Dear Mr. Kheireddine,

I was shocked and saddened to find out that the front cover of “hunting & safari” features none other than you, Marwan Kheireddine, lecturer in Finance at AUB and minister of state, posing with a freshly killed lion. I cannot begin to express how outraged I was upon discovering that such behavior is being encouraged.

Let’s get something straight. You are hunting for the love of shooting and killing. Let us please save some time and admit that the reason why anyone would go pose in front of their murdered victim and smile a smile of victory is because they enjoy the very act of hunting, of killing, of watching an animal die of its wounds. You’ve killed lions, leopards, crocodiles, bears, ibexes, and whatever looks big and majestic. You enjoy the very act of murder and the power that comes from it. Let’s remember that if people like you had any compassion in their hearts, they wouldn’t kill in the first place – not killing is an actual option.  If killing an animal was not about the joy of killing, hunters like you wouldn’t display so much pride in their kill; they would show some humility and not advertise death. No, this is about showing your masculinity. It is about feeling equipped with gigantic balls pumping testosterone until nothing is left but a shell of an adrenaline-filled man dedicated to kill and smile while doing it. 

I expect your apologists to use the traditional arguments used to justify such barbarity, namely the money gained (“it can be used to help people!”), and the ‘environmental’ and, dare I say it, ‘moral’ pseudo-argument (“we only hunt really old animals who are about to die anyway and we probably made its death less painful”). These arguments don’t hold water. The conservationist’s biggest obstacle is precisely the expensive price of these magnificent beasts – we’d have a much easier time doing our job if they weren’t. And I don’t think I should bother debunking the second one.

I’d truly love to believe that any post I write would make a difference. Imagine a post like this one converting a hunter into someone who likes deathless sports – too good to be true. But what I can do is urge all those who are already appalled by this to join and support NGOs such as BETA - Beirut for the Ethical Treatment of Animals-, Animals Lebanon, ESMA -  Egyptian Society for Mercy for Animals-, SPARE – Society  for the Protection of Animal Rights in Egypt – and all the other NGOs in our region working, often with extremely difficult obstacles to overcome, to fight cruelty towards animals. Although they do not directly address the issue (yet) at hand – I suspect it being not that common compared to other acts of cruelty; just common enough  - they oppose wildlife trade and would support discouraging and condemning the murder of lions and other wild animals. Only when enough people are actively participating in improving the condition of living beings would blood ‘sports’ like ‘sport’ hunting be considered unacceptable.

Joey Ayoub.

Update: I found another person who also wrote an open letter.

by Joey Ayoub

The following is an extract from a debate between famous Anti-theist Christopher Hitchens and pastor Douglas Wilson featured in the ‘Collision‘ movie. I’ll let Hitchens do the rest.

“If you want to be awe inspired, ladies and gentlemen, and let me say, let me just tell you that those of us who do not believe we are divinely created, let alone divinely supervised, are not immune to the idea of awe and beauty and the transcendent. Let me invite you to look for a moment at the pictures taken by the Hubble telescope. Some of you may have done it. If you haven’t done it now, or yet, do it soon.

The extraordinary revelations of swirling yet somehow beautiful, new galaxies in color and depth and majesty, like nothing, I think, the human eye has ever seen. Turn away from that if you wish, and gaze at a burning bush, in an illiterate desert part of the middle east, and say that that’s where revelation comes from. I don’t believe you’d be able to do it.

Or read a page of Stephen Hawking on the absolute magnificence and consistency and underlying beauty, as Einstein says the great miracle of physics is there are no miracles, it all carries on holding together all the time. There are no interruptions in its order. There are no suspensions of it just to please Joshua, or just to please some sect or tribal group. No. It’s much, much, much more impressive than that.

