To Be a Shiite Now...

Mona Fayyad, Lebanon Wire:

We are going through a catastrophic and existential period that will have long lasting impacts on our country and region for the next century; and since we are facing such a dangerous juncture I saw it fit to pose some questions that one might pose within himself or in secret and wouldn't dare publicize, in fear of being accused of being a foreign agent or a traitor, or even a blasphemer. Confronting difficult questions and putting them out in public could help prevent us from falling to the precipice that has no return and could help leaders take the appropriate decisions in order to stop this hellish war whatever the cost may be.

What is the meaning of being Shiite - for the majority of Shiites at this point- and at this critical juncture?

To be a Shiite, means that you entrust your fate to the wise and infallible leadership without daring to ask any question even if just as a point of understanding. READ MORE

To be a Shiite means that you watch the Al Manar channel, or New TV or NBN, exclusively and that you enjoy their inspirational songs and their exclusive news and that you look with enmity to all other channels because they are either "American" or "Zionist", as long as they refer to Israeli forces by their name and do not call them the "forces of the enemy", and do not have enough eulogies and is only broadcasting information.

To be a Shiite means that you do not question the meaning of victory. Is it the victory of armies while keeping soldiers - flush with weapons- alive while destroying all of what is built and the killing of the human beings that worked hard to build it up a nd constitute the true protection to the fighter himself?

To be a Shiite means that you do not question the meaning of resistance and pride, is it the fleeing from bombing and their stacking up on the tile floors of schools and their dust?

To be a Shiite is to contribute to the creation of a Lebanese "Karbala 2" as the Iraqi "Karbala 1" did not perform its role as needed in building up the Arabs and carrying them on to victory over the enemy.

To be a Shiite is to be a hero that does not hurt nor complain, and does not have psychological crises, and accepts sacrificing himself and his country and everything that was accomplished so that he can teach Israel a lesson, and expose its craziness and ensure its defeat as was indicated to us by the Syrian Minister on the LBC station that Israel is the loser with "accentuation on the punctuation of letters". You see it is now hated more than ever before and it is indicted by most of the nations of the world...Now that they see for sure - and the lesson is still proceeding - the extent of its savagery and folly.

When you are Shiite, you have to accept this logic, and even praise it, admiring its eloquence, its wisdom and its global role in spreading the legal education and the enactment international treaties and its role on a popular level in resistance and liberation. Didn't we see for sure through this war on us, that "Syria is the cornerstone in this region"? These are the very words of the minister himself. Of course all this destruction was necessary in order to ensure with concrete evidence the validity of this reasoning be cause of the level of our objective thinking we only work with evidence and empirical experimentation.

To be Shiite is to accept that your country be destroyed in front of your very eyes- with no surprise- and that it comes tumbling down on your head and that your family be displaced and dispersed and becomes "a refugee" at the four corners of the nation and the world, and that you accept standing up to the enemy with no complaints as long as there is a fighter out there with a rocket that he can launch at northern Israel and maybe even at its south without asking about the "why" ? or about the timing? or about the usefulness of the end result?

To be a Shiite is to accept that you sacrifice all as long as you have someone that will compensate you with money, and that someone will look over you as you rebuild what he destroyed. What is your problem with that? You see we are a people of heroes that know nothing but sacrifice and we can absorb mental shocks and the death of loved ones and the humiliation of displacement and the destruction of the infrastructure of the state - since its is a weak, corrupt and follower state- is it not enough to have on our side a strong country that we work to support its foundations in confronting the unjust American might and the American Israeli war machine from hell? That machine that whose meekness we have to prove as well as its inability to inflict any harm to the fighters of "Hizbollah" or its ability to limit their military capabilities and we will prove that at any price.

To be a Shiite is to keep silent and not to ask what is the purpose of liberating a country. Is it to destroy it all over again and to make it possible for it to be occupied once more? and not to ask about the leadership role: is it to preserve its military power and its men flush with arms without any care or concern for the normal human being? Being a Shiite means that you can only thank the Hizb for its heroism and sacrifice , it is not your role to contribute to "weakening" it or to "break its word" or to make him know when to back down or compromise to preserve his victory on the one hand and to preserve the Lebanese nation and its openness as well as its development on the other hand!! That means never to question whether pride takes precedence over the lives of others and whether stones take precedence over arms.

