Now Lebanon - A ride to remember - April 13, 2011

Shane Farrell, April 13, 2011

On Tuesday April 12, the eve of the 36th anniversary of the 1975-1990 civil war, an old school bus meandered through Beirut. It was playing Lebanese songs from the war era and was decked out with banners reading “The bus is waiting for us around the corner.” The bus in question refers to the one carrying Palestinians that was attacked by Christian militants on  April13, 1975. The militants killed everyone on board, and the incident is recognized as the spark that ignited the bloody 15-year conflict.

The ominous message on the banner is aimed at alerting citizens to what the bus tour’s organizers believe is a powder keg of a political climate.
Their main fear is the presence of arms outside of the control of the state, a concern that echoes repeated calls by March 14 leaders for Hezbollah to give up its weapons.
“As long as illegal weapons remain outside the control of the Lebanese army, the country runs the risk of another civil war,” warned Mia Khoury from the recently-formed civil society group that organized the event, Moukawimoun, which means “resisters” in Arabic. “While the rest of the Arab world is in spring, we have fallen back to winter,” she added, referring to the wave of uprisings taking place across the region since December.
Khoury believes that had there been no armed militias in Lebanon in 1975, a civil war would have been averted. Moreover, she says that the current political situation is crucial in determining the future of Lebanon.
“What is at stake this year is more important than 2005,” Khoury said, referring to the year the Syrian army was kicked out of Lebanon. “Syria was going to be expelled sooner or later, [but] now our whole constitution is at stake.”
The Moukawimoun bus took off from Sassine Square at 10:30 a.m., and passed by Adlieh, Ain al-Remmaneh (the neighborhood where the bus shooting took place) and Sodeco before arriving at Martyr’s Square at 1:30 p.m. En route, the organizers distributed flowers, including to some of the mothers who lost their sons during the April 13 bus attack, and copies of a small newspaper that contained articles in French, English and Arabic by Lebanese writers sharing Moukawimoun’s concerns.
Michel Touma, a journalist at L’Orient le Jour and contributor to the Moukawimoun newspaper, is concerned about what he sees as parallels between the current political environment and that of Lebanon on the eve of the civil war.
“The civil war began because a state within a state existed in Lebanon. That situation weakened the central state and allowed third parties to exploit the internal weakness of the state,” Touma told NOW Lebanon. “Now we live in a similar circumstance. We have a mini-state of Hezbollah, which – like Palestinian groups [in 1975] – has its own army, social structure, economic circles and which imposes its authority on one section of the political class.”
Touma praised the medium Moukawimoun used to deliver its message. “The bus, which is reminiscent of the one attacked in 1975, sends a clear message to Lebanese to learn the lessons of the civil war.”
While Khoury was “very happy” with the event and how people reacted to the bus, fewer than a dozen people welcomed the bus upon its arrival at its final destination of Martyr’s Square.
“Partly this was due to poor promotion of the event, as well as the fact that it occurred when most people are at work,” Touma said, adding that the message the organizers sought to deliver to Lebanese was more important than the turnout at the event.
Yet not all passersby took kindly to the call for groups to disarm. “Some people on motorbikes gave us the finger,” said one of the organizers. According to Khoury, though, most of the passersby were happy with Moukawimoun’s initiative. “Some clapped and even asked if they could come onboard,” she said.
Organizers told NOW Lebanon that the costs of renting the bus and paying for flowers and newspapers was entirely self-funded, though the group hopes to get sponsorship for future events.
Another bus, not linked to Moukawimoun and carrying no apparent political message, toured Beirut on Wednesday playing Fayrouz songs in commemoration of the start of the 15-year conflict.