In a familiar move, peace activists have staged a publicity stunt on the national museum steps this evening calling for calm after the latest bout of internal instability. The names of the 12 victims of last night’s violence were attached to the empty plastic chairs. Rows more displayed question marks, representing the unknown victims “who will be next,” an organizer told me shaking his head with worried conviction. The message is powerful because sadly he could be right. So far, the state has done nothing to relieve fears that those empty seats will be filled with the names of new victims over the coming days and weeks.
While I commend the activists efforts at resisting violence–which is far more than what most apathetic Lebanese are doing, I fear the effectiveness of such campaigns, which have been all too frequent over recent years and yielded few if any results. I wish more concrete steps could be taken by citizens to physically engage with the young men waging war and the neighborhoods they are terrorizing. The mainstream media could play an important role here by devoting talk shows or special reports to the combatants: Who are they, how did they get involved in this militant lifestyle, what motivates them to continue doing it?
In addition to all this, where are our millionaire leaders? Many hail from Tripoli and it is hard to believe that the current or former prime minister, both billionaires with core constituencies in Lebanon’s second city, are doing all they can to silence the few hundred gunmen destroying the town’s economic and social stability. With all their riches, could they not sponsor a buy-back campaign to get guns off the streets, perhaps in exchange for laptops or partial college tuition? What about developing some plans for potential community centers to address staggering unemployment levels, which are among the country’s highest in the dueling neighborhoods. Just a thought.
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| Peace activists hold sign that reads: “Enough!” |
