Junieh, 28 August 2006
Since I wanted to write about is war for a long time and never did it I thought it could be good to write about first impressions since coming back. I just wrote down ideas ad thought and uploaded them so apologies for the mess.
So, well, we arrived in Damascus and moved almost immediately to Aleppo. I mainly talked to taxi drivers on my way north and had the impression they were not as stiff as before (the war) when I mentioned my residing in Lebanon. On the contrary, they were asking where I spent my time during the war and talked about how bad the war was and so on. My citizenship was welcomed more than usual. I had generally the impression people were positive with the Italians (and their mission in Lebanon ?).
Don’t know why but the manager of the hotel in dar jabri showed us the whole building and its secret parts with bits of local history. The owner of the sweet shop told us about his family business going back 200 years and so on. Is there a renewed nationalistic feeling? An attempt at ‘normalising’ the terrorists? Simply very few tourists in town to spend energy on?
Syria was full of Hezbollah flags hanging on windows, walls, and even floating from cars’ windows. Amazingly in many of the posters typically decorating Syrian cars and buildings with the Assad family trinity Nasrallah has substituted the older brother. In other words he has become one of the heroes and bastions of Syria. And this time these seem spontaneous political expressions as ever before.
In Lebanon there were not as many flags. The day we came back by bus Nasrallah was dominating the screens as he was giving a very important declaration for the nation. He said he would have never kidnapped the two Israeli soldiers, would have he known Israel was going to react in such a strong way. This was topic of discussion this morning in the office. Nasrallah seems to be an incredibly good politicians. He is doing what is needed at the right time for his popularity to grow. Such a declaration somehow cleared him of the latest accusations, and almost only accusations by the government and many people, that by unilaterally kidnapping the two soldiers Hezbollah has endangered its people and drown them into a crazy war. His declaration is at the same time an apology to the Lebanese people, an invitation to trust Hezbollah whose fault, after all, is only to underestimate Israelis aggressive attitude, and of course a blaming to Israel for having over-reacted. Also, through this declaration Nasrallah indirectly expressed his self confidence at national level: he does not need hide his mistakes, he is not afraid of taking them to the open since his position is not going to be threatened anyway (Ben). Finally, he once again reinforced the belief that Nasrallah does not lie. As Nina told me, Nasrallah does what he says he does and is straight. A journalist wrote: “it has to be said that Nasrallah is a brave man who admitted his mistake instead of jumping on the wagon of victory”.
Hezbollah agreed with the rest of the government on disarming once the premises of their ‘resistance’ role are over. That is once Israeli armies go back to Israel, once the intrusion into Lebanese territory is over and Shebaa farms returned together with the prisoners. This, according to many showed that Hezbollah considers itself as the resistance movements and does not go beyond that. They are willing to abandon their weapons once there is no reason for the resistance to exists. Hezbollah line makes sense from beginning to end (regardless here of disagreements with their basic political position, armed resistance and so on). Also, does this mean that Hezbollah will recognise the existence if Israel? If the end of the resistance is confined to the self determination of Lebanon I would think so. However, if many people turned to Hezbollah for being the only ones able to defend Lebanon, some others are still very critical of their politics.
I also asked what are the Lebanese thinking of Syria. My thinking was that after Syria left Lebanon a year ago substituted by the US the US had for the first time won a lot of consensus in Lebanon. With this war, however, they lost it all and also increased anti-US feelings since the US sold the Lebanese to their enemies when these were most weak. Nina says the Lebanese are disappointed about the lack of a strong stand by Syria against Israel and this war. They are rather thinking of all the money Syria made with this war through selling food and other products, through rents from refugees, salaries for the reconstruction of Lebanese infrastructures (they did not start yet), taxi services ( have heard taxi drivers were asking up to 3000 dollars to take people to Syria after the first 10 days of war).
About our coming back. Many people, almost all those we met, teased us asking whether we came back only after the war is over. But they all great us nicely anyway and so many people pass by the office just to say ‘welcome back’, nice. Some asked again in a teasing manner if that was the first time we experienced war and heard bombs and so on, and when we said yes it all seemed clear to them (maybe our fear and running away?).
Yesterday, 31 August, at friends’ house, they are Maronites, they were asking me whether I was proud of having so many Italians soldiers in Lebanon, if I knew any of them and so on. They were also laughing since they thought that the soldiers sent by the new leftist Italian government will support Hezbollah against Israel.
Their position did not change much during the war. They are still more for Israel than Hezbollah. I think this is almost unbelievable for those who do not know Lebanon and its civil war when many Christians were supported by Israel against the Muslims (things were very complicated and alliances changed all the time, anyway). My friends told me that they knew Israel bombs only military targets. I asked about the civilian targets, then they agreed that some bombing of roads to stop Hezbollah from disarming did take place so I asked about the factories and then they said that there is also economical reasons for the bombing. They also told me a story they heard of a factory in the Bekaa they went to visit. The factory that used to produce readymade houses, was hit by five missiles and completely destroyed during the war. They were told that the US army in Iraq had just commissioned the building of a large number of constructions. Now these will have to be built by a factory in Israel that produces the same stuff. This seems to have been not an isolated case since, my friends argued, Lebanon is the only country in the region that can compete with Israel since they have both a developed economy and political/democratic system. Thus Israel tried to weaken its competitor by destroying its economy. Indirectly (apart from the people and the damage to its infrastructures) this war cost Lebanon incredible amounts in terms of loss of tourism for this season and the next ones. At the same time they strongly condemned the unilateral decision by Hezbollah of kidnapping the soldiers since all the Lebanese had to pay the price.
What surprises me is the choice of emphasis. I had to insist on asking about the numerous non-military targets that were hit during the war for them to mention them. They preferred to say that Israel hits only military targets and its Hezbollah’s fault anyway. I though that all the Lebanese by now had to be so angry at Israel just because this was attacking them ferociously.
While in Italy I had heard on the tv about a BBC team rescuing many old people in a village in the south they had gone to. Some were without water, some without food, some were stuck on a chair. Many old people preferred not to leave their houses in spite of the heavy bombardment. Thsy did not where to go. Those who wanted often could not since the roads were so badly damaged and cars and motorcycles were targeted by the Israelis; many people left their houses on foot leaving their old people behind. The choice between saving the young ones by leaving the house and losing the old ones must have been unimaginably terrible to make. This stories were somehow confirmed here. One of the employees here in the company said his 83 years old father in law had died. He decided to stay in his house in a southern village. It did not make any sense for him to leave his place his land. One morning he opened the door to get out and was shot by an Israeli soldier and died on the spot. Another friend from work said that his mother decided to leave her village but could not because of the dangerous roads, for the same reason they could not help her either. They called the red cross that went to rescue the old lady bringing her home after hours of travelling.
The activists scene seems to have been split between the more radical and less radical coalitions. Some groups seem to have even denied the involvement of the US in this war, even after the news that the US had shipped weapons to Israel. Other groups grew more or less close to the right of Lebanon to resist or the Hezbollah themselves. However on the field, they all worked together in spite of their political positions. Being active and useful kept many people sane.
