Watching the fifth masquerade of national elections since my return to Lebanon, I cannot help but recall Amin Maalouf’s masterpiece, “The Rock of Tanios.” In Maalouf’s tale there is an Ottoman sheikh of a mountain village who collects taxes and recruits the able to fight the empire’s wars. In return for his allegiance to the empire, he has his privileges. While the young men of the village go off to die in battle, the sheikh stays behind, keeping part of the tax wealth for himself and feeling entitled to pursue the parish’s women. He robs what few possessions a man owns: wealth, life, honor, and dignity. The most astonishing plot twist is when Roukos, the self-exiled, virtuous, and decent man, returns to his native village to dethrone the sheikh, return the stolen wealth, and protect the villagers’ dignity, only to find the villagers upset over their sheikh’s humiliation and crying
