From Gaza to Lebanon, our 'present day' and their 'day after' – ???? Info Libertaire

Ibrahim al-Amin, October 18, 2024. In the world of politics, terminology is an integral part of the stories told by those participating in a major battle. No need to go back very far in history: let's just remember that after the first weeks of the war of annihilation waged by the enemy in Gaza, some began to invite us to think about the “day after”. Upon closer examination, this term immediately appears to be a ruse by the enemy's sponsors and allies to evade their responsibility to stop the genocide, while constituting a sign of hope for the agents of the American enemies and Israelis who are waiting to reap the fruits of this war.

The idea of ​​the “day after” is based on a total upheaval of the situation, based on the principle that everything that existed before the war must no longer exist afterward. This means, in reality, total capitulation to the enemy.

In Gaza, for example, those who quickly launched the “day after day” initiative act as if the Resistance had failed and its era was over. When they talk about the “day after,” they seek to divert people’s attention from our “present day.” Having already exempted themselves from the mission of resisting the enemy, they promote the idea that people have no role to play in their own “present.”

Faced with this, it is imperative to definitively close this debate and act according to a clear rule: we are at the heart of the battle for “today”, and any discussion about “tomorrow” does not concern us at all. This term belongs to the enemies and those who seek to move the country from one side to the other, evading their role in the “present”, which is not our vocation.

“Today” is an endless day, a series of long days, the only watchword of which is: “Resistance and perseverance”. Anyone who feels concerned by this fight against this vast group of enemies must not get caught up in their debates or their projections presented as truths. It must, on the contrary, remain focused on the demands of our “present”, those which dictate our participation and our contribution to this sacred resistance. As for those who flee this duty, they belong to their “day after” which only exists in their imagination, especially since they themselves know that only our present shapes the future that we live and that we build.

As in Gaza, it is the same in Lebanon: barely a few days after the start of the enemy's brutal offensive against Lebanon, the supporters of the hostile project were already asking us about the “day after”. They act, with rage and malevolence, as if the enemy had won the war, considering that any current resistance is futile. If we look at what they expect from the “day after,” we see that they return to the same ambitions and dreams that we have fought against since the creation of this monstrous entity. These are goals that American and Israeli enemies have failed to achieve for decades, despite all the wars they have waged to this end.

But, true to themselves, they persist, seeing in the continuation of resistance a form of “denial” or “boasting”. They do this with great arrogance, because their project is based on the idea that resistance is futile, that it costs too much and only brings destruction and ruin. They seek to convince people that the battle is lost and call for total surrender. Some have already advocated surrender as a “saving act,” which is actually the essence of what enemies want.

Today our country is in a state of resistance, and those who have given up are trying to convince us that submission is the way to salvation, acting as they did in the past, pretending that the battle is over. by the victory of the enemy.

But did these people ask the enemy himself for his vision of the “day after”? Can anyone find in the enemy a concrete idea of ​​what that “day after” would be? Is there a real debate among the American and Israeli enemies about their own future after this war? Certainly not. For what ? Because they do not care about the “day after”, having conceived this concept for others, not for themselves, and act under the assumption that they will emerge from the war victorious.

What the enemies are doing today, in our present, is waging the fiercest battle against the strongest resistance movement to the American and Israeli occupations in our region and our country. Their strategy is based exclusively on violence, the extermination of the other: whether by direct annihilation, as is currently the case in Gaza and Lebanon, or by killing people's minds, reducing them to mere machines and numbers in a world dominated by this capitalist monster, today more ruthless and vile than ever, as evidenced by the wanderings of progress in the fortresses of the West.

As for us, we are not outside of history, and our “present day” is the legacy for which all those who have fallen fought and sacrificed. This is the path to the future we desire for ourselves. This pushes us to make difficult choices, involving fatigue and sacrifice, but also a freedom much more precious than enslavement.

Our present is a day that confronts us with great challenges. It also imposes our agenda, which focuses on preserving the Resistance, guaranteeing its continuity, and protecting its members, its body and its means of production. Everything we do today prepares for the elimination of their “day after”. Those who believe that this war will allow the enemies to persist for a long time do not understand the significance of the sacrifices made today. What the resisters do, here and now, is the true act of the “present”. It is today that our tomorrows are being forged, like those who sacrificed themselves before us!

Original article published in Arabic on Al-Akhbar on 10/18/2024 / Translation: lecridespeuples.substack.com

Ibrahim al-Amin is editor-in-chief of the Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar.