Martyrs’ Square: "The peaceful revolution is behind us"

In Martyrs’ Square, beside the monument, the scars of violent nights are still clearly visible. On Sunday evening, two tents were completely burnt down, and the remains of their blue tarpaulins are still there. The plastic chairs of the large tent, which functioned as the protesters' kitchen, are still neatly stacked, but that's about all that is left. The other tent is just a pile of scrap metal.

"We were there yesterday, of course! We camp on the Square every day!", said the young people with a smile while chatting near one of the ruined tents. They did not know each other before the revolution, they have no political affiliation, but now they are a cohesive, united group. And if they refuse to give out their names, it's only because their troubles with the authorities have now become something of a daily routine.

For them, the identity of the person responsible for the fire is not in question. "He is a member of the Parliament’s police in civilian clothing. We already identified him,” said one of them. “We saw him burn the two tents, and that’s the only thing he managed to do. Fortunately, he got in trouble with the army’s intelligence services who beat him up nicely!” said one of the young men.

Clashes with the Internal Security Forces (ISF) - the main security apparatus overseeing the Square-, have become a daily occurrence, without there being any clear reason as to why the situation escalates on time and again.

Interior Minister Raya el-Hassan (the ISF’s supervisory authority) asked the "peaceful" demonstrators to leave the downtown Beirut’s squares so as not to be "caught in the crossfires".

When asked what they thought of Ms. el-Hassan’s advice, the young people broke into laughter. "How can she ask us to leave the squares when one of our requests is to get rid of her?” one of them said. “The members of the State have neither the right to ask us to vacate the squares nor to chase us in our tents in order to arrest us, as one of the police officers did with me,” another said. The demonstrators explain the weekend’s outbreak of violence (on the evenings of both Saturday and Sunday) on Weygand Street, which occurred after the initially peaceful demonstrations, as the result of Parliament coming “under attack” and especially because its leader is the unshakable Nabih Berri. "There is no point in wondering if the officials are coordinating their actions towards us. We believe that Nabih Berri is the one leading the game", said a young man. He stressed that one of Berri’s relatives is the commander of the parliamentary police, that is independant of the ISF . The violence exhibited by the State’s security organizations is unprecedented. “While Lebanon is a signatory to an international convention that compels it to limit the use of chemicals, they are targeting us directly with tear gas canisters filled with chemicals,” said one protestor. The activists shows a number of tear gas cannisters that they keep as evidence of the brutality against them.

And it's not only tear gas canisters. "A young man was beaten up so brutally that he lost his memory and was hospitalized", said one protester. “Abuse can also be psychological. One morning when we woke up, we discovered drugs [lying] around the tent. It was an attempt to discredit us", he adds. If the revolution is taking on more a violent turn, these participants nonetheless remain attached to its fundamentals, in particular the rejection of all the political parties which, as they say, at one point wanted to take over the Square by setting up their own tents, "but they bolted as soon the hostilities started”. Do these young people fear any future changes? “Of course not! We are not afraid. We are staying here", replied a young woman, who is part of the group.

Evening raids …

A little further away, in the parking lot opposite the Mohammad el-Amine mosque, the tents are intact, but the anger is no less hot. Habib, one of the activists, reports daily raids by "young people on motorcycles from Khandak el-Ghamik" (a stronghold of the Shiite Amal-Hezbollah tandem), who had gathered the previous day on the Ring Bridge.

"On Sunday it was not just two tents that were supposed to be set on fire", he said. “It was easy to see that the perpetrators’ plan was to get us out off the street definitively, by putting all the blame on these poor young people from Khandak el-Ghamik, whom they have once again sent to attack us. We came to blows, and they had several wounded in their ranks, which precipitated their departure. It must be stated that young people from Akkar, Tripoli, Jal el-Dib, Jisr el-Basha and elsewhere were there to help us deal with the situation," Habib said.

Habib now expects rounds of violence every evening, and speaks of a "self-defense" strategy being necessary. "The peaceful revolution is behind us", he says. “If there is no big development, like an army take-over for example, I fear that it [the current situation] will be long, very long, because the current rulers continue to ignore what the street wants”. Just like the young people mentioned above, Habib has more confidence in the army than in other security organizations and thinks that "it is thanks to them that the worst was avoided during the nighttime clashes on Sunday".

The limits of violence

Is the "peaceful revolution" really behind us? Amine Issa, coordinator of the political leadership of the National Bloc, thinks that this claim should be accurately defined. "From the start, the protesters have been the victims of assaults", he said. “The use of violence is originating from one side only." But “even the political forces know that there are limits to violence, beyond which they will have to assume more serious consequences, regarding the cohesion of the army for example, or even in regards to the economic future of the country”.

Nevertheless, according to Amine Issa, the movement is taking on a new form. "This weekend, I observed the demonstrators on the ground", he says. “I realized that they are now divided into two groups. On the one hand, there are the young radicals who do not want to give in until the formation of an independent government. And on the other hand, there is the remainder of the citizens, who sometimes get discouraged by the clashes, but who nevertheless remain radical in their opposition to the political class as a whole. One example of this is the handling of former Prime Minister Fuad Siniora, who was booed and pushed out during a concert at AUB on Sunday evening. And the same would have happened with any other political figure."

Amine Issa thinks that we are now witnessing a common redistribution of roles within a protest movement: the youngest remain reactive and present on the field, and the older supporters, who are somewhat tired, have to go about their daily responsibilities. "The demonstrators are making their own decisions on the ground", he says. “The role of the opposing parties and other civil society groups will come in later, when it will be necessary to manage the new state of affairs which will have imposed itself."

(This article was originally published in French in L'Orient-Le Jour on the 17th of December)