In the week prior to the sanitation strike that's left much of Beirut under mounting towers of garbage, virtually everyone in the city was aghast at the gruesome murder of Georges El Rif, a 40-something
father of four who died from multiple stab wounds – and the three cardiac
arrests they caused – after being attacked in broad daylight in one of Beirut’s
calmest, upper-middle class districts on 15 July. A social-media death, his was
not only filmed in real-time on smart-phones and various surveillance cameras but
casually watched by dozens of bystanders on a secluded street in Saifi, one of
the Lebanese capital’s leafiest neighborhoods. The Minister of Energy, Arthur
Nazarian, is said to have watched the 3-minute carnage from the safety of his
balcony only steps away.[1]
As in
many parts of the world, the saga began with a routine traffic incident that quickly
turned sour. George El Rif had just picked his wife up from the airport, where
she works as a security guard. Driving north along the airport road, he got in
a right-of-way dispute with Tarek Yateem, who wanted to overtake them; this led
to a minor accident. Though El Rif’s car sustained damage, Yateem sped away – an
all-too-familiar routine the author himself has witnessed with alarming
frequency. Rightfully if irrationally incensed, El Rif started trailing his
soon-to-be-murderer across the entirety of Beirut, from the southwest suburbs
near the airport to a secluded corner of Achrafieh in northeast Beirut, an
exclusive and predominantly Christian sector of the capital.
In the
meantime, his wife called the Internal Security Forces (ISF) to report the
perpetrator’s license plate number and request their assistance in apprehending
him. According to her, law enforcement said they were unable to intervene for
lack of personal; the conversation ended to the sounds of her screams on one
end of the line. Whether El Rif was bracing for a verbal or a physical exchange
remains unclear, but scarcely could he have imagined that the detour to a quiet
corner of Achrafieh was part of a broader ruse to corner him in a part of the
city in which he could be “dealt with” with impunity. No different from most motorists
in Beirut – a city whose drivers are too often consumed by a dangerous combination
of callousness and impotence – El Rif was doing what so many are tempted do in
similar circumstances: take the (lack of) law into their own hands. In a morbidly
parallel sense, so was his killer. Whatever El Rif’s intentions, they backfired
with such a cruel vengeance that they’ve left an entire country in shock.
What
actually happened is too terrible to describe – a quick google search bears sad
witness to that. Yet it is not merely the extreme violence of the situation – a
man being stabbed to death in broad daylight on a quiet, leafy street in front
of his helpless wife and dozens of apathetic bystanders, security guards
included – but rather the complete defenselessness with which Rif is butchered,
on the one hand, and the fact that we now witness his murder from the safety of
the balcony from which it was casually filmed, on the other. As Sontag once
quipped, “Wherever people feel safe... they will be
indifferent.” Thus
do dozens of idle bystanders – too cowardly, confused, apathetic or callous to
intervene – become hundreds of thousands, the author included.
If only this
tragedy ended with the death of Georges El Rif. In the days that followed,
however, it became increasingly clear that his murder was but the tip of an unusually
dark iceberg, the rotten cornerstone of the crumbling edifice that is Lebanon.
Taken separately, the elements of Georges El Rif’s murder can almost be
rationalized away to bad luck, cruel timing or somewhat typical personal character
flaws of one kind or another: first, pride and endemic road rage – as elemental
an aspect of Lebanese life as labneh and lemon and garlic. In a country scarred
from a violent past, obsessed with cars, brimming with large egos and aggressive,
risk-seeking vehicular habits, one can imagine how easily traffic a incident
might lead to violence. But in a general atmosphere of impunity for big men and
indiscriminate and disproportionate punishment for little ones, accountability
rarely follows the crime. Equally sad, a bewildering amount of people seem
willing to risk their lives on small stakes of honor. Hence the words of one popular blogger who questioned the
victim’s actions:
If you try
to out-za3ren (thug) an az3ar (thug), you get upset 9 times out of 10… [El Rif]
should have just let the guy pass and put some nail polish on the dent the
Picanto caused, not start a high-speed car chase with a villain when you have
four kids and a wife to live for.”[2]
Second,
the conspicuous absence of the police or Internal Security Forces (ISF) at the
time of the frantic 3-minute phone call or the murder. In a country where no
one pays taxes, the absence of law enforcement is tragic but not cruel, unusual
or calculated. It would be nice if the state had a monopoly on violence, though
no one in Lebanon pretends it does or ever has. Hence the proliferation of militias
in poor neighborhoods and security guards in rich ones. The question that
remains: who of the latter has more of a stake in risking their life to save
yours? When push comes to shove, one doesn’t have a great deal of faith in the
elderly, corpulent security guard making less than $600/month to risk his life
for masters with whom he has little in common.