Hawking has a colleague who looked at the event horizon of the black hole. If you could travel towards a black hole, not yet possible to do, if you could, in theory, the event horizon is the point at which the black hole is pulling everything into itself. So, over into the black hole goes light, itself. It’s so strong it can pull light back into itself. It’s really awe inspiring. A lot more, say, than a crowd of pigs, infested by devils, running down a hill, into the sea, which is a piece of sorcery, and cheap magic of the sort that shouldn’t impress any thinking person. Think about a black hole instead, pulling the light into itself, the event horizon just reorganizing nature, so that if you could get to that lip, the lip of the event horizon and fall in, and go in, you could in theory see the past and the future stretching before and in front of you. You would see time, except you wouldn’t have the time to do it, of course, if you were a mere primate as we are, but Hawking has a colleague who says if he knew he was dying of a terminal illness, that’s how he’d want to go out, is over the lip of the event horizon. That would be majesty, that would be magnificence, that would be awe inspiring, that would be apocalyptic.

So it’s in the natural world, it’s in the world of science and the world of innovation, and discovery, and doubt. We wouldn’t have discovered any of these things if we’d taken the religious story for granted to begin with. We would have said we already know enough. We know. God made this. God wants it this way. What’s the need for inquiry? We already have all the information we need. The big difference between this side of the house, mine, and the other, is this, I am absolutely certain that I do not know, but that it might be possible to find out and that doubt and skepticism and innovation and inquiry are the only means by which wonder and beauty and awe and symmetry will be discovered, and beyond those peaks we can yet see new, more wonderful peaks will arise. Whereas, on the Wilson side of the house it is said we already have the certainty, we know that God created us, and we even claim to know his mind and what he wants of us. And I just invite you to open your minds to the possibility that the skeptical and the inquiring and the doubtful will be better than anything that calls itself faith, because anything that calls itself faith calls itself certainty and for certainty I think there is no place in an institute of intellectual mentation and higher education, and I’m very grateful to you all for giving me the chance to say so.”

by Joey Ayoub

Reuters: Israel carried out its second air strike in days on Syria early on Sunday, a Western intelligence source said, in an attack that shook Damascus with a series of powerful blasts and drove columns of fire into the night sky.

I’ve been getting lots of confusing reports so I’m going to use this post to update my viewers on the current situation. Please feel free to comment with links, avoid rumors and unconfirmed reports.

All time stamps in Lebanese time [UTC/GMT +3 hours], in most recent to less recent order.

———————————————————————————————

[5:06 pm] Haaretz reports:

Lebanese media is quoting Seyed Hassan Firouzabadi, the chief of staff of the Iranian armed forces, as saying: “Resistance forces will respond to the Israeli aggression… Iran will not allow Israel destabilize the region.”

[5:05 pm] Haaretz reports:

“Residents in the northern city of Kiryat Shmona express concern over the tensions. No security alert has been issued, however, and people are continuing their daily routine. “There is a feeling of tension when we hear about what is happening in the area,” says Kiryat Shmona Mayor Rabbi Nissim Malka. “Residents are calling the municipal hotline and asking questions like ‘are the shelters open’ or ‘are classes being held as usual’? We are calming everyone who calls and continuing daily routines. The IDF is doing its work and we will continue with our lives.”

[5:04 pm] Russia Today reports:

“While no official casualty number has been made public, rumors on Syrian social media say that at least 300 soldiers stationed at Mount Qasioun have been killed and hundreds of others injured, Mawazini said. Many Syrians are calling for retaliation as the possibility of a full-scale war with Israel is speculated upon.

During the attack, one Israeli jet was reportedly shot down by Syria’s Air Force, according to Hezbollah’s Manar TV channel, citing security sources in Damascus. Two Israeli pilots of the downed IDF jet have been taken to a military area in Damascus under Assad’s control, according to reports in Lebanese and Syrian media.”

[5:01 pm] Al-Jazeera’s report:

[4:54 pm] Syrian officials say Israel’s aggression shows support for Al-Qaeda. In an interview with Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV, Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Moqdad said:

“The Israeli aggression on Syria proves a strong bonding between Israel, the US, France and Saudi Arabia in the support of terrorism and Al-Qaeda.”

