we are all martyrs...

"My brother is a martyr", he stated proudly, his eyes awaiting my poker face to unveil a feeling of sympathy, surprise or at best respect. what he failed to suspect was that i knew his brother, and knew him well. A drunk junkie, who failed to meet the basics of civilized behavior. Over the months he spent on the front, he grew a habit of forcing himself on married women and young teens. it was his lust that caused his "martyrdom" and his failed heroics on the mountain chain. the children of a raped widow, took his life while he was in his house one fine day. Aye, a martyr...

However, any person who lived abroad would fail to understand Lebanese "martyrdom". A few years ago, in the southern suburbs of Beirut, one of my acquaintances, shot a man over a dispute regarding stealing electricity. The deceased was continuing a Lebanese Twelvist tradition of stealing electricity from other people's lines. He was declared a martyr, given a national and party funeral and the street was eventually named after his name. Aye, a martyr...

All these memories and many more flashed in my head as the man in front of me uttered those words: "my brother is a martyr, he fought so you can live freely in this land". I did not tell him i knew his brother, that we fought together, that he was a rapist and a disgusting failure of a human, and that the only fighting he was involved in resolved in subduing helpless women. i simply nodded and refused his demand to ship some suspicious containers of s within my cargo.

as he left, i remembered lyrics in a song i used to like by Marcel khalifeh: "we are all martyrs..."

the checkpoint

I followed precisely the same procedure. it was easy, i have done it a thousand times so far. i placed my car on P, turned on the internal cabinet lights, turned down the radio and opened the driver's window glass. it was a checkpoint. i did not feel comfortable, i never do on checkpoints. whether it was a Lebanese army checkpoint, a unifil peace corps checkpoint, or a hizballah security force checkpoint. it brought too many memories too many names, too many slogans. on the wall behind the gunman, i could read 30 years of the past, slogans now faded, but still engraved in my memory, "our holiday the day of our return", "no Palestinian shall remain on Lebanese soil", "our leader forever, Hafez el Assad", "towards the Bacha Bridge", "know your enemy, the Syrian is your enemy"... all faded slogans of a decadent past slipped on the wall in a slide show as the gunman read my identity card, symbol of my belonging to a dreadful reality, the Lebanese one.
As far as i can remember, i always disliked the military, any denomination they might carry. whether they were of the Lebanese army many militia factions, or with the plain blunt militia factions, even when i was a member of one. there was something about the uniform, about the gun, a certain stench that never was washed away.
the horrid looking gargoyle in uniform waves his hand in a friendly gesture, smiling as i drive pass him. this checkpoint was done, as i drove to the next one.

life signs of a dead society

In a few days, 51% of 51% of the majority of the Lebanese people will march to a square where they will stand for hours listening to petty talks and small speeches which lack any sense of God given wit or charisma. they will stand in the rain, in the snow, in the dashing heat, under any sun, whether it was blue, yellow or orange. they will march and stand, not so united, to honor a five year old corpse. a few months earlier, other percentages of the Lebanese nation stood in a similar square honoring a 7th century degraded image of chivalry, and a corpse. A few months later, it will be the turn of another gathering, another corpse, different colors. It seems hard to rally people in this miserable society without corpses or cadavers. As if the entire sense of political engagement resolved around the wicked stench of decaying flesh and degrading bones. (Even the corpses of the deceased victims of the Ethiopian airlines plane that crashed in the sea a few weeks ago, hold a gathering of their own.)
I am afraid this is but only a symbolical and ironical image of the society that the Lebanese have succeeded to alienate in the past few decades.These are the life signs of a dead society.
I leave you now, until we meet again ..... around a corpse.

the two patients

At my couch, there sits two patients. Islam and Christianity.

Both are psychopaths suffering from a multitude of severe personality disorders. However it is the relationship between the two that is quite extraordinary.

Born in the result of a murder, a crucifixion, Christianity seems to have generated masochist guilt and a sense of culpability. This is better shown in some of the cliches: Jesus suffered because of my sins, Jesus is crying whenever I commit adultery...

It seems Freud was very perceptive in "totem and taboo" when he described the culpability felt by the horde of patricide brothers. It seems guilt is a component of Christianity, never to be abolished as long as the concept of "sin" is tolerated.

Thus Christian communities live in a never ending sense of culpability which generates an undisputed affection and "penchant" for pro-bono humanitarian and salvation (excuse the irony) actions and organizations. Mother Theresa is a fine example of devotion and self annihilation. Christians seem to enjoy this self mortification and self deprivation as it eases their culpability complex.

On the other side of the couch, lies the younger brother of Christianity, a wild son of the desert, Islam. Islam suffers from a victimization syndrome, as he tends to lead life as a continuous victim. Never taking responsibility for his actions (nor his fruits aka fundamentalism and terrorism).

Always feeling as a victim: he is the poor while yet he controls the world Oil. He was victimized in Palestine when they took his land (not to mention al Andalusia nostalgia), he was victimized in Lebanon by the elitist Christian hegemony for decades, and he was deprived of his rights and was always considered a second degree citizen in the entire world. Fact remains the only source of his poorness and his civil status is he is lazy specie only interested in sexual matters and food and leisure. Thus he humps his way to the third millennium with a grudge against all other religions.

The relation between the two is quite extraordinary and I guess u already guessed it.