Syrian departure ends state of ‘collective depression’
By Marianne Stigset
BEIRUT: The Syrian military and intelligence withdrawal from Lebanon finalized last week following intense international pressure marks the beginning of a new era. For the first time in three decades, Lebanon finds itself free from armed conflict and foreign occupation. As the country grapples with its new-found freedom, taboos related to a heavy past are gradually falling. Young and old alike are unleashing pent up emotions and memories, each their own way.
“We started dancing in the street even before they turned the corner,” said Mariam Majzoub, a resident of the Bekaa Valley on the Lebanese-Syrian border. “We could finally express ourselves, and there was nothing they could do about it.”
Hers is one of many voices that have increasingly been making themselves heard since the assassination of former premier Rafik Hariri in February triggered a public outcry, and catapulted the country into political and social upheaval. Local newspapers carry daily accounts of civilians describing incidents of torture, arrest, humiliation or confiscation of property by the Syrians.
“We can talk of a catharsis taking place now,” says Lebanese psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Shawqi Azouri. “The media refers to Hariri’s assassination as the final drop, which is an accurate way of describing it. Hariri’s death stirred up all the emotions that had been building up since 1975, all the things that had remained unspoken.”
The assassination affected the entire Lebanese population, he said. “Anyone who had lost a person dear to them during the war and who had never got an answer as to why this had happened and therefore never come to terms with their loss, found themselves mourning Hariri and by extension mourning their own dead.”
Lebanon’s post-war years were marked by a silent resumption of day-to-day life. Debates were held on the country’s physical reconstruction, yet how to address the ravaged psychological state of the nation was a question meticulously set aside.
No South African-style truth and reconciliation commission was formed, few trials were held, and even fewer public apologies heard. Syria’s heavy-handed control of the country, backed by the much-feared Mukhabarat (intelligence services) and a Lebanese political leadership approved by Damascus made for an environment hostile to addressing injustices past and present.
In the eyes of Azouri, the upheaval in Lebanon since February ends a rule of terror that prevented the country from addressing its past. “The war of the canons ended in 1990, people were no longer killing each other, but after the Taef agreement we fell under a regime of terror imposed by the Syrian dictator — by dictator I am referring to a social, anthropological, as well as political concept,” he said.
Azouri argues that it was not in the interest of Damascus to allow implementation of the Taef agreement — the peace treaty of 1989 which ended the civil war — and national reconciliation to take place in Lebanon.
“An internal censure was imposed and people did not have the courage do speak up,” he said. “This prevented the process of writing a common history, of writing the page about the war, of allowing a debate on what had happened. Instead, people repressed their need to talk, their ideas, their traumas.”
The stifling of national debate led to collective depression, he said. “Those who believed there was a good reason for the war to break out — and there were many — felt betrayed and used.” Azouri says the country witnessed a surge in cases of clinical depression after the war among the generation which participated in it.
“Throughout the 1990s we witnessed an incalculable number of cases of clinical depression in this country. To the point that one would hear some people say they were better off during the war. The reason behind this is because they perceived the war years as a time when they had a cause, an ideal to which they dedicated their lives and all their energy.”
The widespread depression which affected the Lebanese society could have had a salutary outcome had there been an opportunity to discuss the issue, Azouri says. “Depression is a good thing, because it represents the beginning of the process of perceiving things in another light. But this can only happen on one condition: that one is able to put words on it, thereby writing one’s own history. After the war, the Lebanese went through this phase of loss, but were never able to put words on it.”
Many patients come to see him “because they have suffered from a deficiency of parental love,” Azouri says. “The cause behind their parents’ incapacity to love them usually stems from the loss of a loved one, or a failure, which was so painful to them that they retract from the happiness which their children can provide them with.” Children suffer from this, he says. “A child not only feeds off his mother’s milk, but also off his mother’s gaze. When the mother withdraws, due to a trauma, the child suffers.. And what happens is that the ‘infant therapist’ syndrome sets in, whereby the child, sensing his mother’s emotional absence, will engage in curing his mother.”
In so doing, Azouri says, the child “chains himself to his mother for the rest of his life, because he fears that should he cease to treat her, she might die. This is a syndrome which many Lebanese, most notably those who grew up during the war but did not partake in it, have been affected by. They feel trapped by the mourning, the pain, the suffering of their parents. And they feel a need to move on.” Azouri sees in the cry for the truth on Hariri’s assassination by the war generation, a cry for the truth about their own dead. A resolving of the former is sought to shed light on the latter.
A step in this direction was taken during ceremonies to mark 30 years since the beginning of the war during the second and third week April. A banner was erected in front of the national museum in Beirut, where citizens wrote apologies to one another for the war. A conference dedicated to the theme of memory and national reconciliation was organised. This led to an animated debate on the need to address the war.
“Since the end of the Lebanese civil war, the country has followed a policy of denying the atrocities of the recent past,” Samir Kassir from the An-Nahar newspaper said at the conference.—Dawn/The InterPress News Service.
