Quand ils s'avancent accablés pour m'annoncer sa fin, pour me dire qu'il est au bord du précipice, qu'il n'y a plus d'espoir, qu'il n'est question que de quelques mois... je m'acharne à leur répondre : non.
Je leur souffle : c'est un secret mais il existe deux Libans…
Et je leur raconte l'Histoire à ma manière.
Le premier Liban certes, agonise sous le poids d'une hémorragie chronique de son potentiel, de son peuple, de son capital…
Mais la magie transperce au revers de la médaille.
Le second, lui, transpire aux cadences nocturnes des opening, des feux d'artifices, des talons aiguilles... Ce Liban, le notre, crache sauvagement sur un realpolitik sordide et se déhanche culotté autour d'un arsenal belliqueux qui cherche à l'abattre.
Je leur raconte que mon petit pays, mon unique dette et mon inestimable fierté, ne cesse de m'émouvoir. Je leur demande de fermer les yeux et je les transporte vers un soir d'été…
On se rend à l'opening d'une boite : le skybar.
Je leur décris un setting spectaculaire qui leur fait perdre haleine: perchés au dessus d'une mer cristalline, entourés de relief qui luisent au clair de lune, assis parmi des palmiers et des rosiers autour d'un bar périphérique, un système sonore des plus sophistiqués projette le dernier air électronique et annonce au monde entier que le coeur du pays bat encore et de plus fort.
Ils rongent leurs tempes pour essayer de comprendre.
Inutile. Ils n'y arriveront jamais. C’est le mystère du Phénix qui renaît de ses cendres.
Malgré les avertissements périlleux, les attentats de jour et les explosions de nuits, les six barrages qu'il faut frayer pour arriver à sa destination, les Libanais s'entêtent à vouloir vivre ordinairement. Ils le font à l'unisson au point de s'entasser à coup de milliers dans un même endroit pour revoir les mêmes couples et les mêmes fausses poitrines, appartenir à la même guestlist et contribuer aux mêmes potins...
Ce délire que d'autres condamnent est tellement vital à la continuité du pays...
Cette superficialité salvatrice les intrigue. Nulle part ailleurs, l'orgueil d'un homme dicterait la garantie de sa réservation avant même d'assurer la sécurité de sa propre vie.
Voilà la singularité oblique du secret de sa survie.
Oui… Il existe un contrat tacite entre Libanais dont on est fier. Il est simplement question d'assurer une permanence spatiotemporelle pour marquer notre territoire. Tant qu'un volume ferme de citoyens participe à cette rotation d'âmes qui s'échappent sur les planchés des boites de nuits, l'agonie politique épargnerait une agonie sociale qui cherche à tout prix un remède à sa fatalité....
Ils me rétorquent que je manque de cohérence.
Je leur dit qu'il ne faut surtout pas rationaliser juste croire à l'euphorie...
Le Liban est une perle rare, il faut patienter pour trouver celle qui brille...
March 18, 2008
L'Ombre du Levant
Au boulevard du Levant les courtisanes divaguent
Errant imprudentes les ruelles interdites
A chacune ses chimères, son colis d’étincelles
Qu’alimente un cœur souple à l’abri du mépris.
Sur le quai du Levant s’écrasent les vagues
Et mutilent les chimères des courtisanes pressées
Les illusions s’enfouissent sous un pas si frêle
Pour durcir de moiteurs un soir immaculé
Dans l’arène du Levant les vagabonds flânent
Une écume salive sur leurs lèvres brûlées
Leur mégot flaire les infâmes courtisanes
Une lame tranche la lumière enchantée
Au purgatoire du Levant on sévit les sirènes
Qui invitent au soupir les marins voyageurs,
Injurieuses elles supplient séductrices à sa traîne
La miséricorde oiseuse d’un Lucifer vengeur.
Errant imprudentes les ruelles interdites
A chacune ses chimères, son colis d’étincelles
Qu’alimente un cœur souple à l’abri du mépris.
Sur le quai du Levant s’écrasent les vagues
Et mutilent les chimères des courtisanes pressées
Les illusions s’enfouissent sous un pas si frêle
Pour durcir de moiteurs un soir immaculé
Dans l’arène du Levant les vagabonds flânent
Une écume salive sur leurs lèvres brûlées
Leur mégot flaire les infâmes courtisanes
Une lame tranche la lumière enchantée
Au purgatoire du Levant on sévit les sirènes
Qui invitent au soupir les marins voyageurs,
Injurieuses elles supplient séductrices à sa traîne
La miséricorde oiseuse d’un Lucifer vengeur.
