The day Alex wrote...

When I was a kid, full of bulging, exploding imagination I turned towards
the Marvel comics and the super heroes…

when life was too overwhelming, too confusing, too scary I turned into Superman,
into the Silver surfer, flying high above the mundane life and the
screams, I was untouchable, I was the saviour, the provider, the maker…
America was the dream, America was freedom,
Europe was locked into the cold war and it’s crippling economy…

when I finally came crashing down I knew the damage was done…
my imagination forged by unrealistic belief of good versus evil…
forged by my superhero days…

nowadays the picture is radically different, I am a grown man,
I lived the “freedom” in the US of A, while old Europe was reinventing itself …
in that journey I have discovered that I was truly and unquestionably
a European citizen and a proud one.

So last week when I ran to the movies with an undisclosed
excitement of what I was going to see,
my childhood memories overwhelmed me…
I went to see SUPERMAN the Return…
I was back! …

The flying scenes still tickling my spine,
my senses opened like a newborn flower…
Clinging to my seat looking for remains of my past…
oh how It fell flat, how it felt stale…
another mind crunching Hollywood movie splashed with skillful
special effects and poor story line…

what drove my nights into restlessness was the
realisation that the message behind these figures,
these heroes that I so cherished, that I so loved,
that I identified with,
these good versus bad belief had been an illusion…

I had finally grown up and finally came to the realisation
that behind these seamless harmless cartoon characters
lied the American dream and the American way of life…

The simple belief of good versus evil,
of freedom versus war and the strong ingrained understanding
that the American way, their way, is the “right” way,
the only way,
the prevailing way…

One month ago I was in Beirut…
I was wined and dined,
I was taken to the North,
to the city of Baalbeck and it’s Roman ruins
a visual feast for any mortal with a heart pumping to the tune of History and Beauty,

I was taken to the South and to it’s simpler, quieter life,
to the Orange house in Tyr where I swam in a turtle sanctuary,
protected by two dedicated women working on their own,
cut from the world, I was treated to culinary feasts,
my skin turning gold by the soft pleasant early July sun,
I was charmed by the ladies,
by their sensuality and their exotic beauties,
by the music
and by the welcoming population too eager to prove that
their country was on it’s way back to becoming the
Switzerland of the Middle East…

I was stimulated and eager to find out more,
the scars left by years of war with Israel,
a visual signature of a troubled past,
still looming over the city…
I felt like a European in a European environment…
a place I could relate to…

Then… out of nowhere the first bombs arrived…
like a dark cloud covering me,
I was stuck between the memory of what I had just lived
and the realisation that nothing ever lasts…
the daily pounding, the systematic destruction of all infrastructure,
the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people told to leave…
to leave where?...
no petrol running through the gas stations,

no roads left to travel on and the sea slowly dying
from the invading oil spills,
while bombs tap, tap dancing around ,
people killed, people running, kids,

oh kids!

left traumatised and the “International community”,
the fucking “International community” left to watch in silence…

nobody helping, nobody caring…was I dreaming? …

Where was Superman?
Where was the belief of good over evil?
where was the logic?, what is the logic?
… Where are we western people?

Sunbathing in Ibiza? In Cannes? in St Tropez? Shopping in London? Loving in Paris?
Sipping some fizz, how about that fizz?...

Is that what we have all become? Sons of the debilitating mind…
sons of propaganda? sons of lies?...

Haven’t we learnt anything about Rwanda?
About Iraq?
about Afghanistan?
About the past?

…hughhhhhhhhhh it pains me so…

when are we going to change?

When are we going to realise that every single life lost is a precious library gone…

The day Superman died.