[4:35 pm] I repeat to those who haven’t read this yet. This was the Syrian State Media SANA’s official response :

“This new Israeli aggression is a clear attempt to alleviate the pressure on the armed terrorist groups after our army beat them back in several regions and after the army’s victories on the road to recovering security and stability in Syria” said SANA.

[4:23 pm] Jerusalem Post reports. Relevant update: Israel’s Defense Ministry strategist Amos Gilad admits that Hezbollah not seeking chemical weapons.

[4:16 pm] Bloomberg Business Week reports political scientist Jonathan Spyer’s opinion:

““If Israel has now done this twice with air strikes within the last 48 hours, its ‘shadow-conflict’ with Iran is no longer in the shadows, and this represents a serious escalation,” Jonathan Spyer, a political scientist at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya north of Tel Aviv”

[1:59 pm] According to CNN,  Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal al Mekdad called the attack a “declaration of war” by Israel.

“In an interview with CNN’s Frederik Pleitgen in Damascus, al Mekdad said the attack represented an alliance between Islamic terrorists and Israel. He added that Syria would retaliate against Israel in its own time and way.”

[1:56 pm] it is worth noting that this is the 3rd Israeli strike in Syria. One in September 2007, one in January 2013 and one in may 2013. The following photo comes from Israel’s Haaretz newspaper:

[1: 50 pm] How thermobaric bombs work

[1:27 pm] Israel’s Haaretz’s last live blog post was about 40 minutes ago

“12:44 P.M. Netanyahu convenes a special security cabinet meeting at 2:30 P.M. in order to hold a final security assessment, before he sets out to China. Due to the meeting, the prime minister’s flight will be delayed by 2 hours and is scheduled to depart at 7 P.M. In Netanyahu absence, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon will serve as acting prime minister. (Barak Ravid)”"

[1:20 pm] The Guardian reported:

“Israel has carried out a second air strike on Syria, hitting targets in and close to Damascus in what briefings by unnamed western intelligence sources reportedly claimed was an attempt to stop a shipment of advanced, Iranian-made missiles heading to Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Syria’s state news agency, Sana, reported explosions at the Jamraya military and scientific research centre near Damascus, saying: “Initial reports point to these explosions being a result of Israeli missiles.” The agency spoke of an unspecified number of casualties.

While Israel made no comment, Lebanon’s Al-Mayadeen TV reported several apparent strikes, including one on a military position in a village west of Damascus, about six miles from the Lebanon border.

Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV said the Jamraya research base was not hit and that it was an army supply centre which had been targeted. The station quoted Syrian security officials as saying three sites, including military barracks, arms depots and air defence infrastructure, were targeted. Amateur video footage said to have been shot early on Sunday in the Damascus area showed fire lighting up the night sky.”

[1:16 pm] Haaretz live blog

[1:07 pm] Please remember. A mushroom cloud DOES NOT mean it’s nuclear. Any large explosion would produce the same effect. Wikipedia Article.

[1:00 pm] Initial reporting was done by a Redditor, “TheEarthquakeGuy” I will copy what he wrote here. Please read it.

Time is in GMT

“Hey everyone! After requests to create a live update thread, I will keep this post up to date.

After the Boston Bombings and similar, I ask you to keep speculation to a minimum as to avoid forcing this thread into a read-only page, should things increase.

