From the ego to the common destiny

« Don’t ask what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country. »
— John F. Kennedy, 20 January 1961

There are defeats that are not proclaimed by anyone. They do not appear in the results of an election or on a military map. They settle in behaviors, in language, in the way of looking at others and representing themselves.

The victory of the ego over the common good belongs to this category.

It begins when the question « What can we build together? » gives way to another: « What place will I occupy? It affirms itself when visibility counts more than utility, when speech replaces action and when any collective success is experienced as a threat by someone who is not the face of it.

Lebanon is obviously not the only country affected by this development. But his fragile institutions, his religious affiliations and his political rivalries gave him particular intensity. In a country already divided into communities, contemporary individualism adds further fragmentation: after the party, the confession and the clan, this is now the person who became his own camp.

The real reconstruction of the country therefore requires a threefold passage: from I to us, from community to national us, and then from identity received to destiny chosen.

When visibility replaces action

Social networks have not invented individualism. They offered him a permanent scene.

Everyone can now become their own media, comment on the news, question those responsible, document an injustice or mobilize around a cause. This liberation of speech represents real progress. It allows for the circumvention of censorship, the disclosure of abuses and the voice of those neglected by traditional media.

But this progress has a contradiction in it.

The more the voices multiply, the harder it becomes to make a common word emerge. Platforms reward what provokes an immediate reaction: indignation, anger, conflict, murder formula. They value patience, nuance and collective work less, which are essential to any lasting transformation.

Attention has become a currency. The policy itself has adapted to this economy.

The public official sometimes prefers the announcement to the result, the staging to discreet work, the discourse that will circulate a few hours to the reform whose effects will be visible only several years later. Citizens, for their part, may confuse the expression of an opinion with the exercise of a responsibility.

Publishing is not always participating.

Sharing an indignation does not build an organization.

A viral video does not replace an institution, strategy or reform.

This logic also affects citizens’ movements. Many are born of legitimate anger and a sincere will for change. But, quickly, rivalries appear: who will represent the movement? Who will talk to the media? Who will be on the list of electors? Who will receive the merit of a possible success?

The competition for visibility sometimes begins even before the common cause has found an organization.

The Lebanese paradox may be there: never so many citizens wanted to change the country, but rarely their energies have been so difficult to bring together in a sustainable way.

The ego is not the enemy

Yet it would be absurd to want to suppress the ego or condemn any personal ambition.

A society needs women and men who wish to undertake, create, direct, transmit and leave a trace. Ambition can be an immense force. It drives an entrepreneur to develop his activity, a teacher to train a generation, a magistrate to defend justice and a politician to transform his country.

The problem begins when ambition continues only on its own.

He then became hypertrophied: he no longer sought to serve a work, but to serve it. He no longer wants to contribute to collective success; he demands to be the owner. It is difficult for a good idea to come from another or a project to continue without it.

The challenge is not to destroy the ego, but to give it direction.

Democratic institutions have been designed precisely to accomplish this task. They recognise the existence of individual ambitions, but place them in common rules. They prevent a man, a party or a community from confounding his interest with that of the nation.

When institutions weaken, ambitions do not disappear. They simply fight without an arbitrator.

From « I » to « us »

The passage from « I » to « us » is not self-evident.

The individual naturally pursues his needs, interests, recognition and security. A political society begins when everyone accepts that certain things can only be obtained or protected together.

Security, justice, education, infrastructure, monetary stability or environmental protection are not individual successes. These are common goods. They involve rules, institutions and minimum trust between people who do not know each other and do not necessarily think in the same way.

The « we » therefore begin with an awareness: my future depends not only on my intelligence, my relationships or my ability to protect me. It also depends on the quality of the country in which I live.

I can personally prosper in a state that collapses, but this prosperity will remain fragile.

I can get a privilege through an intermediary, but then I help weaken the rule that should protect everyone.

I can win alone for a while. I can’t survive in a society that loses.

Moving from « I » to « we » means understanding that the well-understood personal interest does not oppose the common good. He depends on it.

Trust as the first condition of « us »

We don’t cooperate with anyone we think will deceive us as soon as he gets the chance.

Trust is therefore the invisible capital of any political community. Where it exists, citizens agree to respect the rules, contribute to common expenditure and put a share of their security in the hands of the institutions. When it disappears, everyone returns to their private protections: their family, party, community, money or network.

