Photo by: Marie-Anne Muller

“Even my students ask me if I support the 8th of 14th March! Everyone wants you to label yourself. It’s like a need in this intense situation”, estimates Judge Marie-Claude Najm. “There is currently a great emotional deal, confessional and political, that we have to take sides with one party or the other. If we free ourselves from this system, we will definitely be lost. We are very harsh toward those who are with no one”, she claimed. Although, this law professor in USJ doesn’t stand with any of those parties, its not that she is neutral, far from it, “I am passionate for politics, but none of these Lebanese parties speak my voice. The politicians actually don’t have any vision or a political agenda. I do agree that there is some reasonable criticism from the opposition facing the government, but what does it propose as an alternative? None!! Although, this should be the main course of the debate!! “

Marie-Claude Najm’s case is not alone. Pamela Chrabieh Badine, a Lebanese-Canadian researcher feels suffocated from the current situation. “Those who are neutral to the 8th and 14th of March do exist, but they aren’t represented publicly and out loud. In the talk shows, only the youth who represent their political movement are invited, not the independent”. Her emancipation from the two clans disturbs people. “They tell me, it is not possible, you are surely inclined to some party! It’s as if my voice is not worthy to stand alone, under the pretense that I don’t adhere to the majority of the opposition! The political existence is, unfortunately, reduced to those two movements”.