Source : Daily Star

When Charles Dickens penned “A Christmas Carol” in 1843, he almost certainly didn’t suspect that his book would hold significance for the people of Lebanon as they begin to celebrate the holiday in 2009. But over 150 years after the publication of Dickens’ tale, one of its enduring morals gives us hope — That something about the spirit of Christmas can inspire even the most hardened misanthrope to learn the errors of his ways and embrace his or her hitherto repressed sense of humanity.

In our own local, modern version of the classic story, there is more than just one Scrooge. They are the dozens of men and women who serve as our elected representatives, but who have been so miserly in their performance that Lebanese citizens are left mostly empty-handed as Christmas begins.

Like Scrooge, our politicians tend to regard the poor working folk around them as “idiots” and “fools.” Although Lebanese citizens went in their droves to the polls this summer to elect them into office, our parliamentarians have done very little to respond to their most pressing needs.

From massive traffic jams to incessant electricity outages, water shortages and bureaucratic snarls, every Lebanese is paying a daily price for the laxity of the politicians. Our elected leaders have ignored the country’s multiple crises, including accelerating emigration, a faltering economy and the threat of instability and violence.

Even their most basic first task — the act of forming a government after the elections — was achieved not by their own doing, but rather through a rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Syria. In fact, their only contribution to the process was to attempt to break their own impasse by raising the threat of another civil war.

Under the terms of the unwritten social contract that governs the rights and responsibilities of rulers and the ruled, our politicians have relinquished their claim to leadership. Instead of looking after those affairs of state that make the lives of citizens easier, they have concentrated so much on attacking and belittling one another that the general and specific consequences of their “work” have been to frighten and inconvenience everyone else.

The concerns of the Lebanese are emphatically not about the distribution of Cabinet seats, arcane discussions of constitutional clauses, or which of the government and the opposition is more to blame for the state of affairs in the country. The Lebanese have far more important issues to ponder, like the availability of economic opportunities, the safety of their loved ones, and the very survival of their country.

Will it take a visit from three ghosts to remind our politicians of their past promises, their current inaction and the bleak future that they’re creating for each and every Lebanese? Or will they, in the spirit of Christmas, give us the simple gift of representation?