Saturday, October 22, 2005

Former Lebanese communist leader, Karim Muruwwah says: "We should put Lenin on trial." Angry Arab says: No, we should put people like Karim Muruwwah on trial. They, not Lenin, were responsible for the Stalinization and the ossification of the communist movement in Lebanon. People like him turned the Communist Party first into a tool of Khalid Bakdash, and later into a tool of the foreign intelligence branch of the Soviet Union. People like him squandered the opportunities (not to mention the millions) that came their way over a period of decades. People like him let the communist movement in Lebanon splinter, and then some, like George Hawi became typical sectarian Christian leaders (in the case of Hawi mostly to further the political fortunes of his son Rafi), and others, like Karim Muruwwah, became voices for the Hariri Inc and An-Nahar Inc apparatus. If Muruwwah wanted to put Lenin on trial he should have said so back in 1968 when he and his comrades in the leadership of the Stalinist party persecuted those communists who objected to the Soviet invasion of Checkoslovakia.