Updates

• [9:10 am GMT] Reuters is also reporting Iran condemning the attack (expected) and calling for the region to stand against the action. Source
• [9:06 am GMT] Reuters is reporting a senior Israeli official on Syria’s Chemical Stock pile as “Not wanted” by the Hezbollah rebels. This is very good news for the region, instead Hezbollah is after conventional weapon systems. Source
• [8:59 am GMT] An expansion on the previous update, an IDF official has been quoted as saying “Iron Dome batteries are deployed from time to time in different locations across the country according to security assessments. The system is currently being deployed in the northern region.”
• [8:48 am GMT] Haaretz is reporting the deployment of two Iron Dome Battery systems (Anti missile systems) near the cities of Haifa and Safed, to address tension along the country’s northern border.
• [8:40 am GMT] CNN is saying there are reports of Iraqi Shiites fighting in Syria with Iranian Revolutionary Guards providing intellectual and advisory report. Israels Defense Force has still yet to comment.
• [8:29 am GMT] Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu has not commented on the matter at the opening of the cabinet meeting.
• [8:24 am GMT] According to Haaretz, Israeli forces attacked a weapons and ammunition storehouses and air defense centers, the research facility remains unharmed. They are also quoting Lebanon television as reporting Syrian Air Defense succeeded in hitting an enemy aircraft. This information is from a Hezbollah (Israel’s opponents/rebels) and thus is likely to be biased.
• [7:21 am GMT] After talking with /u/NewsCrowd, it is clear there is a slow down in information currently.
• [6:52 am GMT] Reuters is quoting a source in saying the targets are Fateh-110 missiles in transit from Iran to Hezbollah. Here is the wiki page on the missile.
• [5:47 am GMT] A few of you are questioning the Iranian presence in the Golans. This is not confirmed and instead is simply there to answer people’s questions as the rumors spread. There is no evidence as to Iranian presence in the region and thus cannot be verified or confirmed. Apologies over any mis-communication. It seems only rumor websites in the region are being updated, one source has mentioned the possibility of a media black out. I will keep this updated.
• [5:20 am GMT] Talking with some of my sources, the Israelis contacted are feeling calm about this and are ready to roll, but believe this to blow over quickly as of current. Still no comment from Assad. The previous rumor about an armed convoy has not provided any evidence.
• [5:04 am GMT] Reports that Iranian Military [5:35 am GMT] is possibly (Israeli Radio) on the Syrian side of the Golan Mountain Range – This is unconfirmed and speculative. I am mentioning this to keep track of all information.
• [4:14 am GMT] Thank you to those offering help, this is greatly appreciated. Also check out this Reddit-Stream to stay up to date.
• [4:06 am GMT] BBC World News is talking to a journalist who has said this could be the biggest attack on the Syrian Military in years.
• [4:04 am GMT] Thanks to /u/edwardunknown for more video angles. One angle and another.
• [4:02 am GMT] BBC World News has reported the strike location is also a prime artillery position that a lot of strikes come out of.
• [3:37 am GMT] Assad has yet to officially declare war as The Commentator has been reporting.
• [3:21 am GMT] I would like to take the time to address a few rumors. No reports on this ‘nuke’ that is trending on twitter, the blast would have been larger and the coverage worldwide. There are twitter reports that Syria is sending forces to the Israel/Syria Border – This cannot be confirmed at all. Assad has yet to comment on this, no sites are quoting him on this attack. I would also like to ask people to check the articles they are linking in the news subreddits, quite a few are from the Friday Strike.
• [3:12 am GMT] RT is citing a local journalist reporting 300 people dead and a total of 4 blasts striking the area.
• [3:04 am GMT] The BBC is currently playing a phone interview to a local journalist(?) of people experiencing a minor earthquake before the blast. In his words this could indicate an underground structure being attacked. This is not confirmed – Just the latest on BBC news.
• [3:02 am GMT] Reports coming in of multiple casualties as expected.
• [3:01 am GMT] The BBC is reporting multiple attacks on local military bases, stating locals as sources.
• [2:59 am GMT] Here is a resource on where the strikes have occurred provided by /u/crybabypeepants.
• [2:54 am GMT] It was pointed out to me the ABC link I have linked to is on the Friday Attack – The information about the missile strike is only valid about the Friday strike. Today’s strike is against the military research center. Apologies over any confusion. Thank you Lt-Derp.