To be a Shiite means to confer to the leader of the resistance his role as a loyal hero to the cause of the Arab nation in its entirety, not whether you like it or not, but whether that nation likes it or nor. You only have to hear the popular praise of the masses, that was preceded by the praise the masses heaped on their loyal hero Abdel Nasir and is still shedding tears for its other hero of Saddam Hussein. And the masses are still able to heap praise on any hero that tickles its dreams and its feelings so that it can sleep tight at night. (You can here review the literature of the educated in the Safir newspaper and the Hayat). Or to recover its lost dignity under the boots of rulers like Saddam as long as we and only we pay the price until your real awakening. But the question is to what degree can we rely on these incapable masses, that are enslaved by their rulers to liberate itself without even thinking about reconsidering this Jihadist and revolutionary plan !! Is it empowered? Is it it wise enough? Has it prepared the ground for that? Does it have the tools for resistance and fighting other than the arms of zeal and emotion and oratory? If you are a Shiite you are not to ask this leadership how the ground work was prepared to absorb this indiscriminate war and its "potential"consequences. Where are the hospitals, the ambulances, never mind the shelters. These are the responsibilities of a state- That was never consulted in declaring war- so that it can be blamed for its weakness and lack of wit. You see the state is only needed when it is called upon to heal wounds, but the wise and existential decisions are not within its realm.

To be a Shiite means to incapacitate your mind and leave it to Sayyed Khamene'i to guide you and to decide for you what he wants for arms to "Hizbollah" and he imposes on you the meaning of a victory that has little difference from suicide.

To be a Shiite means to defend the meddling of the Iranian minister in Lebanese state affairs without even trying to care for appearances. Maybe he came to "warn" the ministers of Hizbollah that "they did not agree" to the 7 point plan especially the point about the multinational force so that the door of the resistance would not be shut, and we remain a country exploited and abused after it was proven that the Shebaa Farms are Syrian and would be dealt with in accordance to Resolution 242 and that there is no concensus on that point. And in that he is warning them about their putting their Lebanese belonging ahead of their following to Iran. They have to, in spite of their noses, put the Iranian nuclear program and the interest of the state of Iran ahead of the interest of their state, and ahead of the preservation of the lives of the Lebanese or their possessions, whether these Lebanese are Shiite or otherwise, but especially if they were Shiites. Isn't it a priority to make Iran a regional Shiite super power ? What is the problem with sacrificing a country called Lebanon ? or the Shiites of this "Lebanon"?

And in this tense mood if you are a Shiite you have to listen to your Shiite speaker who is disturbed and angry and who wants to turn the world on top of the 14th of March, and who wants to forbid the deployment of multinational forces. And you hear him distribute labels of foreign servitude, treason, Americanism and Zionism left and right, without raising your lip. You have to absorb his anger and agree with all his opinions of which we have shared but a small sample. This is what takes you as far as possible from thinking who the heck you are? are you a Lebanese citizen? Is you being a Shiite means that you have to give priority to Iran over Lebanon? Do you have the freedom to have your own opinions? the freedom of expression? Is it possible to think calmly and to ask where are we going with this nation, the institutions of this state, with plurality, with the coexistence that we have to defend now?

If you are a Shiite and you dare write such writings and such think such thinking, then you must be a foreign agent and a traitor, in favor of partition and absorption of Palestinians. You must be with the Zionist and Israeli projects, and you defend the state, with its corruption and favoritism, and you support the American biased policies, and you accept its short sightedness, and its support for the terrorism of the Zionist state, and its failure to give the Palestinians their state like all other creatures of god, with the excuse of supporting the terrorism of "Hamas". And that means you support Israel itself and its satanic war machine and its extreme savagery and you justify its killing, its occupation, its folly and you are lucky if you are not accused to be the one destroying the houses on peoples' heads and the dismemberment of children's corpses and their scattering on the heaps of debris by raising your voice.

Did I forget any of the symphony? If I did, please excuse me because I cannot miss any of the news shows any more, I have to go see who is being displaced and whose house is being destroyed at the moment that is if he manages to survive.

Mona Fayyad is a Professor at The Lebanese University