We live in the second century of world wars...
I am dying to write a long, loving and witty account of our trip to Da Moose last week to see F., C. and the C.-rents, but I have Summer Term Paper #2 due next week. I feel that Canadian hospitality deserves my full attention, so that post will have to wait. Teaser!
In the meantime, I have been thinking more and more about Lebanon, sadly. I don't know why I find the situation there worse, somehow, than the situation in Iraq, yet I do. For those who have not read Anthony Bourdain's brilliant account on Salon of being trapped in Beirut with his production crew, please do so immediately. I always loved his writing but had no idea he could be so eloquent about issues other than food.
Over the last few days, this fragment of a poem by Muriel Rukeyser keeps coming to mind. It was quoted in June in the New York Times in, of all things, an article about the Whitney Biennial. I felt it was bizarrely out of place but saved it for its beauty. Lately it seems just as beautiful but also sort of scary. I'm not at her level of outrage yet, nor do I call my friends about the news every morning. But sometimes recently I feel more and more as though I should.
I lived in the first century of world wars,
Most mornings I would be more or less insane,
The newspapers would arrive with their careless stories,
The news would pour out of various devices
Interrupted by attempts to sell products to the unseen.
I would call my friends on other devices;
They would be more or less mad for similar reasons.
In the meantime, I have been thinking more and more about Lebanon, sadly. I don't know why I find the situation there worse, somehow, than the situation in Iraq, yet I do. For those who have not read Anthony Bourdain's brilliant account on Salon of being trapped in Beirut with his production crew, please do so immediately. I always loved his writing but had no idea he could be so eloquent about issues other than food.
Over the last few days, this fragment of a poem by Muriel Rukeyser keeps coming to mind. It was quoted in June in the New York Times in, of all things, an article about the Whitney Biennial. I felt it was bizarrely out of place but saved it for its beauty. Lately it seems just as beautiful but also sort of scary. I'm not at her level of outrage yet, nor do I call my friends about the news every morning. But sometimes recently I feel more and more as though I should.
I lived in the first century of world wars,
Most mornings I would be more or less insane,
The newspapers would arrive with their careless stories,
The news would pour out of various devices
Interrupted by attempts to sell products to the unseen.
I would call my friends on other devices;
They would be more or less mad for similar reasons.
posted by HarleyQ @ 2:24 PM
1 Comments:
At 9:28 PM,
JGSchaeffer said…
Thank you for such a great blog, harleyq.
To see 'Paris of the East' (as Beirut used to be called before 75% of it became cannabis and opium crops after the first round of bombings more than a decade ago) is beyond heartbreaking.
In my opinion it is simply the continuation of the policy wanks of K street pet projects of the 1980's come back to life. And for what?
Who profits from lands full of warlords and drug crops? Yet we see it over and over again - in Afghanistan, in Colombia, and now, I'm sure in Lebanon.
On the other hand, do I support any cause whose ultimate revealment is a society where women are servants, not even second class citizens? Of course I cannot. But that type of society is that espoused by every othodox version of all the major religions - Catholic, Islam, and Judaism.
Personal anecdote: the year was 1984 and I was an underage hostess in a restaurant in Memphis, TN. The two cooks were Shia refugees from Lebanon brought over by the progressive Jewish owner of the restaurant. One of my managers was a Southern jerk in his late 20s who one night locked me in the meat freezer with him and started to 'overstep his boundaries' to put it politely. After about 10 minutes of me fighting him off and me calling out, Ibrahim, one of the Shia cooks, burst open the locker door holding a knife and got right in his face. Let's just say, he never bothered me again - ever.
They looked after me, those two, knowing I was a clueless 14-year-old pretending I was 16 so I could earn some money after school. And I remember we did talk about the plane hijackings going on around that time. They told me they believed it was the right thing to do because it was the only way their cause even got noticed. I said - but what if someone you knew was on board, like me? They said - we would never hurt you because you are our friend.
I believed that because I had witnessed their protection when I was too clueless to even realize I needed it.
I guess the point of this diatribe is that when you get to know anyone of any creed or belief, by working side by side with them, you see their morality and their purity. And that, to me, is the real tragedy of Lebanon - that we (the US & Israel) have lost the ability to see morality and purity in the individual who does not espouse our particular creed.
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