The Lebanese can now resume their civil wars...in peace, hopefully: I do not relish being proven correct in my earlier assessment of the Lebanese situation, and my cynical reaction to the artificial facades of Lebanese popular unity. I do not derive pleasure from watching the Lebanese going back to their ugly sectarian identities and animosities, especially as they historically fueled the successive Lebanese civil wars. People who watch Lebanon, and the Lebanese themselves, are now noting with increasing alarm the rise in manifestations of sectarian hatred, agitation, and mobilization. The tone of the recent beginnings of electoral campaigns are classical Lebanese sectarian dirty politics, and those were camouflaged by the Ta'if charade and Syrian military domination. And the LBC-TV is the best to pour gasoline on the fire of sectarianism in Lebanon. That is their specialty. Let the true Lebanese now come out. `Awn will be back, and Ja`ja` will be released, and the militias are just a phase away. There are militias of course, but they are now just under the surface although even the Global High Commissioner for Lebanon, Terje Roed-Larson (recently praised by Bush, who gives him instructions before his trips to Middle East) noted the presence of armed men in different neighborhoods in Lebanon. Is that not how the civil war started in Lebanon? I have often said that the last refuge of Lebanese scoundrels is sectarianism. And the last scoundrel in this regard is the Lebanese president, Emile Lahhud, who I may interview when I go to Lebanon in June. He now, having realized belatedly that he only has some support among Lebanese Shi`ites, has embarked on a dirty sectarian Christian campaign to win some Christian points of support, in the hope of getting his son, Emile Lahhud Jr., elected deputy. This Lahhud (the son) has a notorious reputation for corruption, and his name was one of several Lebanese who were listed in the captured Iraqi documents published by Fakhri Karim in his newspaper Al-Mada in Baghdad, and the names were those who were granted oil coupons for sale by the government of Saddam's dictatorship. He now also wants sectarian Christian support. Even the president's son-in-law, Ilyas Murr--son of the notorious Michel Al-Murr who more than anybody else was a key linchpin--along with Hariri--in the political-economic order installed by the Syrian military-intelligence apparatus in Lebanon. They all now want to pose as protectors of sectarian Christian interests. All this, the recent sectarian fuss that is, is about appointing a successor to the director of the Surete General in Lebanon. The president, who took a vow of silence once crowned for a second term by the Syrian president, now wants to be vocal in sectarian posturing. This is Lebanon. And the Maronite Patriarch now wants to design electoral districts for Lebanon, the smaller and the narrower, the better for him. You see: he wants each sectarian group to elect its own members to the parliament. A clear recipe for the perpetuation of sectarian identities and animosities. This demagogic patriarch claims that small electoral districts are good because voters would know the personalities of the elected, forgetting that the entire country of Lebanon can fit in one electoral district in the US. Knowing the "elected?" What a false and bogus claim. He just does not want Muslim vote spoiling the elections of extreme Christian sectarian candidates. Yet, the Patriarch and his ilk also demand that Lebanese in Brazil, who never stepped foot in Lebanon since 1926, be allowed to vote for candidates in Lebanon, not realizing the contradiction in his position. But Muslim parties and movements are also sectarian-minded: they want larger districts to bring Christian deputies with Muslim votes. But the Patriarch does not mind the election of Muslim candidates with Christian votes (Jubayl--for the Shi`ite seat, Ba`bda for the Shi`ite seat, etc). The solution is of course full secularization of the system (or gradually the creation of two chambers, one with sectarian distribution and single-member-districts and the other secular with proportional representation), and the elimination of sectarian tags from the system and the from the consciousnesses of people. Proportional representation (with Lebanon as one electoral district) would produce national and multi-sectarian political parties that we so badly need for the country. It will force Hizbullah to run for votes in Kisrawan and `Awn will be forced to run for votes in Tripoli. And the creation of mixed electoral districts is good, because it excludes extreme sectarian candidates, but it cannot be done the way it was done in post-Ta'if Lebanon, where only extreme Muslim candidates were allowed but not Christian. A friend sent me a report from a sports game (basketball) in Lebanon the other day. It was between Sporting Beirut (Sunni team) and al Hikma (Maronite team-pro LF)--yes, even sports teams are sectarian in that Hummus homeland. After the loss of Hikma, their supporters started chanting (to annoy their Muslim rivals): "Hariri Rah, Rah; Nasrallah, waynu, waynu" (Hariri is gone, is gone; Nasrallah, where is he, where?). And "Ah, Ah, Abu Baha'" (Abu Baha' is Hariri's nickname). But I bet that Bush will now talk less and less about Lebanon, and the US correspondents will now be gradually withdrawn from Lebanon. After all, developments will not be seen as validation of the Bush's doctrine, although Washington Post and New York Times reporters have been touring the globe hoping to validate the "Bush's doctrine." The two-months-old Lebanon's charade has officially ended; Lebanon is now unmasked. Just watch.