What?! It’s April the 14th already? Wait a minute, this means that yesterday was April the 13th, the day when it all escaladed in Lebanon (at least officially). Its weird how unnoticed this date has passed this year, almost no one mentioned it. Probably very few remember it, we the Lebanese are too busy for that. We the Lebanese!
While remembering this date I often wonder what to wish in this occasion? I never find anything. I never lived the ugliness of the war. I was born in 1985, 5 years before the end of the war, and I lived in a secure area, I hardly met much Muslims in my life.
For me, war was all about words, my mom would tell us to go to the shelter and we’d go, along with a couple dozens families, we’d hide in that shelter underground and we’d wait sometimes we’d here some bombing, we’d have fun counting them sometimes, we were so damn bored there. I remember the sight of that girl that was older than me and that was allowed to drink a bottle of milk in the shelter, my mom had told me I’m too old for bottles I should drink milk in a cup.
The only time I actually got scared during the war was when I was alone with my brother at home and some raid started, my elder brother wanting to protect me took me to the safest place he could think of, under the sink.
But I lived the legacy of war, and the legacy of any war is death. My worst thought about the war is the uncle I never had the chance to meet, because he died at the age of 17 because he was defending his hometown, not really defending, just winning some time and delaying the Syrians. They never even had the chance to burry him, he was left to rot under the sun (along with many other young men).
Another uncle of mine faced death twice and survived by pure chance (some call it miracle). On my dad’s side another uncle was permanently disabled during the war.
The painful thing’s that I don’t dare to tell my mom that the war was useless. She believes it wasn’t, she believes the war saved the Christian presence in Lebanon and most Christians believe so. All of us believe that if Christians haven’t resisted they would have been murdered by Palestinians and Muslims. Most Christians believe that the ONLY mistake that the Christians made was to fight each other, we all believe that even Sabra and Shatila was not that bad, that all Palestinians deserved to die. As for me… well I don’t really know what to believe. I don’t really care, if Lebanon is defended with blood then fuck Lebanon, I don’t think that god gave me life so that I’d waste it on such idiocy. I apologise to all the people that believe in there countries, I just don’t. Patriotism is false sense of importance. I wish the Christians would have failed to defend the Christian presence in Lebanon. I would have probably never been born and the Palestinians would have probably had an alternative home and everything would have been better.
Read what other Lebanese had to say about it, they even lived the war:
From Beirut the Beltway
French eagle
And Jamal
4 comments:
your country must be a very nice and a conveniant place, for, even in antic times you were invaded, babyloniens, assyrians, egyptians, arameans, greeks, romans, turks, english, even frenchs... and many others I don't remember their names !
anyway, I hope that internet will help your compatriots undertand each others
yes you've got a point there, we must be extra delicious since everyone wants a bite.
well i was born in 1977, when i grew up, the war situation appeared to be normal for me till the day when my conscience appeared in 1982 when a bomb explosed under my dad's car 500 meters from me.
bombs were falling around i was 5 years old, i remember that i was outside, not in a shelter even crying, i knew after that on the radio they were saying he was killed, 5 years later, we knew he was in his hospital and alive , someone stoped his car under the bombs and took him among 17 persons bodies.
that day i was 5 but i discovered the sense of the war.
thx for linking my post by the way
That's a real tragedy, very painful too. I never knew anything close to it, I'm sorry you had to live that.
BTW how did you know that someone(=I) posted a link to your blog?
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