The Long Season Of Depressions

Ghassan Charbel     Al-Hayat     2003/09/28

Journalism is the institution of harshness. Its first lesson is that good news is not good. The circulation of any publication needs a sensational event. Newspapers live on the disasters of people, countries and individuals. From wars and earthquakes to scandals and breakdowns. When interesting events disappear, the front pages' architects of newspapers feel depressed. 

In spite of being experts in cruelty, journalists sometimes reserve some tenderness and some of the news touch their hearts and move their feelings. I have experienced that when I read a story reported by Agence France Press (AFP) from Iraq. It said that depression is overwhelming the soldiers of the 101^st American airborne division deployed in Mosul. It quoted one of the officers: "the time is really long. If they just set a date (of return) for us. We are tensed; there is a huge pressure. When we go out in the city, we feel what is like the persecution complex." Others expressed their sorrow for staying for a long time away from their families, and because the citizens do not understand the truth of the humanitarian mission that they have come for.

I felt ashamed as much as I felt angry. The fundamentals of the Arab hospitality require that the visitor feels at home and among his family. It is true that hospitality used to be defined in three days, but it is also true that it became open in the era of the only superpower. I sensed the Iraqis' cruelty. They scant the visitors of Fallujah, Bakuba and Tikrit with roses, rice and basils. They scant them with welcome, salutations and applause.

It is necessary to dispose of the despair that is striking those who came to inject our veins with the serum of democracy, elections and ballot boxes. What is strange is that Amro Moussa did not notice this urgent mission. He is busy with many other things when only one is required. It is necessary to hold an urgent Arab meeting to flood the Iraqi markets with anti-melancholy, since the occupation soldiers have mothers that are waiting, wives that are craving, and children that are asking.

If only the soldiers of the airborne division know that their depression is just a passing season. It comes for a while and then they go, they leave for their country. If only they know the depression of the Middle East people. That of living in camps promised of tanks' chains, that of looking at Ariel Sharon distributing corpses and gaining good behavior certificates, that of living in nations that look like prisons, and whose constitutions, parliaments, laws and universities are nothing like any normal one, that of the long lines in front of the embassies, that of those running from the death trucks or the killing emigration boats, and finally that of living amidst economic failure, corruption and reform.

If only the soldiers of the airborne division knew that their leadership pushed them to pass a season of depression in a region where its people die under the long season of depression.