March 15, 2008
The Realm of the Living
Sunday afternoon I was sitting at the hairdresser indulging in the whims of my, at moments, dramatically superficial life. I was flipping through a people magazine frustrated at the idea that I could have possibly missed an important episode of the Britney Saga.
Suddenly I received a text message that read: “Call me now.”
It was Karen, a friend of mine from New York.
I smiled; surely she had the dirt on Saturday night’s madness in the City: Who was wearing what, who showed up with whom, who went home with whom… I called her eager to quench my vanity with mouthfuls of shallowness.
She picked up the phone and before I had the chance to teasingly greet her, in between strangled words shadowed by cries, she uttered: “Something awful just happened.”
The first thought that raced through my mind, as if I was on autopilot mode was: Damn it, another attack on Beirut, just what we needed before the Harvard Lebanon Trip.
But No. The news was of a different nature. Our best friend Muriel who had left Lebanon a few years back with her family precisely to escape the jeopardy that transpires on every Lebanese household and was now living in Montreal, had just lost her dad of a heart attack.
I sat there numb. Incapable of speaking, incapable of responding, incapable of thinking and I just gazed absent at my silly self in the mirror while a skeletal man in the background was wrestling with my locks in an attempt to flatten not only my rebellious curls but any sense of pride I could have deigned till then to claim.
My phone slithered through my fingers. It hit the floor and the screen fell apart.
I started pondering on the fragility of my own life; how it too would inevitably slither through my fingers, how my own screen, the mask I constantly wear in an attempt to roam flamboyantly through this forged masquerade, will soon enough fall apart.
Ironically, through conflict or passion, through happiness or anguish, one fate is common to the mightiest of leaders as it is to the most frivol of devotees. We are all equally vulnerable in the face of death.
Having witnessed death far too young and far too frequently, I had grown to internalize its horror to the detriment of my sensitivity. I despised myself because I could not bring myself to cry. I hated the cynicism which I learned to cultivate as a defense mechanism for survival. I loathed that I could not speculate on my own expiration date to assess the intensity by which I could allow myself to live: how much time could I waste procrastinating? How many mistakes in finding my professional calling could I afford to make? How often would I be able to gamble with love and lose? When should I initiate my first serious conversation with God…?
And then came the difficult phone call I had been dreading to make.
I dialed on a broken phone with a broken screen only to hear a broken voice that broke my heart and my emotional shield into a thousand pieces.
I mumbled to Muriel that I loved her, that she was not alone to overcome these difficult times, that she made her dad proud and that if she needed somebody to rage at, she could count on me.
But who am I fooling; no words could possibly mend such sorrow because no words can rationalize the obscure mystery that separates us from the dead.
I hung up, got up and paid my hairdresser. I did not go to the Viennese Ball that night. I stayed home in the company of my memories.
Fady, Muriel’s dad, will always be the man who waited countless hours for us to come home safely at 4 in the morning, the man who endured our furies in the midst of our juvenile adolescence crisis with a smile and a joke to make us laugh, the man who was an exemplary husband, who loved his daughters selflessly more than life itself and who treated me as if I was his own …
The hairdresser went home to his wife; Britney Spears is in detox with hopes of getting better. And I maintain the Faith that this life despite all its absurdities and injustices is still a battle worth fighting and a preliminary step to a greater journey that’s bound to commence.
Suddenly I received a text message that read: “Call me now.”
It was Karen, a friend of mine from New York.
I smiled; surely she had the dirt on Saturday night’s madness in the City: Who was wearing what, who showed up with whom, who went home with whom… I called her eager to quench my vanity with mouthfuls of shallowness.
She picked up the phone and before I had the chance to teasingly greet her, in between strangled words shadowed by cries, she uttered: “Something awful just happened.”
The first thought that raced through my mind, as if I was on autopilot mode was: Damn it, another attack on Beirut, just what we needed before the Harvard Lebanon Trip.
But No. The news was of a different nature. Our best friend Muriel who had left Lebanon a few years back with her family precisely to escape the jeopardy that transpires on every Lebanese household and was now living in Montreal, had just lost her dad of a heart attack.
I sat there numb. Incapable of speaking, incapable of responding, incapable of thinking and I just gazed absent at my silly self in the mirror while a skeletal man in the background was wrestling with my locks in an attempt to flatten not only my rebellious curls but any sense of pride I could have deigned till then to claim.
