes with the profane by dividing a little more.
This confessionalization of the political system allowed interference, which itself led us to conflict. This interference is still present, unresolved.
To these already present factors have now been added those of a health crisis, those of covid19 and an economic crisis.
46 years after the start of the Lebanese civil war, the health infrastructure has never been so affected with a significant number of patients, such as those wounded during the war, but with one difference, this pressure is this time continuous. Hospitals and hospital staff, on the front line in this war in which some of their family have given their lives, already strained by financial problems and late payments, sometimes even for more than ten years, can no longer breathe. Some heroes of the time are unfortunately leaving us today because of this epidemic, no longer sharing their anecdotes from then and the historical events they witnessed and which explain many things today.
The epidemic itself has induced behaviors some similar to those of the civil war. The confinement is reminiscent of the shelters in which we had to take refuge with each bombardment with some progress. The elders had to be content with textbooks instead of Internet courses. You can not stop progress.
The explosion of the Port of Beirut also reminded a new generation of emptiness that has not known war like its elders. They discovered the suffering … a suffering induced by these same criminal attitudes of the civil war when chemical wastes were stored in Lebanese regions.
An economic crisis of unknown magnitude is now ravaging Lebanon, with 65% of the population all living the poverty line, a de facto devaluation of the Lebanese pound which has lost most of its value against the dollar but also and above all a complete loss of confidence in a banking and financial system.
Unlike the period 1975 to 1990 and the period of hyperinflation that took place at the time, this time local bank deposits are very affected by this financial crisis, prevailing the worst, because it limits the possibilities of recovery economic and reinvestment.
However, this current crisis is only a consequence of the management of the post-civil war and the policies decided then. The Taëf agreements which led to the end of the civil war considered today as responsible for a dilution of political responsibilities and the very absence of executive responsibility, as the French EA Minister Jean Yves le Drian himself underlined. during an interview a few months ago.
Similarly, specialists consider that the reconstruction policy decided upon at the end of the civil war has also shown its limits, with a bad formulation such as the bet on construction and tourism in a country whose stability is only relative and having missed the opportunities to bring Lebanon into the 21st century by betting on new industries with high added value.
Monetary policy has shown its limits and is now in the dock. So if the state has become heavily indebted to finance reconstruction, leaving the productive sectors to the private sector, with the result of significant public debt, the policy of maintaining the parity of the Lebanese pound against the dollar has worsened this factor. . This refusal to have a real parity and therefore to obtain a soft landing resulted in severe monetary corrections as we can see today with a significant loss of parity and a sudden deterioration of the Lebanese pound against the dollar.
As if the relative improvement of the last 31 years has a price today … a debt that we are paying today!