Special correspondent’s reception – SCAM

MEETINGS

Three receptions that will help you get a better understanding of current affairs.
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Sponsored by Direction Régionale des Affaires Culturelles.

© Adnan Abidi / Reuters

FRIDAY 9 OCTOBER – 9 pm

Special correspondent’s reception – SCAM
Is Lebanon doomed to perpetual war?

It has already been fifty years since Lebanon has been in a state of perpetual war. In 1975, the civil war that broke out between religious communities was fuelled by the fallout from the Arab-Israeli conflicts. This is evidenced by the emergence of Hezbollah in the south of the country, which presented itself as the Iranian-backed Shia community’s response to Israeli attacks.
Since then, Lebanon has known no peace: a ravaged territory, a population under strain, fragmented sovereignty, a weakened state, an armed Hezbollah; and on the international stage, Israeli demands clash with American interests. The term ‘low-intensity conflict’ seems to have been coined to describe the wars in Lebanon. Yet we must still agree on what constitutes low intensity. In recent months, the conflict between the United States, Iran and Israel has served as a reminder that military violence has not disappeared: targeted strikes, destroyed neighbourhoods, drones and missiles in the skies over Beirut. Ceasefires are nothing more than headlines on news channels. The reality on the ground is quite different; it never stops. By becoming timeless and dragging on indefinitely, successive wars no longer produce victories or treaties capable of guaranteeing a balance; on the contrary, they exhaust the people and the state, put them to the test, corrupt them and destroy them slowly but surely. This gives rise to a grey area of instability far more pernicious than a military defeat, when infrastructure and institutions crumble and the population chooses exile.
In Lebanon, has war ultimately become a structural component of the state? A nation that relies solely on its ability to guarantee its own security? In this trivialised, everyday war, is Lebanon not simply at risk of disappearing? And who cares? Who speaks of the Lebanese people, of their suffering, of their aspirations? Of this crumbling state? Is Lebanon condemned to perpetual war?

An evening prepared and animated by Eric Valmir

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Pavillon Prix-Bayeux-Calvados
Place Gauquelin-Despallières

Doors open at 8 pm
Free Admission

This evening is realized thanks to the support of the SCAM