You've all heard about what has happened lately in Lebanon, I couldn't possibly update on Monday and as I am writing right now, I am not certain I would be able to post this anytime soon. But I am, and everyone I know, are OK.
We have lived, in the past few days, a very destructive and tormenting experience. And between Hezbollah and the Israel we stand like an orphan child between pedophiles.
I wrote a few posts but I am afraid it’s all about this nameless war, but you’ll have to excuse me I have started noting these things 3 weeks ago so some are not up to date. And I apologise for disappearing like that I couldn’t post for certain reasons, nothing dangerous or anything I am perfectly ok.
Kidnaped v/s Prisoners
Hezbollah's point of view
Qana as always
Songs
What the Lebanese are responsible of
Sad scenes
Who's under attack?
The funny part
The UNIFEL and the Qana massacre
What is Hezbollah relying on?
Who's going to rebuild?
The current situation: Balad Mankoob
The Lebanese general opinion: We did not want this fucking war
The Arab position
Two attackers one victim
The UN
Israel's point of view
Monday, July 31, 2006
Qana as always
Again today Qana was assaulted, another grave yards. This morning the Israeli army shot a residence home in Qana killing around 60 people from two families, more than half were children, others were mostly women, and probably a few elderly. I am not even sure if they have found any adult male yet. I don't know about you all, but I am sick of justifying things for everyone. I am sick of blaming anyone about anything. But what are my choices, I am Lebanese and the dead people were Lebanese... Not just that! They were all human beings and so am I. I refuse to justify this for neither Hezbollah or Israel, they chose this war and they knew this will happen, and they chose to do it too. I don't exactly know what I should or can do, I am in fact doing nothing about anything as usual, but this has to end somehow, I don't care. Just yesterday I was still convinced that the biggest damage is behind us that they already destroyed Lebanon, they better continue and destroy Hezbollah that would be the only possible Lebanese victory. Now I don't want to win this war anymore I just want it to end. JUST STOP.
I don't know, but if Israel wants us to put pressure on Hezbollah then it isn't working. As an average (I am not exactly average, I tend to sympathize with Israel) I don't really see putting pressure on Hezbollah a priority anymore. I don't even care if Hezbollah was shooting rockets from that place or if Hezbollah activists were hiding among civilians, I simply don't care anymore. And besides it was unlikely that the Israeli claims would be exact.
Apparently the building was in a crouded residential area, buildings were packed so close to one another that it's now impossible for the UN to enter there buldozers to help take the victims out, it is unlikely that Hezbollah was able to position his missile launchers there. In addition the attack aimed at the first floor where people were sleeping... What were they shooting?
The Lebanese officials have refused to receive Mrs Rice until a cease fire takes place, in fact they told the American officials that they cannot receive Mrs Rice, which is more accurate because turmoil would have erupted in that case, and besides she has nothing new to say.
Hezbollah has promised to strike back... Bla whatever!
American officials are FINALLY talking about the necessity of a cease fire... No kidding!
Europe seems even more upset: thanks, that's very helpful, I'll go right now tell the dead people that they can now be proud of themselves they made the Europeans upset
Israel says it won't stop its attacks, it will not declare a truss it will simply allow humanitarian aid to reach the area: I guess we should be very grateful to them, not only they allowed humanitarian aid but they have already killed 60 people the rest fled in panic now there is no one to aid.
The Arab world stands in shock: Wow now they get to see so much dismembered kids! so much better than any American thriller and it's 100% Arabic. Hey you know what? they can also have awesome sound effects, because the Israeli army's still flying over the rescuers' heads. Arabic drama at its best.
Protestors are attacking the Unesco building in Beirut... As if the Blue hats haven't been aimed so far. Always blame it on the Western invaders. You'd never see them questioning Nasrallah for his atrocities, no... He's there savior. He feeds them with the food that the government send them, he avenges there death with the weapons that he also uses to terrorise Lebanese, including Southern people... Indeed, he's very inspiring.
I don't know, but if Israel wants us to put pressure on Hezbollah then it isn't working. As an average (I am not exactly average, I tend to sympathize with Israel) I don't really see putting pressure on Hezbollah a priority anymore. I don't even care if Hezbollah was shooting rockets from that place or if Hezbollah activists were hiding among civilians, I simply don't care anymore. And besides it was unlikely that the Israeli claims would be exact.
Apparently the building was in a crouded residential area, buildings were packed so close to one another that it's now impossible for the UN to enter there buldozers to help take the victims out, it is unlikely that Hezbollah was able to position his missile launchers there. In addition the attack aimed at the first floor where people were sleeping... What were they shooting?
The Lebanese officials have refused to receive Mrs Rice until a cease fire takes place, in fact they told the American officials that they cannot receive Mrs Rice, which is more accurate because turmoil would have erupted in that case, and besides she has nothing new to say.
Hezbollah has promised to strike back... Bla whatever!
American officials are FINALLY talking about the necessity of a cease fire... No kidding!
Europe seems even more upset: thanks, that's very helpful, I'll go right now tell the dead people that they can now be proud of themselves they made the Europeans upset
Israel says it won't stop its attacks, it will not declare a truss it will simply allow humanitarian aid to reach the area: I guess we should be very grateful to them, not only they allowed humanitarian aid but they have already killed 60 people the rest fled in panic now there is no one to aid.
The Arab world stands in shock: Wow now they get to see so much dismembered kids! so much better than any American thriller and it's 100% Arabic. Hey you know what? they can also have awesome sound effects, because the Israeli army's still flying over the rescuers' heads. Arabic drama at its best.
Protestors are attacking the Unesco building in Beirut... As if the Blue hats haven't been aimed so far. Always blame it on the Western invaders. You'd never see them questioning Nasrallah for his atrocities, no... He's there savior. He feeds them with the food that the government send them, he avenges there death with the weapons that he also uses to terrorise Lebanese, including Southern people... Indeed, he's very inspiring.
songs
We're Lebanese not Arabs or as we say it in Lebanon:
That's what many Lebanese tell themselves. But our undeniable arabism is clearly obvious with our love for stupid songs about stupid subjects. I mean I have heared very inspiring patriotic songs, and even though I don't exactly agree with there ideas I do respect there depth and beauty. But most of the songs that were made about the Israeli Lebanese conflict since the start were pretty LAME. All they do is to put pictures of explosions, dismembered children, old people crying and religious men from all religions. If you can watch Al Manar then you really should, it doesn't get worse than this, all they do is to film a Jihady idiots running in green plains and to regurgitate scenes of the time when Israel occupied the South... Oh oh don't forget the many pictures of Nasrallah and that Khoomayni guy, a lot of Hezbollah flags and children dressed in Jihady cloth.
Before the 2000 withdrawal and from time to time, the Lebanese TVs used to put some of those stupid songs. It was pretty boring and being raised in an anti Hezbollah family I couldn't help hating those songs. But back then and unlike my parents I believed that Israel is just as wrong as Arabs, it was just the only answer I had found to the dilemma, all I saw was civilians dying and politicians that killed them to cry over there bodies.
On July the 12th I kind of expected to see some of those stupid songs again. Surprisingly enough, that didn't happen! The only songs that were being played were Magida El Roomy's patriotic songs. Now I admit that my judgment is biaised on Magida's songs, I just love her a lot, but let's face it she's the best. And even her patriotic songs are special, the LF even adopted one of her songs as its pseudo anthem, at the same time her concert in Beirut last year made a huge success especially her songs about liberty and Lebanon, it was mainly the 14th of March audience and now that the South is under attack, it's her songs that are being put especially on LBC.
This success indicates two simple facts:
I like the changes that are taking place, but I fear the price is much bigger than what it should be.
العرب جرب ونحا فينيقيّي
That's what many Lebanese tell themselves. But our undeniable arabism is clearly obvious with our love for stupid songs about stupid subjects. I mean I have heared very inspiring patriotic songs, and even though I don't exactly agree with there ideas I do respect there depth and beauty. But most of the songs that were made about the Israeli Lebanese conflict since the start were pretty LAME. All they do is to put pictures of explosions, dismembered children, old people crying and religious men from all religions. If you can watch Al Manar then you really should, it doesn't get worse than this, all they do is to film a Jihady idiots running in green plains and to regurgitate scenes of the time when Israel occupied the South... Oh oh don't forget the many pictures of Nasrallah and that Khoomayni guy, a lot of Hezbollah flags and children dressed in Jihady cloth.
Before the 2000 withdrawal and from time to time, the Lebanese TVs used to put some of those stupid songs. It was pretty boring and being raised in an anti Hezbollah family I couldn't help hating those songs. But back then and unlike my parents I believed that Israel is just as wrong as Arabs, it was just the only answer I had found to the dilemma, all I saw was civilians dying and politicians that killed them to cry over there bodies.
On July the 12th I kind of expected to see some of those stupid songs again. Surprisingly enough, that didn't happen! The only songs that were being played were Magida El Roomy's patriotic songs. Now I admit that my judgment is biaised on Magida's songs, I just love her a lot, but let's face it she's the best. And even her patriotic songs are special, the LF even adopted one of her songs as its pseudo anthem, at the same time her concert in Beirut last year made a huge success especially her songs about liberty and Lebanon, it was mainly the 14th of March audience and now that the South is under attack, it's her songs that are being put especially on LBC.
This success indicates two simple facts:
- She's the best (why do I feel that I am repeating myself?), and her songs are about what all Lebanese basically need
- Things are changing in Lebanon, the Lebanese stations are no longer forced to put those stupid racist songs, and they don't want to do so.
I like the changes that are taking place, but I fear the price is much bigger than what it should be.
What the Lebanese are responsible of
A lot of people are blaming the Lebanese people for there impotence in the Hezbollah issue. They blame us because during the last year we had an international support and that the 1559 is very clear on this point and said that only the Lebanese army is to own weapons on the Lebanese soil. There fore we can't use this to push back Syria and then let Hezbollah and the Palestinians keep there guns.
But everybody's forgetting a minor detail: The Lebanese people are the ones that suffer the most of both Hezbollah AND the Palestinians.
Everybody's talking about how WE didn't do anything about Hezbollah, but then again you are forgetting that you never gave us the chance to. Of course I am aware of the the fear that Israel has from Hezbollah, but then again these terrorists are living among us, and like it or not they are very much Lebanese too. There is something that needs to be cleared out: Lebanon's a sectarian country.
Ideologically we are very divided, if the Lebanese population's 4,2 million then you could say that we have 4,2 million different Lebanons. In Lebanon you could say that almost 70% (N.B.: the numbers are not the result of any research just my personal estimation) of the Lebanese population was totally against Hezbollah's act and even consider it inappropriate, barbaric, stupid, immoral. 10% are probably neutral about the kidnap but not still sympathise with the Moujahideen concept. And only 20% sympathise with the resistance action (but you can't say that these 20% all support this kidnap). But those 20% represent more than half of the Shia there fore any action against Hezbollah is considered an action against more than half the Shia, thus an attack against the Shia themselves, which is unacceptable and will very easily lead to a civil war. Some Lebanese hate Hezbollah (I don't exactly hate them, but that's just because I believe hating someone or something is an indication that I feel helpless and extremely bitter about them, I like to believe that I am powerful enough to hold back Hezbollah and so don't need to hate them), almost no one was with Hezbollah's action. But punishing Hezbollah is another issue.
This is the perspective in which the disarmament of Hezbollah must be calculated. And if no one supported Hezbollah in there action, who believes that disarming Hezbollah is an urgent necessity? I am afraid that few people believe so. The Sunna don't seem to be very eager to disarm them, except for the Beirut Dolce Vita fraction that form the cosmopolitan spirit of Beirut. The Druze are as always evasive, they want Hezbollah weaker as they need everyone to be weak enough to cover up for there minority status. The Christians in general are as always divided, even though Aoun declared from the first day that he supports the government in all its actions, there fore separated himself from Hezbollah, but then that was just an appearance they still rely on there shiite ally, and the Aounists today are sympathising and insisting on blaming Israel for the escalation. My Aounist friend even said to me the other day that she hates Israelis, that she despises them, that there political tactics are very low and inhuman. Which was a surprise for me, since she is from Jezzine, a Maronite town from the South that suffered a lot from the Hezbollah hegemony in the South. I didn't think she'd simply forget that and blame it all on Israel, I suppose Israel was never an angel in the South either. But then she said that she doesn't hate Hezbollah and that there presence doesn't bother her that much, as long as they are disarmed. She's right about the disarmament part but it's so sad to see the hate Israel philosophy in the Christian parts of Lebanon. But not all Christians are like that. In my family there's a sense of amusement at the thought of disarming Hezbollah. My dad for example is so enthusiastic in defending Israel, he justifies each and every missile they shoot even when civilians die.
But regardless of there position Maronites are in a vulnerable situation in here. They were Israel's ally (at that time The LF represented the vast majority of the Maronite population, the LFPM didn't even exist), and after losing the war, there ally (Israel) became the Lebanese enemy. And since Israel is still officially our enemy any act of sympathy with the Israelis is an act of treason, Maronites are still the one who once cooperated with the enemy and once a thief always a thief. And many have noticed that Geagea (the LF leader) is criticising Hezbollah only in a diplomatic way.
But everybody's forgetting a minor detail: The Lebanese people are the ones that suffer the most of both Hezbollah AND the Palestinians.
Everybody's talking about how WE didn't do anything about Hezbollah, but then again you are forgetting that you never gave us the chance to. Of course I am aware of the the fear that Israel has from Hezbollah, but then again these terrorists are living among us, and like it or not they are very much Lebanese too. There is something that needs to be cleared out: Lebanon's a sectarian country.
Ideologically we are very divided, if the Lebanese population's 4,2 million then you could say that we have 4,2 million different Lebanons. In Lebanon you could say that almost 70% (N.B.: the numbers are not the result of any research just my personal estimation) of the Lebanese population was totally against Hezbollah's act and even consider it inappropriate, barbaric, stupid, immoral. 10% are probably neutral about the kidnap but not still sympathise with the Moujahideen concept. And only 20% sympathise with the resistance action (but you can't say that these 20% all support this kidnap). But those 20% represent more than half of the Shia there fore any action against Hezbollah is considered an action against more than half the Shia, thus an attack against the Shia themselves, which is unacceptable and will very easily lead to a civil war. Some Lebanese hate Hezbollah (I don't exactly hate them, but that's just because I believe hating someone or something is an indication that I feel helpless and extremely bitter about them, I like to believe that I am powerful enough to hold back Hezbollah and so don't need to hate them), almost no one was with Hezbollah's action. But punishing Hezbollah is another issue.
This is the perspective in which the disarmament of Hezbollah must be calculated. And if no one supported Hezbollah in there action, who believes that disarming Hezbollah is an urgent necessity? I am afraid that few people believe so. The Sunna don't seem to be very eager to disarm them, except for the Beirut Dolce Vita fraction that form the cosmopolitan spirit of Beirut. The Druze are as always evasive, they want Hezbollah weaker as they need everyone to be weak enough to cover up for there minority status. The Christians in general are as always divided, even though Aoun declared from the first day that he supports the government in all its actions, there fore separated himself from Hezbollah, but then that was just an appearance they still rely on there shiite ally, and the Aounists today are sympathising and insisting on blaming Israel for the escalation. My Aounist friend even said to me the other day that she hates Israelis, that she despises them, that there political tactics are very low and inhuman. Which was a surprise for me, since she is from Jezzine, a Maronite town from the South that suffered a lot from the Hezbollah hegemony in the South. I didn't think she'd simply forget that and blame it all on Israel, I suppose Israel was never an angel in the South either. But then she said that she doesn't hate Hezbollah and that there presence doesn't bother her that much, as long as they are disarmed. She's right about the disarmament part but it's so sad to see the hate Israel philosophy in the Christian parts of Lebanon. But not all Christians are like that. In my family there's a sense of amusement at the thought of disarming Hezbollah. My dad for example is so enthusiastic in defending Israel, he justifies each and every missile they shoot even when civilians die.
But regardless of there position Maronites are in a vulnerable situation in here. They were Israel's ally (at that time The LF represented the vast majority of the Maronite population, the LFPM didn't even exist), and after losing the war, there ally (Israel) became the Lebanese enemy. And since Israel is still officially our enemy any act of sympathy with the Israelis is an act of treason, Maronites are still the one who once cooperated with the enemy and once a thief always a thief. And many have noticed that Geagea (the LF leader) is criticising Hezbollah only in a diplomatic way.
Sad scenes
As any war, the more you know about it, the more sadness you discover, that's why it's much easier not to know anything about it. That's probably why the development of Media has correlated with a reduction of wars and violence.
