Adhering to the Federal Proposition as the Central System has Proven a Failure

By Ibrahim Mrad President Universal Syriac Union Party in Lebanon

Our Universal Syriac Union Party (USUP) remains committed to establishing a federal political system in Lebanon. In 2015 we formally adopted this position in our party program. USUP is also a founding member of the Continual Federal Congress of Lebanon.

Today, here in Zahle, we are restating our adherence and commitment to the principle of federalism and we affirm that we see federalism as the best system among the available systems for the peoples co-existing in our multi-cultured, multi-religious and multi-ethnic Lebanon. And this goes for the broader Middle East.

Considering the current state of Lebanon, our conclusion is that the centralized political system has proven to be a failure. In Lebanon and the countries surrounding our beloved homeland, it has evolved along sectarian authoritarian structures into dictatorships. It has led to the theft of the public domain and common goods from the state and peoples and it has caused an erosion of political and human values. The centralized system in the Middle East governs its people with iron and fire. It shatters their political will and human dignity. It nullifies their existence and their pluralism and has contributed to killings, displacement of peoples from their homelands and it has only attracted calamities and ignited wars in order for corrupt and illegitimate regimes to remain in power.

In Lebanon we are governed by a class controlling internal and external decision making. This class has mortgaged the Lebanese people, its wealth and all its capabilities by force and surplus power in support of religious power axes and dictatorial regimes that have destroyed Lebanon and its reputation. It has made Lebanon an enemy of Middle Eastern and international countries with the aim of singling it out and controlling it completely to establish the religious dream state that inevitably had to fall on its face.

We have warned many times over previous years that the situation in the Middle East and Lebanon is unsustainable. It inevitably will lead to wars, the collapse of economies and eventually bankruptcy, poverty, and hunger. And we have now arrived at this point because no one wanted to hear or listen. They rather listened to the voices that accused and betrayed anyone who proposed a federal system as a democratic solution for the establishment of a just and pluralistic political system and society; a federal system that preserves and guarantees the civilizational and democratic heritage of each of the nation’s components. They rather listened to those that argued the federal system is a divisive proposition.

To them we can only say, “you are only a cacophony of voices that insist that we remain dependent on your axes of ignorance, evil, corruption and the culture of death at the expense of the culture of life.” The majority of these voices and groups rejecting the federal system are among the biggest beneficiaries of the central system through which they control all components into the slavery system imposed on them.

But there is hope for the future. The international sanctions imposed on Lebanon because of the evil acts of these axes will inevitably make them surrender eventually to the will of the Lebanese people. Especially after Caesar’s Law will really start kicking in on their ally which is the Syrian regime. It will force out their evil methodologies after the real revolution of the hungry. The hungry will turn the table on them. The axes will try doing the impossible and try to retain the influence that they have over certain public areas.

By doing so, they will make sure that the federal system is the only inevitable and logical solution in Lebanon and the region…

Ibrahim Mrad is President of the Universal Syriac Union Party in Lebanon.

USUP Information Secretariat, Beirut, 31 May 2020

Excerpt of speech pronounced at party meeting in USUP headquarters in the city of Zahle in the presence of the USUP Secretary-General lawyer Michel Mallo, Party Coordinator lawyer Sandra Kfoury, Members of the executive body, and officials of USUP departments and committees.