There is a rumour slowly travelling across blogs that the war will be over in two days. On Monday, they are saying...
Can I dare to believe?
Can it be true that they want nothing from us? Can it be this simple?
-- POUF --
Go away. All of you. And never come back.
Saturday, August 12, 2006
Thursday, August 10, 2006
Madness
A horrifying article in The Independent today.
My country is being torn apart like Lego blocks. Some select fuckheads who think they can decide for the fate of a whole country, a whole people, a whole section of the globe, are playing a game of Risk on my country.
They think tactically, they think profit, they snigger and they cheat and take sides. And all the while, my country is being uprooted and turned into a bloody rubble.
The Independent article coldly discusses Israeli military tactics as if some cheap gameboard. From their comfortable conference rooms, with coffee and cigars, and their mint suits and ties, they look down on the map and move around their little plastic soldiers. With one flick of their fat finger, they decide to send 30,000 troops into my country. MY FUCKING COUNTRY. They want to win, whatever the cost, whatever the loss. The article says:
--------------
Eli Yishai, from the ultra-orthodox party Shas, abstained [from some fucking military meeting] on the grounds that while it was right to expand the campaign [on the ground in Lebanon] there should be a longer aerial bombing campaign before an intensified ground operation was launched. He said after the meeting: "In my opinion, whole villages should be removed from the air when we have verified information that Katyusha rockets are being fired from there."
It was Mr. Yishai who disclosed the military's belief that the operation would last a month, adding: "I think it is wrong to make that assessment. I think it will take a lot longer" he said.
--------------
And they make the call from their mobile phone to wipe out whole villages from the map, regardless of any inhabitants. And they transform their plastic soldiers into thousands of camouflage-painted troops who march into my land and destroy my country. They think, "It looks in Risk, so it must work on the ground..."
But where are your plastic civilians on that fucking boardgame of yours? Where are the plastic homes, and farms, and playgrounds? The little plastic schools, and hospitals? And how about the little plastic relief convoys with water and food and medication that are waiting to head South to help the stranded and trapped? Where are the plastic fuel trucks that the plastic hospitals need to have electricity and treat the wounded plastic civilians you ignored?!
While you play your game til the death, because you are so frightened of losing, I am losing my country. And believe me, I never asked to play your fucking game. Who consulted me before you opened the box and let all your plastic shit out?
So I broke down today again at work. And this time, I couldn't really pretend, and get back to work. I was in hysterics, shaking and blubbering, so much so that I left. I was more productive staring into space in the coffeeshop than staring at my computer's screensaver at work...
At least I got the relief of knowing that my boyfriend has gotten a full-year artist working permit and is coming to London. He even managed to get back into Beirut from Syria without getting blown up on the way, just because he has a beard.
My country is being torn apart like Lego blocks. Some select fuckheads who think they can decide for the fate of a whole country, a whole people, a whole section of the globe, are playing a game of Risk on my country.
They think tactically, they think profit, they snigger and they cheat and take sides. And all the while, my country is being uprooted and turned into a bloody rubble.
The Independent article coldly discusses Israeli military tactics as if some cheap gameboard. From their comfortable conference rooms, with coffee and cigars, and their mint suits and ties, they look down on the map and move around their little plastic soldiers. With one flick of their fat finger, they decide to send 30,000 troops into my country. MY FUCKING COUNTRY. They want to win, whatever the cost, whatever the loss. The article says:
--------------
Eli Yishai, from the ultra-orthodox party Shas, abstained [from some fucking military meeting] on the grounds that while it was right to expand the campaign [on the ground in Lebanon] there should be a longer aerial bombing campaign before an intensified ground operation was launched. He said after the meeting: "In my opinion, whole villages should be removed from the air when we have verified information that Katyusha rockets are being fired from there."
It was Mr. Yishai who disclosed the military's belief that the operation would last a month, adding: "I think it is wrong to make that assessment. I think it will take a lot longer" he said.
--------------
And they make the call from their mobile phone to wipe out whole villages from the map, regardless of any inhabitants. And they transform their plastic soldiers into thousands of camouflage-painted troops who march into my land and destroy my country. They think, "It looks in Risk, so it must work on the ground..."
But where are your plastic civilians on that fucking boardgame of yours? Where are the plastic homes, and farms, and playgrounds? The little plastic schools, and hospitals? And how about the little plastic relief convoys with water and food and medication that are waiting to head South to help the stranded and trapped? Where are the plastic fuel trucks that the plastic hospitals need to have electricity and treat the wounded plastic civilians you ignored?!
While you play your game til the death, because you are so frightened of losing, I am losing my country. And believe me, I never asked to play your fucking game. Who consulted me before you opened the box and let all your plastic shit out?
So I broke down today again at work. And this time, I couldn't really pretend, and get back to work. I was in hysterics, shaking and blubbering, so much so that I left. I was more productive staring into space in the coffeeshop than staring at my computer's screensaver at work...
At least I got the relief of knowing that my boyfriend has gotten a full-year artist working permit and is coming to London. He even managed to get back into Beirut from Syria without getting blown up on the way, just because he has a beard.
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
SMS
Last night, I re-read a message that my boyfriend, who is back in Beirut, sent me on the 13th of July. We were scheduled to meet up in Spain five days later for a music festival.
"My aya, let's just wait and see what's going to happen these two days. It's not going to last."
It's almost been a month.
He's now in Syria applying for a visa to come to London, just in case.
What frightens me the most is that this is what people must've thought back in 1975. "It'll be over this week, let's just wait and see." And before they knew it, fifteen years had passed...
What I fear more than coming back to a disfigured home is coming back fifteen years passed, like my parents did once before.
"My aya, let's just wait and see what's going to happen these two days. It's not going to last."
