The cedar is still standing

[bigtree]

Wednesday July 19, 2006
Guardian Unlimited

The cedar is still standing

Alexandre Najjar wonders what he can tell his children about the bombing and the bloodshed in Lebanon



{snips}

I look around and the streets are empty and full of rubble. Schools are opening their doors to host refugees coming from all around the country. People are asking when it is going to stop. I keep silent - the previous war lasted 15 years. Everybody has his or her own opinion, founded on some personal analysis or on rumours collected here and there. Some think that Hizbullah is heroic and is fighting for the Palestinian cause and for Arab honour. Others believe that Iran and Syria are using Hizbullah to divert attention from their own problems. Some think that Israel has decided to eliminate Hizbullah under the cover of enforcing United Nations resolution 1559, which calls for all militias to be disarmed.

People here think that the evacuation of British and French citizens means that the Israelis plan to escalate their attacks. They fear the worst. I hear sirens everywhere: ambulance crews and firefighters are the only people working today in this ghost town called Beirut. I close my eyes and old memories come back up to the surface. I remember the dull roar of the cannonade, shelters, snipers, barricades, and how my mum used to lie to me, pretending that explosions were fireworks. This transformed the noise of shells exploding above our house into a carnival.

Of course, when I grew up, I discovered the truth and felt a retrospective fright, stirred up by the awareness of my casual attitude towards shells. What should I tell my children now? Should I use the same lies to stop their fear? And how can I explain to them the indifference of the world? Is there a quota for the value of human lives, like on the stock market?

Last night, I asked myself whether Lebanon was a damned country. I read once in the Bible a terrible prophecy of Ezekiel about Tyre, a port in the south of Lebanon. It predicts that many nations will attack this city and that Tyre will be "scraped flat like the top of a rock". Then I remembered my father when 13 shells destroyed our house, all except for the cedar tree - the symbol of Lebanon - in the garden. When people visited him to express their sympathy, my father did not show any sadness. He used to say to them: "Yeah, but the cedar is still standing."


more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/syria/story/0,,1823978,00.html?gusrc=rss

[bigtree]

1. .

[Viva_La_Revolution]

2. kick! nt

[bigtree]

3. .

[malaise]

4. Beautifully written

Thank you

[Gregorian]

5. Every human being wants life. Wants hope.

That cedar tree was hope.

Damn those who take hope away.

[bigtree]

6. there is always some hope

where there is life. Damn those who take life away.

[Sensitivity]

7. I have travelled in the region. Sadly the Militarism of Modern Israel

is the most discordant note. There is much culture and kindness among the peoples of palestine and
Lebanon along with anger and vengefulness that sometimes erupts. The jewish people are wonderful, but
their relative wealth and military might has turned a worm in the soul of the nation.