Southern Stockholm Syndrome

If you see the Southern people you’d be shocked, the Shiia seem to be totally supporting Hezbollah, in spite of all the destruction and the misery that they are living. They don’t blame Hezbollah for anything, it’s all Israel’s fault, and it’s the government’s fault. You can really be shocked if you watched the Lebanese TV. In the Southern suburbs of Lebanon (Hezbollah’s lair) most people have deserted the area, those that have chosen to stay are still talking about how Nasrallah will teach those Israelis a lesson. Very often the reporters ask them whether they are scared or anything, some would say yes but that they are willing to die Fida Ssayyed (how should I translate it? it means that they are willing to die for the Sayyed, Sayyed Nasrallah that is of course). Others say No, like that time on LBC, when a reporter had addressed a woman (a typically Hezbollah kind of women, the veil, the look, the severe face, very much like the women you are most likely to see in those pictures from Iran) the woman affirmed that she is not scared at all, as long as the Sayyed heads them then she will remain at her home, that she will resist. And as a final touch of extremism, she pointed out her child in front of her and says: Zgheerna abl kbirna fidaa Ssayyed
In other terms: Our children before us will die for Nasrallah.

Really disgusting. I can’t believe it. How can people think like this? I have a six years old brother and if anything happens to him I would die! I wouldn’t sacrifice him for anything or anyone, I can very easily sacrifice myself, but to sacrifice my own brother is unacceptable, not even with words.

You may think that these people don’t love their children, or maybe that they are less human, but it’s not true. In here we have heard these words so many times that we kind of got used to them. But we still find them revolting. Only to understand these words look closer to the situation, and take a step back in history to the past.


Stepping back to the past

A few millenniums ago, in the Greek males had the right to kill anyone in their family (in theory), the Roman mothers used to have the right to choose which child to keep and which to simply throw away, if the mother used to decide that she didn’t want the child she would simply go to the woods and leave the child in the wilderness, under a tree, the child would either die of dehydration or when a wild beast would come and eat it. The same practice was probably common in Ancient Greece, remember Oedipus, he was left to die on a rock in the desert when the oracle predicted that he would kill his father and marry his mother.

Cruel, right?

No, not exactly. You see, it is commonly known while studying human and animal behaviour, that love is in fact an instinct. It is not as sublime as we portray it to be, it is the modern society that sublimated these feelings. There is a certain dynamic equilibrium between love and durability of the relationship. We all had those break ups that weren’t really break ups, in which love is really carrying, and then for some reason a certain distance separates the two and then love dies. No matter how hard we try to prevent it, love dies and instead a certain hate takes place.

Mother’s love is a little the same, when a mother knows that she only has 50% possibility of keeping her child, she becomes detached. Yes a mother’s love is unconditional but, whether we like it or not, love is not so sublime; we modulate it to our own well-being.

In the demographically exploding Rome women were probably breeding more thus losing more children. Women often chose the kids they wanted, they didn’t want any limping or lisping kids, and stuff like that.


Now look closer to the Southern society

It is known as a fact that the Shiite community in Lebanon is growing fast, very fast! Most of the families have more than 5 children some may reach a dozen. Take the last Qana massacre instance, out of the 57 victims in the house there were around 38 children, that’s more than the 50% standard that less than modern societies. Even if you consider that the fathers were absent (which isn’t really true, Hezbollah activists always go sleep at home once they finish throwing rockets at Israel) this percentage is high.

So women are usually under pressure to give life to many kids. Now medicine has reduced the death of children, but there are different dangers on these children’s lives. In there minds Southern people believe that Israel wants to occupy Lebanon, in fact you’d be shocked of how many Lebanese have the same belief. They all believe Israelis to be monsters coming from the occupied land of Palestine. They constantly see on TV how Israel Targets children and how Palestinian kids are regularly killed by Israeli forces. These mothers believe that the first Lebanese land that will be occupied by Israel is the South, and that the Israelis will probably kill children only to frighten the other Lebanese regions into surrendering. They simply believe Israel is after their children’s life. Israel the devil wants the lives of their offspring, and since it is a devil, the only way to stop it is to kill it. Israel has to disappear from the map if the Middle East if they want peace.

And you know what? When war explodes, children are in fact the first ones to die. Aren’t they the softest part of society? And then Hezbollah jumps and says:

“See? See? We told you they want to kill our children!”

And who’s going to protect them? Certainly not the Government who hasn’t deployed any troops in the South since 1982, and even then they were unable to protect anything. For the Southern population of Lebanon, there is only Hezbollah, Hezbollah provides food, Hezbollah builds homes, Hezbollah pays the money and along the way Hezbollah provides dignity. Because Hezbollah was the one that defeated Israel in 2000.

But the Southern people is unaware of the fact that ALL what Hezbollah has done for them was in fact the work of the government. In fact Hezbollah has not spent a penny of their money on the South. In Lebanon we have something called: Majlis Ljnoob. It’s in fact another masterpiece of the Islamic resistance at the expense of the Lebanese government and people. Majlis Ljnoob is an organisation that receives money and aids from the Lebanese government and invests it in rebuilding the South after the horrific Israeli occupation that lasted for 20 years. Hezbollah and Amal are in charge of the Majlis Ljnoob.

As you can guess, this was simply a way to prevent the government from fulfilling a legitimate duty thus preventing it from integrating the Southern people into the Lebanese mosaic. This all aims to deepen the gap between the Lebanese and the Southern and Shiia population, creating the last country inside The country, Lebanon.

They tell them that they can only trust Nasrallah, that’s why they are willing to sacrifice their selves only to Hezbollah. And when they hear the Israeli plains in the air they jump and say :

“We’d sacrifice our children until we destroy Israel.”

It can be compared to someone that is killing his own children so that his enemy wouldn’t find any children to kill. A final touch of false dignity.