The first thing that touched me was the scene our airport going to flame. It may sound lame, but we have built this Airport with our blood! Knowing that the planes had been smuggled was good news but still the losses in the Airport are depressing.
The second time I almost cried was when I saw people running away from the South, not the first few times, those were dignifying. But the humiliating part was when some civilian vehicles were shot and many families lost there members. After that the people that needed to leave started holding huge white tissue, most of the times they just hold there shirts as high as they could, and run there cars as fast as they could. They know that even this can't really help them because Hezbollah activists can also hold white stuff, and Israel doesn't really rely on that criteria.
The third thing that touched me was my little brother Georges. During these recent events he had his first taste of missile attacks. He was terrified even those they only lasted seconds. In addition, I had to explain to him the meaning of the word violence he had heard it on Euronews as I was watching. He has heard the word many times in the past in Arabic, but he never focuses, only when he's listening to something in French he's more curious. I tried to tell him that it's when people hurt each other, like hurt each others' bodies. But then he would ask me: Why would they do that? Don't they love Jesus?
Maybe I should have said "no, they don't love Jesus" but I was confused, I don't believe it's about Jesus, they are just... I don't know how to explain it, I just believe they are not evil, they might be stupid or angry or anything, but I don't believe in evil. So I just told my brother that they do this because they don't know what they are doing, isn't this what Jesus had said?
Then just yesterday my brother started explaining to me how evil Israel was, and that he's going to get a gun a kill Israel, and how God hates them. It's not a big deal for him, he often tells me that he's going to get a HUGE gun and shoot me, it's usually because he's physically pretty weak. But this indicates that he is assimilating the hate of the war. We had to tell him that we hate no one just as God certainly hates no one, my mom wanted to tell him that Israel's just defending itself, but we agreed that it'd be better to leave these details unsaid. War's absurd and no reasoning can make it less confusing, better for him to think that "all those who practice violence are wrong" and that "God won't ever hate anyone" and that "we only hurt ourselves when we try to kill others".
This is frustrating.
The first thing that touched me was the scene our airport going to flame. It may sound lame, but we have built this Airport with our blood! Knowing that the planes had been smuggled was good news but still the losses in the Airport are depressing.
The second time I almost cried was when I saw people running away from the South, not the first few times, those were dignifying. But the humiliating part was when some civilian vehicles were shot and many families lost there members. After that the people that needed to leave started holding huge white tissue, most of the times they just hold there shirts as high as they could, and run there cars as fast as they could. They know that even this can't really help them because Hezbollah activists can also hold white stuff, and Israel doesn't really rely on that criteria.
The third thing that touched me was my little brother Georges. During these recent events he had his first taste of missile attacks. He was terrified even those they only lasted seconds. In addition, I had to explain to him the meaning of the word violence he had heard it on Euronews as I was watching. He has heard the word many times in the past in Arabic, but he never focuses, only when he's listening to something in French he's more curious. I tried to tell him that it's when people hurt each other, like hurt each others' bodies. But then he would ask me: Why would they do that? Don't they love Jesus?
Maybe I should have said "no, they don't love Jesus" but I was confused, I don't believe it's about Jesus, they are just... I don't know how to explain it, I just believe they are not evil, they might be stupid or angry or anything, but I don't believe in evil. So I just told my brother that they do this because they don't know what they are doing, isn't this what Jesus had said?
Then just yesterday my brother started explaining to me how evil Israel was, and that he's going to get a gun a kill Israel, and how God hates them. It's not a big deal for him, he often tells me that he's going to get a HUGE gun and shoot me, it's usually because he's physically pretty weak. But this indicates that he is assimilating the hate of the war. We had to tell him that we hate no one just as God certainly hates no one, my mom wanted to tell him that Israel's just defending itself, but we agreed that it'd be better to leave these details unsaid. War's absurd and no reasoning can make it less confusing, better for him to think that "all those who practice violence are wrong" and that "God won't ever hate anyone" and that "we only hurt ourselves when we try to kill others".
This is frustrating.
Who's under attack
Good question... I am not under attack that's for sure. The Hezbollah-free areas are not under attacks. In other terms, the North (Tripoli and Batroun) is not in war, Mount Lebanon itself is not, even East beirut and the Northern suburbs (all christian) are not, Zahle is not really under attack just the surrounding regions.
In fact in Jounieh (where I live) which is part of Mount Lebanon, we hardly notice that there is any war going on, even the market didn't close. The maritime port was bombed and on Saturday the attack on the TV/Radio/Cell phone antennas were frightening because we heard them and we saw the smoke in the mountain next to us; but nothing dangerous so far. Life supplies are available, and everything's very peaceful, I am even able to post this, right?
The regions next to the bombings are safe but the psychological pressure's too much. A friend of mine is from Jezzine - South Lebanon (Aoun's homeland ,hehe yes I have Aounist friends), only she doesn't live in Jezzine, in fact none of her family lives there, she only goes there from time to time and they have frinds there. Everybody's safe for now, the Israelis aren't bombing Jezzine, well Hezbollah doesn't dare to enter that town, especially not anymore so no danger for them to get forced into this conflict. Never the less the psychological pressure is big, they can't live because of the siege and they constantly here the explosions everywhere around them, even in my friend's house (here in Adonis) things are crazy, my friend's mom actually doesn't let her daughter leave the house.
My elder brother who lives with my uncles in Hadath, the Northern suburbs of Beirut, and he describes the situation as intolerable. The Northern suburbs themselves weren't attacked, except for when the trucks were being bombed, that bombing was only 200m away from my bro's place. For the first time that night since the start of the war my brother had managed to fall asleep . And he didn't even wake up when the attack took place, lol he desperatly needed to sleep! He woke up at the screaming voice of one of my uncle (U#3 if you remember), my uncle was crying to wake Zouzou up, because huge blocks of glass had landed on my brother, at the same time my uncle didn't want my brother to wake in shock or make any sudden moves, he feared he might cut himself with some of the glass. My other uncle (the youngest of my uncles) was sleeping in the other room, and the funny part's that my uncle didn't exactly wake up at the moment of the incident, he was only half awake when he felt that he was removing big heavy things off his body on the bed and throwing them next to him on the floor, then all of a sudden he took conscious that he was removing glass! At that moment he froze, and slowly moved out of his bed.
The doors are heavily damaged and all the glass is on the floor now. The next day my brother came home, work in the Hadath branch now has stopped and my brother's enjoying a well earned vacation home. My uncles are sleeping in the North (at my aunt's place and my dad's uncle's place) but everyday they are going back to Hadath, that's almost a 90 minutes ride, to be honest it's not a very safe ride either. But my uncles are saying there's not danger what so ever. In fact they don't want to leave the building unpopulated, because Lebanese military forces are occupying any building that's totally deserted. It's really weird to think about this. This is so much like the civil war! And at war times you come to think about how precious, or should I say "cheap", life is. People are willing to risk there lives in order to preserve there homes.
Beirut's abandoned and work's off. My dad's still going to work in Hazmieh that's the city where Gebran was assassinated in the 12th of December (I wonder what would have he said right now...No wonder Lebanon's dying, its protectors have died, we killed them.) Anyway enough about our heroes, as I said my dad's going to work, but he's hardly working a few hours/day (he usually works more than 12 hours/day) because there's no one there and when electricity goes off he can't run the moteur on his own, and besides his back is killing him right now.
Personally I had spent last week in the North, in Batroun, family visit worthy of a blog all for itself! The first impact of the war was reduced by my presence there. The first time that Jounieh was attacked (the port in Jounieh) I was still there so I didn't even here it.
Now back to Jounieh... In Jounieh you could almost say we are not concerned with the war. We sit at home, watch TV, talk about politics, curse Hezbollah, most of the times we end up cursing the Israelis too. We are not scared for our lives but we see the children dying and we can't help remember all the kids that we had lost before, and we can't help to think about the children that we have. What hurts the most is knowing that everything we, the Lebanese have worked for in the past 15 years is now nothing but ashes.
So many sad scenes.
In fact in Jounieh (where I live) which is part of Mount Lebanon, we hardly notice that there is any war going on, even the market didn't close. The maritime port was bombed and on Saturday the attack on the TV/Radio/Cell phone antennas were frightening because we heard them and we saw the smoke in the mountain next to us; but nothing dangerous so far. Life supplies are available, and everything's very peaceful, I am even able to post this, right?
The regions next to the bombings are safe but the psychological pressure's too much. A friend of mine is from Jezzine - South Lebanon (Aoun's homeland ,hehe yes I have Aounist friends), only she doesn't live in Jezzine, in fact none of her family lives there, she only goes there from time to time and they have frinds there. Everybody's safe for now, the Israelis aren't bombing Jezzine, well Hezbollah doesn't dare to enter that town, especially not anymore so no danger for them to get forced into this conflict. Never the less the psychological pressure is big, they can't live because of the siege and they constantly here the explosions everywhere around them, even in my friend's house (here in Adonis) things are crazy, my friend's mom actually doesn't let her daughter leave the house.
My elder brother who lives with my uncles in Hadath, the Northern suburbs of Beirut, and he describes the situation as intolerable. The Northern suburbs themselves weren't attacked, except for when the trucks were being bombed, that bombing was only 200m away from my bro's place. For the first time that night since the start of the war my brother had managed to fall asleep . And he didn't even wake up when the attack took place, lol he desperatly needed to sleep! He woke up at the screaming voice of one of my uncle (U#3 if you remember), my uncle was crying to wake Zouzou up, because huge blocks of glass had landed on my brother, at the same time my uncle didn't want my brother to wake in shock or make any sudden moves, he feared he might cut himself with some of the glass. My other uncle (the youngest of my uncles) was sleeping in the other room, and the funny part's that my uncle didn't exactly wake up at the moment of the incident, he was only half awake when he felt that he was removing big heavy things off his body on the bed and throwing them next to him on the floor, then all of a sudden he took conscious that he was removing glass! At that moment he froze, and slowly moved out of his bed.
The doors are heavily damaged and all the glass is on the floor now. The next day my brother came home, work in the Hadath branch now has stopped and my brother's enjoying a well earned vacation home. My uncles are sleeping in the North (at my aunt's place and my dad's uncle's place) but everyday they are going back to Hadath, that's almost a 90 minutes ride, to be honest it's not a very safe ride either. But my uncles are saying there's not danger what so ever. In fact they don't want to leave the building unpopulated, because Lebanese military forces are occupying any building that's totally deserted. It's really weird to think about this. This is so much like the civil war! And at war times you come to think about how precious, or should I say "cheap", life is. People are willing to risk there lives in order to preserve there homes.
Beirut's abandoned and work's off. My dad's still going to work in Hazmieh that's the city where Gebran was assassinated in the 12th of December (I wonder what would have he said right now...No wonder Lebanon's dying, its protectors have died, we killed them.) Anyway enough about our heroes, as I said my dad's going to work, but he's hardly working a few hours/day (he usually works more than 12 hours/day) because there's no one there and when electricity goes off he can't run the moteur on his own, and besides his back is killing him right now.
Personally I had spent last week in the North, in Batroun, family visit worthy of a blog all for itself! The first impact of the war was reduced by my presence there. The first time that Jounieh was attacked (the port in Jounieh) I was still there so I didn't even here it.
Now back to Jounieh... In Jounieh you could almost say we are not concerned with the war. We sit at home, watch TV, talk about politics, curse Hezbollah, most of the times we end up cursing the Israelis too. We are not scared for our lives but we see the children dying and we can't help remember all the kids that we had lost before, and we can't help to think about the children that we have. What hurts the most is knowing that everything we, the Lebanese have worked for in the past 15 years is now nothing but ashes.
So many sad scenes.
The funny part
People always like to blame governments for whatever goes wrong in there life, and when they are living in such a surreal situation as in Southern Lebanon, minds become even more fucked up. The Shia in the south have this weird mix of Stockholm syndrome and paranoia. Repeatedly, I have seen people in the South shouting about how they support Hezbollah and Nasrallah is there father! But then when they are in the midst of this shit who do they demand to help them from starving? the government! The Lebanese government has been banned from entering to the South by the Hezbollah units, the Lebanese government has been paying since 2000 to rebuild the south, the money was paid to the Hezbollah and Amal via the Majles el-Junoob, and you can all guess that the Southern people received almost none of that money. But still, the people in the South are still demanding the government to assume its responsibility.
And at many occasions you would hear mothers shouting: “We sacrifice ourselves for Narallah (notice that they sacrifice for Nasrallah, not even for Lebanon, how ironic!) We’d sacrifice our own kids even before us”
As soon as kids die they go and blame Arabs, the UN, the Lebanese government but not Hezballah
I hate idiocy
Apparently Hezbollah does all the dignity stuff, and the Lebanese people must pay for it! Someone please slap them.
And at many occasions you would hear mothers shouting: “We sacrifice ourselves for Narallah (notice that they sacrifice for Nasrallah, not even for Lebanon, how ironic!) We’d sacrifice our own kids even before us”
As soon as kids die they go and blame Arabs, the UN, the Lebanese government but not Hezballah
I hate idiocy
Apparently Hezbollah does all the dignity stuff, and the Lebanese people must pay for it! Someone please slap them.
The UNIFEL and the Qana massacre
At that time Israel attacked a UNIFEL refugee tent in south Lebanon killing more than a hundred person, mostly children, women and old people. The Lebanese people very sadly deplored this loss, but what we all knew (and suffered for being unable to shout about it) we knew that the reason why Israel shot that camp, Israel had shot them because Hezbollah was launching missiles just next to the tent, the purpose was clear.
And nowadays many people in the south are outraged because the UNIFEL is simply staying inside its posts refusing to make much movement. The main reason behind this abstention is the international neutrality in this conflict, unlike what many might be tempted to say, the UN can do something about this, but they don't really want to, not because they love Israel and certainly not because of the influential Jewish lobby, but simply because this is the easiest way out to destroy the Hezbollah threat.
But you know, people have this very innovative way to start irrational conspiracy theories, something's terribly wrong with the way people think.
And nowadays many people in the south are outraged because the UNIFEL is simply staying inside its posts refusing to make much movement. The main reason behind this abstention is the international neutrality in this conflict, unlike what many might be tempted to say, the UN can do something about this, but they don't really want to, not because they love Israel and certainly not because of the influential Jewish lobby, but simply because this is the easiest way out to destroy the Hezbollah threat.
But you know, people have this very innovative way to start irrational conspiracy theories, something's terribly wrong with the way people think.
What is Hezbollah relying on?
Judging from all the damage you'd think that Hezbollah would be shaking or something. Well not really. Nasrallah's hiding somewhere and the rest of his men are no where to be seen. Hezbollah has admitted very few losses so far. But that's just a façade.
In fact the losses of Israel and Hezbollah can't really be compared, the nature of both parties' very different. While Israel is a nation, they have a regular army and they have a people to please, and certain standards to keep. Hezbollah on the other hand is a terrorist pseudo-organisation, there members are pseudo-professionals they know how to kill and most of all they know how to die, they have no tactics, they have no awareness of human standards, they don't consider themselves supposed to preserve the civilians because after all anyone that dies from there side will go to heaven and all the Israelis are monsters that don't deserve to live. And the most important detail is that the Hezbollah members are not even registered, so any Hezbollah militant that dies is considered a civilian victim.
Finally, this war is most of all a psychological war, Israel's warning the cities almost 2 hours before attacking; many times they are sending false alarms. This has partly contributed in the massive immigration toward safer areas. Israel's also giving a lot of attention to the civilian victims on the Israeli side, while undermining the military losses. Hezbollah on the other hand's still insisting that all the Lebanese losses are not important, that all can be rebuilt, the most important thing is the dignity or our people, whether the Lebanese people agrees with him or not is of no concern to him. At the same time Hezbollah has only lost 5 militants so far (the Lebanese army has suffered greater losses).
In fact Hezbollah seems to be pretty well, they still haven't lost Nasrallah and they are still colliding with Israeli troops deeply in the south, they don't seem to have lost any terrain. Which might indicate that the whole South is still under the Hezbollah dominance. But be careful, hezbollah is a master of lies, and most importantly Hezbollah is giving its last fight, this time it's all or nothing, if Hezbollah loses today they will disappear, they HAVE to win and anything less than winning is a total loss. And winning means to inflict a humiliating loss to Israel, nothing less. So retreating away from the blue line is out of the question, not to mention that they are restricted to remain there because of the Israeli suffocation tactic. So Hezbollah's probably (and I am here expressing my own interpretation, I have no information to back this) relying on the psychological factor of keeping the struggle the closest possible to the Israeli part. They need to give the illusion that they are still in command, because that is the only way to keep Israeli troops from invading the South and slaughtering the Hezbollah officials. I believe that Hezbollah only has troops close to the border, they have probably mobilised all there forces to the south, 10 km inside the Lebanese borders is probably unarmed and empty from any Hezbollah militants.