The Story so far [2:47 am GMT]

• An Israeli Air Strike has hit a Missile shipment headed towards Hezbollah.
• The strike itself occurred near a Ammunition depot and Military Research Center.
• The missiles are being reported to be ‘game changing’ and include ground to ground missiles. This is from an ABC article that I was linked to addressing the Friday Strike. Today’s target is the Military Research Center. No reports of other targets. Apologies over confusion caused.
• The White House is transferring all questions to the Israeli Embassy.
• A lot of speculation on possible war between the two countries – No official word as of yet.
• Assad has yet to address this attack.

Links

Youtube Video

RT Article

BBC News

Al Jazeera

Reuters

The Commentator

The Daily Star Lebanon

NBC News

ABC News - This is on the Friday Strike. “

A Scene from Incendies

by Joey Ayoub

To speak with a voice mutilated by silent pain, to love when all that surrounds you is hatred, when everything around you whispers and yells some justification of torture and murder, to choose to persevere as a mother when motherhood threatens your sanity – such choices are no small feat.

Incendies tells the story of a quest, an attempt to understand a chaos that the characters inherited. After the death of their mother Nawal (Lubna Azabal), two twins, Jeanne (Melissa Desormeaux-Poulin), a mathematician, and her brother Simon (Maxime Gaudette), are given two letters to deliver to a father they never met and a brother they never knew existed. Hesitant at first and then determined to find peace -Jeanne more so than Simon-, they both accept to go on the search for their lost family members.

The movie has no place, or rather mentions no real one. We know for obvious reasons that the story takes place in the Arab world, more specifically somewhere not unlike Lebanon. The Arabic accents are mixed; we hear Jordanian, Syrian, Lebanese, Palestinian and Moroccan accents throughout the movie. Such a choice reveals one of Incendies‘s most powerful quality: its universality. It doesn’t matter the country, religion, or period of history you happen to be involved in with or without your approval. It makes no difference whether you’re an Irish Catholic or Protestant, a Rwandan Tutsi or Hutu, a Native or non-Native American, an Israeli or Palestinian. What matters is the inherent cruel foolishness that lies within arbitrary hatred.

Lubna Azabal as Nawal Marwan

The whole world of Incendies is obviously about Lebanon and about the Lebanese Civil War in particular. Through violent images, we get a sense of how absurd the whole situation was. No direct accusations are made by the movie’s characters – and here lies another unexpected strength of this movie: it’s indirectness. Instead, massacres of innocent civilians – elders, women and children included – shocks the viewer into immediately condemning such madness. It doesn’t need to say that this is madness and it avoids pointing fingers at anyone. All it needs to do, and all it does, is show the madness.

Indeed, most people do not choose their religion or nationality. And yet religion and nationality are exactly what a good number of the world’s population rely on to define themselves. Needless to say, such a reality is a hotbed of hatred and violence. That’s the conclusion reached by Nawal, and that’s the conclusion she wants her children to reach.

Such a conclusion might not be as obvious to all viewers of different cultural backgrounds. Lebanese citizens with only a basic knowledge of their country’s history would recognize the references to real-life events such as the bus massacre and the horrors of Khiam prison. Arabs would notice the weird mixture of accents from the very beginning which would immediately make them wonder the reason behind such a choice. Non-Arabic speakers might miss, despite their most honest intentions, crucial details.

This would have been a major weakness of Incendies were it not compensated by its message of universality. It just so happens that Arabic is spoken here. It could have just easily been done in a Serbian or Rwandan or Irish context. So even if non-Arabic speakers miss some details, they would still be mesmerized by the visuals, saddened by the suffering and forced to pause and reflect.

Melissa Desormeaux-Pouli (left) and Maxime Gaudette (right) as Jeanne and Simon

When Jeanne heads off to the country of her origins, we are already in the midst of a movie with two stories. We are shown, through Jeanne’s own visits, glimpses into Nawal’s past. Nawal was beaten, tortured and raped for being involved in a conflict she did not choose. All she did was love a man she wasn’t supposed to and try to find the son they took away from her. The rest was hatred and chaos.

