Recently, after the Mehlis report, there has been a lot of solidarity by different Bloggers about their justified indignation on how focus has shifted to the "Syrian Anguish". Some posts have been emotional, and others very well written - so I’m going to keep this to a minimum. I haven’t really given my opinion about the report - here and here I basically warn about how the report can be used to advance different aims.

Sadly, none of those aims have turned out to be about justice.

However, I can’t honestly say that I’m surprised. Politics is not fair. Schindler, in the movie Schindler’s list says something along the lines that punishing someone for a crime is justice, not power, and continues by saying that “Power is when we have every justification to kill, and we don't”. The chase for freedom in Lebanon has always been for more power by those who have it.

It shouldn’t be like that. It should be the case that several people were assassinated for political reasons, and that the assassins should be punished. However, given this extremely simple outline, the story is actually an exceptionally complex plot, with an ending that is still not in sight.

For the sake of argument, let’s just say that nothing happens (or, nothing major happens). Say that the Syrian regime doesn’t get punished. Say that we still have sycophant politicians who follow the Syrian carrot. Where do we go from there? There is one thing that is imperative, and something that should start now. We have to stop thinking in terms of what others can give us. Some people think that to help Lebanon advance, we need a surrogate father. It may be that we do – but what happens is that a call for Arab support (which, euphemistically put, doesn’t amount to much, due to their own decadent political structure) is counteracted with a call for Western support coupled with an insult to the “clichés” that the first group seem to harbor, while ignoring that they themselves also have formed their own “clichés”. This ultimately leads nowhere, and leaves us incredulously staring at our surroundings.

Ideally, it would seem that this Lebanese story would be written by the fallen blood, by justice, by compassion, by equality. Even more ideally, we would hold the pen – and would confer with others for ideas. But as long as we watch from the sidelines, the feelings of political frustration and belittlement will not cease to exist. How can it, when we continue to map our future based on coordinates provided by others?