Another arm that Hezbollah's trying to use, civilians. Hezbollah has this fine art of lamenting the civilians that they are killing. In fact when a Hezbollah member needs to leave or go to another post or anything they travel with there families, camouflaged as Lebanese civilians and holding there children in there hands, so if Israel knows about there movement it hesitates to attack them, but don't think that Israel is that concerned about civilians, they have indeed attacked many mini-vans. Another pillar of the Two attackers one victim philosophy.
And Hezbollah's most desperate attempt is to include christians in there war. A tactic frequently used by hezbollah is to launch its missiles from christians towns, because that would result in an Israeli assault against that town. This is most of all effective because of war taboo, none can accuse the Hezbollah of being immoral, and none can ever justify any Israeli assault. So Hezbollah's always right. But we know what is going on, there were talks recently about Hezbollah trying to force a major Christian Hospital to put missiles in there underground parking zone, the Hospital administration certainly refused but many southern towns don't have that choice, they can easily be bombarded by Hezbollah in case they refuse since Hezbollah rules there as king. In another case, there were a political TV program on LBC again, they hosted a Hezbollah representative, a woman called giving her name and publicly questioned the Hezbollah's representative about the missiles launched from inside her town (a christian town) and even accusing Hezbollah of attacking the Lebanese towns themselves!
In that same town there were some talk about a UFO, Hezbollah was totally, absolutely, beyond any doubt certain that it was an Israeli plane that they succeeded in dropping. The israelis denied. And then people agreed that it was probably something that we are not certain about, but certainly not a plane. My dad went to work that day and according to what he had heard, it's a missile launcher belonging to Hezbollah, they were trying to launch one of there missiles or something, when the Israeli services detected them and they attacked them, they tried to "wrap" the debris to take them to a Lebanese military base and maybe re-use the remaining parts, so the Israeli army attacked them again. Some people are even justifying the Israeli attacks against the Lebanese bases.
And do you people remember the first Qana massacre?
In fact the losses of Israel and Hezbollah can't really be compared, the nature of both parties' very different. While Israel is a nation, they have a regular army and they have a people to please, and certain standards to keep. Hezbollah on the other hand is a terrorist pseudo-organisation, there members are pseudo-professionals they know how to kill and most of all they know how to die, they have no tactics, they have no awareness of human standards, they don't consider themselves supposed to preserve the civilians because after all anyone that dies from there side will go to heaven and all the Israelis are monsters that don't deserve to live. And the most important detail is that the Hezbollah members are not even registered, so any Hezbollah militant that dies is considered a civilian victim.
Finally, this war is most of all a psychological war, Israel's warning the cities almost 2 hours before attacking; many times they are sending false alarms. This has partly contributed in the massive immigration toward safer areas. Israel's also giving a lot of attention to the civilian victims on the Israeli side, while undermining the military losses. Hezbollah on the other hand's still insisting that all the Lebanese losses are not important, that all can be rebuilt, the most important thing is the dignity or our people, whether the Lebanese people agrees with him or not is of no concern to him. At the same time Hezbollah has only lost 5 militants so far (the Lebanese army has suffered greater losses).
In fact Hezbollah seems to be pretty well, they still haven't lost Nasrallah and they are still colliding with Israeli troops deeply in the south, they don't seem to have lost any terrain. Which might indicate that the whole South is still under the Hezbollah dominance. But be careful, hezbollah is a master of lies, and most importantly Hezbollah is giving its last fight, this time it's all or nothing, if Hezbollah loses today they will disappear, they HAVE to win and anything less than winning is a total loss. And winning means to inflict a humiliating loss to Israel, nothing less. So retreating away from the blue line is out of the question, not to mention that they are restricted to remain there because of the Israeli suffocation tactic. So Hezbollah's probably (and I am here expressing my own interpretation, I have no information to back this) relying on the psychological factor of keeping the struggle the closest possible to the Israeli part. They need to give the illusion that they are still in command, because that is the only way to keep Israeli troops from invading the South and slaughtering the Hezbollah officials. I believe that Hezbollah only has troops close to the border, they have probably mobilised all there forces to the south, 10 km inside the Lebanese borders is probably unarmed and empty from any Hezbollah militants.
Another arm that Hezbollah's trying to use, civilians. Hezbollah has this fine art of lamenting the civilians that they are killing. In fact when a Hezbollah member needs to leave or go to another post or anything they travel with there families, camouflaged as Lebanese civilians and holding there children in there hands, so if Israel knows about there movement it hesitates to attack them, but don't think that Israel is that concerned about civilians, they have indeed attacked many mini-vans. Another pillar of the Two attackers one victim philosophy.
And Hezbollah's most desperate attempt is to include christians in there war. A tactic frequently used by hezbollah is to launch its missiles from christians towns, because that would result in an Israeli assault against that town. This is most of all effective because of war taboo, none can accuse the Hezbollah of being immoral, and none can ever justify any Israeli assault. So Hezbollah's always right. But we know what is going on, there were talks recently about Hezbollah trying to force a major Christian Hospital to put missiles in there underground parking zone, the Hospital administration certainly refused but many southern towns don't have that choice, they can easily be bombarded by Hezbollah in case they refuse since Hezbollah rules there as king. In another case, there were a political TV program on LBC again, they hosted a Hezbollah representative, a woman called giving her name and publicly questioned the Hezbollah's representative about the missiles launched from inside her town (a christian town) and even accusing Hezbollah of attacking the Lebanese towns themselves!
In that same town there were some talk about a UFO, Hezbollah was totally, absolutely, beyond any doubt certain that it was an Israeli plane that they succeeded in dropping. The israelis denied. And then people agreed that it was probably something that we are not certain about, but certainly not a plane. My dad went to work that day and according to what he had heard, it's a missile launcher belonging to Hezbollah, they were trying to launch one of there missiles or something, when the Israeli services detected them and they attacked them, they tried to "wrap" the debris to take them to a Lebanese military base and maybe re-use the remaining parts, so the Israeli army attacked them again. Some people are even justifying the Israeli attacks against the Lebanese bases.
And do you people remember the first Qana massacre?
What is Hezbollah relying on?
Judging from all the damage you'd think that Hezbollah would be shaking or something. Well not really. Nasrallah's hiding somewhere and the rest of his men are no where to be seen. Hezbollah has admitted very few losses so far. But that's just a façade.
In fact the losses of Israel and Hezbollah can't really be compared, the nature of both parties' very different. While Israel is a nation, they have a regular army and they have a people to please, and certain standards to keep. Hezbollah on the other hand is a terrorist pseudo-organisation, there members are pseudo-professionals they know how to kill and most of all they know how to die, they have no tactics, they have no awareness of human standards, they don't consider themselves supposed to preserve the civilians because after all anyone that dies from there side will go to heaven and all the Israelis are monsters that don't deserve to live. And the most important detail is that the Hezbollah members are not even registered, so any Hezbollah militant that dies is considered a civilian victim.
Finally, this war is most of all a psychological war, Israel's warning the cities almost 2 hours before attacking; many times they are sending false alarms. This has partly contributed in the massive immigration toward safer areas. Israel's also giving a lot of attention to the civilian victims on the Israeli side, while undermining the military losses. Hezbollah on the other hand's still insisting that all the Lebanese losses are not important, that all can be rebuilt, the most important thing is the dignity or our people, whether the Lebanese people agrees with him or not is of no concern to him. At the same time Hezbollah has only lost 5 militants so far (the Lebanese army has suffered greater losses).
In fact Hezbollah seems to be pretty well, they still haven't lost Nasrallah and they are still colliding with Israeli troops deeply in the south, they don't seem to have lost any terrain. Which might indicate that the whole South is still under the Hezbollah dominance. But be careful, hezbollah is a master of lies, and most importantly Hezbollah is giving its last fight, this time it's all or nothing, if Hezbollah loses today they will disappear, they HAVE to win and anything less than winning is a total loss. And winning means to inflict a humiliating loss to Israel, nothing less. So retreating away from the blue line is out of the question, not to mention that they are restricted to remain there because of the Israeli suffocation tactic. So Hezbollah's probably (and I am here expressing my own interpretation, I have no information to back this) relying on the psychological factor of keeping the struggle the closest possible to the Israeli part. They need to give the illusion that they are still in command, because that is the only way to keep Israeli troops from invading the South and slaughtering the Hezbollah officials. I believe that Hezbollah only has troops close to the border, they have probably mobilised all there forces to the south, 10 km inside the Lebanese borders is probably unarmed and empty from any Hezbollah militants.
Another arm that Hezbollah's trying to use, civilians. Hezbollah has this fine art of lamenting the civilians that they are killing. In fact when a Hezbollah member needs to leave or go to another post or anything they travel with there families, camouflaged as Lebanese civilians and holding there children in there hands, so if Israel knows about there movement it hesitates to attack them, but don't think that Israel is that concerned about civilians, they have indeed attacked many mini-vans. Another pillar of the Two attackers one victim philosophy.
And Hezbollah's most desperate attempt is to include christians in there war. A tactic frequently used by hezbollah is to launch its missiles from christians towns, because that would result in an Israeli assault against that town. This is most of all effective because of war taboo, none can accuse the Hezbollah of being immoral, and none can ever justify any Israeli assault. So Hezbollah's always right. But we know what is going on, there were talks recently about Hezbollah trying to force a major Christian Hospital to put missiles in there underground parking zone, the Hospital administration certainly refused but many southern towns don't have that choice, they can easily be bombarded by Hezbollah in case they refuse since Hezbollah rules there as king. In another case, there were a political TV program on LBC again, they hosted a Hezbollah representative, a woman called giving her name and publicly questioned the Hezbollah's representative about the missiles launched from inside her town (a christian town) and even accusing Hezbollah of attacking the Lebanese towns themselves!
In that same town there were some talk about a UFO, Hezbollah was totally, absolutely, beyond any doubt certain that it was an Israeli plane that they succeeded in dropping. The israelis denied. And then people agreed that it was probably something that we are not certain about, but certainly not a plane. My dad went to work that day and according to what he had heard, it's a missile launcher belonging to Hezbollah, they were trying to launch one of there missiles or something, when the Israeli services detected them and they attacked them, they tried to "wrap" the debris to take them to a Lebanese military base and maybe re-use the remaining parts, so the Israeli army attacked them again. Some people are even justifying the Israeli attacks against the Lebanese bases.
And do you people remember the first Qana massacre?
In fact the losses of Israel and Hezbollah can't really be compared, the nature of both parties' very different. While Israel is a nation, they have a regular army and they have a people to please, and certain standards to keep. Hezbollah on the other hand is a terrorist pseudo-organisation, there members are pseudo-professionals they know how to kill and most of all they know how to die, they have no tactics, they have no awareness of human standards, they don't consider themselves supposed to preserve the civilians because after all anyone that dies from there side will go to heaven and all the Israelis are monsters that don't deserve to live. And the most important detail is that the Hezbollah members are not even registered, so any Hezbollah militant that dies is considered a civilian victim.
Finally, this war is most of all a psychological war, Israel's warning the cities almost 2 hours before attacking; many times they are sending false alarms. This has partly contributed in the massive immigration toward safer areas. Israel's also giving a lot of attention to the civilian victims on the Israeli side, while undermining the military losses. Hezbollah on the other hand's still insisting that all the Lebanese losses are not important, that all can be rebuilt, the most important thing is the dignity or our people, whether the Lebanese people agrees with him or not is of no concern to him. At the same time Hezbollah has only lost 5 militants so far (the Lebanese army has suffered greater losses).
In fact Hezbollah seems to be pretty well, they still haven't lost Nasrallah and they are still colliding with Israeli troops deeply in the south, they don't seem to have lost any terrain. Which might indicate that the whole South is still under the Hezbollah dominance. But be careful, hezbollah is a master of lies, and most importantly Hezbollah is giving its last fight, this time it's all or nothing, if Hezbollah loses today they will disappear, they HAVE to win and anything less than winning is a total loss. And winning means to inflict a humiliating loss to Israel, nothing less. So retreating away from the blue line is out of the question, not to mention that they are restricted to remain there because of the Israeli suffocation tactic. So Hezbollah's probably (and I am here expressing my own interpretation, I have no information to back this) relying on the psychological factor of keeping the struggle the closest possible to the Israeli part. They need to give the illusion that they are still in command, because that is the only way to keep Israeli troops from invading the South and slaughtering the Hezbollah officials. I believe that Hezbollah only has troops close to the border, they have probably mobilised all there forces to the south, 10 km inside the Lebanese borders is probably unarmed and empty from any Hezbollah militants.
Another arm that Hezbollah's trying to use, civilians. Hezbollah has this fine art of lamenting the civilians that they are killing. In fact when a Hezbollah member needs to leave or go to another post or anything they travel with there families, camouflaged as Lebanese civilians and holding there children in there hands, so if Israel knows about there movement it hesitates to attack them, but don't think that Israel is that concerned about civilians, they have indeed attacked many mini-vans. Another pillar of the Two attackers one victim philosophy.
And Hezbollah's most desperate attempt is to include christians in there war. A tactic frequently used by hezbollah is to launch its missiles from christians towns, because that would result in an Israeli assault against that town. This is most of all effective because of war taboo, none can accuse the Hezbollah of being immoral, and none can ever justify any Israeli assault. So Hezbollah's always right. But we know what is going on, there were talks recently about Hezbollah trying to force a major Christian Hospital to put missiles in there underground parking zone, the Hospital administration certainly refused but many southern towns don't have that choice, they can easily be bombarded by Hezbollah in case they refuse since Hezbollah rules there as king. In another case, there were a political TV program on LBC again, they hosted a Hezbollah representative, a woman called giving her name and publicly questioned the Hezbollah's representative about the missiles launched from inside her town (a christian town) and even accusing Hezbollah of attacking the Lebanese towns themselves!
In that same town there were some talk about a UFO, Hezbollah was totally, absolutely, beyond any doubt certain that it was an Israeli plane that they succeeded in dropping. The israelis denied. And then people agreed that it was probably something that we are not certain about, but certainly not a plane. My dad went to work that day and according to what he had heard, it's a missile launcher belonging to Hezbollah, they were trying to launch one of there missiles or something, when the Israeli services detected them and they attacked them, they tried to "wrap" the debris to take them to a Lebanese military base and maybe re-use the remaining parts, so the Israeli army attacked them again. Some people are even justifying the Israeli attacks against the Lebanese bases.
And do you people remember the first Qana massacre?
Who's going to rebuild?
The economic losses are horrific! This war has practically destroyed everything (except for the electricity infrastructure) we have built during the last 17 years, just a reminder, The Solidere project (the reconstruction project) has caused a 40 billion $ depts on the Lebanese government. Who's going to pay for this? One thing is certain; no one is willing to pay.
Hezbollah can't even be held responsible for this, they have in fact no money, no explicit organisation no nothing. If they lose this war, they will simply go home to Iran. I doubt that the UN is capable to force Iran to pay, not even America can do so.
Israel doesn't really seem concerned what ever damages would result from this. Why should they? Lebanon's unable to hold them responsible and the UN probably won't even try. In fact when Fou'ad Siniora said for the first time that the Lebanese government is going to hold Israel responsible for the economic damage, we heard talks about the UN might even pay for the reconstruction itself, in other terms, especially not Israel!
Hezbollah can't even be held responsible for this, they have in fact no money, no explicit organisation no nothing. If they lose this war, they will simply go home to Iran. I doubt that the UN is capable to force Iran to pay, not even America can do so.
Israel doesn't really seem concerned what ever damages would result from this. Why should they? Lebanon's unable to hold them responsible and the UN probably won't even try. In fact when Fou'ad Siniora said for the first time that the Lebanese government is going to hold Israel responsible for the economic damage, we heard talks about the UN might even pay for the reconstruction itself, in other terms, especially not Israel!
The current situation: Balad Mankoob
Here's a sample of how the situation is today in Lebanon:
- more than 750 people killed, among them almost 70% were civilians
- Our prestigious, and only commercial Airport is nothing but ashes, they bombarded at first the fuel tanks then they the building itself then everything else, the Airplanes were smuggled out to Cyprus mainly (they probably had the authorization from the Israeli troops to smuggle them). Rebuilding, if the money's available, will take at least a whole month
- All the other airports are in the same situation
- All our ports were bombarded too, resulting in a total maritime isolation
- Almost every bridge is destroyed... They even destroyed the bridges connecting the small towns!
