'Things Will Get Worse and Not Better'

Lebanese youth express frustration at the recent violence dividing the country.

ByABC News
May 15, 2008, 11:44 AM

BEIRUT, Lebanon, May 15, 2008 — -- In Lebanon a new generation is shaking with the tremors of the political crisis that pitted the U.S.-backed government against a Hezbollah-led coalition in the worst sectarian clashes since the Lebanese Civil War.

The threat of clashes eased today when the two sides agreed to hold talks in Qatar Friday that they hope will end the political standoff and allow the country's army chief to be elected president.

Almost immediately bulldozers cleared away roadblocks that had shut down Beirut's airport.

But while the two sides warily talk in Qatar to negotiate a new political balance of power one that will likely favor Hezbollah religious divisions have hardened among the nation's youth, who were stunned by a week of firefights that left at least 60 people dead.

"When the clashes first started I was shocked. I thought there was no such thing as a country anymore," said Afif Ghalayani, 19, a student at the American University of Beirut.

"We've had no president, militias in the streets asking for my ID … if we keep up like this we are headed to the gutter."

In Lebanon politics are hard for anyone to ignore.

Ghalayani, a college sophomore, describes his Beirut campus as a place where students form cliques according to their political sympathies a split that existed well before the current crisis.

"The divisions are obvious at AUB. It gets heated. Even in class, one side sits on one side of the room and one on the other. They have each other's back."

Ghalayani is part of a youth movement supporting a third way: civic activism that groups together students from different religious sects. He is a Sunni, but says that is irrelevant to his politics.

In the closely watched student elections at the American University of Beirut, a touchstone for Lebanon, his independent party won a solid minority of 18 seats. Hezbollah's coalition won roughly 30 seats, while government supporters won about 50.

Like Ghalayani, AUB student Ahmad Nakib is fed up with the violent and stymied state of Lebanese politics. His organization is called "khallas" Arabic for "enough."

"I was shocked that to see Lebanese using weapons against each other," said Nakib, 23, who studies political science.

"I'm too young to remember the Civil War, and this was shocking. I saw classmates I know from AUB who were fighting."

If many students are fed up, many others have a partisan frustration.