"The more we sweat in peace the less we bleed in war". - Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit
In several earlier posts (here and here), I lamented the tendency of many Lebanese, including many politicians, the bury their heads in the sand when it comes facing the country's tragic history of the last thirty years. Two recent stories give me hope that things may be changing. There is perhaps a growing recongnition that you really cannot move forward, not in any meaningful way, without facing the past. The NYT published a story on the new Beirut Art Center showing and exhibition titled “The Road to Peace: Paintings in Times of War, 1975-1991”. Across town, in Haret Hreik, another, more humble cultural center, The Hangar, is screening a film series entitled "What is to be done: Lebanon's War Loaded Memory".
For those Lebanese too young to remember these days, it will be an eduction that they missed in school -official history books omit any mention of the war years. For those who remember, it is a necessary, if agonizing, recall of a not so distant past, and a reminder that many of the problems that led to the civil war have yet to be resolved.
5 comments:
I like your blog and enjoy reading your posts. Very smart and well written.
You are so right ...
I just gave you a blog award :)
too bad I missed the two places this summer. I will have to check them out this Christmas!
I came to your excellent blog via Razaniyyat. I want to tell you and your fellow bloggers about my newly published novel SHAIKH-DOWN . It offers a comic scenario for revolution in one of those ultra-conservative Persian Gulf states which the US and UK governments love like brothers.
When I was working in Bahrain the Amir (now succeeded by his son) had a party every night at his beach palace for airhostesses. One lucky lady was destined to go home with a sore pussy and - for only about 5 minutes work - the dinar eqivalent of approximately US$10,000. How's that for easy money?
But in another part of the island, the Security Police raided a call-centre (co-managed by this aspiring author) and took away a 19-year-old employee (by chance, his dad was my landlord). This young man never returned to us nor to his family. No voice was raised in protest. This, as you know, happens quite a lot of it in those delightful emirates whose rulers the West has to prefer to the only available alternative: an ayatollocracy.
These two sides to life in the Gulf, one funny, one very terrible, gave me the inspiration for my novel SHAIKH-DOWN in which a sexy American air-hostess, a nerdy British banker, the Ruler's foxy niece and their Arab boyfriends are drawn into a plot to assassinate the Amir of an "imaginary" island following the torture and murder of a young bank employee by the Security Police.
You can read extracts on my website:
www.shaikh-down.com
which also talks some more about why I wrote the book and why I took the liberty of trying to show how tough life is for a gay Arab or a bisexual feminist intellectual, both of them forced into arranged marriages.
I would be grateful if you feel you can give the book - and my website - a mention on your blog. If you have any other ideas to help me, that would be good also.
Salaams and other appropriate salutations!
DAVID GEE (Brighton, UK)
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