Analysis, Middle East, Side Feature

Between Winter time and Summer time in Lebanon – Failure of Authority, Meager Entity, and Sectarian States!

With the start of the holy month of Ramadan, the month of more than 1.8 billion Muslims in the world, and the month of the vast majority of the people of Lebanon, the issue of postponing entering the summer timing (Daylight Saving Time) has emerged, to be exceptional this year in the last week of April instead of the last week of March, as has been customary for years, on the pretext of belittling Muslims in their fasting, as Prime Minister Najib Mikati and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri claimed! Immediately after announcing and approving this, voices appeared attacking the matter among the political and religious Christians of Lebanon, a strange attack in its content, in which the head of the Aounist movement, Gebran Bassil, described those who work in summer time as the civilized ones! And those who don’t as retarded reactionaries! Likewise, political parties in power opposed to those who announced the postponement of the entry into summer time, took advantage of their control over certain ministries, in violation of the decision of the presidency of their ministry! Then, after taking the decision and applying it for days, a session of the Council of Ministers was held on 3/27/2023 to discuss the matter, after which Mikati came out to announce the return of the decision and the start of summer timing on Wednesday night, Thursday 30-29/3/2023!

Here we say:

First: The announcement by the Prime Minister and the Parliament Speaker, and then the quick change of the decision confirms what is certain, in general, i.e. is the failure of the ruling authority and the corrupt political class and its parties in managing the state, and subjecting its decisions to regional and international political interests. Taking such a decision and quickly reversing it is another manifestation of failure, and this is not a matter of debate here. And if what happened indicates anything, then it indicates the weakness of this entity and the lack of influential and firm political decisions, in addition to being independent.

Second: From a political point of view, this decision and the step of “leaking” the recording between Berri and Mikati – the moment the decision was made – were not in vain. Rather, they were intended to deliver political messages to the opposing parties on two levels: The first is after Mikati’s talk about the decrease in the percentage of Christians in Lebanon to 19.4%. This leak implicitly says: If these two components of Muslims and their successors, i.e. America, meet, they can proceed in what the other party and its successors, i.e. France and Britain, cannot stop. As for the second level, it is to push the other party to show its hatred, which may harm it among the Muslims loyal to it locally and regionally, and thus weaken its strength in the issue of the presidency of the republic, especially if this is linked to the Saudi-Iranian rapprochement, and Saudi Arabia’s openness to the Syrian regime. That rapprochement and that openness that did not come out from under America’s cloak. Therefore, the movement of its men in Lebanon was clear in provoking and making this decision, which suggests that it was a political message, and not an issue related to caring for the affairs of Muslims, or compassion for their conditions and the conditions of the general people of Lebanon.

Third: As for those voices that came out with sectarian rhetoric, describing those who stick to winter time for a few days as reactionary and backward! It revealed, once again, the true face of the sectarian mini-state, and that every issue in Lebanon, be it small or large, the sects strive to reap from behind it only a mass, populist political goal, while this does not return to the people any significant benefit, in getting out of their deteriorating political, economic and social conditions, and this also indicates the weakness of this entity and the way it is linked to each other.

Fourth: This matter has revealed that the lie of what they like to call coexistence, and that the lie of what they like to call one homeland, is Trojan horse for continued domination of the ‘state’ and its institutions. Therefore they, along with the media and some ministries that claim to represent all the people of Lebanon, objected practically and publicly to the decision of what they call the state! It was better for them, and they are the ones who claim coexistence and a single homeland, to announce to the largest ‘partner’ in the country, the Muslims, that an hour of the day has no effect, whether it is at the end of March or the end of April, especially in a non-industrialized country like Lebanon, and that they value the majority of the people of Lebanon, i.e. the Muslims. However, this is not the case for them. Rather, the matter is an attempt to prove that Lebanon, the Muslim country, is separate from its historical Islamic surroundings, or as if it is a branch that has no root, through these movements and sectarian movements that are described only as childish and miserable and desperate attempts, which confirm – once again – the weakness of this entity.

