French foreign minister visit to Bkerke underscores powerlessness
“The Maronite Patriarch yesterday issued a discreet but real call for help to France, through its Foreign Minister”. For minister Ayrault, “France cannot decide on behalf of the Lebanese but it can play the role of facilitator”.
Beirut (AsiaNews) – "The Maronite Patriarch yesterday issued a discreet but real call for help to France, through its Foreign Minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault,” sources say.
“This appeal does not differ fundamentally from the one the head of the Maronite Church made in person on various past occasions to the French president, whom he met again in Lebanon last April and again in Paris on 9 May."
The French Foreign Minister recently visited Bkerke as part of an official two-day visit to Lebanon (July 11-12), during which he met with the country’s top officials.
The visit focused on three major topics: the presidential election, France’s presence in UNIFIL and aid to Syrian refugees, who are in Lebanon in huge numbers.
"Please, help Lebanon remain itself, a model of pluralism and tolerance. Do everything possible to help separate Lebanon’s presidential election from the conflict raging in Syria and the deadly rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia," Patriarch Beshara al Rahi said in a speech in the Patriarchate’s main hall before representatives of all the Eastern Churches.
"We must absolutely dissociate the presidential election from these conflicts that could last a long time," the patriarch stressed to Mr Ayrault.
But the prelate made such a request, tragically conscious that it may be too late. Indeed, despair came through in the speech when he said, "We must acknowledge that they (Lebanese parliamentary blocs and groups) are already overwhelmed by regional interference. "
The patriarch’s bitterness is also reflected in the part of his address devoted to oil and gas wealth discovered off the coast of Lebanon which, he said, are "already in the process of being pillaged."
This is left vague without clarifying who is responsible for this, Israel, encroaching on our exclusive economic zone, or Lebanese getting ready to share the cake.
The patriarch has already slammed corruption in Lebanon’s political class at a time of weak state authority. Such ambiguity does not seem unintentional.
Spiritual desertification of the East
Yet, the patriarch does not seem totally despairing vis-à-vis the international community, calling for extending the UNIFIL mission to protect Lebanon’s eastern borders.
"We highly appreciate (France’s) commitment to UNIFIL since its deployment in southern Lebanon in 1978, and we see rather favourably its extension to our eastern borders,” the patriarch said.
At least in its public form, this request is something relatively new.
"Maronite Church, Eastern Church", the patriarch said as he emphasised that he "with his brothers (in the other Eastern Churches) hold a pastoral responsibility that extends to all Middle Eastern countries."
In a brotherly fashion but without mincing his words, the patriarch resituated the Lebanese crisis in its geopolitical space, placing at once France, a declining power, before its regional and historical responsibilities since what is currently at stake will bear upon on the region’s future, with an actual risk of "spiritual and cultural desertification" for a Middle East where Christians would be a negligible quantity.
The French minister was supposed to reply in a brief address whose content can be best illustrated by the following words: "I said that France cannot decide on behalf of the Lebanese, but it can play the role of facilitator [. . .]. Lebanon’s singular path must be protected. That is the message I bring."
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