Should Anyone Listen To Walid Bey?

By Ghassan Karam, Special to Ya Libnan

Walid Jumblatt cannot be taken seriously any longer. You just cannot tell whether he means any of the things that he speaks about or whether he is just trying to please who is on top. Once one becomes that unprincipled then it is time for him to just fade away from the public sphere. He has lost all credibility once he decided to become a chameleon. That trait of adapting to ones environment is a great survival attribute but that is all what can be said in its favour. At times survival is not a great accomplishment and definitely it is not a leadership criterion. A chameleon manages to survive by blending in, being a yes person and hiding behind others whose colours he is always willing to raise provided they throw his way some scraps.

Does Mr. Jumblatt really expect others to listen to his meaningless utterances when the best that he can come up with is an echo of the demands of a regional dictator? Who does Walid Jumblat think is being deceived by his silly empty utterances about the need to discuss only the strategic defense plan and not the illegal weapons of Hezbollah?  Individuals paint their own portraits and write their own history through their acts and utterances over time. Measured by such an exacting metric Walid Jumblat turns out to be an amateur who does not deserve to be listened to not because one might disagree with him but simply because he is not worth it. There are more important things in life than to take semi seriously the pronouncements of a dilettante who is a spoiled brat, one that inherited a feudal position of leadership when in reality he would not have been able to rise to the level of any responsible position on his own. Who wants to spend time and effort listening to the blatherings of a corrupt and unprincipled individual who is willing to change positions twice a day?

Walid Jumblatt ought to be ashamed of himself and should just whither away. I am not a fan of either sectarian structures or feudalistic regimes but since that is the order of the day in the current Lebanon then the Druze community will be served so much better by going with a known quantity such as Talal Areslan with whose ideology and mores I am in total disagreement,  but who is willing to take a stand for what he believes in. Heck even Mr. Wahab, who I consider to be a Syrian agent, will be an improvement on Walid Bey.

An  individual ought to be free to take any stand and support any cause that he/she likes  and that is fine but to claim a mantle of leadership when the best that one can do is to adapt to the ideology of who is on top is utterly despicable. That is a far cry from the idea of “give me liberty or give me death”. It is in essence a cry to allow own to survive even in a hole as long as one is spared.  The” good life” as seen by Plato ought to be more valuable than this; he turned down the offer to spare his life if he would accept to tell a lie. I wish that Walid Jumblatt can live by such standards. But since he obviously cannot then the best thing that he can do for his clan, for his country and for socialism is just to fade away. He has earned a retirement in a far away island where no one would have to be subjected to his daily hallucinations.

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A copy of the above has been posted to  rationalrepublic.blogspot.com