Samir Kassir

How incredible was that guy. I admit that my knowledge about Samir Kassir was naive. I didn’t use to read his articles in the 90s. Few ones I read in the 21st century. Maybe you can not tell how deep the thinking of Samir Kassir is until you read his articles in sequence. Through that, you can draw a map of the incidents according to their appearance in Lebanon's new history. It is not a coincidence for an educated man like Samir Kassir, who has a diploma in Philosophy from Sorbonne University to analyze what was going on in the way he did. For that reason he was chased many times by the Lebanese-Syrian intelligent forces. He struck on the most sensitive subject that was considered a scarecrow in that time. He didn’t fear anything although everything was scary. His belief in freedom and democracy surpassed the fear other journalists went through. Many considered him crazy according to the sensitivity of the subjects he wrote about.His main concern was the 'Dictatoration" of the Lebanese democracy. He uncovered all the attempts to smoothen the monster's teeth. He knew that deception was the name of the game; the intense monitoring of the Lebanese media, especially the opposition's media, and the staging of hollow debates between politicians, in addition to the lubrication of the presidential behaviors which appeared to him during the first months of Lahhoud's presidency, that the whole story was nothing more than a written statement of promises which lack the implementation procedures; It was impossible to achieve it in an era where the Syrian power was strangling the Lebanese political life and molding it into a puppet stage where the whole became submissive to the stringed fingers who move these puppets and implement their wills.

Selectivity in corruption scandals was a big part in the impunity program that was set. Those who were starting to diverse from the Syrian rules were under fire. Fears of the other corrupted politicians to face the same consequences lead them to shut their mouths and reply to the above orders. Since all politicians have their own corruption programs, all were tied up to be submissive.

Many things did Samir Kassir uncover during his life. His belief in the possible Arab-democracy that can find its way starting from Beirut was solidified. He knew that the West-wing current can comply with the global liberation of markets and economy and the open border schema against the rising Islamic radicalists who were threatening, as they gain power, to explode the suppressed societies and put the dictatorships and whole systems on stake. Not only that, but this may provide a solid ground for such fundamentalism to spread through the middle eastern nations whose people are suppressed and just looking for a way to turn the table upside down.

Wonderful and thoughtful was this man; and that was the main reason that caused his assassination on June 2, 2005. His vision of a great peaceful change that can turn the dictators into retirement and that may dilute the rising Islamic movements' powers, along with an American or western change in beliefs that the Islamic Arab nations can undergo a democratic change without the use of power, was just a road map to achieve a complete change with no casualties. He was killed and his young spirit of dreams and change was shut into silence surely in an effort to shut the remaining brave journalists who saw in Samir Kassir a repertoire which can be followed to contain the powerful Syrian-Lebanese intelligence system, which took control of all the political, economical, and juridical Lebanese life.

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*references: Samir Kassir's book: عسكر على مين 2004