Just visiting
I once knew a Lebanese man who wasn’t much of a political until he had the misfortune to be kidnapped and held captive for 44 days by Hezbollah. He was taken by surprise when walking home at the end of his work day. A hood was suddenly placed around his head and he dragged into a car. The irony of his kidnapping was that the Hezbollah had meant to kidnap someone else but the ‘resistance’ had targeted the wrong man. Hezbollah, never missing an opportunity to profit or turn an evil screw, made the misfortune work for them.
His captivity only ended when his family arranged payment of Hezbollah’s ransom demand. The scars from his ordeal was etched into his body and mind. Up until his ‘capture’, he had done his best to keep his head down and stay out of messy politics which made up the Lebanese civil war. It wasn’t so much as he choose sides as the war chose him.
As the war dragged on and on, and uncle after uncle, cousin after cousin, brother after brother fell; it was decided by what was left of his family to ask him to leave while he was still alive and young enough to start his life over. They pooled their resources and begged him to leave, and so, he did just that. Eventually he made his way to Canada which is where I first ran into him. He never really felt at home or settled down here but why would he? He was young, urbane and baptized by civil war in one of the most modern, and yet, ancient cities of the world. He was effortlessly multi-lingual and well-read in a country where bilingualism meets great resistance and Margaret Atwood is held to represent the height of modern Canadian literature.
Toronto was a very different place in those very waspish days. He did not even know where to get a drink ‘after hours’ or a decent meal until he met me. It was a fair trade off. I showed him where to eat, gamble, dance or get a drink after hours and he introduced me to cognac and plied me with French perfume, lingerie and the joy of wearing silk stockings. He just couldn’t understand how anyone could survive a winter here without cognac and a woman dressed in lace and silk. My association with him did not stay secret long, and despite my best intentions, my grandmother still learned of it. It caused one of the few rip-roaring arguments I ever had with my beloved grandmother. We were reduced to screaming at each other in a multitude of languages with a torrent of curses reining down on both our heads. I remember my grandfather fleeing to his work room to read psalms and pray for divine forgiveness.
My association with him did not end well for either of us. He claimed I broke his heart, but in retrospect, Lebanese politics forced him to choose sides and not one of his options was mine, and as my grandmother rightly reminded me; I wasn’t the fucking UN. I really don’t think of him very often but when I saw this report from the Jerusalem Post I remembered it all – including Beirut.
A leading school in Lebanon was forced to remove pages from a history book said to describe Hizbullah as a terrorist organization after a Cabinet minister from the group complained, a state news agency reported Tuesday.
The textbook has been used for seven years by Beirut’s International College, a secondary school, said its president, John Johnson, according to the state-run National News Agency. The book, Modern World History, is printed in the United States, the daily As-Safir reported. The US has branded Hizbullah a terrorist group. The newspaper said the book is taught to 8th grade students.
On Sunday, Labor Minister Mohammed Fneish, a Hizbullah member, complained about the book and called on the Education Ministry to take action against schools teaching it and remove it from the approved curriculum.
All of which just goes to prove Hezbollah is Lebanon and the rest are just tourists. In other news, the UN General Secretary is suggesting Hezbollah and other armed Palestinian armed groups could re-ignite the Lebanese Civil War….
