For something so tragic, the demonstration alongside Pierre Gemayel's funeral in Beirut Thursday had a surprising air of carnival about it. The rain-soaked days of earlier in the month had given way to weeks of unbroken sunshine, and on the dozens of closed streets around the city center, flag-toting crowds streamed down empty thoroughfares usually clogged with morning traffic. Cars that did penetrate the security ring blasted patriotic songs and bits of Gemayel's speeches, and some drivers honked to the rhythm of their party's cheers.
Nearby, dozens of soldiers milled over discarded posters, eyeing the crowd warily. Underfoot, dusty red signs announced, "No arms but legal arms!" and, in English, "Shove your civil war!"
But the cheeky slogans and sea of waving flags could only hold the truth so far at bay. Gemayel's death had precipitated the gathering, but among those gathered in Martyrs' Square Thursday, the man himself often seemed far less important than what his death underscored. Forces far greater than the Lebanese themselves are so often at work in the country's politics that its citizens seem like bystanders in their own land.
The theme was not a new one. All over Beirut, and alongside the highways north to Tripoli and south to Saida, billboards picture Rafik Hariri's face alongside the scene of his murder, a massive rubble-filled hole on the Beirut waterfront. Above both images of the slain ex-prime minister is the now-ubiquitous slogan: "We will not forget."
Now, with Gemayel's death, the faces seem overnight to have undergone a massive diversification. Over the entrance to Gemayzeh, a neighborhood adjacent Martyrs' Square, is the blonde-haired May Chidiac, a journalist and TV anchor who lost an arm and a leg in a car bomb attack in September, 2005: "We will not forget." On the road from the airport is another well-known politician who died in Hariri's murder: Economy Minister Bassel Fleihan. "We will not forget." And now, high above Martyrs' Square, visible on the six-lane autostrade that descends into Beirut's center from the west, is Pierre Gemayel, his lips parted in a smile and his thick black eyebrows lending his face easy distinction. "We will not forget."
At Thursday's protest, these murders were like the common string on which the crowd of Hariri-admiring Sunnis, one-time Phalangists and party-line Druze hung their disparate grievances. Only one clear desire, it seemed, united them all: an international tribunal. Time and again, asked what their goal was in attending the rally, participants from around the country said it was to demand the creation of such a tribunal, to bring long-awaited justice in these unsolved cases.
Zafer Ghemrami, a supporter of the Future party (led by Saad Hariri, son of Rafik) from Minyeh in the north, explained, "The first crime, the second crime, the third crime: it's the same people... The whole world knows who it is but we, the Lebanese, are told we can't know."
Others, like a Lebanese Forces backer who had come from Mount Lebanon, elaborated more comprehensive theories - catch-all accounts of pro-Syrian and anti-Syrian power games that seemed more in line with media accounts abroad.
"If the killing continues and two more ministers are killed, the president [Lahoud] will be the only one with power," the woman explained, dangling her feet from atop a sidewalk trash can where she had stopped to rest. The whole thing was a plot to thwart the international tribunal, she added, which still needs government approval to take effect.
"I want to march to Baabda," the president's palace, she said, "and stay there as long as it takes to make him resign."
"Did you bring your tooth brush?" a friend asked her jovially.
"I did!" she exclaimed. "It's in my car! I am ready."
But by the end of the say, it was far from clear whether such big dreams would really take flight. Lebanese politics rip, roar, race ahead then double back again almost too quickly to monitor. Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, who delivered the day's most fearsome defense of Lebanese sovereignty and independence, used to work closely with Damascus. Michel Aoun, the general who now heads the pro-Hizbullah Christian party, the Free Patriotic Movement, once fought the Syrians tooth and nail for control of Beirut.
Unsurprisingly, Aoun supporters' signature orange banners and Nike-esque check mark were nowhere to be found Thursday. Hizbullah yellow and the green of the Shia Amal party were distinguished in their absence.
But it was not only the spirit of factionalism that dampened the mood among those gathered. The problem, rather, was one of optimism and resilience. Many of those who turned out Thursday were veteran protestors: they had joined the crowds demanding Lebanon's "Cedar Revolution" back on March 14, 2004, a historic massing of people which some say drew over 1.6 million.
Leaning against a car on the outskirts of the rally, two veiled women from Irsel, near the ancient Roman ruins at Baalbek, said they had come in a caravan of 20 buses, leaving home at 6:00 a.m. At least 5,000 people had come from their town, they said - but last time, on March 14, the number was more like 20,000.They speculated that the season was to blame: people have more work in November, so fewer could get away.
Others, like a young Future supporter from Saida, said it was fear of another attack - possibly even on the demonstrators - that kept many of the March 14 attendees from descending once again on Martyrs' Square.
But in reality it seemed that the shadow of that larger rally, imbued as it was with an even greater sense of optimism, was perhaps a disincentive in itself. Syria may have withdrawn from Lebanon soon after, but the calls for freedom, sovereignty and independence are still far from fulfilled.
"It does seem that there are fewer people," sighed Zakiya Rayid, also from the Bekaa. "It's the third protest we have been to, since Hariri died... we hope it is the last time we have to come."
