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Hardly anyone alive today remembers the roaring ‘20s, the post-First World War cultural revival; the jazz age that rejected the values, ideas and institutions of a previous generation that had led Europe to self-destruction. Lebanon may today be going through something similar, with traumatized postwar youths reacting to what they see as a society and a state that has failed them in every possible way.

This piece is inspired by an intense but fascinating evening I spent with a group of young people from a certain political party who are engaged in the process of rethinking the country. Our discussions confirmed the deep generational divide. Their generation is simply questioning everything ours believed in. They are reviewing the country’s history and stripping it down to rebuild it again. I could not help them; they must go through this painful process themselves. I am optimistic they will find a way to believe in the future of the country without totally negating its past and everything it stands for.

The burden is heavy and there is a huge legacy to process. The civil war is ancient history for them and the Taif Agreement that ended it did not change anything, with the country occupied by both Syria and Israel. Lebanon was controlled by Syria for 15 years after Taif and by Hezbollah since Syria’s withdrawal. We have been through devastating wars and debilitating paralysis where nothing functions. Three revolutions in the space of 15 years changed nothing. We experienced total economic and financial meltdown, banks failed, the government failed, the army and the judiciary failed, even elections failed to bring in new blood, and Beirut port exploded. “Please don’t tell me there is nothing wrong with us” becomes almost convincing.

The German sociologist Wolfgang Schivelbusch defined this state of mind as that of a culture of defeat, through which the postwar generation has to digest what happened. It faces the difficult task of making sense of the preceding generation’s actions, failures and sacrifices. This process often takes a few forms and goes through phases. Members of the postwar generation react against what they see as the moral or political bankruptcy of their parents, leading to cultural and intellectual rebellion. They examine several historical examples of defeat, like the American South after the civil war of the 1860s, France after its defeat at the hands of Bismarck in the 1870s and Germany following the First World War.

The postwar generation faces the difficult task of making sense of the preceding generation’s actions, failures and sacrifices

Nadim Shehadi

Many in Lebanon will recognize some of the phases that societies go through. The pattern includes an initial shock, featuring depression, self-doubt and the belief in systemic failure. This includes questioning the past, what got us there and doubting the very foundations of the nation, country and society. There is the realization that the prewar political, military and social system failed. Even national identity, which seemed solid before, will begin to be seen as a fragile delusion. The old regime needs to be overthrown. There is a need to find scapegoats, represented by the former authorities, to get rid of the rot.

Most interesting is a process of self-scrutiny and emulation in which the defeated society, in a moment of deepest self-doubt, starts believing that it must learn from the enemy to survive. We have seen this in several instances. The American South trying to become a “better North” by adopting the norms of the enemy. The French after their defeat in 1870 started to adopt the Prussian model of militarizing their schools. The same phenomenon is observed by Ibn Khaldun, the Muslim philosopher and historian. In his “Muqaddimah,” he observed that the defeated emulate the victor in all their manners and habits. The imitation extends to all aspects of life, including distinctive characteristics, dress, occupations and customs.

The third phase is when society comes to terms with the defeat and finds ways of creating a new myth because, according to Schivelbusch, the extreme self-criticism cannot be sustained indefinitely. A narrative that allows society to regain self-confidence and believe in itself must be formed.

Schivelbusch’s central theme is that defeated societies question the foundations of their identities, generate myths to glorify their past and ultimately engage in a paradoxical equation of military failure and cultural superiority. The cultural reaction to defeat is often marked by self-scrutiny and a determination to affirm a moral victory, which he calls an “inversion.”

We may be an extreme case because of the multiple crises that came one after the other, with hardly any time in between

Nadim Shehadi

Such theories may be helpful in trying to understand the new cultural and political developments in Lebanon. But we may be an extreme case because of the multiple crises that came one after the other, with hardly any time in between.

The 2005 Cedar Revolution saw the country polarized across all traditional divides, between the pro-Syrian March 8 and anti-Syrian March 14 camps. But this was followed by another war and several years of paralysis, with the state and the political system failing to cope, even in the provision of basic services such as refuse collection. This triggered another revolt in 2016, in which the slogan “You Stink” was addressed to all political leaders. The failure to deal with wildfires in 2019 triggered yet another revolt, with the slogan “All Means All” targeting both the March 14 and March 8 political parties and calling for the abolition of the power-sharing system.

The financial crisis that followed also triggered riots, in which the banks and the politicians were seen as part of the same system. This was followed by the COVID-19 pandemic and the Beirut port explosion, which was again seen as a result of the corruption and neglect of the entire political and security establishment. Then the judiciary also failed in its mission to conduct an investigation.

When despair hits rock bottom, one often hears arguments in favor of a benevolent dictatorship, like that of Singapore under Lee Kuan Yew or Turkiye under Ataturk. For the fourth time, Lebanon has just elected an ex-army commander-in-chief as president.

For someone like me, brought up in the old system and still believing in it, adding up all these slogans amounts to a death wish — turning the country into its nemesis, the old Syrian regime: Ruled by a dictator and his security establishment and where there are no political parties, no banks, no sectarian power-sharing system and hardly any independent judiciary. Therein lies the country’s greatest challenge. For Lebanon to recover, a dialogue of generations must result in the reemergence of confidence in the country’s mission.

• Nadim Shehadi is an economist and political adviser. X: @Confusezeus