Parliamentary Speaker and Amal Movement head Nabih Berri appears to have become so politically marginalized that he will do anything to be relevant. Now, not only does he, and presumably his Amal Movement, want to participate in the February 14 ceremony to mark the fifth anniversary of the murder of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, he is also suggesting that the event be “based on the logic of March 11” – the symbolic middle ground between the March 8 and 14 movements.

There are two troubling aspects to Berri’s latest initiative: that he wants to participate in the event is in itself, to put it mildly, inappropriate; but that he also wants to somehow reposition March 14 by appearing to pull its political ideology to a so-called compromise position – one closer to the pro-Syrian March 8 bloc, a grouping that it has resolutely opposed for the past five years – is cynical and insulting to the memory of those who have died in the name of freedom.

The popular movement that reached its zenith on March 14, 2005, a day that then gave its name to the subsequent political coalition, erupted in the disgust felt by many hundreds of thousands of ordinary people at the brutal 2005 murder of Rafik Hariri. Although the perpetrators of the crime are still at large, at the time it was widely assumed that elements connected to the Syrian regime were responsible for the 1 ton bomb blast outside the Hotel St. Georges.

The unprecedented – for the Middle East at least – showing of people power forced Syria to end its 29-year occupation of Lebanon and created the opportunity to work for genuine sovereignty and build a state based on free and democratic principals. Not only did Berri and his Amal Movement play no part in the “Cedar Revolution”, they were resolutely part of the pro-Syrian camp.

Nearly two years later, when the predominantly March 14 government was compromised by the resignation of five opposition ministers, the Amal Movement was a key player in the 18-month demonstration in downtown Beirut, a sit-in that brought the economic heart of the country to a standstill and besieged Lebanon’s principal seat of government. Prime Minister Fouad Siniora lived behind tanks and razor wire, while he and other ministers were forced into hiding at the Phoenicia Hotel, fearing for their lives and those of their families. All the while, March 8 politicians, including Speaker Berri, went about their business with impunity.

But this was nothing compared to the events of May 8, when Amal gunmen – yes the speaker of the parliament has a militia – under the tactical leadership of Hezbollah, led the coalition of March 8 forces that ruthlessly took control of Beirut in what was tantamount to an attempted coup and saw the deaths of innocent civilians caught in the crossfire.

Let us consider just how outrageous that was. Here we had the speaker of the Lebanese parliament, the supposed guardian of an institution founded on the democratic principle of the ballot box. And yet when the democratically-elected government chose, as it did on May 6, to, wisely or not, exercise its right to act in what it believed were the best interests of the state, the parliamentary speaker opted to participate in taking the debate onto the streets in the form of armed violence at the hands of his own supporters.

If the true spirit of March 14 is to be preserved, it must be made very clear to Mr. Berri that he is not welcome on Sunday next week. Not only would his presence be a humiliation to those who suffered at the hands of his thugs in 2008, it would be further proof that the opposition, and by extension Damascus, is succeeding in gradually snuffing out the precious flame of self-determination that was lit in the spring of 2005. 

Yes things have not gone according to plan. The March 14 coalition that took up the popular torch and carried it for the past five years has, by a combination of political violence, war, intimidation and its own shortcomings, been unable to convert popular aspirations into concrete results. Furthermore, since the June 2009 elections, the results of which appear to have been meaningless, Damascus has once again cast its shadow across Lebanon, while the Special Tribunal for Lebanon is not going anywhere fast.

All this may be the product of global realpolitik and the new regional reality, but that does not mean, Mr. Berri, that we are ready to surrender our principles just yet.

They are all we have left.