"Lebanon's Open Coffin"

My mind has been lost in a whirlwind of thoughts. Anger, Sadness, Disillusionment ... the future of Lebanon. The mistakes we have made. The treacherous hand Lebanon has been dealt since the very beginning.

A post below mentioned the necessity for a revolution if we are ever going to get past the quagmire that has envelopped us for the past 62 years. Due to various conversations, speeches, news, even the comments on blogs, I've realized that will never happen. It never will.

I hate seeing the future play out in my mind - the initial anger everyone has, the spewing racism and hatred, the arrogance, the certainty and uncertainty, the cheap talk that has settled on our airwaves since I can remember, and then the smiles and the duplicity that is inevitable in the world of realpolitik, and then ... another assassination ... and more anger ...

Gebran Tueni has been killed. The Mehlis report is out. This is probably the first real reaction I give, and yet, it is not about those two. It is about me. It is about this feeling of uselessness. The question which I cannot answer is: Can I be doing more?

In today's Assafir, Ibrahim El-Amine said the following:

I don't know him well, and I don't enjoy his leanings nor his stances nor the way he says things ... I feel deep sadness towards Ghassan Tueni, the journalist, the politician, and the father that lost his entire family. I feel the dreaded days that have made Lebanon into an open coffin ...

Today, I've read a certain poem several times. "City of Slaughter" was written by Haim Nahman Bialik, and is a tribute to the victims of the Kishinev pogrom. Correction. It lashed out at the victims of the pogrom. In the same he heaped blame on the victims, at this moment, I feel that we are responsible for what is happening.

And who has paid? Those who have been assassinated over the past 6 months.

Today, Gebran Tueni paid for our apathy. May he rest in peace.

The mentioned poem ends with

And so their sympathy implore.
For you are now as you have been of yore
As you stretched your hand
So will you stretch it,
And as you have been wretched
So are you wretched!

What is thy business here, o son of man?
Rise, to the desert flee!
The cup of affliction thither bear with thee!
Take thou they soul, rend it in many a shred!
With impotent rage, thy heart deform!
Thy tear upon the barren boulders shed
And send they bitter cry into the storm.

We have painted our flag red with our own blood. We bled, because of us. The issue isn't whether intervention exists or not, or if an international court exists or not ...

The issue is us.

But there is no point complaining right now. The picture below sums it up better than I ever could.

posted by Lazarus, 10:26 PM