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AMAZING SMALL THINGS HAPPEN EVERYDAY
Washington Post, DC
Dec 27 2006
It's a gorgeous afternoon in Beirut, the sky is a clear Kodak blue,
the sun warm, a soft breeze blows cold. A quiet day it is, quiet days
they have been preceding the holidays. The usual frenzy is palpably
(understandably) dimmed. Everything seems smaller, shrunk to a barely
functional size, Christmas decorations, the commerce of gift-giving,
celebrations. The mobilization in downtown Beirut, where more often
than not one can hear Christmas carols blaring in English on one
square and thundering calls for overthrow of government on the square
right adjacent to it, is also a little dimmed. Much to my surprise
(but that's the result of my own failing), Beirut has managed to
cope with the political upheavals with the two factions effectively
looking away from one another. Even when cars jam in traffic along
the periphery of the protest area, you look around and see drivers
chatting away casually with their passengers, taxi drivers are able
to have conversations worlds removed even when the outpour of either
Christmas caroling or revolutionary fervor are deafening. The country
is stuck in an impasse, we have been granted a lull for the holidays
(Christmas, New Year's, Adha and Armenian Christmas... who knows). On
the one hand the protestors promise to up the ante and stage violent
disruptions (civil disobedience) after the holidays, and on the other
hand the other side is bracing for more assassinations. They are all
living martyrs, potentially. There is no resolution for the present
conflict in sight. Blood will be spilled. It will have to. Since the
assassination of Hariri, this country seems to be living a big noir
moment, at moments I suspected the script to be pretty bad, closer to
dinner theater than fiction from the 1930s and 1940s, but I have been
systematically surprised with the turn of events. Except for Bogie and
Bacall, all the motifs of noir novels are here, added to them, hordes
of ghosts from unsettled deaths, unavenged assassinations. I have grown
in the habit of writing that Beirut is now the realm where Stephen
King would be king and Guy Debord never dreamed such a spectacle,
and if the two should have ever met, it would have been here.
The present crisis is so complicated to disentangle it's not even
funny to explain anymore. Thus I will spare you the excruciating
minutia. The conflict has a local Lebanese articulation, it is
also bound to the conflict with Syria, the conflict with Israel,
the conflict between Syria and Israel, the conflict between Saudi
Arabia and Iran, the conflict between the US and Iran and US designs
for a New Middle East. Ultimately it's like puff pastry, thin layers
stacked atop one another, not necessarily harmoniously, with sparse
sprinkles for sugar coating, all ready to crumble under any form of
pressure into meaningless crumbs and smithereens.
It's not as tragic here, the civil conflict in Iraq and in Palestine
are, respectively and for lack of a better word, humbling. In fact,
just following the news has driven me to new depths of despair. This,
indeed, is a sad Christmas in this part of the world, all round. And
why shouldn't be? We might avert being driven straight to hell with
our eyes and ears open if this US administration does not pursue it's
doomsday plan of an attack on Iran. But we are presently, just short
of that, between dreams of mad men (and women) in the White House
and how their local proxies franchise, free-ride, or implement those
dreams, there seem to be few reasons for anyone to send conveyances
of merriment and joy from this part of the world.
It is not all lost, however. Our lot has been sinister, and it might
be for a while longer, but I cannot get myself to write that we are
altogether broken. Yes, conversations in geopolitics easily lead
to despair, but there are countless anecdotes, incidents, actions,
that take place everyday from one end of the Arab world to the next,
that fill one's heart with love, hope and strength. This region is
populated with gorgeous spirits, valiant women and men, fearless,
brilliant, creative, generous, luminous who work against the odds,
against the tide of history. They are the territories that will never
be occupied, the memory that will never be erased, the justice that
will never be thwarted. I know it's very corny to conclude in this
manner, but I am not writing to impress. There is no other way of
explaining how amazing small things happen everyday, countless of
times, in this region, from one end to the other.
