Of Accountability and Virtue

Every year this month, Lebanon commemorates the outbreak of the civil war. Images of destruction and death condensed in a memory on the verge of outburst. 

In a land ravaged by the most heinous forms of slaughter and mindless killing, none have been held accountable for their crimes. The murder era was folded away, and the killers moved from the fronts to government offices! Criminals took off their military uniforms, tied their ties, and issued a general amnesty for themselves. The war did not end. It just changed outfits. The great collapse that our country is experiencing today is, in part, only a natural result of the decision that exempted everyone from any accountability.

That is why the country constantly stands on the brink of a new war, for it has learned nothing from cruel experiences but has chosen to forget rather than heal. Healing needs justice, and justice requires responsibility and accountability. Justice heals wounds that, if left open to bleed, will return to express themselves at any opportunity. An injury carries tremendous energy that must inevitably reveal itself somehow. If it is healed, it becomes brilliant, and if it accumulates, it explodes, and every explosion increases the fragmentation of society and ultimately leads it to extinction or dependence.

Lebanon’s situation is almost the same as all the countries in the Arab region. No accountability, no justice. We are condemned to live with our torturers under the same roof. We go about our lives carrying that pain until one day it takes over, and the roof collapses on everyone. That is our doom, and we are unaware of it, perhaps because we have grown accustomed to our pain.

The “Accountability Theory”, established by Canadian political science researcher and academician Philip E. Tetlock, and developed by others after him, states: “It is a process in which a person is obligated to explain their actions to another party who has the right to judge those actions and accordingly take the appropriate decision – positive or negative – in their regard”. Thus, people become “responsible for their actions, which creates a sense of necessity to justify their behavior and pushes them to think carefully before making decisions or implementing actions.” The theory considers this sentiment as a virtue and breaks the accountability mechanism into several parts. 

So, where do we stand on such sentiments of virtue today, and is there any accountability mechanism we are applying?

The regimes that govern us are tyrannical, whether monarchical, tribal, religious, or parliamentary, hiding tyranny behind husks of democracy. For nearly a thousand years, our minds have been governed by curated thinking “curricula” that expiate every contrasting thought, granting themselves a divine aura not only in religious thinking but all intellectual methods from the far right to the far left. Abolition leaves no place for the virtue of accountability. No ruler of ours carries such a virtue. Where we live, governance is hereditary, and heirs don’t need virtues. 
If accountability were God’s job, or the tribe’s or the sectarian community’s, then the people, in this case, are only subjects. That would be a system that does not require a ruler to have virtue and is unable to produce accountability mechanisms.

That grim reality may seem like self-flagellation, and we don’t care for that. We realize in utmost evidence that we live in a world governed by voracious and brutal regimes that base all their policies on making a quick profit and concentrating the wealth of the world as a whole in the hands of the very few. In a system where the smallest minority controls the planet’s wealth, there is no place for accountability. Power devoid of mercy does not leave room for accountability, and those who possess power today are those who have set the world order with its institutions and its laws. They are the ones who apply them to others and not themselves, who monopolize everything from natural resources to culture, to wealth, to power, to the rule of law, and to accountability. They wage wars of all kinds to increase their monopoly on wealth, crushing populations they made poor. This system, too, needs no virtue to govern, and if we think that it is the product of some democracy, then we must think again and revisit world history.

In light of this short description, it may seem that there is no place for hope, but as we have said before, we are sentenced to hope. Ours is not metaphysical or written in the stars, but rather it is based on our confidence in the human ability to be creative in intellect, literature, and art. Our role is to provide a convenient environment for creativity.
We believe that cultural creativity plays a pivotal role in spreading the culture of accountability. 
Any narrative that touches on society’s pain calls for this virtue as a gate to settlement between human beings and justice worldwide. We work to support any production that puts forward accountability, point-blank or implicit because we are committed to healing and achieving social justice.

Of course, we are primarily committed to our societies. We are, however, much aware that our justice is inextricably tied to justice at the global level. The principle is one; it cannot be divided. We do not separate our tragedies from the state of the world as a whole. The development of societies is linked to their independence, that is, possessing their resources, wealth, and culture. The regime that governs the planet today occupies all the planet’s resources, does not hold itself accountable, and does not leave anyone the chance to seek accountability.
We must, indeed, hold ourselves and our rulers accountable, but we must also work to hold responsible the system that controls the planet.  

The creative industry may not be able to shake down the standing of domination and power, but we certainly can expose them in our work. On that account, it is our duty and that of all creators and cultural institutions to cooperate and urge accountability, whether at the local level or globally. 

We want to heal. We want it for ourselves, and we want it for all humanity.
 
There is no healing without justice and no justice without accountability, and the road is long. We are aware of that, but we also know that every journey begins with a step, and cinema surely must be one.