Third,
and perhaps the most difficult and painful element of the murder to be
rationalized away, is the cowardice, apathy or confusion of those who witnessed
the tragedy but did nothing. Yet even that can be done – namely, by pointing
out that the murderer was a very large man with a shaved head, covered in
tattoos, wielding a knife and exhibiting a psychotic degree of energy,
determination and complete disregard for what might understatedly be called “normal”
human standards of behavior. Whosoever individually
intervened to stop him from stabbing El Rif in the act would likely catch a coup de couteau or two himself. Why, one
might ask, didn’t two people join
forces to confront him? Alas, cooperation with strangers in life-threatening
situations is far from guaranteed in a city that places extremely little stock
in collective effort. As the above blogger depressingly concluded:
You live
in a bad part of the world, full of bad people, where good people die when they
try to be heroes, or go to jail because the police have no one else to put
there. Don’t try to be a hero, nothing is more valuable than staying alive, as
I’m sure El Rif’s loved ones agree.[3]
Or as another journalist
lamented:
We have failed as a society and as
human beings. Not only are we passive with our murderous, cunning government
(or lack thereof) but we have also allowed apathy to seep into our innermost
fabric, the fabric that once screamed empathy in the face of adversity, the
glue that had kept our values alive throughout 30 years of war and the
treacherous years that followed. I won’t go on to lay out the contents of
my heart in terms of the current state of affairs of the country, for they will
surely stop you from enjoying your [three-day]
weekend. After all, we are the people who have traded empathy for a
state of inebriation atop fancy sky-high rooftops, lest they compensate for our
downfall as a nation.[4]
Of
course, the murder could have happened anywhere: London, Chicago, Paris, Hong
Kong. Nor does one assume that the average inhabitant of New York or Beijing would
come to one’s rescue under similar circumstances. So why the gut-wrenching
soul-searching over a single – if singularly heinous – murder? Because Tarek
Yateem, who simply walked away from the crime scene and was only “arrested”
after turning himself in the following day under pressure from his boss and
political patron – one of the most powerful men in the country – is widely
believed to go free.[5]
Hence the biggest question of all: who
is Tarek Yateem and why does an entire country perceive him to be above the law?