In Lebanon, distrust is not only a cultural provision. It has been informed by concrete experiences: unfulfilled promises, failed public services, hampered justice, lost economies, diluted responsibilities and unanswered crises.

So trust will not come back with speeches about national unity.

It will be rebuilt by proof.

An enforced court decision.

An appointment based on competence.

A transparent public procurement.

A person responsible for his actions.

An administrative department that operates without an intermediary.

Each rule observed reduces the distance between the state and the citizen. Every privilege granted to the strongest again digs.

« We » learn and practice

Citizenship is not only a status on an identity card. She’s a discipline.

It consists of debating without turning the adversary into an enemy, losing an election without rejecting the whole system, respecting a decision of justice even when it does not please and defending its convictions without denying the legitimacy of those of others.

This apprenticeship starts at school, but cannot be limited to it.

It continues in universities, associations, trade unions, municipalities, political parties, media and workplaces. A democracy needs spaces where different people meet, carry out a common task and discover that they can cooperate without sharing the same identity.

Algorithms tend to lock us up among those like us. On the contrary, citizenship begins in the encounter with someone who does not resemble us.

« We » are rarely born between people perfectly agreeable. It is born when people disagree but agree to build something together.

The « Community Us » Trap

Lebanon is not a society without solidarity.

Families, religious communities, associations, parties and local networks can organize mutual aid. In times of crisis, they have often replaced an absent State by providing care, education, financial assistance or protection.

The Lebanese thus know how to say « we ».

But this « we » too often stops at the border of their community.

We, the Maronites.

We Sunnis.

We, the Shiites.

We, the Druzes.

We, the Orthodox.

We Armenians.

Each of these communities has a memory, institutions, schools, social works, historical figures and a special reading of the country.

This diversity is part of Lebanese wealth. The problem is neither faith nor the existence of communities. It appears when religious affiliations become the main frameworks for political representation, access to services and social protection.

The citizen then depends less on the law than on his group.

The community ceases to be only an area of identity and solidarity. It becomes a competing political structure of the state.

When communities replace the Republic

In a republic, public policy should be judged according to its usefulness for the entire population.

In a system dominated by denominational balances, another reading grid is required:

Which community wins?

What community is losing?

How many jobs do he have?

What ministry will it control?

What appointment will compensate for that given to others?

The search for the best decision then gives way to the search for an acceptable sharing.

Compromise is indispensable in a diverse society. But it changes in nature when it is no longer about policy but about the permanent distribution of resources and power among groups.

The common good becomes an addition of community goods.

However, an addition of special interests does not automatically produce a general interest.

This logic continues because it responds to an old fear: each community fears that one strong state can be captured by another. Each prefers to maintain its own protections, institutions and political relays.

The paradox is formidable: because each group fears a State controlled by others, all contribute to maintaining a State too weak to really protect anyone.

What reassures in the short term weakens everyone in the long term.

From « we community » to « we national »

The real Lebanese challenge, therefore, is not only to move from « I » to « us ». We have to make an even more difficult transition: that of « we community » to « we national ».

A nation does not require that individuals abandon their belongings.

We belong to a family, a city, a profession, a culture or a religion. These memberships can be complementary. They become problematic only when one of them claims to determine alone our political behaviour and our relationship with other citizens.

Citizenship does not remove identities.

She orders them.

She claims that when deciding on the common future, no religious, community, family, partisan or economic loyalty can remain above the common law.

Since the creation of Greater Lebanon in 1920 and the independence of 1943, the country has sought to organize coexistence between its historical communities. It has sometimes succeeded, but organizing coexistence is not enough to make a nation.

Coexistence requires:

How can we live side by side?

The nation asks:

Why do we choose to continue living together?

We can share a territory without sharing a project. A balance can be maintained without building a future.

It is here that Ernest Renan’s formula makes sense: a nation is « a plebiscite of every day ». It does not exist only because it has been proclaimed or recognized. Each generation must renew the will to continue the common history.

Not because all its citizens have the same origin or faith, but because they feel that their future will be better together than separately.

From identity to destiny

Identity and destiny do not answer the same question.

Identity asks: Who am I?

Destiny asks: With whom have I chosen to build the future?

I do not choose my birth, my parents, the first language I hear, or the community in which I grow up. All this is given to me. All of this is mine.

Identity is memory, heritage and root. She tells me where I come from.

But a nation cannot live on its roots alone. It must also answer a more demanding question:

Where do we want to go together?

That’s where destiny begins.

Destiny does not erase identities. He directs them and overcomes them without denying them. It transforms inherited coexistence into political will.

Lebanon has long sought to protect its different identities. This protection was necessary. But it’s not enough anymore.

We can keep all identities and lose the country.

We can defend each community and abandon the common destiny.

The image of the ship summarizes this contradiction. Each sailor comes aboard with his/her history, language, beliefs and character. No one needs to give it up. But once at sea, all share the same crossing.

The storm does not distinguish confessions.

The wind ignores the parties.

The shipwreck saves no community.

Lebanon too often looks like a crew in which everyone protects their cabin while the ship takes water. Each group defends its rights, each party its influence, each community its balance.

But who protects the boat?

That is the real political question.

Transforming the ego into collective ambition

The transition to common destiny will not be made by moral exhortation or by an additional slogan. It requires the creation of mechanisms capable of directing individual ambitions towards collective achievement.

We must first give prestige to the public service.

A society reveals its values by the people it chooses to admire. If it only celebrates wealth, fame or influence, it will naturally produce behaviours centered on personal success.

But when she honours the teacher who forms a generation, the judge who protects the law, the entrepreneur who creates sustainable jobs, the doctor who serves beyond his interest and the official who refuses corruption, she changes the very definition of success.

The prestige has to change sides.

Cooperation must then be rehabilitated.

Competition can stimulate excellence, but no great work is built alone. Universities, hospitals, infrastructure, businesses, constitutions and scientific discoveries are the result of combined skills, overcome conflicts and shared responsibilities.

Cooperating does not mean giving up excellence.

This means understanding that individual excellence is valued when it becomes useful to others.

We must also learn the long time.

I’d rather have the immediate reward. The common good is moving slower. Educational reform requires a generation. Independent justice is built patiently. A productive economy does not arise from an announcement.

Social networks live by the minute. Institutions live on a long-term basis.

A serious policy must learn to resist the tyranny of the moment.

A road map to common destiny

The first step is to recognize interdependence.

No community will save itself. The safety of the moon depends on that of others. Economic collapse, war, corruption and exile do not respect any religious boundaries.

The second is to rebuild trust through action. The law must apply to all, responsibilities must be established and institutions must produce visible results.

The third is to strengthen the State. A common destiny cannot be based on temporary arrangements or private protections. It needs an independent judiciary, a competent administration, transparent public finances and a real monopoly of legitimate force.

The fourth is to transform individual behaviours. Denying a pass right, respecting a rule even when it puts us at a disadvantage, choosing jurisdiction rather than membership, and defending an institution rather than a leader are political acts.

The fifth is to invest in the future. Educate, train, produce, innovate and offer young people a reason to stay. A country that no longer prepares its children’s future is gradually ceasing to have a destiny.

The sixth is to formulate a simple and understandable national vision: which state do we want? What economy? What is the place for justice, education, diversity and freedom? Without a common horizon, the sacrifices demanded of citizens will always seem useless.

Finally, we must accept the duration. The common destiny will not be born of a government or an election. It will take shape when consistent decisions are maintained long enough to become habits and then a culture.

Heirs to founders

Each generation receives a country, but none receives its future.

The future is built in choices that sometimes seem modest: an official protects an institution rather than his party; a judge applies the law despite pressure; one teacher conveys curiosity rather than fear of the other; a citizen refuses a privilege; an entrepreneur invests in production rather than rent.

Taken separately, these actions seem insufficient.

Repeated by thousands of people, they change the direction of a country.

One often imagines that history is rocking into the bustle of great ruptures. But lasting transformations sometimes begin more silently: the day when enough women and men stop thinking only as the heirs of their community and begin to behave as the founders of a common future.

An heir protects what he has received.

A founder builds what he will transmit.

Lebanon needs both: to preserve the richness of its traditions, cultures and memories, but also to build institutions whose present generations may not see all the fruits.

Because the identity says where we come from.

Only common destiny can tell where we are going.

The real Lebanese miracle will therefore not only be to have maintained the coexistence of its communities. It will begin the day when this diversity will cease to be a juxtaposition of fears and protections to become a will to build.

On that day, every citizen can say without denying any part of himself:

My community belongs to my identity.
Lebanon belongs to my destiny.