No escape?

I have managed to escape again today!
It seems that he has the weekend off for some reason or other. I overheard him making plans and it sounded like he won't be back till sunday evening. Which has given me the run of the place for a while.

I have toiled for days trying to come up with a plan for escape and it seems there is none. He is my captor and sustainer inseparably. If I were to somehow evade him, or worse kill him, then my own demise would be surely imminent. This place, wherever it is, is like an unmarked grave in a thicket of woods. I would be lost forever. To endure him until I know better where I am seems like my only choice.

But I can't help think of home. I try to remember what it was like when I was last there. The war was raging. Fear, anger and darkness. Much like what I am experiencing now. But I'm sure that the Lebanese have picked up since then. I trust that they have used the tragedy to come together and realize they have none but each other. I can just see them in my mind's eye... Hezbollah supporters acknowledging they made a bad decision and handing their arms to the army, the March 14 bunch saving the "I told you so"s and pushing forward with "freedom, soverignty, independence" and Aoun, well... who knows. I am so sure that's happening all over Lebanon right now, I can feel it.

Help!

I don't know how much time I have before he returns so I must make this quick!
I have been abducted! I don't know how long it has been or what day it is today but it feels like forever. I have tried to recreate what happened in my head but my memory fails me. All I remember is going to sleep on the sofa with the TV glowing softly in the room. Then nothing. I don't think I'm in Lebanon anymore! I hear a million different languages here and the sounds and smells are alien to me. I am in some apartment somewhere, no windows. Every morning he leaves the house and returns late at night. He has me cuffed to a rail which he used to check religously every hour. But he's getting sloppy. I managed to loosen the cuffs on my wrists a few days ago and I put them back on before he comes back. He left the computer on today and left in a hurry. I can't escape the room though, that door is always locked. If someone is reading this then pl

shit he's back!

Screw. You.

You worthless talking pile of human excrement.

The only reason Israel hasn't toppled your palace over your head is because they know you are too spineless to ask for anything but to be left at the helm of a rotting regime of fear and death.

I will watch your own countrymen drag you into the street and stomp your cowardly corpse into a pulp.

That day of reckoning is near.

Until then you can carry on being this guy...

Thank You

For everyone who kept reading this (or other Lebanese) blogs during this war, thank you.
For every kind comment or email, for every hateful one, thank you.
For every warm wish or sentiment, thank you.

Cease Fire, Blow Smoke

Well the boys playing war over the carcass of this battered nation have decided that the fighting was getting pretty tedious and agreed to cool it off.

And why not? March a mile in their boots and you would probably feel the same way. I fire rockets, you flatten a village, I destroy a tank, you pulverize a bridge. I call you murderer, you call me terrorist. Do that for a month and you'll find the novelty fades away quickly.

Besides, a ceasefire brings with it that exquisite pleasure of claiming victory.

So who won?

Well both. And they've both lost too.

Hezbollah won: Israel's declared objectives of destroying Hezbollah and decapitating its leadership have both failed to materialize. Rockets kept being fired till the final hour. Praise allah, we are victorious.

Israel won: The IDF knew it could never achieve either of those goals. What it really set out to do was destroy what it could get away with (i.e. mostly infrastructure and Hezbollah sympathizers) in order to get a UN resolution that would be more hostile to Hezbollah than 1559. It did.

Hezbollah lost: Yes the leadership is still alive and the rockets kept raining on Haifa, but what Israel brutally destroyed is very dear, and the loss is incalculable. And no, it's not all "fida sirmeyt el-sayyed" (translation: for the sake of Nasrallah's slipper) as some say. You'll miss that roof over your head. And that son or daughter too by the way.

Israel lost: Yes it huffed and puffed and blew the house down, but no "self-defense" argument can justify the manic stomping of a country, innocents dying needlessly on both sides. The whole world sympathized with the cause of rescuing 2 kidnapped soldiers (even some Arab ones), and Israel managed to turn all that sympathetic capital into indignant rage in just 30 days. Why punish all the Lebanese for not disarming Hezbollah when your own 'legendary' IDF was unable to do so, and then only make them look like heroes in the end. Disarming Hezbollah is going to be much harder now. And you have sowed seeds of hate that will blossom well into the future.

So who won? Both did. Who lost? Both did.

But who lost everything and gained nothing? Lebanon. And the moderate, peace-seeking Lebanese.


And that is why our Prime Minister wept.
And I wept with him.

Could it be over?

Is this it?

No more rushing to the TV live feed to see the smoke plumes?
Or seeing the reporter try to figure out if it was a fighter or warship that fired?
No more breaking-news ribbons on the bottom of the screen?
Or that cute Saliba reporter on LBCI?

I've come to expect the casuality report every morning.
I get anxious when the power cuts out, as if the massacres can't happen if I'm watching the news.
And I've come to recognize the Haifa skyline like I've actually been there.

I never expected this war and it took me by surprise.
I got angry, I cried out for peace, I had countless debates and arguments.
And now it's over just as abruptly as it started.

How can I ever trust in peace again?

It just got (more) personal

My second cousin is in the army. Or was.
He was stationed in Tyre, to man a prehistoric anti-aircraft gun that could only intimidate migrating birds.
He heard Israeli choppers flying in to drop commandos in a civilian area.

We don't know if he actually managed to get a round fired off or not.
Moments later he became a charred body in a destroyed vehicle.

In my heart, I know his death served no purpose.
He is fodder to the raging inferno of death and hate sweeping Lebanon, leaving ash and dust in its wake.

But when his toddler kids grow up, and ask me what happened in 2006, I will say he died a hero.

Would they understand the truth? Would they forgive us if they did?

شرف تضحية وفاء

BBC Interview

I was interviewed on BBC Five Live's pods and blogs show.

Have a listen.

(RealPlayer required)

Bi Beyrut

A very touching post written by fellow blogger Eve, read out by fellow blogger Jooj.

Have a fellow listen.




powered by ODEO

NB. It's in arabic. And I hate pink.

This is Lebanon - part 2

The famous Beirut theater, Masrah Al Madina, is producing a show called "Laughter under fire" (my translation) that is a comedy based on improvisation and audience participation.

It will be held on Thursday and Friday 6th and 7th of this month. 7.30 pm. Free Entrance.

Seems I'm not the only one trying to smile through this.