The Guardians of the Cedars Party issued the following weekly communiqué:

The Problem is the Leaders of the “Christian Community”.

Now that the presidential palace has closed its doors for the first time in Lebanon’s contemporary history, with the presidential election up in the air and postponed indefinitely, a soul-searching self-criticism is unavoidable to shed light on the causes that have ravaged the “Christian community” and led it to this state of weakness, marginality and irrelevance.

We have said it before, and we repeat it here: The problem of the “Christian community” of Lebanon is its leaders, most of whom suffer from incurable diseases, with the three most dangerous of these being the following:

First, a proclivity for domination, monopoly of power, and acute egotism, in addition to an aggregate lust for power and money that is free from any ethical or patriotic restraints, all of which have led the “Christian community” to this disgraceful display of deep divisiveness.

Second, a proclivity for political sterility, short-sightedness and an absolute lack of future vision, which is due to the leaders’ total ignorance of Lebanon’s historic reality, its central role, and its universal civilizing mission. In the words of poet Maurice Awwad, this reality is summed up by: The Maronite political mind is “barren.”

Third, a proclivity for unjustified violence in dealing with others, as well as the confrontational character that governs the conduct of those leaders and leads them to resorting to weapons in sorting their internal conflicts, without any hesitation at perpetrating the worst crimes to get rid of their opponents inside that community, as happened in Ehden and Safra, and during the “War of Elimination”. Lest we forget, the crime of the fall of the Eastern Region eliminated the last bastion of influence and dignity that the Christians had, which was followed by the crime of accepting the Taef Agreement and the voluntary forgoing of the authority of the President that finished off whatever was left of that influence.

No doubt that there were, and still are, conspiracies that have targeted the “Christian existence” in Lebanon. But the “Christian” leaders left no fatal mistake that they did not make to allow those conspiracies to pass, much as they squandered every opportunity that came to rescue them.

Those leaders have two choices before them: Either realize these facts, rise from their fall, and change their course and conduct by uniting their ranks and fearing their God; Or persist in their wayward course and perdition, and the saying will then apply to them: “Don’t cry like women over a possession you did not protect like men.”
Lebanon, at your service
Abu Arz
November 30, 2007