BEIRUT: Lebanon has decided to rebaptise a thoroughfare named after former Syrian president Hafez Assad in favor of late Lebanese musician and playwright Ziad Rahbani, a move many welcomed on Wednesday.
The decision marks the end of an era and a rupture with the authoritarian rule of former Syrian leaders Hafez Assad and his son Bashar — close allies of Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group — who from Damascus held Lebanon in a stranglehold for almost three decades.
Islamist forces ousted Bashar Assad in December, ending five decades of one-family rule, further weakening Hezbollah after a war with Israel and helping to change the balance of power in Lebanon.
“Hafez Assad into the dustbin of history, Ziad Rahbani is the name of the airport road forever!” independent lawmaker Mark Daou who opposes Hezbollah wrote on X.
The government on Tuesday announced the renaming of the avenue, which runs to the international airport through south Beirut, where Hezbollah enjoys strong support.
Lebanese actor Ziad Itani welcomed the move, telling AFP that the former Syrian leader was associated with “dark periods in Lebanese history, marked by massacres, abuses and assassinations.”
The Syrian army entered Lebanon in 1976 as part of an Arab force that was supposed to put an end to the country’s civil war which began a year earlier.
Troops only withdrew in 2005 under enormous pressure after the assassination of Lebanese ex-prime minister Rafic Hariri, which was widely blamed on Syria and Hezbollah.
The Lebanese army dismantled a number of monuments paying homage to the Assad family following the pullout.
The government announced the street’s name change as it said it had tasked the army with developing a plan to disarm Hezbollah by the end of the year, an unprecedented step since civil war factions gave up their weapons decades ago.
The road’s renaming “is the decision that made me the happiest,” said Hassan Roumani near the avenue.
“Each time I passed along the Assad road, I felt like Hafez Assad and the Syrian army were still in Lebanon. Now psychologically I feel relieved — that period is over, and for the best,” he told AFP.
Not all welcomed the renaming however, particularly Hezbollah supporters.
Faysal Abdelsater, an analyst close to the Iran-backed group, said the move was “the result of political malice” and urged the local council to reject it.
Rahbani, son of iconic singer Fairuz, died last month aged 69 after a decades-long career that revolutionized the country’s artistic scene.