- The South and Bekaa are isolated and divided to a serie of several isolated towns (for those who don't know, the rural towns are usually a couple of hundred person living in total dependence to other towns
- more that 120 000 individuals have already left Lebanon, mainly to Syria (DUH! it's the only country that has land borders with us, except for Israel of course). Many of the people that have left are Syrians that had entered the Lebanese borders illegally, lol, now they are too scared to stay, some are going on foot because the connection between Lebanon and Syria was destroyed
- More than 800 000 Lebanese people left there homes, most of them fled the bombs in Beirut and the south of course. Most of them have no where to go and have simple taken refuge in the open schools, the public schools have been instructed to open there doors for any refugees and the teachers have been instructed to come to there posts everyday in order to organise the aid distribution and other logistic details. Private schools have also opened there doors for refugees, but that is an individual option that obeys the personal conviction of each school. Another home for some refugees are the churches, the churches are of course safer at this moment than mosques, but a church was bombarded too the other day killing those inside. The churches however suffer from one disadvantage, they have no direct connection with the public services, and there fore a lot of additional effort is being deployed to make sure no one starves to death for example.
But take a second and revisit the number: 700 000 refugee! Just for the record:
- The Lebanese population is only 4 000 000.
- The cedar revolution that forced the former government to quit and the Syrian troops to withdraw, that revolution mobilised 1 000 000 individual (some say a little more but that's the a good approximation).
- The 1996 events (a rather similar situation) forced only 250 000 individual out of there homes, most of them fled to Beirut. - Beirut itself is empty, this hasn't happened since the end of the civil war. Now the population concentration is not homogeneous in Beirut because the attacks are not, but in general people that have the chance to leave have done so
- Transit trucks are under attack! The message is clear, the Israeli part is simply trying to totally isolate the Lebanese population, to literally force us to attack Hezbollah ourselves. I don't blame the Israelis for doing whatever it takes to achieve there goals, but I don't know, I secretly admired the Israelis now I wonder if they are anything better than Hezbollah? Even though I know that Hezbollah is simply much less human, and even though Israelis have proven to be more reliable
- The Humanitarian aids are suffering just as much (if not more) as Hezbollah. The international Red Cross spokesman in Lebanon spoke about the difficulty of aids in Lebanon, even Hospitals are isolated, coordination with fighting parties is practically impossible, the Lebanese Red Cross is saying that the international links are failing to get an Israeli permission for the Red Cross. In fact the other day 4 trucks, carrying humanitarian and medical aids to Lebanon from Kuweit, were attacked.
- The radars are put to ashes
- Our archeological treasures are in danger, especially in the South.
- The Ecological situation is no better, fuel's floting in the sea and we can't even do anything about it
I know that the last couple of points are of less importance if you see the human damage, but once the war will stop this more permanent damage will be very heart breaking I can't think of what Lebanon would be like tomorrow, but it's an ugly Lebanon.
The Lebanese general opinion: We did not want this fucking war
I feel tempted to repeat to all of you just how angry I am, but that would be useless. But our feeling today is the same feeling we had when we started to understand the civil war better. In fact the whole Lebanese history is just one long act of rape, we were never wariors, we never wanted trouble, we have always built Byblos, Tyr and Beirut... We have always built and rebuilt them cities of life. You might think that I am being too artistic and emotional, but for Christ sake! how many times do we have to die for conflicts that we never want? How many cosmopolitan, liberated cities must we build only to see them all turn to ashes? and what for? Why can't we just live in peace? Are we so delicious that none can keep there hands away from us? I can't remember ONE SINGLE WAR that we started on our land? I am not pretending we are innocent from all violence, we assume full responsibility for our acts, but we are just too tired. We the Lebanese have done everything, at least in the last few years, to bring a peaceful change, didn't we all walk peacefully to the Martyr Square to demand the retreat of the Syrian troops? Didn't we plan to disarm Hezbollah? Damn it! why is nothing we ever do enough?
Which Arab or non Arab country was able to digest as many problems as we did in the past 2 years? NONE! Countries that are far more politically and economically stable have failed to make the changes that we did in Lebanon and certainly none as peacefully as we did...
Next time anyone wants to blame the Lebanese part for failing to disarm Hezbollah, please remember this fact: if you were in our shoes you would have failed.
Watch the situation today, Israel's whining about how Hezbollah uses civilians as human shields, which is true. But Israel's also insisting that they knew this behavior that Hezbollah has always adopted. There fore the Israelis knew this was going to happen, they knew that they will have to choose between receiving missiles or killing civilians, and more precisely they knew that when that will happen they will choose to shoot the civilians. They knew they will kill civilians and yet they chose to make this move.
When we were faced with the Hezbollah and the Palestinian Dilemma, we refused to simply point our guns in the face of Hezbollah because we knew this will happen, we knew the mentality of the radicalised people of the South, we knew that this long period of forced ignorance and the constant danger on there lives has messed with there minds. But unlike the Israeli we refused to risk civilian lives, we had chosen to go through the long, and more or less humiliating, process of negotiating with Hezbollah. Many criticize us for this choice, but I wonder if what Israel's option turned out to be better?
Which Arab or non Arab country was able to digest as many problems as we did in the past 2 years? NONE! Countries that are far more politically and economically stable have failed to make the changes that we did in Lebanon and certainly none as peacefully as we did...
Next time anyone wants to blame the Lebanese part for failing to disarm Hezbollah, please remember this fact: if you were in our shoes you would have failed.
Watch the situation today, Israel's whining about how Hezbollah uses civilians as human shields, which is true. But Israel's also insisting that they knew this behavior that Hezbollah has always adopted. There fore the Israelis knew this was going to happen, they knew that they will have to choose between receiving missiles or killing civilians, and more precisely they knew that when that will happen they will choose to shoot the civilians. They knew they will kill civilians and yet they chose to make this move.
When we were faced with the Hezbollah and the Palestinian Dilemma, we refused to simply point our guns in the face of Hezbollah because we knew this will happen, we knew the mentality of the radicalised people of the South, we knew that this long period of forced ignorance and the constant danger on there lives has messed with there minds. But unlike the Israeli we refused to risk civilian lives, we had chosen to go through the long, and more or less humiliating, process of negotiating with Hezbollah. Many criticize us for this choice, but I wonder if what Israel's option turned out to be better?
The Arab position
- The Arab official position is really hilarious.
Syria
In the UN's public assembly, Syria objected because it was not allowed to participate. Apparently for some weird reason Syria considers that she is very concerned with the situation, same as Lebanon and Israel; but at the same time Syria denies any involvement in the Hezbollah situation! Oh let me guess... They are concerned about there minor, cute, rebellious little brother Lebanon... Bite me!!
Egypt
Egypt is playing the DRAMA... Oh... Mr. Mousa is deploring the peace process... Oh the region's going to war... Run for the hills, hide the children, kill the women before they are raped! And of course they are blaming Hezbollah, like DUH! you didn't expect the Moubarak government to think for themselves did you? They just need to wait for a fax.
KSA
It's Hezbollah's fault, and they should solve it themselves, the whole issue is just the result of an overreaction. WE (meaning the Saudian people) have a very wide country and we had a lot of border issues, why is this taking so much weight in Lebanon? He's right, seriously, I wonder when did these over weighted idiots grow a brain?
UAE
very similar to the KSA situation, but not with the same enthusiasm.
others
Others have very little to say, or at least they say alot, but have no importance (sorry, no offense). I have heard that Algeria supports Hezbollah (how helpful) and also Oman I think. Others are generally at the Lebanese side meaning that they say they want the bombs to stop but they also blame Hezbollah. - The Public opinion is a different, but far more predictable. The Arab and Muslim world in general are supporting Hezbollah, and they feel very happy to see Israel vulnerable. We have seen in Syria demonstrations in that direction, but they were organised by the Bashar rule, but the Syrians have a genuine hate for Israel and Jews, but then again, they would never risk there own security in danger, no it's for us to get fucked!
I have also seen on TV some of the Egyptian support, talking about how we make them proud, how they totally support Hezbollah and all. I wonder if they have any idea of the destruction in Lebanon, I wonder if the Egyptians will resurect the dead, if they would even bother to know what WE think of Hezbollah? No not really, with all respect to all Egyptians, they are all talking about how we are fighting Israel, and at the same time they accept to sign peace with Israel. But then again, Egyptians don't really know about it, and they don't really care.
What pains me is that people are giving so much importance to what Arabs think or feel about it, we are dying here, and we are not even Arabs! I am mad, yes, I am mad because Lebanon did not want this fucking war.
Two attackers one victim
When situation quickly deteriorated, and instant and urgent meeting was organised for the government. As a result, and not surprisingly, the government didn't publicly attack or denounce Hezbollah even though the Hezbollah ministers were absent, instead the Lebanese government declared that Hezbollah's act was never approved by the government of Lebanon and that Lebanon does not adopt this operation there fore it can't be held responsible for it.
The Israeli response was: "Well, if the government of Lebanon is not responsible about what happens in Lebanon then who is?"....Good Question! Because we are in theory a sovereign country.
But then again, the Lebanese army is still avoiding the direct confrontation with Israel. I know that the Lebanese army is not half as powerful as the Israeli one and not as terrorist as Hezbollah. But the official Lebanese politicians' position gave Israel a lot of credit, because it bluntly showed that we, the Lebanese people, are NOT supporting Hezbollah, thus weakening Hezbollah pretext of defending Lebanon.
So if you look from this angle you'd see that Hezbollah is hiding behind the Lebanese population that the Israelis are bombarding... Three parts in which only one will win, Israel might win, Hezbollah might win, but the Lebanese people have and will certainly lose.
The Israeli response was: "Well, if the government of Lebanon is not responsible about what happens in Lebanon then who is?"....Good Question! Because we are in theory a sovereign country.
But then again, the Lebanese army is still avoiding the direct confrontation with Israel. I know that the Lebanese army is not half as powerful as the Israeli one and not as terrorist as Hezbollah. But the official Lebanese politicians' position gave Israel a lot of credit, because it bluntly showed that we, the Lebanese people, are NOT supporting Hezbollah, thus weakening Hezbollah pretext of defending Lebanon.
So if you look from this angle you'd see that Hezbollah is hiding behind the Lebanese population that the Israelis are bombarding... Three parts in which only one will win, Israel might win, Hezbollah might win, but the Lebanese people have and will certainly lose.
The UN
I said it before the international community supports Israel. Now of course there is always a certain difference between the American camp and the Anti-American camp.
America and its allies (well I suppose it's only one ally: The UK), totally support Israel, but at the same time, America insists on defending the Lebanese interests in this conflict, or so it says. This was expressed on the first day of the conflict when president Bush declared that it's Israel's right to defend itself, he did mention that they have to respect the Lebanese government's interests and to do nothing to jeopardize the governments' means of survival... Ambiguous but shows a tendency to preserve the support that the USA has often promised the Sanioora government.
The Anti-American camp (I call them so because it's easier) also supports Israel in its right to protect itself. But they are more demanding, they demand that the civilians would be put aside in the conflict, and they frankly accuse Israel of employing excessive force to retaliate against the Hezbollah assault. In addition they criticize the Israeli's refusal to negotiate, implying that Israel doesn't seek the release of its soldiers but the destruction of Lebanon itself.
The UN meeting itself was such a fascinating Drama, Shakespeare couldn't have done better!
The Lebanese representative, as always, simply lamented the Lebanese situation, he deplored the huge destruction, he cried the innocent victims. In a very strict tone he simply said the obvious truth; it was a tragedy as far as we were concerned. But no political stand was taken, Israel was still the enemy and Hezbollah was still the poison that we can't reject.
The Israeli representative was more entertaining. He talked in a far more confident tone, he blamed the Lebanese part for failing to disarm Hezbollah when it had the chance to, on the other hand he showed so much compassion toward the Lebanese people, you could almost think that he loves us. He talked to the Lebanese representative as if he was his friend, he said that "you [the Lebanese representative] know that if things were different and if it was your own choice you would come and sit next to me here, because you know that we are doing the right thing". In general Israel tried to portray the situation as a favor to the Lebanese people, a sort of Liberation. Well that was almost true. It wasn't totally wrong because we as Lebanese felt very disappointed and helpless in front of Hezbollah, but on the other hand the Israelis were bombarding our infrastructure, OUR infrastructure, Hezbollah isn't really feeling sorry, any destruction in the South means that the Lebanese government will pay more money there and they always get a certain percentage.
The Lebanese answer to this position came from the Lebanese Forces (the only christian party in the government) when he said: "Well, we are extremely Grateful to Israel if this is there idea of helping, we thank them for destroying our airport and infrastructure and for bringing us back a few decades and destroying all we have worked for... Thank you very much!"
As a general tendency the whole international public opinion adopted and still adopts the two attackers one victim view.
America and its allies (well I suppose it's only one ally: The UK), totally support Israel, but at the same time, America insists on defending the Lebanese interests in this conflict, or so it says. This was expressed on the first day of the conflict when president Bush declared that it's Israel's right to defend itself, he did mention that they have to respect the Lebanese government's interests and to do nothing to jeopardize the governments' means of survival... Ambiguous but shows a tendency to preserve the support that the USA has often promised the Sanioora government.
The Anti-American camp (I call them so because it's easier) also supports Israel in its right to protect itself. But they are more demanding, they demand that the civilians would be put aside in the conflict, and they frankly accuse Israel of employing excessive force to retaliate against the Hezbollah assault. In addition they criticize the Israeli's refusal to negotiate, implying that Israel doesn't seek the release of its soldiers but the destruction of Lebanon itself.
The UN meeting itself was such a fascinating Drama, Shakespeare couldn't have done better!
The Lebanese representative, as always, simply lamented the Lebanese situation, he deplored the huge destruction, he cried the innocent victims. In a very strict tone he simply said the obvious truth; it was a tragedy as far as we were concerned. But no political stand was taken, Israel was still the enemy and Hezbollah was still the poison that we can't reject.
The Israeli representative was more entertaining. He talked in a far more confident tone, he blamed the Lebanese part for failing to disarm Hezbollah when it had the chance to, on the other hand he showed so much compassion toward the Lebanese people, you could almost think that he loves us. He talked to the Lebanese representative as if he was his friend, he said that "you [the Lebanese representative] know that if things were different and if it was your own choice you would come and sit next to me here, because you know that we are doing the right thing". In general Israel tried to portray the situation as a favor to the Lebanese people, a sort of Liberation. Well that was almost true. It wasn't totally wrong because we as Lebanese felt very disappointed and helpless in front of Hezbollah, but on the other hand the Israelis were bombarding our infrastructure, OUR infrastructure, Hezbollah isn't really feeling sorry, any destruction in the South means that the Lebanese government will pay more money there and they always get a certain percentage.
The Lebanese answer to this position came from the Lebanese Forces (the only christian party in the government) when he said: "Well, we are extremely Grateful to Israel if this is there idea of helping, we thank them for destroying our airport and infrastructure and for bringing us back a few decades and destroying all we have worked for... Thank you very much!"
As a general tendency the whole international public opinion adopted and still adopts the two attackers one victim view.
Israel's point of view
Israel's point of view is far more simple. In contrast with the Lebanese society, Israel is far more homogeneous. Which is due to many factors.
On one hand Israelis have alot of common enemies. The Lebanese have alot of enemies, for each sect an enemy or two.
Israel is economically stable and relatively prosper. Lebanon's struggling to survive the debts which puts alot of pressure on the central authority and fortifies the seperatists.
Israelis have in fact one religion, even though there are many Muslims and some Druze, Israel is the Jews' homeland and serves only there interests. Lebanon has too many religions and each claims to BE Lebanon, not to mention that (almost) each sect serves the interests of some external force.
Israel has won practically every war it has launched or resisted. Lebanon... Well let's just say that Lebanese are simply too tired of war and too tired of thinking about it to the point where we'd prefer leaving our country on fighting for it anymore.
So in general the Israeli position is much more at ease. They had been preparing for a long time now a massive military operation on Lebanon. I mean, last time I checked Israel was always one step ahead of Hezbollah, it was always protected and the Israeli soldiers are much protected. I doubt that it was enough for Hezbollah to simply enter Israel take a couple of soldiers and then retreat back. Not just that! Israel had already lost one soldier for the Palestinians in Ghazza! I doubt that the Northern borders would even be relaxed enough to allow ANY Hezbollah movement! In my humble opinion, Israel wanted these two Kidnaps to take place, to put into action its military assault.
