some guy in lebanon

A few months back, I wrote a piece entitled “My dear Israel.” In it, I derided Israel for it’s inexplicably overpowering assault on Gaza – Look, every situation has two sides – Hamas took off the gloves, and it’s entirely up to both timeframe and opinion as to who shot first. The truth is, when it comes to Isarel/Palestinine, the first shots were fired by people most of whom have not lived to see their consequences.

Such as it is in Lebanon today, as well, although the wounds are certainly fresher in the Occupied Territories’ northern neighbor: Those who fired many of the first shots are no longer alive to see the positive, and negative, consequences that lead to the Lebanon of May 2009.

I have lived here about seven months – I have seen what a quiet Beirut is, but I have yet to live through “accidents” or “unfortunate periods” or “trouble” or whatever those who have lived through it like to call mid-to-large-scale political or regional violence. But I know one thing – I am an outsider, at the fringes of what these days I can only tentatively call my neighborhood, my city, and my country. Because of course it will never really be “my neighborhood, my city, my country,” not just because I am not Lebanese, but also largely because there are so few in Lebanon who make that claim themselves – the Lebanon of their birthright is hardly the Lebanon it is today, because nobody deserves citizenship to a country in pieces. I think every Lebanese awaits the day when their nation and their passport don’t raise eyebrows or pulses.

In a tangential but real way, I too live every day with the consequences of decisions, and salvo’s, of the 70′s, 80′s, 90′s, and the last ten years. I live as an expatriate in a foreign land at the nexus of nearly every major political, social, and emotional vortex in the Middle East – and for the last six months I have lived, sometimes with difficulty, and sometimes in great comfort, through, and by, the balancing act that this country’s leaders tried to play in late 2008 and early 2009.

In three weeks this country will go to polls – The world will be watching, but most everyone will be failing to understand, just as I do (on a dependent scale of course), the ramifications of the decisions the Lebanese will make in June.

Some will call it a clash of civilizations (I prefer to decapitalize this phrase), some will call it a day when radicalism met modernity, and some will call it a sham. All will be right, and all will be wrong. All will fail to fully realize the complexity of the situation, and who is really on whose side, largely by their own ignorance, but also because the Lebanese honestly don’t know, themselves, what the past, present, and future hold for their nation.

Lebanon is an old country with an old heritage – but it is also a new country in the sense of its current incarnation – and on the day the Lebanese go to vote, I am keenly aware that they will choose not just their own fate, but mine as well – only I will not go the polls – I will watch on television as the country either comes together, pulls itself apart, or continues on the path it’s been on since last May: A shaky, but relatively conciliatory, path, that is reflective of not just the Middle East, but of the whole world.

No one will look after my interests, as they will likely not even look after their own – But I pray to God that anyone who says one God damn word about anyone or anywhere in Lebanon has been there before, and has had tea with that man or that woman, and their people. Because otherwise this whole thing is going to hell in a handbasket, and the Lebanese will be the lead-balloon tied to their own feet.

Good luck, my friends. I’ll spend the day shacked up in my apartment or around the corner at Captians Cabin. I will be drunk, perhaps drunker than I’ve ever been, and I’ll be praying that you make a choice that welcomes both your own future, and that of a 24 year old white kid from America that nobody can quite figure out what he’s doing in Beirut.

For the record: I’m here for one of two reasons: To party here so that you don’t have to, or to party here with you until 5 in the morning. I prefer the latter, so let’s keep that up.