And what else can be said? it’s truly important to note the essential importance of silences throughout the movie. Besides two Radiohead songs that are heard during extremely dramatic scenes, the whole movie is plagued by chilling silences connected only by conversations and sound bites. Manipulation of sounds and pauses adds, of course, to the themes of hopelessness and disillusionment. Nawal joins a radical group that is obviously against her own educated and open-minded political beliefs after witnessing, and almost being a part of, the massacre of Muslim civilians in a bus by Christian militias.

All in all, Incendies works as a story of the unthinkable. It portrays a world where 1+1 can actually result in 1, where a mother’s love can fight her rapist’s hatred and where the slow decay of life knows no other relief but acceptance.   

By Sari Hawa

Just a small thought. I recently decided to try reducing the amount of chemicals in my life, to go back to using more natural products. The soap and the toothpaste. Two products I started using the day I got to Senegal.

After years of Hawaiian-coconut-and-vanilla-smelling soaps and glow-in-the-dark-blue toothpastes, the weird lemon-ish smell of the soap and the ivory-white color of the toothpaste were pleasant surprises to me, and both times, I instantly thought of my grandmother and the products I used when I numerously slept at her place, when I was around 8 years old. “metel taba3 Teta” I childishly said to myself! (“Just like grandma’s”).

There’s a lot to learn from the past, I think. Maybe somehow, the older generations are the ones who led us to this world, this system of hyper-consumption and endless money-spending (and everything it implies). But they probably did it with genuinely good intentions, with the desire of making their lives and ours better and easier. On the other hand, the same older generations have a lot to teach us, because they learned stuff from their parents, and this stuff is valuable. The little secrets of a healthier, more responsible way of living lie with the elders (or at least, a good part of these secrets). It is true that our 21^st century critical thinking and creativity could definitely help us build a more responsible way of living, but why not learn from our grandparents? Why not bring back the good old ways that served them so well?

This is not about throwing everything away and replacing it with expensive vintage stuff. It’s not about becoming a hippy. It’s not about being a rebel, or an eco-friendly asshole whining for the Love of Mother Earth. It’s about creating a world that works for Humans (all of them), animals, and Nature as a whole.

We are part of this whole. We tend to forget this…

It has been confirmed. The first ever civil marriage in lebanon was signed by caretaker interior minister Marwan Charbel. The lucky couple, Khouloud Succarieh and Nidal Darwish, sets an example for Lebanon to follow. This, I hope, will encourage more couples desiring to get a civil marriage to do so.

“By this, Succariyeh and Darwish’s union becomes the first civil marriage registered in the records of the Directorate General for Personal Affairs in Lebanon,” the National News Agency announced.

However, it seems like getting a civil marriage is still too complicated. Khouloud and Nidal were asked to keep their religions’ official status intact simply because “there are no texts concerning divorce, inheritance and kids for people with no religious affiliations” (quote)

Obtascles still lay ahead. There are those who would do everything to stop sectarianism from unclenching its fists over this country’s progress. I am speaking of Grand Mufti Sheikh Mohammed Rashid Qabbani in particular – he had issued a fatwa against moves to legalize civil marriage.

by Joey Ayoub

It really does say it all, doesn’t it, when the municipal chief of Dekwaneh cites his personal beliefs to justify the crime of violating the rights of Lebanese citizens, of human beings. For that’s what he did. He simply cited his personal beliefs. He couldn’t really give any other reasons simply because there are none.

It says even more when the same pink-wearing, flowers-sitting-next-to-him “Man of Men” justifies the criminal humiliation of individuals based on the clothes they were wearing and the emotions they chose to express to each other. He illegally closed down a pub, illegally abused citizens. Illegal.

4 men were detained, forced to strip. They were treated like trash by a man who deserves to be prosecuted for crimes against our nation’s citizens. He cited, apparently, the civil war – how himself and others “defended our land and honor” – making an unbelievable and non-existent link between a Gay club and the period of horror that inflicted our nations for 15 years, killing 120,000 human beings.

This is outrageous. It is disgusting and shameful. It feels like a parody of the lowest, extreme right-wing reactionaries that feed on hatred, ignorance, lies and deceit to maintain an image of security and strength. An elected official just used the words Lawat (faggots) and Noss rjel (Half-men) – the same words that educated men and women try to avoid, that even teenagers these days increasingly find unacceptable.

An event is being planned tomorrow by Helem Lebanon, the great Lebanese NGO working on improving the legal and social status of LGBT citizens of Lebanon. I urge all those who can attend to do so. We simply cannot accept something like that to happen without repercussions. We simply can’t.

Ps: I will cover this story for GlobalVoicesOnline in a few days

Update 30th of April 2013

Helem just released a few pics of today’s sit in.

Update 3rd of May 2013

Solidarity with Demands for Justice Against the Abuse and Degradation of Non-heteronormative bodies by the Municipality of Dekwaneh, Lebanon

“What are you genders?”

Update 4th of May 2013

Great video report by NTV. Marwan Charbel, the minister of interior and municipality, joins Dekwaneh’s Antoine Chakhtoura, in calling homosexuals “faggots”. Marwan Charbel asks “if two Gay people got married in France and decided to have their honeymoon in Lebanon, should we allow them to enter?”

Yes, let’s also attack our own tourism industry. Israel, Syria and our armed political parties are not doing an effective job.

In Lebanon, being Gay is illegal. Killing people, not so much. You can watch the video report here (Arabic):

by Sari Hawa

Needless to say that my 75-day stay in Senegal was an incredible experience. A real trip into the values of an African village, a reminder of human wisdom.

Around week 7 in Baback, I found a text in one of my notebooks, one that I wrote back in February 2011. I was quite surprised, because I had completely forgotten the existence of this writing. But the biggest surprise was everything I wrote about in this text. Unconsciously, two years later, the three main ideas cited back then are the three main points guiding my life today.

Please excuse the mistakes, the misused words, and the arrogant generalizations of a 19-year-old. I copied the text exactly as I wrote it, because despite everything, the conclusion still fits in my life and my worldviews.

“It is obvious to notice that every living being affects and contributes to the environment it lives in. Unfortunately, we human beings have only affected our environment. Knowing ourselves better than any other being, we have kept track of our actions through time and have noticed that we ignored everything in order to satisfy our needs and desires. Moreover, the more time passed, the more few people fulfilled their needs and desires by using, blocking, and smothering a big majority of the world’s population, as well as the environment and the world ecosystem.

In that, we point out two issues that were created; the balance was broken on two levels. Man, with the evolution of technology, started by breaking the natural balance, the homeostasis between human beings, all the other animals, and Nature as a whole: The Human/Nature rupture.

During approximately the same period of time, gaps between rich and poor, educated and uneducated people started growing. The industrial age needed leaders and workers, which then led to the corruption of the system. The heads collected the money while the bottoms ran after it. Here, we have the Human/Human rupture, or the inter-human rupture.

Our anthropocentric way of seeing things led to the first rupture. Our egocentric way of seeing things led to the second.

What do we do now? Do we change priorities? If yes, then how? How do we put Life at the center of our thinking? How can the human life be part of Life? An important life, but one that is as important as all other forms of life. Maybe we can find a third rupture that is leading and contributing to the whole state of unbalance: the intra-human rupture, the rupture within oneself. The overrated value of physical and material satisfaction, and the underrated value of the spiritual.”

Needless to say Baback had a lot to teach me about these three ruptures…

Maryam Saiidi with a cardboard of her son

by Joey Ayoub

I grew up in the post-Civil War generation. The year of my birth was the year all war criminals received exoneration for atrocities committed during the war – the so-called Amnesty law, giving the sadists, the torturers, the rapists and the murderers a “second chance”, a chance not one of their victims ever received. The underlying message was simple: forget.

Between 120 and 150,000 people died, 17,000 disappeared – a country left in ruins by ideologies that fought to death; and worst of all a silent agreement pretending it never happened.

