Tuesday, September 3, 2024

Bechir Gemayel: propaganda for a presidency that never was

How easy it is to dream of something that never was. On September 14 1982 president elect Bechir Gemayel was assassinated, having been elected but never sworn in. In other words, technically he never had a tenure. You can read about his controversial election here. When told that the Muslim faction was not happy with his election, Bechir uttered his famous words: "Bokra byet3awado" (tomorrow they'll get used to it). Well, get used to it they did not simply because, well, he was assassinated.

Interestingly, the first news after the explosion was that Gemayel was alive and well and helping with the rescue efforts. Little by little, new started trickling in, that he was wounded, then gravely wounded, then eventually dead. The story goes they only recognized his remains by his hexagonal wedding ring.

I am not digressing, what am trying to say is that the man - whose leadership was basically to get rid of all the other Christian warlords to become the sole leader and ergo be last man standing - eventually got to be a president in the middle of a bloody civil war in Lebanon having worked back-up by Israel, and eventually Saudi Arabia and in extenso the Arab league. Pro-Syrian MPs were not on board though.

So it is interesting that the Lebanese Forces, the militia he formerly headed and which still exists, actually has a poster that goes "this is how presidents are (built)". Considering we never knew what kind of a president he would be, they assumed his presidency would be of an incredibly high caliber. Which, of course, bring us back to the idea that perhaps propaganda is wishful thinking more than anything else.