"Despair and frustration will not shake our belief that the resistance is the only way of liberation"
About this Quote
Emile Lahud speaks with the cadence of a wartime president, refusing to let weariness undercut a political and moral doctrine. The opening appeal to despair and frustration acknowledges the cost borne by civilians and fighters alike: years of occupation, bombardment, sanctions, and internal division. By naming these emotions, he folds them into a narrative of endurance. The promise that they will not shake belief converts pain into fuel, turning vulnerability into resolve.
Calling resistance the only way of liberation places armed struggle at the center of national identity and strategy. In the Lebanese context, resistance invokes decades of conflict with Israel, especially the occupation of the south and the 2000 withdrawal widely credited to Hezbollahs campaign. It also echoes the lexicon of al-muqawama that binds dignity, sovereignty, and sacrifice into a single political theology. For Lahud, a former army commander and president aligned with Syria, resistance operated as an organizing principle, a way to unify institutions and populations under chronic external pressure and internal fragility.
The absolutism of only way is deliberate. It delegitimizes alternate courses such as international mediation, state-building first, or disarmament under UN resolutions. In a polarized landscape after the civil war and amid contests over sovereignty and militia arms, this stance becomes both a shield and a cudgel: it rallies those who see results in 2000 and 2006 as proof of efficacy, and it marginalizes critics who fear perpetual militarization or state erosion. The sentence thus functions as a morale directive and a boundary marker, defining who belongs within the imagined national consensus.
There is also a psychological grammar at work. Resistance is cast less as tactics than as faith, something sustained not by victories alone but by belief that suffering has purpose. That move converts a political choice into an identity. It promises that steadfastness itself becomes a path to freedom, even when the material gains are contested, and it reaffirms a leadership posture that equates endurance with liberation.
Calling resistance the only way of liberation places armed struggle at the center of national identity and strategy. In the Lebanese context, resistance invokes decades of conflict with Israel, especially the occupation of the south and the 2000 withdrawal widely credited to Hezbollahs campaign. It also echoes the lexicon of al-muqawama that binds dignity, sovereignty, and sacrifice into a single political theology. For Lahud, a former army commander and president aligned with Syria, resistance operated as an organizing principle, a way to unify institutions and populations under chronic external pressure and internal fragility.
The absolutism of only way is deliberate. It delegitimizes alternate courses such as international mediation, state-building first, or disarmament under UN resolutions. In a polarized landscape after the civil war and amid contests over sovereignty and militia arms, this stance becomes both a shield and a cudgel: it rallies those who see results in 2000 and 2006 as proof of efficacy, and it marginalizes critics who fear perpetual militarization or state erosion. The sentence thus functions as a morale directive and a boundary marker, defining who belongs within the imagined national consensus.
There is also a psychological grammar at work. Resistance is cast less as tactics than as faith, something sustained not by victories alone but by belief that suffering has purpose. That move converts a political choice into an identity. It promises that steadfastness itself becomes a path to freedom, even when the material gains are contested, and it reaffirms a leadership posture that equates endurance with liberation.
Quote Details
| Topic | Freedom |
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