Today, the Lebanese Forces, a far right Christian militia-turned party, decided to commemorate in a typical militia-styled march the assassination by the fascist Syrian Social Nationalist Party of its founder Bachir Gemayel, ex-president-elect, in 1982.
Meanwhile, the SSNP had already commemorated its Wimpy Operation of 1982 in a similar fashion donning the same black uniform.
The followers of both parties often butt heads on Sept 14 of every year, in what i’d like to dub as the “derby of Lebanon.”
The tradition requires SSNP supporters to accuse, every year, the late President Gemayel of being a Zionist traitor due to his party’s alliance with the Israeli army during the civil war. They also celebrate Habib Chartouny, the alleged operative that conducted the assassination.
While LF supporters consider Gemayel to be the “last of the Maronite leaders” who had the will to build a strong state (notice the vocab) and accuse the SSNP of being agents of the Syrian regime, which its troops occupied #Lebanon for nearly 29 years.
Moral of the story: although the parties/militias claim to ideologically oppose each other as they often but heads, little do they know or realize how similar are they, in practice and even in ideology.
End.
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