What ever it was, Isreal played its cards well (as always). Not only they made sure to give the international and Israeli public opinion good justifications for the assault and they did there assault in a very smart and effective manor. According to the latest statistics (on Tuesday) almost 70% of the Israelis are totally behind there government, anything higher than this percentage indicates fraud and/or dictatorship. In addition, Israel has an international support, not to mention the American traditional Veto support.
So for at least for now, Israel has no reason to stop.
On one hand Israelis have alot of common enemies. The Lebanese have alot of enemies, for each sect an enemy or two.
Israel is economically stable and relatively prosper. Lebanon's struggling to survive the debts which puts alot of pressure on the central authority and fortifies the seperatists.
Israelis have in fact one religion, even though there are many Muslims and some Druze, Israel is the Jews' homeland and serves only there interests. Lebanon has too many religions and each claims to BE Lebanon, not to mention that (almost) each sect serves the interests of some external force.
Israel has won practically every war it has launched or resisted. Lebanon... Well let's just say that Lebanese are simply too tired of war and too tired of thinking about it to the point where we'd prefer leaving our country on fighting for it anymore.
So in general the Israeli position is much more at ease. They had been preparing for a long time now a massive military operation on Lebanon. I mean, last time I checked Israel was always one step ahead of Hezbollah, it was always protected and the Israeli soldiers are much protected. I doubt that it was enough for Hezbollah to simply enter Israel take a couple of soldiers and then retreat back. Not just that! Israel had already lost one soldier for the Palestinians in Ghazza! I doubt that the Northern borders would even be relaxed enough to allow ANY Hezbollah movement! In my humble opinion, Israel wanted these two Kidnaps to take place, to put into action its military assault.
What ever it was, Isreal played its cards well (as always). Not only they made sure to give the international and Israeli public opinion good justifications for the assault and they did there assault in a very smart and effective manor. According to the latest statistics (on Tuesday) almost 70% of the Israelis are totally behind there government, anything higher than this percentage indicates fraud and/or dictatorship. In addition, Israel has an international support, not to mention the American traditional Veto support.
So for at least for now, Israel has no reason to stop.
Kidnaped v/s Prisoners
Unlike what some people might believe, there is no doubt about it, the two soldiers are Kidnaped.
They were on there own land, in Israel, when the operation took place. In order for them to be called Prisoners the operation had to take place IN LEBANON. There fore Hezbollah has no excuse to keep them and they knew this even before they even THOUGHT about starting such a hazardous act, but they never respected any sort of international, Lebanese or even human law. In adddition they are relying on the heavy ignorance and they don't really have much options.
Tell me there names
I don’t know there names! SO much has taken place about there kidnap and no one bothered to say there name. What a ruthless policy.
I believe in civilians and a civilian is a civilian it’s unfair that Hezbollah’s never blamed for killing Israeli civilians.
And this is another one of there ways to make Israelis look less human, they didn’t tell us there names. To ignore ones name is to deny him its humanity to pretend that he’s less than human, that he’s just an enemy!
They were on there own land, in Israel, when the operation took place. In order for them to be called Prisoners the operation had to take place IN LEBANON. There fore Hezbollah has no excuse to keep them and they knew this even before they even THOUGHT about starting such a hazardous act, but they never respected any sort of international, Lebanese or even human law. In adddition they are relying on the heavy ignorance and they don't really have much options.
Tell me there names
I don’t know there names! SO much has taken place about there kidnap and no one bothered to say there name. What a ruthless policy.
I believe in civilians and a civilian is a civilian it’s unfair that Hezbollah’s never blamed for killing Israeli civilians.
And this is another one of there ways to make Israelis look less human, they didn’t tell us there names. To ignore ones name is to deny him its humanity to pretend that he’s less than human, that he’s just an enemy!
Hezbollah's point of view
- Officially
Hezbollah has kidnapped the soldiers in order to negociate the release of the Lebanese prisoners in the Israeli Prisons. And even though many (but not all) of these Lebanese Prisoners were arrested inside the Lebanese Borders, they were were arrested in the region occupied by the Israeli army, there fore a region under the Israeli authority. In addition all of the Lebanese prisoners were Hezbollah actual fighting activists that had, or were planning, for some actions against the Israeli army. And to top that all, these prisoners were arrested at least 10 years ago, which puts serious doubts about Hezbollah's intentions. - Unofficially
Hezbollah is in fact forced to do this huge and useless stunt, simply because it has reached a point where things were inevitably degrading to the point where it would have to disarm. In spite of all the apparent strength of Hezbollah, it was plane obvious that they can't keep there weapons for ever. They had a few allies, its strongest ally and by far its only reason to exist was Aoun (I wouldn't possibly expand this to say that they had the LFPM's support, but they had at least Aoun's support); in addition they had there traditional ally and rival Amal (again that support was not absolute, and many clashes between Amal and Hezbollah's activists took place demonstrating the fragile union between the two); finally they had the President of the state, Emile Lahood, the latter’s support was meaningless since he had absolutely popular support at all, but alot of effort was put to depose him and the longer he remained the longer Hezbollah's weapon was not discussed.
But despite of all these, more or less, powerful allies, Hezbollah's time was running out.
They were under pressure from Aoun himself. There strong Maronite ally was clearly upset with Hezbollah's way of exploiting the LFPM's alliance. In every occasion in which the LFPM / Hezbollah / Amal / Marada / Karameh 's alliance would organise any sort of popular demonstration, all sort of Pro - Syrian slogans were raised. The LFPM, despite its alliance with the Pro-syrians would never accept Pro-Syrian slogans. In fact the Pro-Syrians had in fact apologised for Aoun because of there actions during the past 30 years and especially during the past 15 years. Aoun and his block did try to justify the Pro-Syrian actions of there allies in front of the Lebanese public opinion and especially in front of there supporters, but there are limits to everything and eventually Aoun was putting increased pressure on Hezbollah and the rest of there allies to behave. And in fact the LFPM publicly retreated from one of the public demonstration in Tripoli- The National Dialogue did not achieve a lot, but it did achieve crucial points. At the moment when the escalation took place, the National Dialogue was Discussing the Hezbollah weapons' issue or as it is publicly known the common defense strategy and Hezbollah was very vulnerable. In fact Hezbollah had to give a commitment to never attack Israel, if they are to keep (temporarily) there weapons. And Hezbollah really needed to make its move before the commitment would be made public.
- Hezbollah was losing another ally, Amal. Not that Amal would ever dare to turn against its traditional ally/rival, but you see, the Hezbollah was going to be disarmed, sooner or later. Amal always hated the fac that Hezbollah would be armed, because that gave the latter the advantage against them, Berry (representing Amal) was the third president of the country but everybody knew that Hezbollah ruled with an Iron fist. Now in spite of this Amal chose to gamble on the Pro-Syrian camp, and there fore defend the Hezbollah weapon because they knew they would be weakened by the Syrian retreat. Again they chose to gamble and defend Hezbollah's right to own weapons, because they knew that the public Shiia opinion might reject them, as they will surely reject Hezbollah. But now things have changed, both the Syrian and the Hezbollah front are to be lost, and Amal has now the chance to appear as the moderate Shiite leadership, unlike Hezbollah they have more public support (if the terror factor of Hezbollah is put aside). And in fact, we have noticed recently increased moderation in Amal's opinions.
- Hezbollah, let's not forget this, were never Lebanese, even though they have all the prerequisites to become Lebanese, but they never wanted that. Hezbollah's clearly more Iranian than Lebanese and IF they ever choose to integrate the Lebanese society they will fail, they have relied for too long on there terrorising uniqueness and Iranian support. Now they are simply not part of Lebanon, the moment people will cease to fear them, the people will devour them. And at this moment the Iranian needs demand from Hezbollah to create a noisy situation, so they did.
For all these reasons, and probably for many others, Hezbollah chose to attack.
Monday, July 10, 2006
Title
SO I was supposed to be at the beach right now, I took a bath (miracle!) and delayed my blog updating a little, I even shaved and had everything prepared, but my friend didn't call me, so I am just updating now, I have to admit I wasn't as excited as I should be about going to the beach again.
Anyway, here's what I have this week, I wrote an entry about myself, as it is my habit every week, it's a little about my jealousy dynamic and an old attachment to conformism, another entry was about Franjiyeh's last anxiety attack, the third entry's about the myth of the ethnic gene, more precisely about the Basque gene and the Phoenician gene and finally there is an entry around the Emile Zola book I read last week
Shlemazl I finally read the article and I have to tell you it was very interesting, apparently the author was really trying hard to be perfectly objective. The content of the article confirms mostly what I had heard, and in fact it mentionned a lot of details that I didn't know about. Thank you.
Anyway, here's what I have this week, I wrote an entry about myself, as it is my habit every week, it's a little about my jealousy dynamic and an old attachment to conformism, another entry was about Franjiyeh's last anxiety attack, the third entry's about the myth of the ethnic gene, more precisely about the Basque gene and the Phoenician gene and finally there is an entry around the Emile Zola book I read last week
Shlemazl I finally read the article and I have to tell you it was very interesting, apparently the author was really trying hard to be perfectly objective. The content of the article confirms mostly what I had heard, and in fact it mentionned a lot of details that I didn't know about. Thank you.
Thoughts about Emile Zola and Au bonheur des Dames:
I was introduced to Emile Zola from that book, L'Histoire Des Juifs En France, he was introduced as a very energetic, anarchist writer. But I had tried a few years back to read some Classic Literature, and frankly I didn't like it at all! I don't remember the book I was trying to erad, but I felt it was so lame, excessively fast and disoriented. So that was a big blow to what others find interesting, I thought I simply preferred reading science material and science fiction. So when I went to the braderie for the first time and saw the Au Bonheur Des Dames I bought it with great enthusiasm, but I kept in mind my old misadventure with Classics. I also kept in mind that I haven't been very interested in reading stories lately.
I only started reading it this week. To my surprise I was totally absorbed by his style of writing! I was amazed by the way he described everything. He has this way of simply penetrating people, of seeing things from inside. Everything about his writing fascinated me. The first day I read 130 pages, the second 160 and the third the remaining 260 pages. That deprived me from a lot of the story's pleasure, because when I arrived to the last 60 pages my mind was totally depleted and I was totally unable to visualise and enjoy the descriptive sequence. But I was so eager to see the end of the story, the extremist part of my character took care of the rest.
The events of the story take place in a boutique. It's all about the shopping passion of women. The surprise in all this is that this choice of subject contradicts the general gender segregation. Men often whine about how they simply don't get the point of shopping about how women can invest so much emotions and money on such futile extravagance. Zola however simply centered his whole story on this. And he seemed to know what he was talking about, even though it was an artistic view of the subject, after all the boutique is often called a temple for the women's desires, the owner of the store often sees his store, and its success, as an means of dominance, his dominance on women who become slaves in there own temple. Great care is put to describe there way of touching and examining the cloth and textiles. Shopping becomes a mystic experience. Now I might not be the best representative of the female shopping frenzy but I think I am woman enough to know that Zola on this subject isn't so wrong.
A strong pillar in the story is the human dynamic relationships. The idea isn't so innovative itself. A woman that arrives to Paris to find a job in order to support her 2 younger brothers after the death of her parents takes the only job available and makes a very difficult start. The story isn't so centered on her, but she is the heroine of this story. And there is a lot of description of the emotions of everybody, very detailed.
The narration is also interesting, the story is strong up until the last 10 pages I was still wonder what will happen. You see, the problem with most stories is that is only pivots around one hero, or couple of heroes. There is the center and the rest of the world is organised in a web of foes and subordinate allies. The allies are good but they are obviously second place. In this story things seem different; the line of events is so realistic. There is a confusion of different emotions, different people, simply an interaction!
Now I can't really say I am satisfied with the finishing of the story, not to mention there is no physical contact, which is normal for that era lol.
What's more interesting in a good story is what you can guess about the culture and view of the writer on the base of his book. Take his Heroine for example Denise, she is naturally portrayed in a very unusual manor. Well, unusual would mean: unusual in our own standards.
Ok first things first, according to au bonheur des Dames Mss perfect, represented by Denise, is not pretty, but she has a charm, which is pretty sweet and innovative since, afer all, women were always the gender discriminated for its beauty before.
On the other hand, Denise is a very silent and sensitive person, she is extremely poor and she has the responsibility of her two younger brothers, and she assumes her responsibility with great humility and acceptance. She doesn't revolt and she even looks submissive in some occasions. Which is something that feminists usually refuse, a man idealises the weakness and humility of women is looking for a submissive wife. And Zola seems to be a very revolutionary man in most of his views all through his story.
So before judging look closer at his work. Denise is not submissive, she is simply not confrontational. All through the story she achieved her goals without war, she was excessively idealistic but not in an ugly boring way.
Example:
At a certain point of the story, Denise is called for the house of her boss' girlfriend (the boss is having soft feelings for Denise and his girlfriend knows it) and this woman starts a mean maneuver to humiliate Denise in front of the boss. Denise doesn't fight back and eventually, under the woman's pressure, Denise silently cries and the boss interferes in favor of his employee thus breaking up with his girlfriend.
At first sight, Denise has hidden behind her tears to get protection, something we feminists hate about old fashon submissive ladies. So Zola appears as if he failed us (yeah I know he never promised to defend woman's status in the modern world but when you are the reader then you judge a book according to your own mentality by comparison).
Anyway, a second look at this paragraph makes us reconsider; the situation is actually very natural. In the business the employees are the weakest link. Trust me, I know what I'm talking about. The boss might know that you are right, but you'll always be the one demanded to make all the compromises. So in other terms, Denise was literally helpless. And when the pressure was big enough crying is the only way to do it. Of course the ideal thing is to be able to resist for ever, but in fact, people can be very mean and resisting without fighting back can be so humiliating and draining that it can break you down.
So again, Zola wins, he made a natural story.
I only started reading it this week. To my surprise I was totally absorbed by his style of writing! I was amazed by the way he described everything. He has this way of simply penetrating people, of seeing things from inside. Everything about his writing fascinated me. The first day I read 130 pages, the second 160 and the third the remaining 260 pages. That deprived me from a lot of the story's pleasure, because when I arrived to the last 60 pages my mind was totally depleted and I was totally unable to visualise and enjoy the descriptive sequence. But I was so eager to see the end of the story, the extremist part of my character took care of the rest.
The events of the story take place in a boutique. It's all about the shopping passion of women. The surprise in all this is that this choice of subject contradicts the general gender segregation. Men often whine about how they simply don't get the point of shopping about how women can invest so much emotions and money on such futile extravagance. Zola however simply centered his whole story on this. And he seemed to know what he was talking about, even though it was an artistic view of the subject, after all the boutique is often called a temple for the women's desires, the owner of the store often sees his store, and its success, as an means of dominance, his dominance on women who become slaves in there own temple. Great care is put to describe there way of touching and examining the cloth and textiles. Shopping becomes a mystic experience. Now I might not be the best representative of the female shopping frenzy but I think I am woman enough to know that Zola on this subject isn't so wrong.
A strong pillar in the story is the human dynamic relationships. The idea isn't so innovative itself. A woman that arrives to Paris to find a job in order to support her 2 younger brothers after the death of her parents takes the only job available and makes a very difficult start. The story isn't so centered on her, but she is the heroine of this story. And there is a lot of description of the emotions of everybody, very detailed.
The narration is also interesting, the story is strong up until the last 10 pages I was still wonder what will happen. You see, the problem with most stories is that is only pivots around one hero, or couple of heroes. There is the center and the rest of the world is organised in a web of foes and subordinate allies. The allies are good but they are obviously second place. In this story things seem different; the line of events is so realistic. There is a confusion of different emotions, different people, simply an interaction!
Now I can't really say I am satisfied with the finishing of the story, not to mention there is no physical contact, which is normal for that era lol.
What's more interesting in a good story is what you can guess about the culture and view of the writer on the base of his book. Take his Heroine for example Denise, she is naturally portrayed in a very unusual manor. Well, unusual would mean: unusual in our own standards.
Ok first things first, according to au bonheur des Dames Mss perfect, represented by Denise, is not pretty, but she has a charm, which is pretty sweet and innovative since, afer all, women were always the gender discriminated for its beauty before.
