Monday, December 05, 2005

digging up the past

We choose to ignore the past because all of us are guilty as hell. The graves in Majdal Anjar is "hallal" for discussion because it was dug up and filled in by a foreign Army. I will use it as a segway into the more difficult activity of tackling our own demons as Lebanese. Once a pandora's box is open, it is open!
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Two days ago I got an e-mail from fellow Lebanese Blogger, Reem. She forwarded an article written by David Brooks titled The Age of Skepticism. Brooks' first paragraph reads as follows:
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War is a cultural event. World War I destroyed the old social order in Europe and disillusioned a generation of talented young Americans. World War II bred a feeling of American unity and self-confidence. Vietnam helped trigger a counterculture.
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If Brooks is right, and war is a cultural event, what did the Lebanese civil war do?
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One of the most common messages I hear is that Lebanese do not deal with the demons of their past. They do not deal with them because if they did, they'd realize that the social order they cling on to so desperately is one of the major factors that allowed such devastation to take place.
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Maybe I simply cannot see a counter culture develop because I am not putting things into perspective. Maybe I do not notice Lebanese challenge the old social order because I cannot put my finger on the right signals.
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I say those things because I do not see Lebanon's civil war as a "cultural event!" Tackling those demons appears to be too taxing for the Lebanese population. But heck... is that not what the youth are for?!?!?

5 comments:

Solomon2 said...

I prefer to think that War is a clash of cultures, and its ending is a defining event shared between the warring cultures. (In short, a rock concert is a cultural event; throwing rocks is a clash of cultures.)

Thus, the "demons" are difficult to tackle because challenging them implicitly threatens the peace. A new shared understanding must supersede the old before "demons" can be discussed and laid to rest sucessfully.

Raja said...

doha, you point to some very positive developments that have taken place over the past couple of months. However, I believe that Brooks was pointing to something much more profound that "choosing" not to fight.

What Brooks seemed to refer to was "choosing" to challenge sectarianism. Or, more figuratively, young teenagers (en mass) looking back at the way their parents are sectarian and rebelling against it!

That is the kind of change that Brooks was probably referring to when he wrote that WWI destroyed the old social order, and Vietnam creating a counter-culture.

Hummbumm, you hit it on the head when you said that we all have a chance to simply leave!

Solomon, I think that a rebellious youth culture that emmerges after clashing with the old sectarian one could actually lead to a shared understanding of certain crucial realities that would help us all tackle those demons.

Anonymous said...

What to do?
There are few choices (politically speaking) offered to a young Lebanese like me. A) I either adhere to a party/movement/whatever that represents my sect, without very much questioning its positions regarding democracy, liberties, economy etc. (The main thing is that it defends us against the others). In that case, if I'm lucky, the party/movement I belong to didn't take active part in the war, and I can "philosophize on" my colleagues about how we should boldly evoke the war and try not to bury our demons because they will grow more and more dangerous. While if I support LF/FPM/PSP/Hezbollah/Amal/Communist/etc (practically everybody) I don't have that option. B) I can also take a very comfortable position: indifference. I don't want to know about the war, I don't want to talk about it, I didn't kill anyone and even if some of my relatives died/participated/emigrated because of the war, I prefer to focus on the present and not encourage to old grudges. Je m'en fout. C) Any other alternative is perceived as a useless one. This category can include (3ala sabil al mithal la el7asr) writing a book, leaving the country to work abroad, starting a blog, even running in the elections as an independent candidate. They are all unfortunately considered laughable by most Lebanese.


Who do we have to thank for such a difficult situation and for the deadlock? If I say the confessional system, I will have the professors on my back, and we will end up hearing from the 'burn burn' guy again. Ofcourse Hezbollah is part of the problem (the biggest problem because of its weapons and islamist views), but so are all the other criminals/heroes/patriots/traitors...
One cannot blame the confessional system for the deadlock. At least not yet, because we haven't even reached half a consensus yet, there was the war, Israel's occupation of the south, the Syrian intelligence running the country. I sometimes think (naively) that a move towards democracy coming from above (the state) that helps out in starting a debate would be welcome, but I know it's not possible. If that's not disillusion...

Sam

Raja said...

sam,

a solution is getting people to talk politics outside of its sectarian context. Too many good Lebanese associate politics with sectarianism and avoid it to the best of their abilities (I used to be one of them!).

There is an alternative. This alternative can be made available. That is the obvious next step.

JoseyWales said...

The question(s) could be:

Why do some cultures learn from history and others not?

Why do some cultures believe in modern science/facts and others not.(the West by the way is regressing on that)

Why do some individuals learn from past mistakes and others keep repeating their mistakes/obsessions? (Like repeadly washing your hands/seeing a zionist/wahabi monster under every bed etc)

Variations on a theme but there is a deep question somewhere underneath. Some other time... (hey, maybe that's the problem: procrastination)