A convicted
felon only recently released from a ten-month stint for murder, Yateem had
several outstanding warrants for various episodes of violence. In February 2010,
he shot up a nightclub in Sodeco, also in Achrafieh. In 2012, he cut a
schoolteacher’s ear off following a dispute over whether a child should be
allowed to participate in school activities without her uniform.[6]
When it comes to Tarek Yatim, the moniker ‘psychopath’ is not unfitting. So why
wasn’t he still behind bars? Because, as chance would have it, he was the
bodyguard (and widely rumored hit-man) of one of Lebanon’s most powerful men,
the banker, businessman and prominent Lebanese Forces[7]-backer,
Antoun Sanhaoui.[8]
Made chairman
of Société Générale de Banque au Liban (SGBL) at the age of 35, Senhaoui hails
from one of the country’s most powerful clans. The direct descendant of Emir
Bashir Chehab II, the prince who ruled two-thirds of modern-day Lebanon on
behalf of the Ottomans from 1789-1842, his father was a leading Greek Catholic
businessman and his mother a celebrated Nietzsche scholar.[9]
Apart from owning several upscale bars and restaurants in Gemmayzeh – not far
from where Georges was stabbed to death in broad daylight – Senhaoui also
founded the Oceana beach resort south of Beirut. On his personal website, he
lauds his development in particular for its vision in bringing about the
“Oceana Effect”: the privatization of most of Lebanon’s public beaches and accessible
coastline “with countless resorts and hotels.”[10]
For two
weeks an entire country has been bracing for the one phone call from Senhaoui
that puts Yateem back onto the streets. According to police investigators, the
killer himself expressed this much in body language, remarks and personal
demeanor whilst in detention, even casually remarking that he’d do it all over
if given the chance. In general, the investigator concluded that he more or
less comported himself as though his release was automatic and nigh.[11]
Yet as the stakes get higher and public calls for justice reach a fevered
pitch, thanks in large part to “the power of social media” (which the author
cringes in writing but cannot deny), there is a growing flicker of hope that
only one of the two culprits, the murderer or the man who pays him, will emerge
unscathed from the death of Georges El Reef.
Thus the
real question: if Senhaoui caves to popular demands for justice – the most
vocal of which are calling loudly for the death penalty – and throws his
bodyguard and hit-man under the bus, will the latter quietly take it bending
over? Or might he have secrets of his own that prove more damning than even the
death of Georges El Reef? In the end, it is strangely difficult to tell who has
more to lose of the two men. The sociopathic street-thug: his life. The banker:
his reputation – and how much more? In this environment, bullets discriminate
even less than dollars.
All the
same, there are still voices of reason amidst the clamour for vigilante justice
or reinstating the death penalty by public execution (which is on the Lebanese
books but has not been (officially) administered since 2004 – by hanging, no
less). A young Protestant cleric is calling for people to carry out the Lord’s
work and forgive the killer.[12]
In another widely publicized piece, “Lebanese Need Justice, Not Executions,” the
Beirut office of Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called for depoliticizing the
judicial system and strengthening the rule of law rather than resorting to a cheaper
fix of bread and games in the form of state-sanctioned murder.[13]
But clerics and humanitarians are not alone. As an aforementioned blogger put
it:
Every time anything happens, people pull out their knives
and start sharpening them, championing the death penalty as if it’s not only
justifiable, but necessary. It’s 2015, and I can’t believe how many times I’ve
had to say this, but torture and execution is wrong, under any circumstance,
period. I don’t care if it’s Ahmad El Assir[14]
himself: no torture, no execution. Or else, what makes you better than Baghdadi[15]?
The Saudis? Iran? Cheney? Tarek Yateem?[16]
Might
this, then, be the silver lining? The peaceful, spirited, democratic debate
over how a broken state and a shattered society should respond to a
particularly heinous crime? Can the death of Georges El Reef be the unexpected
impetus for reforming an incredibly corrupt legal system, a non-existent
judiciary, an unresponsive police force, and an embarrassingly solipsistic
society? One can only hope so. As the editor of the country’s largest newspaper
put it in a recent editorial, so long as things remain the same, “The murder of George al-Reef in broad daylight is not an
ordinary crime, but rather “a rehearsal” for crimes that can be committed
everyday as long as things like this continue to go unpunished in this country.”[17]
Nothing
less is at stake, the author concludes, than the legitimacy of the Lebanese
state. Nonetheless, “it’s an unfortunate reality,” she bemoans, “where appeals
may be futile.” Sadly, one wonders whether her call for “justice” in a
conservative upmarket editorial is more than yet another futile appeal. If so,
what are the Lebanese to do? In the short term, the blood of Tarek Yatem will
appease many, though no amount of it can quench the larger thirst for justice many
now violently harbor. One thing is sure: the status quo cannot endure much
longer – or at least with far less of a straight face. As another leading
newspaper put it in a startling – and startlingly unnoticed – editorial, “A
Bloody Coup for the Sake of Lebanon,”
When people do not move to save a victim from the
clutches of his killer, when people only care about expressing condolences,
when the wretched sectarians resort to manipulating people's feelings... all of
this means one thing: we are in a society that needs someone to teach it the
basics of life anew… Lebanon needs for its people to wake up one morning and
find things completely different from the day before. It's no problem if the
one who undertakes the coup has no mercy in his heart for great or small, that
he is cruel to the point of mixing arbitrariness with the application of the
law, that he is also bloodthirsty when necessary. All the mistakes that the
absolute ruler will make will not equal a quarter of the mistakes that continue
to be made by all those who exert influence over people today in the name of
money and sect.
