On August 2, the website of the Progressive Socialist Party, psp.org, carried the speech delivered by Deputy Walid Jumblatt during an extraordinary general assembly held by the PSP for the Renewal and Development of Partisan Education:
The PSP general assembly was inaugurated by the party’s salute, which was followed by the speech of PSP leader Walid Jumblatt in which he pointed out that this assembly was held to redraft the organizational formula to allow the PSP to reach a new political formula that would renew the performance of the party, revive the principles on which it was founded and corroborate these principles. He said: “We have inaugurated the general assembly once again without an anthem for the party. This is a major gap and we have been calling for this issue [for an anthem] for years. Until this anthem is secured one day, we have inaugurated the session with the partisan salute solely…
“Then the Independence Revolution and the repercussions of the assassination of Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri among other martyrs emerged. We did what was logical and what was illogical, while emotions sometimes prevailed over logic. However, we did our duty in regards to the tribunal which we hope will reveal the truth and become a headline for stability. We do not want a tribunal whose headline is chaos and we do not want it to be controlled by countries or sides which could take it to another location...
"We also did what was illogical when we met with the neoconservatives in Washington to protect the so-called Cedar Revolution, freedom and independence. It was unnatural for the PSP in its historical context and positioning to meet with those who spread chaos in the Middle East and destroyed Iraq and Palestine. At the time however - and I am not here to justify the decision - our main concern was the tribunal. Maybe we could have abstained from going, but what happened is done and this constituted a black mark in our history and in the white and clear history of the party at the level of its constant struggle alongside the Palestinian cause, the Arab cause and the cause of Arab Lebanon…
“Pan-Arabism started dying with the death of Gamal Abdul Nasser, and we have to return to the principles and the foundations to re-launch Arab thinking in our ranks as the Progressive Socialist Party, before expanding our alliance with parties, movements, organizations and personalities with whom we meet ideologically and politically at the level of the Arab identity of Lebanon, the class-based system, the protection of the farmers and the workers, the protection of the Palestinian cause and the promotion of exceptional relations with Syria and through it with the Arab world. The tutelage has ended and the Syrian army withdrew, so let us stop weeping…” Regarding the American policy under Obama’s mandate, Deputy Jumblatt said: “He has inherited a heavy burden and tried in his speech in Egypt to corroborate the [importance of the] Palestinian cause. Until this moment however, all that was done was that he talked about the freezing of the settlements before the American envoys came to say that the freezing of the settlements will only be conducted in exchange for the recognition of the Jewish state…”
On the Lebanese level, Jumblatt addressed the issue of the parliamentary elections, saying: “I believe they confirmed the sectarian division in the country. Those who were pleased with the victory saw that it was a temporary one, for this opportunity evaporated and the victory had no value. It corroborated however the need to get rid of the sectarian system. Today, we have entered what is referred to as being a consensual democracy which brings back to mind the meetings of the clans and the tribes, whether in Al-Anbar, in Basra or even in Lebanon. When they brag about a civil society, there is no civil society. There is a popular community or as they call it in Afghanistan a meeting of clans. Certainly they conduct elections, but the agreement over the formula is reached following the meeting of these clans. Therefore, the government formation will allow the Lebanese tribes of which we are part, to agree on a new formula under the headline of concord, centrism or any other slogan…
“While we allied during a certain stage under the banner of March 14 along with other parties and figures due to the reality in the country at the time, this alliance cannot continue. We must think about a new formation within the party firstly and at the level of the country secondly, in order to exit this bias and right-wing inclination. We must return to our leftist, Arab, unionist and workforce principles for which the lives of many PSP martyrs were claimed. This is the great challenge that awaits us... We in the party and the March 14 team did engage in a battle with a political content. We engaged in a battle of rejecting the other, i.e. a battle with a tribal character in which we rejected the other on sectarian, tribal and political bases. Our victory was therefore not real. Our real victory will be when we grant the workers and the farmers their rights, when we return to the Arab and Palestinian principles, when we exit the right-wing and stick to what is left of the left-wing or even create a new one. That would be a victory...