Fifth: As for those who are considered to be the leaders of the Muslims in Lebanon, from the Presidencies of Parliament and the Council of Ministers and from the Muslim representatives: Know that the issue with those Muslims you claim to represent is not an extra or incomplete fasting hour. The Muslims, with their complete conviction in the imposition of their Lord, who has ordered the fast for them – in some regions of the world – hours that are almost all day and do not hesitate. Rather, the issue for Muslims in Lebanon is that whoever leads them truly represents them, strengthens them with their strength, and does not weaken them with his rhetoric and actions, and does not contribute to increasing their burdens, and is not a protector of the corrupt, and does not act in a way that shows that the other side is victorious in this state of sects. However, we clearly and definitely say: You are not those, because you do not have the will to work except by the connection with the international and regional powers in a dependent relationship, especially America whose ambassador touring Lebanon to and fro more than you do! And managing the crises as it wants.

O Muslims in Lebanon: You have seen how those who claim to represent you floundered in a matter related to your religion, and you have seen how those deputies you re-elected, or those who positioned themselves as your religious representatives in this state of sects, remained silent! So, do you continue to accept these as your political center, speaking in your name, assuming major positions under the pretext of representing you, and building their personal and personal glories at the expense of your honor, your life, and the sustenance of your children?!

O Muslims in Lebanon: The time has come, in light of the changes taking place in the world today, and this good vertical division that is taking place within the largest international powers. The time has come for you to ask your children to show the truth of their belonging to the Ummah of Islam. And that the one who represents them is the one who carries their religion and Islam as a political ideology, which reforms all aspects of political, economic and social life. Do not forget that Lebanon is not cut off from its nearby Levantine (Ash-Sham) surroundings, nor from its wider surroundings of Muslims, the Ummah, but rather it is a branch of an origin; and that you know that Lebanon is the meager entity that France created to separate you from the Ummah, and is not fit to take care of the affairs of Muslims or non-Muslims; and that you work to restore Lebanon as a platform for Islam from which its light radiates, and not as a platform for the corrupt, sectarian and hypocritical followers of politicians. And to remember that you lived ruling a large area of the world for more than 1300 years, in which non-Muslims lived amongst you in abundance, security and reassurance, without sectarianism, ethnicity or the concept of a minority, but rather citizens in the Islamic state, in which you have more duties than they have, and they have the same rights as you.

O Muslims in Lebanon: All of what we ask of you and invite you to, we, your brothers and sons in Hizb ut Tahrir in Wilayah Lebanon, and in the whole world, we do not ask for it and we do not have its tools. Rather, we invite you to implement it practically with Hizb ut Tahrir, who developed a concept emanating from and based on Sharia evidence, in a pure, crystallized and clear method from Islam alone, and made from this concept a practical introduction to the draft state constitution in 191 articles on general provisions, the system of government, the social system, the economic system, education policy, media policy, and foreign policy. It is working to put all of this into practice in an Islamic country. A Khilafah Rashidah (rightly guided Caliphate) on the Method of the Prophethood, at the hands of the Ummah and its people from among the people of strength and victory. Will you respond in these blessed days of the month of Ramadan? May Allah bring it back to you with succession, empowerment and security.

[يَا قَوْمَنَا أَجِيبُوا دَاعِيَ اللَّهِ وَآمِنُوا بِهِ يَغْفِرْ لَكُمْ مِنْ ذُنُوبِكُمْ وَيُجِرْكُمْ مِنْ عَذَابٍ أَلِيمٍ]

“O our fellow jinn! Respond to the caller of Allah and believe in him, He will forgive your sins and protect you from a painful punishment.” [Al-Ahqaf 46:31]

Hizb ut Tahrir Wilayah of Lebanon


7 Ramadan 1444 –
Wednesday, 29 March 2023
(Translated)