Honesty is Honored in Selection of Judge Tarek Bittar as Lebanon’s Person of the Year

 

 

Swallowed by crisis after crisis, Lebanon has struggled to stand beneath an economic meltdown, the Beirut Port explosion in 2020, and the worsening pandemic under a government that has failed to serve its people. With mounting fears that the country will continue to sink into despair, the people of Lebanon are in dire need of hope. Hope, as it turns out, comes in the form of one judge’s determined pursuit of the perpetrators of the August port explosion. In December, the Arabic online journal Daraj, along with other columnists, named judge Tarek Bittar the “Person of the Year” to wide public approval, marking the first time Lebanon has selected an individual for the achievement.

 

The Person of the Year award is typically given by a magazine or news outlet to recognize a public figure. The most well-known iteration of the achievement is the Time Person of the Year, a tradition that began in 1927 (originally as the Man of the Year until it was changed in 1999 to be more inclusive) to acknowledge an influential individual or group of the year.

 

A Lebanese magazine’s choice of Bittar (who for the most part was not a household name in Lebanon before the port explosion) as Person of the Year may be considered unconventional by some standards, given that the award is traditionally given to major political or other  influential figures. But this was exactly why he was chosen. According to Daraj, the newly founded electronic magazine, it chose Judge Tarek Bittar not because he was a hero — he was chosen because he is an honest man, a rarity within a government mired in corruption.

 

Bittar’s name emerged last year when he earned a reputation for himself as the unflinching head of Beirut’s criminal court, leading the investigation on the explosion of Beirut’s port. Seeking justice for the victims and accountability from those whose corruption and negligence resulted in the tragedy, he continues to go head to head against elusive authorities, the second judge put on the case after his predecessor Judge Fadi Sawan was removed from the probe.

 

“In the absence of hope and solutions, Bittar provides illusions…an illusion that it would have been impossible to continue our life without. It is a difficult, naive, and weak illusion, but necessary in order for us to answer the question: is it possible to continue living? Tarek Bittar is the only one who made us believe in this illusion that we can keep going,” wrote Daraj.

 

“Heroes” in Lebanon “have always harmed our country,” says Daraj, but Bittar stands alone in the face of a “terrible and united political class which, despite the rivalry claimed by its members, are unified in their opposition to him.” Despite receiving threats from Hezbollah, he continued with his investigation, shocking the party and its media. According to Nader Faouz in Al Modon, various plots emerged to contrive his removal. His opposition leveled accusations of politicization against him when the true politicization came from the political forces which attempted to suppress the investigation. They swarmed him in a smear campaign with claims of betrayal, conspiracy with embassies and foreign parties, and discrimination when he pushed to interrogate security authorities, politicians, prime ministers, and ministers. In spite of this, Bittar maintained his professionalism; he did not conduct the investigation as a means of personal or public vendetta but navigated a minefield of political and sectarian accusations with diligence, undeterred in his quest for the truth.

 

The public placed their hope in him because he is “like us,” a civil servant who also faces threats from the political elite, but continues to do his job and fight for justice. Bittar is not a comic book hero donning a cape, but a man who gives hope that fighting the good fight is possible under Lebanon’s corrupted government. “The investigation into the crime of the port explosion revived the idea of the judiciary in Lebanon, proving there is a judicial institution and judges who do not act solely on the basis of political desires,” as cited by Faouz.

 

According to Daraj, “It is likely that the perpetrators will be able to survive, as an entire political class is behind them, but that a serious attempt has been made and the successes it has achieved so far are the only balance for the year 2021. An ordinary man managed to lure the perpetrators into the arena of truth. Justice faltered, but he managed to expose them.”