How do we uncover the intent behind the discourse of president Michel Aoun, who is trying to take part of the revolutionary process whilst starving the resources of the revolution of activists? How do we refuse to be part of his side and his revolution against Taif? How do we create a discourse for the revolution?
The strategy of Aoun was clear since the early days of the Social Revolution in Lebanon; he wants to divide the people. Persuading activists against Taif that differ with his opinion and who consider that the result of this agreement increased problems and sectarianism. This is without taking into consideration that this was the intention of the Taif agreement itself, or did the political parties manipulate the whole process of Taif to transformed it into a tool to manipulate the people.
The positive points is that we have a “Taif agreement” and that it is secular diminishes Aoun’s clear vision to withdraw from it no matter how it was applied and manipulated; the text of Taif by itself is secular. If the revolution takes it from here then the people should begin by building their discourse on what has happened already by viewing the agreement from a positive angle and prospect.
The second positive point for revolutionary citizens is about the bicameral legislature. We do not have a separation of powers in Lebanon, each party tries to impose their own influence, and due to that we don’t really have an independent judiciary; Judges being not really independent can’t do their job independently of the political system. So, people should begin by addressing the independence of the judiciary so they can operate the Taif agreement separately from the intentions of the political players.
As for people on the street who do not care about Taif and want another agreement, these can also play a positive role and push back on those involved in the political process who are in agreement with Taif in order to make them applyTaif as it is written, not as they apply it for their own benefits.
As a conclusion between these two opinions, that is those that demonstrate that they oppose Taif and those who do not care about it, we have a president who is trying to drive half the activists in the revolutions by talking about secularism which is part of the Taif. So some wish to stop this Aoun from dancing between the contradiction because he wants to put an end to the revolution, pushing people to believe again that he’s the only solution, the turning point is to build a discourse playing on the contradictions within the revolution to push back on the political class.