BEIRUT, January 25 2007: For several hours, gangs of young men clutching iron bars and makeshift clubs took over the streets of Cola. They stood in the middle of all road intersections, checking transiting vehicles and asking the same questions that terrified a generation of Beirutis: “Where are you going? And where do you live?”
Religious identity, political loyalties and area of residence, often go hand in hand in Lebanon. In the predominantly Sunni neighborhood of Tariq el Jedide, the supporters of Saad Hariri and Fouad Siniora patrolled the streets. “We are protecting our neighborhood,” said one of the militiamen. I listened to him rant about the opposition’s determination to conquer his turf and watched him rush away. Meanwhile, a teenager picked up the pieces of a broken sidewalk. He stored them neatly in his front door, as a reserve of ammunitions. Another boy walked out of a construction site with the steel rod of a scaffolding structure, and began to run in the direction of gunfire rattles and clouds of smoke. The epicenter of the conflagration, Beirut’s Arab University, was only a few blocks away.
This apocalyptic scenario was a far cry from what Cola looks like under normal circumstances. The highway is usually jammed with traffic. Right below the bridge, buses plying the southern routes stop to unload and reload their human cargo, and the students of the Arab University move around from one neighborhood to the other without any worries. But on January 25, 2007, Cola turned into a battleground. After the clashes killed four people and wounded over 160, the Lebanese Army imposed a curfew on the capital, the first one since 1996.
This incident was bound to happen. A political leadership that stubbornly refuses to engage in constructive dialogue, and the simmering tensions between Israel and Syria, and the United States and Iran, are setting Lebanon on the course of civil war. Let us hope that the violence in Cola will convince all actors, domestic as well as international, that they have pushed their political standoff one step too far. At this stage, even a small spark, such as a dispute between university students, can ignite large-scale outbursts of violence.
Next week the Arab University will reopen. In two weeks, the parliamentary majority will commemorate the anniversary of Rafik Hariri’s death with a massive demonstration. The potential for another explosion of violence is there. What can contain it? For the moment, only the restraint of civil society can hold the nation together. Indeed, most Lebanese people are sick and tired of war. But if their leaders continue to push them into a dead end, stirring up sectarian animosity and wrecking the national economy, the Lebanese people will not hesitate to take up arms and fight.
CLASHES AT THE ARAB UNIVERSITY
