Dear Marianne, Dear Fiona,Dear Ildze, is it possible to share this with the friends participating at the Caux conferences?
Dear all
I hope this finds you well.
I would like to send you our greetings, from the wounded heart of our dear Lebanon.
As you may know, Lebanon is now under siege from all sides.
Our entire infrastructure is being bombed and very few are the roads and bridges left to let people move across regions or even villages.
Another strategy started yesterday afternoon after warnings sent to Southern villagers to evacuate their homes because they will be demolished; about 5000 people moved to a neighboring village which is already disconnected from the rest of Lebanon and suffering from a shortage of food and medication. This situation is now taking place, step by step, in every village.
Even the southern suburbs of Beirut, overpopulated usually, are almost empty now, since the bombing is not saving any corner of it.
So, after all major bridges and roads were bombed, and villages became isolated, each one is now being destroyed in its turn, with civilians inside!
This is clearly everything except trying to find out about the two Israeli soldiers kidnapped by the Hizbollah. This is even more than genocides. This just looks like extermination.
I am absolutely sensitive to the fact that many among you may be pro-Israeli in their way of thinking or believing. Some others may be pro-Resistance of Arabs, in any way it could happen.
What I'm trying to communicate here is not a political position; it is just a human statement, from heart to heart, reached after a long quiet time, resulting in a note book filled with a few words and many tears.
One does not have to be Christian to know that the ultimate goal of every religion is to make people closer to God, by guiding them to resemble God's nature of unconditional Love.
It is clear that, in the midst of empty and arrogant justifications, both Hizbollah and Zionists – even if their faith denies the crucifixion of the Christ- are today, crucifying him with their own hands!
Since my early childhood, I came to understand that Lebanon was not an ordinary country.
I heard bombs, I saw horrifying destruction, people crying and blood spread on every street… That was long before being able to speak Arabic properly and knowing that I'm an Arab-Christian.
My first visit to Beirut, as I remember it, was more than a horror movie. That was in 1990, I was 10 years old. Everything was completely destroyed. There were more cats than humans in the streets, the smell of smoke and death was everywhere.
When I was 17, I started my university studies there. I was amazed by the reconstruction and the hope blooming with each achievement on this level.
In my own secret, I told myself that I would rather commit suicide before seeing Beirut as I saw it first.
Today, it happened again!
Is it acceptable to say that Lebanon's destiny is to be surrounded by two countries extremely jealous of its beauty and attempts to recover its pre-war figure?
It is true that it happened a thousand times: since the years B.C. people who chose to live here were called Phoenicians because they were like reborn from ash after being burnt, as the Phoenix bird.
Many names of villages mean: "the place of the new beginning", like Becharreh (bet shuroyo, in Aramaic) in the north of Lebanon.
But now, we are in the 21st century!
How can people still use ways of the dark ages to accomplish selfish goals, such as "fighting in the name of God", or "stealing some more land"?
When I was 2 years old, until I was 5, the worst bombing and crimes took place. Some were committed by the Palestinian armed groups, some by the Israelis and some by the Syrians.
When my siblings were about the same age, the same acts took place.
For a while, I thought that war is like chickenpox: it happens to everyone at a certain early age.
I was about to understand the opposite while becoming more mature, and after traveling around the world.
But now, I look at my 6 nephews and nieces, asking with their round eyes every time they hear a bomb dropped: what's that? And with a voice scrambled by the tone of lies, we say: mines, they are searching for rocks to build; that was the stupid answer we always got when we were children, and we always knew it wasn't true and used to feel angry at our parents who think "we're not smart enough to know that what's happening is abnormal"
My nephews in Lebanon are now all aged between 3 and 7 …
So yesterday, I decided to commit suicide.
This is a different kind of suicide: a renovation I can say!
I decided to kill my Ego; to stop my anger on Hizbollah and my hatred for the Jews. Believe me: this is much harder than suicide. The voice of an old friend came up to my mind: "Wadiaa- he said- don't let anyone force you to hate him; surrendering to hatred would be the only failure in life"
My friends at the Law university are mostly Shi'a, and pro-Hizbollah. We all have the same problem now: we accomplished through the 4 past years many achievements: we did 33 successful exams and had still had 3 final ones, which were supposed to take place on the second day of the bombing. Now we don't know whether we should forget that we studied all these years because our university in the Southern suburbs of Beirut is being bombed now. But we, together accomplished other great things: we learnt to love and understand each other's differences despite many debates and unresolved clashes.