On the other hand, Denise is a very silent and sensitive person, she is extremely poor and she has the responsibility of her two younger brothers, and she assumes her responsibility with great humility and acceptance. She doesn't revolt and she even looks submissive in some occasions. Which is something that feminists usually refuse, a man idealises the weakness and humility of women is looking for a submissive wife. And Zola seems to be a very revolutionary man in most of his views all through his story.
So before judging look closer at his work. Denise is not submissive, she is simply not confrontational. All through the story she achieved her goals without war, she was excessively idealistic but not in an ugly boring way.
Example:
At a certain point of the story, Denise is called for the house of her boss' girlfriend (the boss is having soft feelings for Denise and his girlfriend knows it) and this woman starts a mean maneuver to humiliate Denise in front of the boss. Denise doesn't fight back and eventually, under the woman's pressure, Denise silently cries and the boss interferes in favor of his employee thus breaking up with his girlfriend.
At first sight, Denise has hidden behind her tears to get protection, something we feminists hate about old fashon submissive ladies. So Zola appears as if he failed us (yeah I know he never promised to defend woman's status in the modern world but when you are the reader then you judge a book according to your own mentality by comparison).
Anyway, a second look at this paragraph makes us reconsider; the situation is actually very natural. In the business the employees are the weakest link. Trust me, I know what I'm talking about. The boss might know that you are right, but you'll always be the one demanded to make all the compromises. So in other terms, Denise was literally helpless. And when the pressure was big enough crying is the only way to do it. Of course the ideal thing is to be able to resist for ever, but in fact, people can be very mean and resisting without fighting back can be so humiliating and draining that it can break you down.
So again, Zola wins, he made a natural story.
WHat you MIGHT find while digging up old files
This article appeared in Science et vie #947 in August 1996:
It is in French and I couldn't find the stamina to translate it (especially if you consider my mediocre capacity in translating) so I just past it here, you can easily skip it by scrolling down
Génétique
Les Basques avant tout le monde
Tout autant que sa langue, l'origine du peuple basque demeure mystérieuse. Forme-t-il la population la plus ancienne d'Europe occidentale ? Les découvertes de l'anthropologie moléculaire permettent de le supposer.
par Alexandre DOROZYNSKI
On savait déjà que les Basques ont des groupes sanguins et des marqueurs de protéines très particuliers, et qu'ils sont les seuls en Europe occidentale à parler une langue qui n'est pas d'origine indo-européenne. Une enquête d'anthropologie moléculaire portant sur plusieurs centaines d'hommes montre aujourd'hui que la majorité des Basques possèdent dans leurs chromosomes une séquence génétique qui ne se retrouve que dans une minorité de populations voisines de l'Europe occidentale, en France, en Espagne, en Italie et au Portugal.
L'étude indique que les Basques forment la population la plus ancienne de l'Europe de l'Ouest. Elle a résisté mieux que toute autre aux brassages génétiques qui ont transformé le continent depuis la « révolution néolithique » , c'est-à-dire depuis l'apparition de l'agriculture au Moyen-Orient, il y a une dizaine de milliers d'années.
L'anthropologie moléculaire permet, d'après la distribution de particularités génétiques chez des individus vivants, de dresser leur arbre généalogique et, parfois, de retrouver leur origine géographique. Le Pr Gérard Lucotte, de l'Institut international d'anthropologie, à Paris, étudie depuis plusieurs années les particularités du chromosome Y, dit sexuel, qui n'existe que chez les hommes. Ils sont en effet dotés d'un chromosome Y et d'un chromosome X, alors que le sexe féminin est caractérisé par deux chromosomes X.
Le chromosome Y contient de très nombreuses séquences d'ADN (acide désoxyribonucléique) non codant, c'est-à-dire n'entraînant aucune synthèse de protéines. Ces séquences non codantes sont transmises par le père à ses enfants mâles exclusivement - puisque les filles n'ont pas de chromosome Y.
Cartes d'identité chromosomique
Le Pr Lucotte a recherché dans les chromosomes Y des séquences - dites polymorphes - situées au même endroit (locus) du chromosome, mais pouvant comporter des combinaisons de bases d'ADN différentes d'un individu à l'autre. Chaque combinaison de ces séquences est appelée haplotype. Le haplotype est donc un ensemble de séquences de marqueurs génétiques, transmis en bloc, comme un gène, de père en fils (sauf mutation, qui est un événement rare). L'accumulation de certains haplotypes dans une population lui confère une identité génétique.
Gérard Lucotte a d'abord identifié, dans plusieurs groupes de la population française, seize haplotypes différents, numérotés de I à XVI, pour ce locus du chromosome Y. Après avoir comparé la distribution de ces haplotypes chez plusieurs centaines d'individus de sept populations d'Europe occidentale (Barcelone, Grasse, Lisbonne, Milan, Montpellier, Nancy, Paris), il a constaté qu'un certain haplotype (le XV) est le plus répandu en France, en Italie, en Espagne et au Portugal : 41 % des individus le possèdent. Ce même haplotype est encore plus fréquent chez les Basques : 72,2 % d'entre eux le possèdent. En revanche, très peu de Basques ont le haplotype XII, pourtant répandu en Europe du Sud, et pratiquement aucun Basque ne possède les haplotypes VII et VIII, fréquents dans les populations du Moyen-Orient.
Pour la plupart des autres haplotypes étudiés, la distance génétique (c'est-à-dire la différence, en termes de pourcentage) entre les Basques et les non-Basques était plus importante que la distance entre les sept groupes non basques. La distance génétique entre les hommes de Barcelone, Grasse, Lisbonne, Milan, Montpellier, Nancy et Paris ne dépasse pas 3 %. La distance génétique des Basques est de 8 % avec les Milanais et les Parisiens, et de 6 % avec les Montpelliérains et les Nancéiens (voir le schéma).
Les Européens de l'Ouest, fait remarquer le Pr Lucotte, sont génétiquement proches les uns des autres, à deux exceptions près : les Lapons, d'origine mongole, qui vivent dans le Nord des pays scandinaves, et les Basques. Mais les Lapons sont des Asiatiques qui habitent l'Europe, alors que les Basques sont des Européens de souche.
« Ces résultats établissent que le haplotype XV est le haplotype ancestral en Europe occidentale » , écrit Gérard Lucotte dans son étude (menée en collaboration avec le professeur de biomathématique Serge Hazout), qui vient d'être publiée dans le Journal of Molecular Evolution.
En outre, la quasi-absence des haplotypes XII, VII et VIII (venus d'Afrique du Nord et du Moyen-Orient) confirme que les Basques ont conservé une grande partie d'un capital génétique ancestral, en dépit des migrations et des invasions successives en provenance de l'est et du sud. Cette constatation permet d'étayer l'une des hypothèses concernant l'origine de ce peuple. Les Basques, qui sont aujourd'hui quelque 3 millions, répartis sur une superficie d'environ 20 000 km2 en France et en Espagne, seraient les descendants les plus directs de ces artistes de l'âge de pierre qui, il y a une vingtaine de milliers d'années, ont orné de peintures merveilleuses les parois des grottes de Lascaux et d'Altamira.
L'histoire des Basques est mal connue. Les historiens de l'Antiquité évoquent les peuples implantés dans le triangle Pyrénées-Garonne-océan Atlantique : les Vascones en Navarre, les Varduli en Guipùzcoa et les Caristii en Biscaye. Au temps des Romains, ils se démarquent des autres populations en rebaptisant leur pays Novempopulanie - « pays des neuf peuples » . Les Navarrais, successeurs des Vascones, opposent une résistance farouche aux envahisseurs wisigoths, francs, musulmans, normands. Ce sont les Basques, et non les Maures, qui, en 778, déciment l'arrière-garde de l'armée de Charlemagne, lors de la légendaire embuscade de Roncevaux, où mourut Roland. Les Basques ne sont christianisés qu'au Xe siècle.
Leurs traditions ont vraisemblablement contribué à la conservation du patrimoine génétique ancien identifié par le Pr Lucotte : solidarité ethnique, permanence des cellules familiales, transmission des biens (la ferme, appelée caserio) à un seul héritier.
Sous l'Ancien Régime, les provinces basques bénéficiaient d'un statut privilégié : absence de servage, libertés garanties par des coutumes écrites, les « vieilles lois » , et par les assemblées populaires locales. Leur rêve d'autonomie s'évanouit après la Révolution, en France, et, en Espagne, après la défaite des carlistes (partisans de don Carlos, fils de Charles IV et prétendant conservateur au trône d'Espagne) en 1878.
La langue basque (en basque, euskera), non indo-européenne, est absolument unique au milieu des langues romanes (toutes d'origine indo-européenne) parlées alentour. Jules César et le géographe grec Strabon, qui visita l'Empire romain au début de notre ère, la décrivaient déjà comme très différente de la langue des Gaulois. Sa syntaxe et sa structure sont très particulières : aucun des efforts entrepris pour relier le basque à d'autres groupes linguistiques n'a abouti de façon convaincante.
On a également supposé que le basque est issu de (ou apparenté à) la langue des anciens Ibères, peuple dont la civilisation s'est épanouie à partir du vie siècle av. J.-C., au contact des Grecs et des Phéniciens, dont les navires sillonnaient la Méditerranée. On connaît l'existence de la langue ibère par des légendes de monnaies frappées au IIIe siècle av. J.-C., inscriptions partiellement rédigées en grec mais aussi dans un alphabet de vingt-huit caractères comprenant quelques lettres empruntées au grec et au phénicien, mais dont la plupart sont d'origine inconnue. En dépit de quelques ressemblances entre basque et ibère, la maîtrise du basque ne permet pas de comprendre l'ibère.
A la lumière des données de l'anthropologie moléculaire, il est tentant d'imaginer l'évolution du peuple basque depuis l'installation en Europe des premiers Homo sapiens, qui ont cohabité avec les hommes de Neandertal (la sous-espèce Homo sapiens neandertalensis a disparu vers 35000 avant notre ère). Aux environs de 8500 av. J.-C., apparurent au Moyen-Orient les premières techniques agricoles - culture, élevage. Des groupes humains quittèrent la Mésopotamie vers 7500 av. J.-C., à la recherche de nouvelles terres agricoles pour nourrir une population croissante. Ils auraient atteint les rivages de l'Atlantique vers 4000 av. J.-C. Installés au pied des Pyrénées, dans une région boisée au climat doux et humide, les « proto-Basques » , selon l'hypothèse de Gérard Lucotte, auraient commencé à pratiquer l'élevage, tissé des liens familiaux étroits et fondé des villages. Leur cohésion aurait ralenti la pénétration des gènes venus d'ailleurs.
Résistants au brassage
Le peuple basque a conservé la plus grande part de son capital génétique ancestral, malgré les brassages génétiques qui ont transformé l'Europe pendant des millénaires.
Science & Vie N°947, Août 96, page 52
The Basque people (for those of you who wish to know more about it) are a very closed society that has been very resistant to foreign invasion of Europe, they refused the Latin alphabet, and they kept there own society. There territory extends to the rocky region between France and Spain, they are most of all famous for there terrorist actions in Spain, there separatist organisation ETA is on the terrorist organisations' list.
Apparently, and according to this article, the Basque are very distinguished with there Genetic bagage. Now without going into the genetic details that will certainly bore you to death, what can be said in simple words is that the research was focused on certain parts of the Y Chromosome, and as a result they concluded that the genetic distribution in this region is different then the rest of Europe, and most precisely then the rest of France. Now be careful this study does not, in any circumstances, say that there is a Basque Gene or anything, just a genetic distance, divergence.
Which takes me to MY center of interest. Many times in my life I have heard talking about the Phoenician Gene, and many times I heard people say, 3an jad! they found it! it's scientifically proven. Now when I was 10 or 12 I was unable to answer these pretences, I didn't argue with anyone (I never argued with anyone) but I wasn't convinced. When I became a biology student especially in the last couple of years, it became more and more obvious to me that this theory is simply impossible. And this my friends is the final proof.
The Basque people are FAMOUS for there introversion. They are actually more closed than the jews, they were geographically, socially and politically isolated. After all they managed to preserve there own language when the Celts failed to do so, they are still closed until now. In addition properties are only transferred to the elder son, resulting in more genetic purification.
The shock in this situation is that they have a different Distribution of genes, they simply don't have there specific gene.
Let's compare it to the Lebanese or Phoenician situation:
As a result of these factors, and probably many other factors that I am not aware of, the Lebanese panorama is to diverse and mixed up, we have people from all ethnicities and groups, we have blondes, brunettes and dark people, everything's passable here.
The concept of a Phoenician gene is IMPOSSIBLE. We are simply too diverse, there is no Lebanese group that can pretend to be genetically pure, or genetically more Lebanese than the other. And in fact that's the point of this whole concept, to find a gene that would become a proof of Lebanisation. To say I am more Lebanese than you are, because we simply can't possibly agree on what it's to be Lebanese. In case you didn't know, in our constitution Lebanon's not even an Arab country, in 1943 the Lebanese independence forces said "Lebanon is a country with an Arab façade" in order to appease the Maronite Lebanese against the growing Arab Unity ideologies...
It's crazy to be Lebanese, so exotic and unrealistic.
It is in French and I couldn't find the stamina to translate it (especially if you consider my mediocre capacity in translating) so I just past it here, you can easily skip it by scrolling down
Génétique
Les Basques avant tout le monde
Tout autant que sa langue, l'origine du peuple basque demeure mystérieuse. Forme-t-il la population la plus ancienne d'Europe occidentale ? Les découvertes de l'anthropologie moléculaire permettent de le supposer.
par Alexandre DOROZYNSKI
On savait déjà que les Basques ont des groupes sanguins et des marqueurs de protéines très particuliers, et qu'ils sont les seuls en Europe occidentale à parler une langue qui n'est pas d'origine indo-européenne. Une enquête d'anthropologie moléculaire portant sur plusieurs centaines d'hommes montre aujourd'hui que la majorité des Basques possèdent dans leurs chromosomes une séquence génétique qui ne se retrouve que dans une minorité de populations voisines de l'Europe occidentale, en France, en Espagne, en Italie et au Portugal.
L'étude indique que les Basques forment la population la plus ancienne de l'Europe de l'Ouest. Elle a résisté mieux que toute autre aux brassages génétiques qui ont transformé le continent depuis la « révolution néolithique » , c'est-à-dire depuis l'apparition de l'agriculture au Moyen-Orient, il y a une dizaine de milliers d'années.
L'anthropologie moléculaire permet, d'après la distribution de particularités génétiques chez des individus vivants, de dresser leur arbre généalogique et, parfois, de retrouver leur origine géographique. Le Pr Gérard Lucotte, de l'Institut international d'anthropologie, à Paris, étudie depuis plusieurs années les particularités du chromosome Y, dit sexuel, qui n'existe que chez les hommes. Ils sont en effet dotés d'un chromosome Y et d'un chromosome X, alors que le sexe féminin est caractérisé par deux chromosomes X.
Le chromosome Y contient de très nombreuses séquences d'ADN (acide désoxyribonucléique) non codant, c'est-à-dire n'entraînant aucune synthèse de protéines. Ces séquences non codantes sont transmises par le père à ses enfants mâles exclusivement - puisque les filles n'ont pas de chromosome Y.
Cartes d'identité chromosomique
Le Pr Lucotte a recherché dans les chromosomes Y des séquences - dites polymorphes - situées au même endroit (locus) du chromosome, mais pouvant comporter des combinaisons de bases d'ADN différentes d'un individu à l'autre. Chaque combinaison de ces séquences est appelée haplotype. Le haplotype est donc un ensemble de séquences de marqueurs génétiques, transmis en bloc, comme un gène, de père en fils (sauf mutation, qui est un événement rare). L'accumulation de certains haplotypes dans une population lui confère une identité génétique.
Gérard Lucotte a d'abord identifié, dans plusieurs groupes de la population française, seize haplotypes différents, numérotés de I à XVI, pour ce locus du chromosome Y. Après avoir comparé la distribution de ces haplotypes chez plusieurs centaines d'individus de sept populations d'Europe occidentale (Barcelone, Grasse, Lisbonne, Milan, Montpellier, Nancy, Paris), il a constaté qu'un certain haplotype (le XV) est le plus répandu en France, en Italie, en Espagne et au Portugal : 41 % des individus le possèdent. Ce même haplotype est encore plus fréquent chez les Basques : 72,2 % d'entre eux le possèdent. En revanche, très peu de Basques ont le haplotype XII, pourtant répandu en Europe du Sud, et pratiquement aucun Basque ne possède les haplotypes VII et VIII, fréquents dans les populations du Moyen-Orient.
