Whither Lebanon: a nation on the brink

The last time a French president arrived in an Arab country in the midst of a crisis, he did so bearing the gift of democracy. That was back in 2011 when Nicolas Sarkozy descended on Benghazi along with his then British counterpart, David Cameron, to cheer on the ‘revolution’ that had erupted in the city, desperate as both leaders were to ride the wave of the so-called Arab Spring all the way to the rocks of Western hegemony. Nine years later you would find it impossible to locate democracy in Libya using the Hubble Space Telescope. What exists there instead is murder, mayhem and slave markets — the grim fruits of yet another country sacrificed on the altar of human rights.

If Libya’s travails prove anything it is that no matter how bad things may be, they could always be worse. It is why the sight of current French leader Emanuel Macron descending on Beirut in response to the horrific blast that destroyed a large swathe of the city, pledging aid while demanding political reform, should send a shiver up the spine of every Lebanese citizen with any understanding of the Western colonial mind.

Of course, it would be churlish to question the right of the Lebanese people to accept aid from any quarter given the nature of the crisis to befall the country, but the idea that Washington, Paris, and even more outrageously, Tel Aviv, care one whit for the welfare…