Drawing on their light and energy, I wish you all merry holidays and
a New Year filled with felicity and merriment.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
Washington Post, DC
Dec 27 2006
It's a gorgeous afternoon in Beirut, the sky is a clear Kodak blue,
the sun warm, a soft breeze blows cold. A quiet day it is, quiet days
they have been preceding the holidays. The usual frenzy is palpably
(understandably) dimmed. Everything seems smaller, shrunk to a barely
functional size, Christmas decorations, the commerce of gift-giving,
celebrations. The mobilization in downtown Beirut, where more often
than not one can hear Christmas carols blaring in English on one
square and thundering calls for overthrow of government on the square
right adjacent to it, is also a little dimmed. Much to my surprise
(but that's the result of my own failing), Beirut has managed to
cope with the political upheavals with the two factions effectively
looking away from one another. Even when cars jam in traffic along
the periphery of the protest area, you look around and see drivers
chatting away casually with their passengers, taxi drivers are able
to have conversations worlds removed even when the outpour of either
Christmas caroling or revolutionary fervor are deafening. The country
is stuck in an impasse, we have been granted a lull for the holidays
(Christmas, New Year's, Adha and Armenian Christmas... who knows). On
the one hand the protestors promise to up the ante and stage violent
disruptions (civil disobedience) after the holidays, and on the other
hand the other side is bracing for more assassinations. They are all
living martyrs, potentially. There is no resolution for the present
conflict in sight. Blood will be spilled. It will have to. Since the
assassination of Hariri, this country seems to be living a big noir
moment, at moments I suspected the script to be pretty bad, closer to
dinner theater than fiction from the 1930s and 1940s, but I have been
systematically surprised with the turn of events. Except for Bogie and
Bacall, all the motifs of noir novels are here, added to them, hordes
of ghosts from unsettled deaths, unavenged assassinations. I have grown
in the habit of writing that Beirut is now the realm where Stephen
King would be king and Guy Debord never dreamed such a spectacle,
and if the two should have ever met, it would have been here.
The present crisis is so complicated to disentangle it's not even
funny to explain anymore. Thus I will spare you the excruciating
minutia. The conflict has a local Lebanese articulation, it is
also bound to the conflict with Syria, the conflict with Israel,
the conflict between Syria and Israel, the conflict between Saudi
Arabia and Iran, the conflict between the US and Iran and US designs
for a New Middle East. Ultimately it's like puff pastry, thin layers
stacked atop one another, not necessarily harmoniously, with sparse
sprinkles for sugar coating, all ready to crumble under any form of
pressure into meaningless crumbs and smithereens.
It's not as tragic here, the civil conflict in Iraq and in Palestine
are, respectively and for lack of a better word, humbling. In fact,
just following the news has driven me to new depths of despair. This,
indeed, is a sad Christmas in this part of the world, all round. And
why shouldn't be? We might avert being driven straight to hell with
our eyes and ears open if this US administration does not pursue it's
doomsday plan of an attack on Iran. But we are presently, just short
of that, between dreams of mad men (and women) in the White House
and how their local proxies franchise, free-ride, or implement those
dreams, there seem to be few reasons for anyone to send conveyances
of merriment and joy from this part of the world.
It is not all lost, however. Our lot has been sinister, and it might
be for a while longer, but I cannot get myself to write that we are
altogether broken. Yes, conversations in geopolitics easily lead
to despair, but there are countless anecdotes, incidents, actions,
that take place everyday from one end of the Arab world to the next,
that fill one's heart with love, hope and strength. This region is
populated with gorgeous spirits, valiant women and men, fearless,
brilliant, creative, generous, luminous who work against the odds,
against the tide of history. They are the territories that will never
be occupied, the memory that will never be erased, the justice that
will never be thwarted. I know it's very corny to conclude in this
manner, but I am not writing to impress. There is no other way of
explaining how amazing small things happen everyday, countless of
times, in this region, from one end to the other.
Drawing on their light and energy, I wish you all merry holidays and
a New Year filled with felicity and merriment.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress