Beirut – Two years to the minute after former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri was blasted to death by a massive car bomb, thousands of his followers lapsed into quiet Wednesday as church bells clanged and a muezzin sang the call to prayer: “God is great.”
Mourning a little, demonstrating a lot, they choked city squares in Beirut to honor the charismatic Hariri – and to rekindle the spirit of righteous outrage that followed his assassination, which many in the crowd said they believed was carried out by Syria.
At a time when Lebanon stands utterly divided against itself, plagued by mysterious bombings and drifting in and out of sectarian street fighting, the commemoration seemed to have more to do with the current crisis than with Lebanon’s many slain leaders, Hariri included. Instead of weeping for the dead father, the young crowd screamed and swooned for Saad Hariri, his son and political heir.
“We’re here to say that not all Lebanese are on the other side. Not all Lebanese are with Hezbollah,” said Joyce Mekari, a 28-year-old hotel manager. “We are liberal, independent, open- minded people, actually. We don’t want Syria or Iran to interrupt in our country.”
She paused, and grinned.
“We prefer America and France,” she said.
Coils of razor wire and rows of troops cordoned downtown Beirut into two separate cantons. The Hariri supporters came pouring into downtown from along the Mediterranean coast, the Sunni neighborhoods in the south and from nearby Christian neighborhoods. They caroused along, whooping and honking and screaming the names of their leaders.
On the other side of the razor wire, a demonstration meant to bring down the government dragged through yet another fruitless day. Two months after Hezbollah and its allies declared the government a tool of the United States and began their round-the-clock sit-in to demand more power, the pavement has come to resemble a military encampment.
Tattered tents dangle from strings and flap in the winter winds. Weary-faced men haul plastic chairs into the sunlight to rest.
“It’s all wrong,” said Mohammed Sayed, a 20-year-old computer student and Hezbollah supporter. “We’re all Lebanese, and we’re divided. There may be a civil war. Nothing is impossible now.”
Back on Martyr’s Square, at the edge of Hariri’s tomb, the message from leaders who addressed the rally was plain: There is no more room for middle ground.
“We are all writing history today,” said Carlos Eddy, a Christian leader. “People say they are neutral, that all politicians are the same, so it doesn’t matter. This is not right. This is not a soccer match. … This is a fight between two ideologies, and our future will be written based on which one prevails.”