Pour la plupart des autres haplotypes étudiés, la distance génétique (c'est-à-dire la différence, en termes de pourcentage) entre les Basques et les non-Basques était plus importante que la distance entre les sept groupes non basques. La distance génétique entre les hommes de Barcelone, Grasse, Lisbonne, Milan, Montpellier, Nancy et Paris ne dépasse pas 3 %. La distance génétique des Basques est de 8 % avec les Milanais et les Parisiens, et de 6 % avec les Montpelliérains et les Nancéiens (voir le schéma).
Les Européens de l'Ouest, fait remarquer le Pr Lucotte, sont génétiquement proches les uns des autres, à deux exceptions près : les Lapons, d'origine mongole, qui vivent dans le Nord des pays scandinaves, et les Basques. Mais les Lapons sont des Asiatiques qui habitent l'Europe, alors que les Basques sont des Européens de souche.
« Ces résultats établissent que le haplotype XV est le haplotype ancestral en Europe occidentale » , écrit Gérard Lucotte dans son étude (menée en collaboration avec le professeur de biomathématique Serge Hazout), qui vient d'être publiée dans le Journal of Molecular Evolution.
En outre, la quasi-absence des haplotypes XII, VII et VIII (venus d'Afrique du Nord et du Moyen-Orient) confirme que les Basques ont conservé une grande partie d'un capital génétique ancestral, en dépit des migrations et des invasions successives en provenance de l'est et du sud. Cette constatation permet d'étayer l'une des hypothèses concernant l'origine de ce peuple. Les Basques, qui sont aujourd'hui quelque 3 millions, répartis sur une superficie d'environ 20 000 km2 en France et en Espagne, seraient les descendants les plus directs de ces artistes de l'âge de pierre qui, il y a une vingtaine de milliers d'années, ont orné de peintures merveilleuses les parois des grottes de Lascaux et d'Altamira.
L'histoire des Basques est mal connue. Les historiens de l'Antiquité évoquent les peuples implantés dans le triangle Pyrénées-Garonne-océan Atlantique : les Vascones en Navarre, les Varduli en Guipùzcoa et les Caristii en Biscaye. Au temps des Romains, ils se démarquent des autres populations en rebaptisant leur pays Novempopulanie - « pays des neuf peuples » . Les Navarrais, successeurs des Vascones, opposent une résistance farouche aux envahisseurs wisigoths, francs, musulmans, normands. Ce sont les Basques, et non les Maures, qui, en 778, déciment l'arrière-garde de l'armée de Charlemagne, lors de la légendaire embuscade de Roncevaux, où mourut Roland. Les Basques ne sont christianisés qu'au Xe siècle.
Leurs traditions ont vraisemblablement contribué à la conservation du patrimoine génétique ancien identifié par le Pr Lucotte : solidarité ethnique, permanence des cellules familiales, transmission des biens (la ferme, appelée caserio) à un seul héritier.
Sous l'Ancien Régime, les provinces basques bénéficiaient d'un statut privilégié : absence de servage, libertés garanties par des coutumes écrites, les « vieilles lois » , et par les assemblées populaires locales. Leur rêve d'autonomie s'évanouit après la Révolution, en France, et, en Espagne, après la défaite des carlistes (partisans de don Carlos, fils de Charles IV et prétendant conservateur au trône d'Espagne) en 1878.
La langue basque (en basque, euskera), non indo-européenne, est absolument unique au milieu des langues romanes (toutes d'origine indo-européenne) parlées alentour. Jules César et le géographe grec Strabon, qui visita l'Empire romain au début de notre ère, la décrivaient déjà comme très différente de la langue des Gaulois. Sa syntaxe et sa structure sont très particulières : aucun des efforts entrepris pour relier le basque à d'autres groupes linguistiques n'a abouti de façon convaincante.
On a également supposé que le basque est issu de (ou apparenté à) la langue des anciens Ibères, peuple dont la civilisation s'est épanouie à partir du vie siècle av. J.-C., au contact des Grecs et des Phéniciens, dont les navires sillonnaient la Méditerranée. On connaît l'existence de la langue ibère par des légendes de monnaies frappées au IIIe siècle av. J.-C., inscriptions partiellement rédigées en grec mais aussi dans un alphabet de vingt-huit caractères comprenant quelques lettres empruntées au grec et au phénicien, mais dont la plupart sont d'origine inconnue. En dépit de quelques ressemblances entre basque et ibère, la maîtrise du basque ne permet pas de comprendre l'ibère.
A la lumière des données de l'anthropologie moléculaire, il est tentant d'imaginer l'évolution du peuple basque depuis l'installation en Europe des premiers Homo sapiens, qui ont cohabité avec les hommes de Neandertal (la sous-espèce Homo sapiens neandertalensis a disparu vers 35000 avant notre ère). Aux environs de 8500 av. J.-C., apparurent au Moyen-Orient les premières techniques agricoles - culture, élevage. Des groupes humains quittèrent la Mésopotamie vers 7500 av. J.-C., à la recherche de nouvelles terres agricoles pour nourrir une population croissante. Ils auraient atteint les rivages de l'Atlantique vers 4000 av. J.-C. Installés au pied des Pyrénées, dans une région boisée au climat doux et humide, les « proto-Basques » , selon l'hypothèse de Gérard Lucotte, auraient commencé à pratiquer l'élevage, tissé des liens familiaux étroits et fondé des villages. Leur cohésion aurait ralenti la pénétration des gènes venus d'ailleurs.
Résistants au brassage
Le peuple basque a conservé la plus grande part de son capital génétique ancestral, malgré les brassages génétiques qui ont transformé l'Europe pendant des millénaires.
Science & Vie N°947, Août 96, page 52
The Basque people (for those of you who wish to know more about it) are a very closed society that has been very resistant to foreign invasion of Europe, they refused the Latin alphabet, and they kept there own society. There territory extends to the rocky region between France and Spain, they are most of all famous for there terrorist actions in Spain, there separatist organisation ETA is on the terrorist organisations' list.
Apparently, and according to this article, the Basque are very distinguished with there Genetic bagage. Now without going into the genetic details that will certainly bore you to death, what can be said in simple words is that the research was focused on certain parts of the Y Chromosome, and as a result they concluded that the genetic distribution in this region is different then the rest of Europe, and most precisely then the rest of France. Now be careful this study does not, in any circumstances, say that there is a Basque Gene or anything, just a genetic distance, divergence.
Which takes me to MY center of interest. Many times in my life I have heard talking about the Phoenician Gene, and many times I heard people say, 3an jad! they found it! it's scientifically proven. Now when I was 10 or 12 I was unable to answer these pretences, I didn't argue with anyone (I never argued with anyone) but I wasn't convinced. When I became a biology student especially in the last couple of years, it became more and more obvious to me that this theory is simply impossible. And this my friends is the final proof.
The Basque people are FAMOUS for there introversion. They are actually more closed than the jews, they were geographically, socially and politically isolated. After all they managed to preserve there own language when the Celts failed to do so, they are still closed until now. In addition properties are only transferred to the elder son, resulting in more genetic purification.
The shock in this situation is that they have a different Distribution of genes, they simply don't have there specific gene.
Let's compare it to the Lebanese or Phoenician situation:
- The Phoenicians were never closed, they were always bonded to there close and distant environment with commercial and matrimonial interactions.
- The Phoenician culture was always tolerant to occupation, sort of a pacific policy. They always accommodated to live with occupation. And when a nation occupies another one, the occupying force tends to inseminate some of its own people in the newly conquered area, and to give them advantages against the others.
- The modern Lebanese society cannot, under any circumstances, be assimilated to be the descendance of the Phoenicians. And especially not on the Biological/Genetic bases, even at the Phoenician times there were many other ethnics, there were many occupants and above that all, Lebanon today is the home of many minorities that came here to escape the political and/or religious persecutions. For example the Maronites originate from Syria and might be assimilated to the Syriac/Aramaic culture.
- Even the modern Lebanese society is still very opened to external marriage and everything
As a result of these factors, and probably many other factors that I am not aware of, the Lebanese panorama is to diverse and mixed up, we have people from all ethnicities and groups, we have blondes, brunettes and dark people, everything's passable here.
The concept of a Phoenician gene is IMPOSSIBLE. We are simply too diverse, there is no Lebanese group that can pretend to be genetically pure, or genetically more Lebanese than the other. And in fact that's the point of this whole concept, to find a gene that would become a proof of Lebanisation. To say I am more Lebanese than you are, because we simply can't possibly agree on what it's to be Lebanese. In case you didn't know, in our constitution Lebanon's not even an Arab country, in 1943 the Lebanese independence forces said "Lebanon is a country with an Arab façade" in order to appease the Maronite Lebanese against the growing Arab Unity ideologies...
It's crazy to be Lebanese, so exotic and unrealistic.
Franjiyeh's master piece:
I suppose Slaimen Franjiyeh has been reading a lot about Lenin and Hitler, with only a slight difference, those two had enough power to put there words into actions. In his last epic adventure he was attacking and shouting like a spoiled brat. Now I won't go into analysing his words or explaining all the points, but I feel forced to talk about one thing he said.
In the course of his speech he called Saad eddine el-Hariri a Ghulam غلام. Ghulam in general means the young person, in the past it meant the young slave. The funny part is that 5 years ago, our Arab literrature teacher was talking to us (well actually you could say he was explaining it only to me since I was the only one who wasn't snoring, I secretly loved his course) about the Abbasside era.
This era was most famous for the political stability, expansion continued, money overwhelmed the central power, history was rewritten (that's why they are seen as the golden age of Islam) and the Coran as we know it was written.
Money, Stability and Greek influence resulted in a lot of sexual liberation among others. And new phenomena made surface, the Ghulam phenomena, a sort of male concubine. Such practice is very unusual for us today but it wasn't that weird in the past, it was very encouraged in the Greek culture and very tolerated in the Roman one and it can be traced in all societies, a sort of dominance by sex. Anyway the point is that Franjiyeh actually called Saad a Gholam!
Now considering the fact that this part of his speech didn't get much outrage, I am tempted to believe that he meant it in the sense of a simple slave or kid. But in fact in our Lebanese Dialect we almost never use this expression, we use walad or maybe some other expression but not Ghulam. In addition, this word came in the midst of Franjiyeh's assault on Saad's family history, he was saying things like "no one knows where he came from, we know who we are and our history..." Personally I am inclined to put his words in the less innocent section.
This, ladies and gentlemen, shows how low and broke the self proclaimed Syrian Allies really are.
In the course of his speech he called Saad eddine el-Hariri a Ghulam غلام. Ghulam in general means the young person, in the past it meant the young slave. The funny part is that 5 years ago, our Arab literrature teacher was talking to us (well actually you could say he was explaining it only to me since I was the only one who wasn't snoring, I secretly loved his course) about the Abbasside era.
This era was most famous for the political stability, expansion continued, money overwhelmed the central power, history was rewritten (that's why they are seen as the golden age of Islam) and the Coran as we know it was written.
Money, Stability and Greek influence resulted in a lot of sexual liberation among others. And new phenomena made surface, the Ghulam phenomena, a sort of male concubine. Such practice is very unusual for us today but it wasn't that weird in the past, it was very encouraged in the Greek culture and very tolerated in the Roman one and it can be traced in all societies, a sort of dominance by sex. Anyway the point is that Franjiyeh actually called Saad a Gholam!
Now considering the fact that this part of his speech didn't get much outrage, I am tempted to believe that he meant it in the sense of a simple slave or kid. But in fact in our Lebanese Dialect we almost never use this expression, we use walad or maybe some other expression but not Ghulam. In addition, this word came in the midst of Franjiyeh's assault on Saad's family history, he was saying things like "no one knows where he came from, we know who we are and our history..." Personally I am inclined to put his words in the less innocent section.
This, ladies and gentlemen, shows how low and broke the self proclaimed Syrian Allies really are.
Talking about the single most important bright pretty individual on earth ME
So here's the funny twist, I constantly work on improving myself, I manage to gradually but constantly changing but never improving:
I always praised the importance of being moderate, how people should have a little bit of everything, how extreme measures are usually the cause of a lot of pain and misery. Somehow that always seemed natural to me to seek the wisdom of the ones that came before me. All through my life I never revolted, I always had my own mind but I never talked about it, never wanting to hurt anyone's feelings, being perfectly aware that it's difficult to express one's opinions and feelings, there fore when someone told me something (anything) I respected that and I often agreed so that I would prevent them feeling bad. This made me a very easy going and nice person to have around, always calm, and to be perfectly frank, everybody felt sorry for me, because I was too quiet and too shy, and I knew that's how they felt.
I was always desperate to be smart, more precisely to be wise. Maybe because I failed to be anything else. I had built my life on avoiding mistakes. And since I always compared myself to my brother, who was a wild revolutionnary genius, and I always tried to do the right thing. I remember when I was 5 or 6 I honestly believed my brother was evil, that he will go to hell one day, while I will go to heaven, I guess I didn't know back then how much I loved and needed him and most of all I was totally consumed with jealousy. Whatever it was, for me he was the force of change that destroys the beauty of age, he loved modern music while I saw modern music as a destruction of the old and classical music; he would try everything and break every rule, while I drained my deepest satisfaction from my sense of conformism. I predicted his failure, and for long he seemed to be heading straight to his loss. His school achievements were very mediocre, but he always managed pass through. He broke all rules but he always managed to win everybody's heart.
As for me... Well I was never as smart as I wanted to be, and most importantly I was never noticed. Yes that is exactly what used to kill me, I did better than him in school, I always did what people wanted me to do, I was always perfect (if compared to him) but no one ever saw me! For years I built my web of social life as an annex to his. When it came to socialising with people my age, I was always Zouzou's sister, even today people often identify me with my brother, I am still Zouzou's sister.
I felt I had to live my life away from his shadow if I wanted to be anyone, at least if I wanted to be anything more than his sister. And what scared me even more was that as I dissociated myself from him, as we started living in different biotopes, I realised that I was creating new Zouzous to be jealous from. It was most flagrant when I came to know one of my best friends, we called her Zana (that's her nickname) and she was so much like me, I almost felt as if I found my twin. But that was so ephemere soon enough trouble appeared. Among those problems was my terrible jealousy of her, I often said to myself that those who come to know me MIGHT like me, because I was simply different, but those who both of us won't even notice me, because she was just as special as I was, only better, she was prettier and more confident and more socially OK, I was better than her in school, but only slightly. Eventually, and for many reasons, I stopped wanting to see her or anyone else, at that time I was crossing the line toward a new world. I was discovering Becca.
Yes I was becoming me, finding the small things that made me who I am, I had my first summer job, I was starting to rethink everything under the light of a knew knowledge of the world. I stopped wanting to say I am sorry, and I stopped seeking guilt sources. I decided that Jesus was a happy God and I believed God can speak to my heart and that I have inside me all what jesus wants from me, what feels good is good. It is useless to say sorry all the time because I am not mistaking all the time. My little brother was giving me so much self confidence, i saw the way he makes mistakes and how we fixed his mistakes, how that never broke him. And to top that all, Cupid gave me a little visit and for once in my life I felt pretty despite the ugly package. You could say I simply changed directions in life, not necessarily to the best, but I was satisfied of the overall results.
However, I discovered something about myself; I am so impulsive, despite my strong belief in rationalism and the importance of balance. MY internet addiction was a flagrant proof of that. You see I was instantly hooked with the beauty of the web, it was weird and scary. I feared I might become a junky or something, and in fact that was exactly was I was, I was totally addicted. My defenses would never allow me to admit that, and I kept denying it. But then I failed my academic year because I didn't study well and I had to admit it at least to myself, only I kept denying it whenever someone would dare talk to me about it. I kept saying that the problem is not with the internet it was with me, that I wasn't motivated enough, that I simply was a failure that simply can't make it through, I watched everybody go forward with there lives while I was sitting back. I was simply not interested.
And then I couldn't pay for my internet connection, so I stopped it, and the surprise was: I was right when I lied! It was never about the internet, it was about ME!
Don't get me wrong, this is not a good thing, because back then I thought that maybe when I'll no longer surf the internet I'd study more, I was SO wrong. Now for example I spend my time reading! Like what?! I read like an addict, the other day I read 250 pages in one day! It's sick. And here's the funny part, no one thinks it's weird, you see spending 8 hours on the internet is called addiction, reading for 12 hours is being cultivated. SO in fact I am still not studying, but I am doing so with style. If only they knew.
But they don't know and that's the cool part. I can, as always give a big illusion of being an educated person with so much to do with my life, when the only thing that I am interested in is being left in piece.
