This brings me to the photographs I took twenty four years ago. They are from late 1982, and for those of us old enough to remember that time vividly, it carries eerie parallels to the recent events. The photographs are taken in the old city center, still devastated by the civil war. The subjects are kids from South Lebanon, refugees in their own land taking shelter with their families amid the ruins of the city center.
I wonder about what has become of these kids. Did they go back to the South? Did they suffer another tragedy, losing homes or family members yet again? Are they still living?
The boys are standing in front what is now the Grand Serail, now the seat of the Government, where Sanioura recently received Kofi Annan.
Posing in front of Roman columns, which are now surrounded by numerous high-end restaurants and shops.
So why resurrect these old photographs? Well, they remind me of who the victims of this current war are. It is those same kids, now adults, victimized yet again. So it behooves the Lebanese who oppose Hizbollah to take the long view when trying to resolve Lebanon's internal political crisis. The Shia community of the South has suffered immensely over the past 30 years because of war as well as the neglect of the central government. I too would like to see Hizbollah disarm and disolve its state within a state. However, dismissing one of the Shia's main representatives as stooges of Syria and Iran and the conflict as the "war of others" at the expense of the Lebanese is simplistic and counterproductive. There are festering unresolved issues dating back to the civil war that many Lebanese chose to ignore for too long . The Lebanese government has to work hard to win back the support of a constituency that it has long neglected and whose loyalty it has forfeited to Hizbollah. An honest, fair accord between the Lebanese communities is the best guarantee against any more Harb al-Akhareen at the expense of Lebanon and its people.
4 comments:
'Oh, how much today resembles yesterday'.. or some words to that effect.. (That would be the translation of an Arabic saying, the English equivalent of which escapes at the moment!.. I am sure there IS an English equivalent!..).
What I fear most is that in another 24 years, we would be still lamenting the missed opportunities, and discussing how things have not changed since the invasion of the Summer of 2006!.. Apologies if my cynical pessimistic traits are rearing their ugly heads again!..
The children in the photograph are utterly adorable.
SB the pessimist and Fares the optimist, thank you for your comments. SB I know that you are a closet optimist
Solomon 2, glad you liked the photographs. I went into the city center which had been a no man's land since 1976 out of curiosity. I did not expect to see these kids. It is hard to forget the faces of these children.
Oh, don't get me wrong, Fares.. I, like you, sincerely hope that this is the last time an ugly war like this affects Lebanon (or any other Arab country, for that matter!..).. What I meant was actually implicit in Abu Kareem's post!.. There are serious issues that are still pending, and until Lebanon, and the Lebanese, begin to address them with honesty, maturity, and vision, Lebanon remains at risk of being the battlefield of 'the wars of others', as Abu Kareem so eloquantly puts it.. not to mention that it would remain at a serious risk of internal disintegration..
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