For the privileged few such as myself, the civil war had little more meaning than its weird role in making Lebanon the mess that it is today. We somehow associated it (and still do) with the corruption of the political class, the incompetencies of public servants and pretty much anything in between without really knowing how and why. Adults never talked about it. It was, and still is, a taboo subject drenched in the fear of history’s repetitions.

Enter Maryam Saiidi. This extraordinary woman is the mother of a 15-year old communist militant who was officially listed as missing after a university battle during the 1982 war. He was either murdered or kidnapped by  right-wing Lebanese allies of Israel – the Lebanese Force and/or Phalanges. 31 years later, Maryam is still searching for her son. She isn’t in denial, she just knows she’ll never get closure until she found him, dead or alive.

In Sleepless Nights, Maryam is one of two figures at the center of the story. The other is Assaad Chaftari, a senior intelligence officer of the Lebanese Forces during the war. A close associate of mass-murderer Elie Hobeika, Assaad has since come out and apologized for atrocities he committed during the war. He still refuses, however, to release crucial information that might help countless families get closure, notably the location of mass graves. Maryam knows, and we do too, that Assaad knows more than he admits.

Assaad Chaftari walking in an exhibition of the disappeared

Assaad is followed throughout the documentary. Eliane Raheb, the director, seems to try to talk to the viewer through Assaad. He is, after all, a good reminder of how a good deal of the population thinks. The Muslim vs Christian divide still reeks in public and private discussions. That’s why men and women like Assaad matter – whether Christian, Druze or Muslim. As Lebanon is trying to ease its pains, Assaad’s lot cannot be ignored, if only to know how to fight the mentality they left behind.

Maryam represents those who cannot forget the past. She refuses to let go of her son’s memory and rejects all attempts to make her feel better. She knows that her pain is justified and has a raison d’etre. The pseudo-psychological crap pulled by Alexandra Asseily cannot fool someone like Maryam. I was surprised Maryam didn’t punch Alexandra when the latter started saying she should “learn to forgive herself”. To forgive what? Maryam is a victim, not an equally criminal participant of the war.

On a more personal level, I understood where Assaad came from. It was easier for me to ‘understand’ him than it was to understand Maryam. I was born in France and speak French as my native language. Growing up, I was raised Christian. My friends, families, neighbors and classmates were Christians. I never chose any of it, that’s just the way it was. I can still name people I know who, like Assaad’s parents, can’t seem to get over the fact that they’re not French and, like Assaad, seriously think that Phoenicians somehow turned into today’s Christians – which apparently means something. You can thank my religious upbringing for that. It wasn’t until I turned 16 that I really started to get to know Muslims on a more-than-first-name basis. You can thank my third school – the only secular one – and my current secular university (AUB) for that – and the fact that I’m now an Atheist.

That being said, I do not under any circumstances justify nor support such pathetic crypto-fascist beliefs that leave room for certain kinds of people only. Assaad’s ‘vision of Lebanon’ is wrong, and a threat to any civilized society worthy of the name. I wish to make that clear.

The hardest scene to watch is without a doubt the confrontation between Assaad and Maryam at a photo exhibition on the missing. Weirdly enough, Assaad seems to invite Maryam’s yelling as (perhaps) a way of cleansing himself of his culpability. During the war, he reported making a deal with a priest to receive absolution for the murder of 500 people, allowing him to murder a further 500 before their next session together.

Eliane Raheb teaches us a lesson – that is is better to face the truth than to ignore. Lebanon is slowly recovering from nearly two decades of horror. Movies and documentaries that try to heal Lebanon’s wounds are popping out left and right – From The Lebanese Rocket Society to Incendies, passing Where do we go now? and West Beirut.

Despite a few needless shots here and there, Sleepless Nights works as a smooth rendition of a truly troubled era of Lebanese history. Featuring in-depth coverage of little known facts and interviews with previously unknown men and women, Sleepless Nights ends up being a clear and devastating documentary that is a must-watch for every Lebanese citizen and student of Middle Eastern history.