I always praised the importance of being moderate, how people should have a little bit of everything, how extreme measures are usually the cause of a lot of pain and misery. Somehow that always seemed natural to me to seek the wisdom of the ones that came before me. All through my life I never revolted, I always had my own mind but I never talked about it, never wanting to hurt anyone's feelings, being perfectly aware that it's difficult to express one's opinions and feelings, there fore when someone told me something (anything) I respected that and I often agreed so that I would prevent them feeling bad. This made me a very easy going and nice person to have around, always calm, and to be perfectly frank, everybody felt sorry for me, because I was too quiet and too shy, and I knew that's how they felt.
I was always desperate to be smart, more precisely to be wise. Maybe because I failed to be anything else. I had built my life on avoiding mistakes. And since I always compared myself to my brother, who was a wild revolutionnary genius, and I always tried to do the right thing. I remember when I was 5 or 6 I honestly believed my brother was evil, that he will go to hell one day, while I will go to heaven, I guess I didn't know back then how much I loved and needed him and most of all I was totally consumed with jealousy. Whatever it was, for me he was the force of change that destroys the beauty of age, he loved modern music while I saw modern music as a destruction of the old and classical music; he would try everything and break every rule, while I drained my deepest satisfaction from my sense of conformism. I predicted his failure, and for long he seemed to be heading straight to his loss. His school achievements were very mediocre, but he always managed pass through. He broke all rules but he always managed to win everybody's heart.
As for me... Well I was never as smart as I wanted to be, and most importantly I was never noticed. Yes that is exactly what used to kill me, I did better than him in school, I always did what people wanted me to do, I was always perfect (if compared to him) but no one ever saw me! For years I built my web of social life as an annex to his. When it came to socialising with people my age, I was always Zouzou's sister, even today people often identify me with my brother, I am still Zouzou's sister.
I felt I had to live my life away from his shadow if I wanted to be anyone, at least if I wanted to be anything more than his sister. And what scared me even more was that as I dissociated myself from him, as we started living in different biotopes, I realised that I was creating new Zouzous to be jealous from. It was most flagrant when I came to know one of my best friends, we called her Zana (that's her nickname) and she was so much like me, I almost felt as if I found my twin. But that was so ephemere soon enough trouble appeared. Among those problems was my terrible jealousy of her, I often said to myself that those who come to know me MIGHT like me, because I was simply different, but those who both of us won't even notice me, because she was just as special as I was, only better, she was prettier and more confident and more socially OK, I was better than her in school, but only slightly. Eventually, and for many reasons, I stopped wanting to see her or anyone else, at that time I was crossing the line toward a new world. I was discovering Becca.
Yes I was becoming me, finding the small things that made me who I am, I had my first summer job, I was starting to rethink everything under the light of a knew knowledge of the world. I stopped wanting to say I am sorry, and I stopped seeking guilt sources. I decided that Jesus was a happy God and I believed God can speak to my heart and that I have inside me all what jesus wants from me, what feels good is good. It is useless to say sorry all the time because I am not mistaking all the time. My little brother was giving me so much self confidence, i saw the way he makes mistakes and how we fixed his mistakes, how that never broke him. And to top that all, Cupid gave me a little visit and for once in my life I felt pretty despite the ugly package. You could say I simply changed directions in life, not necessarily to the best, but I was satisfied of the overall results.
However, I discovered something about myself; I am so impulsive, despite my strong belief in rationalism and the importance of balance. MY internet addiction was a flagrant proof of that. You see I was instantly hooked with the beauty of the web, it was weird and scary. I feared I might become a junky or something, and in fact that was exactly was I was, I was totally addicted. My defenses would never allow me to admit that, and I kept denying it. But then I failed my academic year because I didn't study well and I had to admit it at least to myself, only I kept denying it whenever someone would dare talk to me about it. I kept saying that the problem is not with the internet it was with me, that I wasn't motivated enough, that I simply was a failure that simply can't make it through, I watched everybody go forward with there lives while I was sitting back. I was simply not interested.
And then I couldn't pay for my internet connection, so I stopped it, and the surprise was: I was right when I lied! It was never about the internet, it was about ME!
Don't get me wrong, this is not a good thing, because back then I thought that maybe when I'll no longer surf the internet I'd study more, I was SO wrong. Now for example I spend my time reading! Like what?! I read like an addict, the other day I read 250 pages in one day! It's sick. And here's the funny part, no one thinks it's weird, you see spending 8 hours on the internet is called addiction, reading for 12 hours is being cultivated. SO in fact I am still not studying, but I am doing so with style. If only they knew.
But they don't know and that's the cool part. I can, as always give a big illusion of being an educated person with so much to do with my life, when the only thing that I am interested in is being left in piece.
Monday, July 03, 2006
I didn't want to put a title to this entry but then I thought it'd be cuter to put this long meaningless title
I'm back, this time I didn't have much time to write, but surprisingly I did manage to write 3 entries as usual. But you could say I had a lot to say hehe, I wrote yet another entry concerning Gebran it seems that they'll just not let him rest in peace, and there were another political entry about the Palestinian problem in Lebanon, and finally there is a very unclassifiable entry that mixes Semitic languages, Phoenicians and some about me, I wouldn't recommend it to everyone, it's too close to my own interests and there's a lot of talk about pretty silly stuff.
Note to Jokerman:
The author of the book L'histoire des juifs en France is Philippe Bourdel for Albin Michel.
Note to shlemazl:
I didn't get to read the article you posted I will this week promise!
Note to Jokerman:
The author of the book L'histoire des juifs en France is Philippe Bourdel for Albin Michel.
Note to shlemazl:
I didn't get to read the article you posted I will this week promise!
The final touch of humiliation
Gebran Tueni's last appearance in the Lebanese Parliament was an impressive one, well in fact he was impressive every time he took the chance to say anything. He was the kind of people that don't just say anything and everything on his mind, overestimating himself, as Bashir Gemayel; but on the other hand he was not the kind of people that would talk against his beliefs simply because it's safer *Winks at the Hariri Block*. When he felt he can't express his opinions then he said nothing and given half a chance he'd say the right word at the right place. And that day in the Parliament the right word was craving to be said, and Gebran said it whole, he was denouncing the neglect of the Lebanese authorities towards the remains of people around the old Syrian interrogation centers. In fact the bones of human beings were simply roasting under the burning sun, I think they are still Roasting so. He was reminding people that the Assad Regime was the Author of these acts, that the responsibility of the Lebanese Parliament toward those martyrs exceeded its responsibility toward the Syrian/Lebanese fraternal relationships.
For those who don't know about it, around the old Syrian centers, bones and remains of human beings covered with some earth. Some were very old remains, dating from the Lebanese civil war, others were pretty recent, the 90s, after the end of the Lebanese war. There were bones of adult males in general but there were some women too and kids. When these mass graves were discovered, it left the Lebanese people speechless, not that we didn't know about it, but somehow after the war we simply got used to the Myth of atrocities we all knew that we all did horrific acts, but we didn't want to see it. Maybe it's our way to feel safer, maybe it was a way to keep telling our kids about the ferocious enemies that are waiting in the darkness of our 15 years old truce. Not seeing means that we are free to paint the picture that we want, we can simply say: "we were only defending ourselves; we did nothing without being provoked"
In brief, we just didn't want to see it. But among ourselves we had an ironic smile asking ourselves: "How will the Syrians justify this?" Well very simple. They coldly said it's all in our heads, that the Syrian secret services had nothing to do with it. They said that it's clearly not the Syrians that during the war it was the Lebanese that did all the atrocities, not the Syrians, which we should search for the responsible inside Lebanon
You'd think that the Lebanese would be outraged! That the Parliament would denounce this attitude, that the Hariri Block would demand international aid, that maybe Michel Aoun would shout about it, that Geagea would be the first to declare war, or maybe that Hezbollah would come back to its senses and join the Lebanese block... Some said it was unacceptable, others said that this should be handled rationally and away from the emotional biais... Eventually Gebran was the only one left shouting about it, denouncing this silence, this submission, the called for the bones of the victims, he said that the parents deserved to burry there kids, he said that we owed it to the victims, that this is the ultimate insult...
Now Gebran is dead, he was killed so that he'd shut up. And they had what they wanted, none can no longer here Gebran's voice yelling, somehow his death (along with the ones before him) marked the death of our revolution. Not that I am deploring what we did, or saying we haven't achieved anything, but somehow every revolution ends with the return of the monotony of stupidity.
But it seems today almost as if even destiny worked against Gebran, almost as if the heavens were punishing him for doing the right thing. This week it was declared on TV that some of his remains were buried again. Apparently, when he was killed, his body was scattered around like a broken crystal ball. Most of his body was collected and handed over to the family. but they were in a hurry to reopen the road that some remains were left there, to be discovered a few months later. In fact when the inspectors revisited the crime scene, they found some human remains, some of those belonged to Gebran, the rest were simply unidentified, not sure if they even tried to identify them.
Pretty ironic that he'd end up having his remains roasting in the sun for months, just the way he refused to see others to.
For those who don't know about it, around the old Syrian centers, bones and remains of human beings covered with some earth. Some were very old remains, dating from the Lebanese civil war, others were pretty recent, the 90s, after the end of the Lebanese war. There were bones of adult males in general but there were some women too and kids. When these mass graves were discovered, it left the Lebanese people speechless, not that we didn't know about it, but somehow after the war we simply got used to the Myth of atrocities we all knew that we all did horrific acts, but we didn't want to see it. Maybe it's our way to feel safer, maybe it was a way to keep telling our kids about the ferocious enemies that are waiting in the darkness of our 15 years old truce. Not seeing means that we are free to paint the picture that we want, we can simply say: "we were only defending ourselves; we did nothing without being provoked"
In brief, we just didn't want to see it. But among ourselves we had an ironic smile asking ourselves: "How will the Syrians justify this?" Well very simple. They coldly said it's all in our heads, that the Syrian secret services had nothing to do with it. They said that it's clearly not the Syrians that during the war it was the Lebanese that did all the atrocities, not the Syrians, which we should search for the responsible inside Lebanon
You'd think that the Lebanese would be outraged! That the Parliament would denounce this attitude, that the Hariri Block would demand international aid, that maybe Michel Aoun would shout about it, that Geagea would be the first to declare war, or maybe that Hezbollah would come back to its senses and join the Lebanese block... Some said it was unacceptable, others said that this should be handled rationally and away from the emotional biais... Eventually Gebran was the only one left shouting about it, denouncing this silence, this submission, the called for the bones of the victims, he said that the parents deserved to burry there kids, he said that we owed it to the victims, that this is the ultimate insult...
Now Gebran is dead, he was killed so that he'd shut up. And they had what they wanted, none can no longer here Gebran's voice yelling, somehow his death (along with the ones before him) marked the death of our revolution. Not that I am deploring what we did, or saying we haven't achieved anything, but somehow every revolution ends with the return of the monotony of stupidity.
But it seems today almost as if even destiny worked against Gebran, almost as if the heavens were punishing him for doing the right thing. This week it was declared on TV that some of his remains were buried again. Apparently, when he was killed, his body was scattered around like a broken crystal ball. Most of his body was collected and handed over to the family. but they were in a hurry to reopen the road that some remains were left there, to be discovered a few months later. In fact when the inspectors revisited the crime scene, they found some human remains, some of those belonged to Gebran, the rest were simply unidentified, not sure if they even tried to identify them.
Pretty ironic that he'd end up having his remains roasting in the sun for months, just the way he refused to see others to.
So I've been visiting the CCF very often lately, I have to admit that I find that place more like an oasis. In fact, on Friday, I was all alone at home which is a good thing, but then there were no electricity, which was NOT good. SO I decided to go to Jounieh's CCF, but it was closed because of the summer schedule. So I thought to myself: "So what I'll just go to Beirut, there summer schedule's different. I stayed there for almost 2 hours there, checking the references and reading about different stuff. I even chose 5 books to take home with me. Not surprisingly one was about Phoenicians in general, the second about Phoenician mythology, the third about Etruscans, the fourth about Aramaic Apocrypha, while the fifth was for little G about early humans (he liked it but the book had more success with me, my dad and my elder brother lol). Now when I was checking the shelves I was shocked of the amount of references about the phoenicians, but also with the fact they were all small references nothing exhaustive or detailed. The book about Phoenician Mythology was very simplified, mainly directed maybe toward the European audience that knows nothing about the Phoenician culture. Not that the Europeans don't know about Phoenicians, in fact they were the ones that decrypted the Phoenician alphabet, the only Lebanese archeological excavations were done till very recently with Maurice Chehab (before the civil war) and the Solidere project (after the civil shit war). Other than that it was mainly French efforts, sometimes American (hey maybe that should be Hezbollah's new excuse to attack Americans! They stole our culture, where do you think they got the name of Phoenix from?).
Anyway for all and all, I have to say that the 2 books I have read (Book#1 and Book#2) only left me more depressed about my homeland than I was, maybe the Etruscan book would be make me feel better.
But I have got alot of cool info from all the recent days readings:
Wow, this was probably as close as possible to my own taste and to the line of thinking that I love the most, I am almost 99% I bored you all to death.
Anyway for all and all, I have to say that the 2 books I have read (Book#1 and Book#2) only left me more depressed about my homeland than I was, maybe the Etruscan book would be make me feel better.
But I have got alot of cool info from all the recent days readings:
- Byblos was the Greek name for Jbeil ( I lived near Jbeil for a while and I totally loved this awesome city). Many people love to refer to Jbeil as Byblos, as a sign of singularity. I always thought it would be the Phoenician name for the city, how could I be so STUPID! The name is so obviously NOT phoenician, it's not semitic, we never end names with IS OS US or anything like it... And besides, Byblos is obviously related to books (biblio-) in fact in greek it simply means Books.
The Phoenician name for Jbeil was Gubal which is obviously the origin of the curent name Jbeil, I am not sure if an American/European reader would notice the connexion but for me it's very obvious because in Arabic G and J are very related to each other, in Syriac/Aramaic the third letter of the alphabet, Gomal, is pronounced G (it can also be pronounced differently, غ, but that sound has no Latin equivalent). In the Hebraic alphabet the third letter is Gimmel pronounced G (maybe Shlemazl can correct me if I am mistaking, my knowledge to hebraic is very limited, I never even finished memorising the alphabet). Now in Arabic however it's even cuter the third letter of the modern alphabet is ت or T but there is the an old, unused, way to put the letter in order, the أبجد هوز system, in which the third letter is the ج. No that's not the interesting part, the interesting part is that this letter is very differently pronounced around the Arab world, while we in Lebanon pronounce it as the French J, the Egyptians pronounce it like G and in the gulf it's like the english J, or maybe DJ lol (gulf people are weird haha).
All this to say that J and G are related in the Arabic Language. - The head of the Phoenician Gods wasn't Baal (the latter being the strongest of all Gods), the God of all Gods was EL which is the origin of the word EEL that means God in Aramaic/Syriac, that's where the names Michael (Micha Eel: who's like God) , Gabriel (Gavro Eel: God's Man), Daniel (Dani Eel: God's Judgement), Samuel (Samoo Eel: Who's dedicated to God) and Ismael (Shmo Eel: God has heard; The transliteration of this word is difficult because of the absence of certain sounds in Latin). This is interesting because the Bible kept the name of Baal as the Phoenician God, often associating him with atrocities and demonology, the church kept that legacy to the point where Baal is an official Devil now, but hey Pazuzu remains the cutest Devil, right?
- Away from Phoenicians and there names and stuff, I discovered the meaning of the name Rebecca, apparently it's Hebraic (or maybe derives from the Hebraic) for Together. Now I knew about Rebecca being Isaac's wife or something like that but I was interested to know the meaning of the name. As for the other origin of my name because in fact, Rebecca wasn't officially supposed to be my name, I was named after my grandmother who's name was Rafqa, Rafqa being a local saint, she was declared saint in 2000 and when the file was first opened her name was transliterated to Latin by the name Rebecca, probably because the two names were related or something, because from what I heard Rafqa is an Aramaic name meaning Good company, my source here is my dad who actually learned Syriac for 6 years in school (he used to learn 6 hours of Syriac, 6 hours of French and only 2 hours of Arabic lol), in addition the Arabic word رفقة means company. All three words are close enough to derive one from the other. But the Arabic version of the Bible, the one I had read of course, called Isaac's wife Raheel راحيل, which is transliterated I think to Rachel and not Rebecca, which is confusing!
Wow, this was probably as close as possible to my own taste and to the line of thinking that I love the most, I am almost 99% I bored you all to death.
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