December 2024

You’re looking at a snapshot of old Damascus.

“The Emperor Has No Clothes, And Neither Do We,” was the fourth lesson I drew from the 2011 Arab uprisings in This Arab Life, A Generation’s Journey Into Silence:

There are no pretenses anymore; no pretense of a real bond, a serious promise, or common cause. It’s a nakedly honest relationship between ruler and ruled. They no longer pretend to care for our wellbeing, because who would believe them? And we no longer pretend to love them, because who would believe us? It’s a bare, bare Arab political terrain. Every grand idea and party and movement that lit up the 20th century survives only as a relic in the twenty-first

You’re looking at just one of countless vistas of return to the south.

It begins! The recrimination here and the chest pounding there in the aftermath of this latest war on Lebanon. The devastation is massive enough to announce Hezbollah’s defeat, but the movement’s stubborn steadfastness is credible enough to trumpet its victory.

In full view of the actual tally, such psychology may seem preposterous. But it shouldn’t be. It’s never been in struggles between very powerful actors who seek to overwhelm with superior force and underdogs who bear it, stand their ground, land their own painful punches, and emerge to plan for another day.