Yesterday I called each of them. My 2 best friends have lost their homes and don't even know where they were. They are all refugees in different parts of Lebanon.
My preferred teacher is a refugee in the north: he taught us "International organizations". ( how ridiculous is that course? After seeing the stupid accomplishments of the Security council? Shame on the international community I can say! All what we spent nights to study showed up to be obviously pro-Israeli, no matter what the conditions are. And between the last meeting of the Security Council and the next possible one, hundreds of people who never supported Hizbollah, or are not even Shi'a are getting killed! Today, they said, they will bomb all Lebanon's electricity! So that's the final message I can maybe send. Maybe they don't want to show the world the color of our blood? ITS RED, JUST LIKE ANYONE'S ELSE!
Yesterday we passed the night jumping from our beds. The bombing was extremely heavy. The bombs are obviously a 100000000000 times stronger than the ones I got used to when I was 5 years old.
A friend of my sister and brother in law is a doctor, he ran away from the South to the Bekaa when the war started. Now his home in the Bekaa got a direct rocket and he and his family died ( 8 members) He was a doctor, so was his wife.
In Tyr, the Israeli airplanes bombed yesterday evening a regular building over the firefighter's center: 20 people died; they are all Sunnis, and known to be teachers lawyers and doctors, all non-political.)
Now, all of us, (my university friends specially), without any blames, without any stupid discussions, are helping is organizing refugees in different public, and now even private schools and churches. I'm happy that they feel secure with us, but my feelings are telling me: not for long.
We have a major crisis:
30 000 refugees from the south and the Beirut Suburbs, and more are coming!!!!! We have huge shortage of food, medication and places. We are under shock to see our dreams dying and our life stolen for the sake of Israel and the world's care for its selfish goals, and the world's belief in its imprecise statements. We have lots of anger in our hearts : anger from the wrong timing of the Hizbollah action, anger at the International paralyzed community, while for me, I'm saving another kind of anger towards the failing Arab community: they even dare to demonstrate to say that "they support the Lebanese heros" while none of them is unselfish and courageous enough to say that Lebanon has had enough of your stupidity and fake concerns: When did you ever dare to receive one rocket instead of us? SHAME ON YOU ARABS!
How long will Lebanon be the lamb of sacrifice for the absent Arab conscience? We are a country of 3 million people hosting 700000 Palestinian refugees!!! And you all yourselves Muslims and Sunnis? Please notice that they have been treated better and protected better by Shi'a and Christians than by you!
And Thank you Saudi Arabia for your compassion and your ridiculous donation of 50 million dollars to help the Lebanese: each bridge costs the double of that and we lost 640 bridges until yesterday. And do you think we are not aware that you are receiving more than 50 million dollars per day as profit on your fuel, due to the war in Lebanon????
This beloved country, we built it with our blood and sweat. Your money is nothing without our will to live, and we'll live forever.
We are ready to sacrifice again the best years of our youth to rebuild what the selfishness and the fanatism of all the worshipers of letters have destroyed. But know that our anger this time is unbearable, and we'll never forgive your indifference, because you know what you are committing.
The international TV corporations like to show Lebanese as a primitive people, mostly analphabet. They wait for the worst car to cross the street, and the poorest person to pass by their camera, to show with it or him, the background of destroyed areas. Did anyone notice that? At least the people who have visited Lebanon already?
Please know that showing people in Shador and dirty areas on TV every time the name of Lebanon is mentioned, is a way to ease your consciences when you receive the news that our country, the country that hosted you once, was totally burnt.
You may ask after reading this: what can we do after receiving this load of anger?... well, when the bombing stops, if we are still alive, we'll try to communicate about practical ways to rebuilt, stone of course, but first of all, humans
Wadiaa
Lebanon- Black July17 2006
Can you please forward this message to people you think should read it, or can do something after reading it?
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