Destroying the Language of Power

What Elias Khoury (1948-2024) Taught Me

In a 2018 interview with the leftwing Lebanese outlet Megaphone News, the writer and novelist Elias Khoury was asked to describe the Lebanese system.

"It is a system of permanent civil war," he answered, "Lebanon is always on the edge of collapse."

It is difficult to explain the depressed political mood at the time. Years of the same establishment elites postponing their own parliamentary terms, Hezbollah intervening in Syria to bolster Bashar Assad’s regime, assassinations going unpunished. The country was captured by the same ruling elites that had established their reputation during the civil war — and if not them, their sons, nephews, cousins. Their hold on power seemed absolute.

Just days before…