What happened in Saifi is more terrible than all the
horrors of the Civil War. It is the final indication of the country's downfall,
the downfall of everything that makes it capable of reform through traditional
ways. Even the reactions that exist until now will not cause us to insist on anything
less than a bloody coup that will not allow any of those who have a connection
to those in power today to remain, even if this requires committing mass murder
against them and their gangs that are scattered in every direction.
Rare, of
course, are those who share this opinion – at least aloud. But its indignation,
rage and political resignation are a depressingly accurate barometer of the
popular mood. What’s even more extraordinary is the fact that an editorial from
a leading newspaper calling for dictatorship and mass murder of the country’s
political class can go practically unnoticed. An extreme manifestation of that
famous Lebanese “tolerance” and ability to endure trying circumstances? Or
another sign that the current political status quo is living on borrowed time? As
ever, both options seem to go hand in hand.
President
Obama was recently berated[18]
for a remark in his Charleston eulogy that the mass-murderer of nine churchgoers,
Dylan Roof, was “being used by God” to “open [white Americans’] eyes” to the
endemic racism that continues to the plague the United States. In Lebanon, one
thing is sure: in the death of Georges El Reef, it has found its Kitty
Genovese. Whether or not it has its Dylan Roof remains to be seen.
[1]
http://stateofmind13.com/2015/07/17/justiceforgeorges-when-lebanon-is-a-jungle-not-a-country/
[2] http://ginosblog.com/2015/07/17/good-people-of-lebanon-arm-yourselves/ The author himself once witnessed an instance on the highway
when a man driving his wife and three small children in a very small vehicle
actively provoked a larger and considerably dangerous motorist in a much larger
vehicle. The two then proceeded to cut each other off amidst considerable
traffic and along curvy mountain roads for the next 30 miles. Thankfully,
cooler heads barely prevailed.
[3] Ibid
[4]
http://www.lbcgroup.tv/news/222862/georges-reef-by-failing-you-we-failed-ourselves
[6]
https://www.dailystar.com.lb/GetArticleBody.aspx?id=307633&fromgoogle=1
[7] A conservative Christian
political party that began as a militia during the civil war and currently
holds 8 of the 64 seats reserved for Christians in Lebanon’s parliament
[8]
http://www.lorientlejour.com/article/935071/apres-lassassinat-de-georges-rif-appels-pour-que-la-justice-soit-rendue.html
[9]
http://litteratures.revues.org/209?lang=en
[10]
http://www.antoun-sehnaoui.org/content/antoun-sehnaoui-bio
[12]
https://wherethevulturesgather.wordpress.com/2015/07/18/why-i-am-against-the-death-penalty-for-tarek-yateem
[13]
https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/07/24/dispatches-lebanese-need-justice-not-executions
[14] A Salafi extremist from the
Lebanese city of Saida who has waged war with the army in an attempt to create
an Islamic caliphate in Lebanon
[15] The head of ISIS
[16]
http://ginosblog.com/2015/07/17/good-people-of-lebanon-arm-yourselves/
[17]
http://www.kataeb.org/articles/2015/07/24/the-challenging-case-of-lebanon-s-george-al-reef
[18] http://www.jewishjournal.com/opinion/article/obamas_eulogy_stirring_words_disturbing_theology
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