Lebanese distress at the news of Rafik Hariri's death. (Credit: L'Orient-Le Jour archives)
Rafik Hariri's assassination 20 years ago was a real hammer blow to the head for the Lebanese.
When the explosion echoed in Beirut, it was first thought an earthquake. It was one. Confusion, crying, anxiety, sadness and despair took hold of everyone.
Bachir Gemayel's assassination in 1982 immediately came to mind. Every time a politician carried the hopes of the Lebanese, he was assassinated, and hope was gone with him.
What struck me as a psychoanalyst was the depression suffered by my patients. Nothing else mattered. They talked only about the assassination and its consequences for the country. Their problems, no matter how serious, were forgotten. This was all anyone talked about.
Jacques, who had left the country shortly after the civil war of 1975 and returned to Lebanon in 2000, told me, "It's impossible; this country is cursed, we have no right to live or hope. I came back from Canada thinking I could restart my life in Lebanon. But no."
Jamil cried upon arriving at his session. "What will I do? My children are young, I can't travel and take them with me. Why, but why?"
Samir, close to Hariri, said, "I just lost my father for the second time. I can't take it anymore. I want to go to my father's grave, I haven't been there since his death."
Samir's decision to visit his father's grave, where he hadn't been since the burial, shows how Rafik Hariri was considered a father figure to many Lebanese people.
This father figure took on an immeasurable dimension upon his death. All my patients were in mourning. And so was I. Often, I struggled to hold back my own tears. I had never experienced this before. In France, such an occasion had never arisen for me. In 30 years of professional life in Paris, national traumas accompanied my practice and plunged my patients into dismay and distress, but never to this extent.
Present at the site of the attack, one of my patients had his right arm torn off. Despite this catastrophe, he spoke about the assassination of Hariri and the loss suffered by the country: "My arm, that can be fixed, they'll give me a prosthesis. But the loss of Hariri, who will replace him for Lebanon?"
Some of my patients, seized by national fervor, wanted to join the Lebanese Army and the Internal Security Forces. "Why continue doing my job? I might as well serve the country." The people grumbled and rebelled. All confessions combined, the Lebanese started to invade downtown, already heralding the famous March 14. I saw a procession of young Kataeb chanting "La ilah illa Allah." I couldn't believe my ears. And when Hassan Nasrallah had that unfortunate and provocative comment "Zoom in, zoom out," implying that the number of Lebanese gathered downtown was not so important, that it depended on the camera's shot, all my patients rebelled.
Devastated by Hariri's assassination, they put aside their own problems for a while. "All united for Lebanon" became their only slogan.
This article was translated from L'Orient-Le Jour.
