What Nakbah?
Zuheir Kseibati Al-Hayat - 15/05/08//
What bigger victories would Israel be celebrating when it commemorates its 60th anniversary, while gloating at the Arabs who have become captives to earthquakes and fires…It watches their martyrs everywhere, their disasters and strife, none of which cost it a single bullet.
In commemorating Palestine's Nakbah, our list of martyrs stands long…No time for crying…There are still plenty of bullets and missiles …No time for pain over a lost father, brother, child, or woman; the killing takes place on the one street, inside the one house; killing over voice, over identity, and then the president of the superpower arrives to tell the Israelis that his defense of democracy in Lebanon serves their interests.
On Palestine's Nakbah day, the plots for civil strife consume Lebanon and Sudan, undermine Yemen, while Iraq already wallows in its own blood…They are reflective of the lost unity.
On Nakbah Day, the civil strife engulfs Lebanon and suffocates its people and free speech. All the scenes of civil war engulf the strong country known for its liberties. These scenes were conjured up in five days, just one day following the Martyr's Day. Politics went too far in allowing politicians to abuse their freedom; warnings, threats, exchange of conditions following the bombing and the sniping. Is the civil war back? No, but rather, wars of communities where the demarcation lines stand on every street and inside every house, every family and university…How else does one prepare for endless wars of revenge?
Politics is absent in the country of freedoms; no logic or gray solutions; just the mighty wind of strife and the fear of sniping at a last chance. Any last chance can only come with everyone returning to the language of dialogue. Yet, such language will not emerge as long as the voice of sensation remains louder than that of wisdom, leaving authority between a victor and a vanquished.
Between the "victor" and the "vanquished," martyrs have no identity except their martyrdom. Yet again, are the Lebanese who do not belong to the ranks of politicians, leaders and chiefs not entitled to wonder whether it is their ineluctable fate to be dragged to funerals, destruction and devastation whenever the strife over quotas and the desire to rejuvenate the spirit of the regime at any bloody cost are renewed?
On the Nakbah Memorial Day, and in an attempt to empower us, President Ahmedinejad says, "The Zionist regime is dying" even when we have not finished counting our martyrs from all sects, provinces and parties. Still, we do not wish to believe that it is Lebanon that is dying. Ahmedinejad smiles because the commemoration of the establishment of Israel is the "memory of the dead," but we see nothing but death screaming louder than any voice in the streets of Beirut; we see nothing but the killing in the mountain, the north and the Bekaa…The winds of strife will yield no medals of honors.
Bush offers his services in defense of legitimacy in Lebanon. But with his eye on Israel, he foments hatred against the government camp. He intends to exercise more pressure on Syria with his carrier, only to inflame more fires among the Lebanese. In front of the Knesset today, he will not be able to celebrate the "victory" of his project for democracy in the region….It has taken a blow, and the unity of the Lebanese suffered more defeats.
With the language of blood, everyone overseas disowns the Lebanese earthquake which will inevitably turn into fires against which neither missiles nor threats will work. With the language of blood, those devastated at the loss of their children, their fathers, and their subsistence in Lebanon's May will wonder whom to hold accountable for the aftermath: Ahmedinejad, Bush or our eternal aspiration to modernize the regime even if this takes years of chaos and disintegration.
Who will tolerate the screams of the grieved mothers when their voices rise to condemn the big lie of coexistence? Only the long processions of martyrs are united. Civil strife is fermenting in every community, on every street and inside every house. With the language of blood, and regardless of the victor while defeats remain the only reality, the disaster will be the collapse of a nation if its freedom turns into nothing but a phony dream.
Israel celebrates sixty years of usurping Palestine while our blood is shed by our own bullets. From Lebanon to Sudan, Iraq, Somalia, and Yemen, we raise the banners of more Nakbahs that will cost the enemy, the stealer of Palestine, nothing, not even a single bullet….
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