i just received this via email.

Civil war does not necessarily start the same way every time. For people who are still waiting for the “bus of 75″, it will not pass this time. 3 people were killed on Tuesday and 4 today, until now… It won’t stop. Now it’s in between people; and our leaders didn’t understand yet that they are burning the country. They are still blaming each other and trying to use what’s happening for their political interest.

The war with Israel is easy… we know the enemy. Now the enemy is us.  Welcome to the renewed civil war.

Thirty years ago our parents watched the same thing on TV and said it’s going to stop in few days… And guess what? It stayed for 15! What role everyone of us will play: sit in the shelters, fight with the party/tribe we belong to, close everything and leave the country, sit and argue on who’s responsible… Maybe we need one more war and we deserve it. It seems we didn’t learn enough the last 30 years.

It’s so painful to see our country being destroyed… Our people are killing each other. Now Sunnites and Shiites, tomorrow Christians and Christians and after tomorrow Christians and Druze… Welcome to the jungle of corruption, theocrats, autocrats, war lords, feudalists… Welcome to the jungle of confessions and the consociational democracy, the big lie of the 21 ^st century.

I’m sitting in the office, watching Lebanese TV stations: Fadlallah, Seniora, Karame, Kabalan, Hariri, Berri, Kanaan, Rice and Chirac… How can we even think that this country will go better… when people are killing each other in Beirut, Omar Karame is on TV making a speech and people are shouting: “inta l’mufti ya omar”.

Are we going to argue in 30 years from now if it’s the war of others in Lebanon or if it’s a civil war? Yes, we are responsible of this war. We are responsible of every moment we spent arguing in favor of any of the opposition or March 14. We need to wake up…

When we were able to do something, we didn’t succeed… I’m not sure we can any more. I understand more than ever why youth are leaving the country for good… I’m loosing hope. Can we do something? Can we stop it? Unfortunately, I feel it’s too late. Good luck for all what you will try to do in the first civil war in the third millennium.

Congratulations to all of us for the great work we did to make our country repeat its history.

Congratulations to all our politicians who lead us to this situation. We knew that this is their way to lead and they have no problem repeating the war for the sake of being in power.

Congratulations to us citizens and civil society for still believing that these politicians are still capable of leading this country… and for being divided because of our blind support to them.

If you are waiting for the “Bus” to pass to know that civil war started again… I can assure you it won’t pass again…

Gilbert

January 25, 2007