Deadly spiral of human hatred
The tragedy of the Lebanese Civil War. A clear mechanism of how dehumanization and fear turn a person into a savage creature.
October 13, 1990, is the official end of the Civil War in Lebanon. Our conversation today is not about politics or war. The story described here is only an illustration of how easily a person, in his embitterment, can turn into a devil. We will show the very mechanism and sequence of such a transformation.
The prosperous Switzerland of the Middle East
Lebanon in the late 1960s. This country was even called the “Switzerland of the Middle East” for its economic prosperity. A very rich country, happy inhabitants: everyone works, lives a peaceful life, makes plans for the future, children laugh, adults go about their business. Everything is going well for them. The core of Lebanon was the strong Christian Maronite community. They had lived in this country for centuries. Lebanon became for them the only refuge in the entire Middle East, where the Muslim world had long been predominant. The rights of Christians were secured by the constitution of 1943: only they had the right to hold the key posts in the state.
But the situation began to change at some point. The Palestine Liberation Organization appeared there, having been expelled from Jordan in 1970. Christians were panic-stricken at the prospect of the Islamization of the country, the loss of their state, and demographic absorption. They perceived the Palestinians as a threat to their lives and security. Lebanese Muslims proper had also long lived in this country. They, of course, felt somewhat aggrieved, since they did not have the right to participate fully in the life of the state. But this was not critical. Christians and Muslims lived with each other in peace and harmony, and that was the main thing.
But the refugees from Palestine who had come to Lebanon also felt uncomfortable here. They feared that the Lebanese army and the Christian militias (there were several such groups there) would try to drive them out of the country. In reality, there were no grounds for such concern. Nevertheless, that is how it seemed to them. Perhaps here, since two such camps had formed, it would have been necessary to talk, to discuss all these fears, to relieve the tension, to find instruments guaranteeing security, and to calm everyone down, but everything went differently.
The first sparks of the future massacre
- Step One. On April 3, 1975, an assassination attempt was made on the leader of a Christian party. In response, Christian militia forces fired on a bus carrying Palestinians. Let us state the confessions plainly from the outset: Christians shot up a bus full of Muslims. Twenty-seven people died. Who made the attempt and why was unclear. Whether the Muslims who perished had any connection to it, no one knows. But what happened, happened.
- Step Two. A few months later, the bodies of four murdered Christians were found in one of the city's districts. They were young men. And as ill luck would have it, among them was the son of one of the chief commanders of the Christian militia. Suspicion again fell on the Muslims.
- Step Three. The grief-stricken commander blocked the key intersections of Beirut. In those days, Lebanese identity cards were required to state the citizen's religious affiliation. At the checkpoints, everyone whose card read "Muslim" in the "religion" field was dragged from their cars and shot at point-blank range. Within a few hours, more than two hundred people had been killed.
The Flywheel of Chain Bloody Vengeance
- Step Four. It only got worse. The militia surrounded the poorest district of Beirut, where Muslim refugees lived, and began a "cleansing" operation. Women and children were driven into buildings, which were then set on fire. The wounded were finished off in the streets. The district was razed to the ground with heavy machinery and burned. The victims of the massacre numbered as many as 1,500. Photographs of Christian militiamen celebrating their victory and playing musical instruments against a backdrop of smoking ruins and corpses went around the world.
- Step Five. Two days later, on January 20, 1976, Muslims began an assault on one of the Christian towns in the suburbs of Beirut. Men were lined up against the walls of their own homes and shot before the eyes of their families. Women were subjected to gang rape and torture. Children were killed with shots to the back of the head. Historical chronicles have recorded acts of inhuman cruelty; thousands of people perished.
- Step Six. In retaliation, the Christians surrounded a large city with a Muslim population. Inside the city, besides the militants, were thousands of civilians: the elderly, women, and children. Over the weeks of the siege, the city ran out of water, food, and medicine. People drank water from radiators and sewage ditches, and died of exhaustion and constant artillery shelling. Surgeons in underground hospitals amputated limbs without anesthesia. After the siege, the Christians broke into the city, and a terrible bloody massacre began. Men were lined up in rows along the walls and shot with machine guns. Women and the elderly were burned alive in basement shelters. The camp buildings, together with the wounded Muslims inside them, were crushed by heavy bulldozers.
The following steps proceed in the same alternating pattern. We will not speak of them. The essence is clear enough.
The Mechanism of Dehumanizing the Enemy Side
How did it all end? The war in Lebanon lasted 15 years (1975–1990), and in the end no one managed to win it. It ended in exhaustion, poverty, economic ruin, the deaths of tens of thousands of people, and a forced compromise. A country that had been the financial center of the region was left in ruins, and its economy was completely destroyed. There was no trial of the war criminals.
And yet they could have lived in peace and harmony. But with each new round of hatred and mutual killings, the malice only grew.
Christians rejoiced at the deaths of Muslims, and they in turn rejoiced at the deaths of Christians. Everyone wanted revenge.
Each time, the mutual killings only fueled this hatred. On both sides, innocent people died—children, the elderly. But the flywheel could no longer be stopped. Why was neither side able to stop? Why did every new step lead to even greater cruelty?
The fact is that the mass media on both sides instilled in the minds of their supporters an image of absolute evil in the opponent. The enemy was dehumanized. On the other side there are no people: there are wicked, savage animals in human form. They are evil in its purest form, and it must be exterminated without any pity. When the opponent is stripped of human features, taking off the safety catch of morality is no problem.
The principle of collective responsibility was preached. "They all" are to blame for the death of any one of us.
The killing of a peaceful Muslim in the port became an "adequate" response for the killing of Christians on the road. The killing of Muslim children in one city became "just" revenge for the killing of Christian children in another. "This is for our children!" Children are sacred, after all—surely it is not a pity to kill other children for their deaths, is it?
And finally, any attempt to find a compromise and enter into negotiations was suppressed. Sensible politicians became hostages of the radicals. Any attempt at compromise was perceived as a betrayal of the memory of the fallen. If one begins to reconcile, it means that those who died, died in vain. Spilled blood demanded new blood to justify the previous sacrifices.
The Tragic Lessons of Blind Brutalization
This is always what happens when a society allows fear and dehumanization to prevail over reason and mercy. People begin to turn into beasts, and if this brutalization is not stopped, then in the end neither side will come out ahead. Everyone will lose. All that will remain are hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of graves of people who could have lived.
History teaches us such lessons. But, as the Irish playwright Bernard Shaw said: "The only lesson that can be learned from history is that people learn no lessons from history." And, unfortunately, modern history tells us that he was undoubtedly right.
