It seems that July 14th is the day of the National Holiday. A symbol of cohesion and gathering of the French people around principles that forge the very essence of the Nation. It is a date commemorating a day more than two centuries old when a famous Parisian prison is emptied, where opponents unjustly condemned for their opinions regain freedom, and where the right to express one’s ideas becomes one of the fundamental keys to political life. There is no doubt that the Syrian president, invited this year to the official parade platform, will secretly savor this brief historical reminder.
The most uncompromising will retort that Bashar El Assad does not look out of place among this array of foreign heads of state who, gathered in Paris for the launch of the Union for the Mediterranean, are not paragons of democratic virtue. But the others have at least the merit, if one dares say, of washing their dirty linen in private. Certainly, a lesser evil. As a worthy heir to his father, Bashar Al Assad’s dictatorial regime continued the occupation of the neighboring state of Lebanon, perpetrated surveillance, arbitrary arrests, violence, and political assassinations against all those, journalists and writers, activists and leaders, who denounced or attempted to denounce the atrocities of Damascus. Indirectly, a French ambassador and soldiers from a French contingent were also victims.
Even if the power in Damascus has given a token to Western powers by accepting, in Doha, the appointment of General Michel Sleiman as president of Lebanon, any specialist in the region knew it was to better slow down later, and without being at the forefront, the second round of negotiations: the formation of Fouad Siniora’s government. This power should not, it is hoped, claim the drastic “cleanup” that has occurred over the past two years in its security entourage. Between the sidelining and physical elimination of people likely to be incriminated in the attack against Rafic Hariri, it rather chills the spine. To give such an early and complete endorsement to President Assad is to demonstrate a confounding misunderstanding of Syrian strategy. It is also to ignore, undoubtedly due to a logic of haste and exaggeration, the resources offered by the difference between dialogue, the extended hand, and the act of rewarding with a strong gesture a host not yet completely commendable. Everything that is excessive, Talleyrand would say, is insignificant.
Split between incredulity tinged with irony and the will to demonstrate in front of the French embassy, the Lebanese do not fail to question the ambivalence and timing of a diplomacy where compassion is shown on Saturday with the victim before honoring the executioner on Sunday. They also invite us to reflect on the substance and stakes of a word or promise, whether it occurs at the presidential palace in Baabda or in the premises of a factory in the French province. Whatever embarrassment this idea suggests to the unconditional supporters of the one who utters them, we cannot blame our Levantine friends for sharing them with us. In Ireland too, albeit regretfully, others have taken it upon themselves in their way to sanction a voice that has become inaudible.
Encouraging the resumption of dialogue between countries in conflict remains an objective as ambitious as it is commendable. However, care must be taken against the psychological tropism that, in the name of an obsession with success, grants more to those who oppose than to those who accept. Let us plagiarize Seneca as a conclusion: it is with democracy as with dictatorship: by frequenting one or the other too often, one ends up acquiring a taste for it.