It's almost been a month.
He's now in Syria applying for a visa to come to London, just in case.
What frightens me the most is that this is what people must've thought back in 1975. "It'll be over this week, let's just wait and see." And before they knew it, fifteen years had passed...
What I fear more than coming back to a disfigured home is coming back fifteen years passed, like my parents did once before.
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
Day 28
It's hard living a normal life on this side of the continent.
Suddenly, all conversation beyond world politics and media bias seems futile and only lasts a couple of minutes before it starts irritating the brain. I have become the epitome of anti-socialness, only partaking in group dynamics with the presence of my body. My mind remains somewhere in anxiety and dread.
How will I my city appear to me when I go back? Can I pretend none of this is happening? Am I still allow to dream of my return, of the children I want to raise there, of the apartment I furnish in my head, of my blue pebbled beaches, of my dusty mountain roads and turkish coffees in plastic espresso cups on the Corniche?
Is it shameful to say that I don't want to neither fundraise nor demonstrate anymore? With every chant, it makes it all sound so much more real...
I go to work in the mornings and spend 50% of my time doing work for a city whose government I resent, and the other 50% of the time reading up on the news. But it's the blogs, and most essentially them, that give me a more poignant and accurate report of the ongoing sordid events.
BBC will never tell me that my friends and family are receiving automated calls from Israel in which they equate Hezbollah to rats infesting our streets, and glorify their own Zionist state.
They do not tell me that the Israeli Minister of Justice (how ironic a name...) wonders why there still is electricity feeding Baalbeck.
And they do not tell me that Israel has a worse coverage of the war than the ranch-owners of Midwest America.
They do not tell me that the people of Israel chant "A good Arab is a dead Arab", which makes the military's half-hearted sorry excuses for civilian deaths in Lebanon a cover-up for their dream of annihilation and ethnic cleansing.
We are told and retold stories of the horror of the Holocaust and of the plight of Jews throughout history, through Spielberg movies, and endless documentaries, and here they are wishing upon others what they love to spread guilt about themselves. And I almost believed them when I was a spotty-faced teenager...
It's all maddeningly heartbreaking. A surreal nightmare I wake up to every morning with the on-switch of the computer. And that I am now starting to live in my slumber too. Slowly, the war has crept into my dreams and has placed me in the heart of it all. And I want nothing more than to wake up from the nightmare, and then wake again from the reality...
My father has told me that he has enrolled my sister in the Lycée of Saudi Arabia. They will not be going back home any soon. I could not stop bawling all day...
Suddenly, all conversation beyond world politics and media bias seems futile and only lasts a couple of minutes before it starts irritating the brain. I have become the epitome of anti-socialness, only partaking in group dynamics with the presence of my body. My mind remains somewhere in anxiety and dread.
How will I my city appear to me when I go back? Can I pretend none of this is happening? Am I still allow to dream of my return, of the children I want to raise there, of the apartment I furnish in my head, of my blue pebbled beaches, of my dusty mountain roads and turkish coffees in plastic espresso cups on the Corniche?
Is it shameful to say that I don't want to neither fundraise nor demonstrate anymore? With every chant, it makes it all sound so much more real...
I go to work in the mornings and spend 50% of my time doing work for a city whose government I resent, and the other 50% of the time reading up on the news. But it's the blogs, and most essentially them, that give me a more poignant and accurate report of the ongoing sordid events.
BBC will never tell me that my friends and family are receiving automated calls from Israel in which they equate Hezbollah to rats infesting our streets, and glorify their own Zionist state.
They do not tell me that the Israeli Minister of Justice (how ironic a name...) wonders why there still is electricity feeding Baalbeck.
And they do not tell me that Israel has a worse coverage of the war than the ranch-owners of Midwest America.
They do not tell me that the people of Israel chant "A good Arab is a dead Arab", which makes the military's half-hearted sorry excuses for civilian deaths in Lebanon a cover-up for their dream of annihilation and ethnic cleansing.
We are told and retold stories of the horror of the Holocaust and of the plight of Jews throughout history, through Spielberg movies, and endless documentaries, and here they are wishing upon others what they love to spread guilt about themselves. And I almost believed them when I was a spotty-faced teenager...
It's all maddeningly heartbreaking. A surreal nightmare I wake up to every morning with the on-switch of the computer. And that I am now starting to live in my slumber too. Slowly, the war has crept into my dreams and has placed me in the heart of it all. And I want nothing more than to wake up from the nightmare, and then wake again from the reality...
My father has told me that he has enrolled my sister in the Lycée of Saudi Arabia. They will not be going back home any soon. I could not stop bawling all day...
Wednesday, August 02, 2006
...
The Independent did not cover us on its front page today.
I died a little.
Does it take another Qana to keep your attention for a little while longer?
I died a little.
Does it take another Qana to keep your attention for a little while longer?
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
Cyber-soldiers
The Times newspaper printed an article about new Israeli army recruits whose operation is to flag Lebanese blogs and flood them with pro-Israel propaganda comments. This explains the many virulent taunts propping up on Lebanese anti-war blogs.
It also means that they are scared of the world opinion overwhelmingly swaying against the Israeli military actions.
I can imagine them scavenging through Blogspot, barely able to catch up on the reports, and vomiting their comments in a rush, which explains their dyslexic spelling and muddled logic.
But they only manage to enflame and irritate, coming across as the new web viruses.
It's all really sad...
It also means that they are scared of the world opinion overwhelmingly swaying against the Israeli military actions.
I can imagine them scavenging through Blogspot, barely able to catch up on the reports, and vomiting their comments in a rush, which explains their dyslexic spelling and muddled logic.
But they only manage to enflame and irritate, coming across as the new web viruses.
It's all really sad...
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