Why the Silence?

Why the prolonged silence, my friends are asking me privately, despite the proliferation of events and developments that should command my attention and response? What? Don’t I have anything to say about the developments in Nahr al-Bared? The assassination of MP Eido? The Hamas take-over in Gaza? Ghadri’s visit to Israel? The establishment of the international tribunal? Don’t these developments warrant some kind of a response from a dedicated opposition figure?

But then, that is exactly the problem. I am indeed dedicated to working for the achievement of certain goals, such as the dissemination of a democratic culture in our region and empowerment of a new generation of young democratic leaders therein, but oppositional politics per se have always been more of a distraction than the real deal for me. This is so at least with regard to the manner in which they are being practiced. There is much left to be desired here to say the least. People who have the means don’t know how to invest them properly for the sake of the cause they suppose to believe in, and people who don’t have the means spent most of their time worrying about getting them, and accounting for them, than to be able to do what is actually required to advance the cause. 

Meanwhile the regime can spend literally hundreds of millions of dollars to advocate its point of view, which, no matter how illegitimate, will always have a large enough audience, seeing that the possession of power is in itself a sufficient measure of legitimacy to many, if not most of the relevant actors, even observers.

So what the hell am I trying to say? I don’t know really. I think I just can’t think of any other way to say that I am severing my association with the National Salvation Front. The Reason? A loss of faith really, but then not only, or necessarily, in the NSF itself, but in the current political processes unfolding all around us at this stage, and in the ability of any of the established oppositional groups as a whole to do anything to make themselves relevant and effective.

There are ways for doing that of course, it’s not the lack of ideas and possibilities that is the problem here, but the lack of necessary means and the right personalities, in other words, the same old seemingly insoluble problem.

Still, I cannot give up of course, this is not about giving up, this is more about the need to take some time off, to take a step back, to try to brainstorm a little, to collect my thoughts, and some more energy, to plod on.

It’s about finding the energy to keep on muddling through, because that’s what the challenge is all about: muddling through, muddling through to the last gasp of time within us.