My phone slithered through my fingers. It hit the floor and the screen fell apart.
I started pondering on the fragility of my own life; how it too would inevitably slither through my fingers, how my own screen, the mask I constantly wear in an attempt to roam flamboyantly through this forged masquerade, will soon enough fall apart.
Ironically, through conflict or passion, through happiness or anguish, one fate is common to the mightiest of leaders as it is to the most frivol of devotees. We are all equally vulnerable in the face of death.
Having witnessed death far too young and far too frequently, I had grown to internalize its horror to the detriment of my sensitivity. I despised myself because I could not bring myself to cry. I hated the cynicism which I learned to cultivate as a defense mechanism for survival. I loathed that I could not speculate on my own expiration date to assess the intensity by which I could allow myself to live: how much time could I waste procrastinating? How many mistakes in finding my professional calling could I afford to make? How often would I be able to gamble with love and lose? When should I initiate my first serious conversation with God…?
And then came the difficult phone call I had been dreading to make.
I dialed on a broken phone with a broken screen only to hear a broken voice that broke my heart and my emotional shield into a thousand pieces.
I mumbled to Muriel that I loved her, that she was not alone to overcome these difficult times, that she made her dad proud and that if she needed somebody to rage at, she could count on me.
But who am I fooling; no words could possibly mend such sorrow because no words can rationalize the obscure mystery that separates us from the dead.
I hung up, got up and paid my hairdresser. I did not go to the Viennese Ball that night. I stayed home in the company of my memories.
Fady, Muriel’s dad, will always be the man who waited countless hours for us to come home safely at 4 in the morning, the man who endured our furies in the midst of our juvenile adolescence crisis with a smile and a joke to make us laugh, the man who was an exemplary husband, who loved his daughters selflessly more than life itself and who treated me as if I was his own …
The hairdresser went home to his wife; Britney Spears is in detox with hopes of getting better. And I maintain the Faith that this life despite all its absurdities and injustices is still a battle worth fighting and a preliminary step to a greater journey that’s bound to commence.
March 1, 2008
Derniere révérence
La nuit flambe, un rayon bondit
Les murs tremblent au retentissement de midi
Dans un brouillard dense de fumée et de rage
La ville se fige conciliant son passage
Le martyr tire son ultime révérence
La douleur essore un souffle qui étrangle
Au creux du crépuscule, se dissipe son image
Une marée pourpre inonde son visage
Il tombe, il chavire, un tourbillon le ronge
La vitre se brise, le ciment se prolonge
Au loin la cloche du quartier retentit
Avisant la chute du sien qui périt
Les murs tremblent au retentissement de midi
Dans un brouillard dense de fumée et de rage
La ville se fige conciliant son passage
Le martyr tire son ultime révérence
La douleur essore un souffle qui étrangle
Au creux du crépuscule, se dissipe son image
Une marée pourpre inonde son visage
Il tombe, il chavire, un tourbillon le ronge
La vitre se brise, le ciment se prolonge
Au loin la cloche du quartier retentit
Avisant la chute du sien qui périt
Vicious triangles
1958: Insurrection breaks out in Beirut.
Headlines read: Muslims push government to join Unites Arab Republic. Christians reach out to Western allies.
4 dead, Dozens injured.
1975: Insurrection breaks out in Beirut.
Headlines read: unidentified gunmen fires on church in Christian Beirut suburb. Militia retaliates on Bus of Palestinian civilians.
34 dead, Hundreds injured.
1990: Insurrection breaks out in Beirut.
Headlines read: Lebanese Army clashes with Lebanese Forces.
300 dead, Thousands injured.
150,000 were brutally killed in the Lebanese civil war, my uncle was one of them
100,000 were permanently handicapped by battle injuries, my father was one of them.
900,000 were displaced from their homes, my family was one of them.
A quarter of a million emigrated from the country, I am one of them.
Shiite, Sunnis, Maronite and Druze ruthlessly divided in hostility, violence and crime reconcile under the fate of one same scar: that of a child without a parent, that of a sister without a brother, that of a wife without a husband.
And Beirut lingers in the hopeless echo of a silent grief: that of a mother without her sons.
The soundless sigh of a thousand graves is more stringent than the loudest cry of a million living.
And Beirut drowns in an abysmal fall as the last drops of her competent labor force, her voluptuous markets, her vibrant economy, are drenched from her veins only to nourish the prosperous rise of foreign cities that surround her.
One would think that enduring days of pounding rifles and nights of rattling buildings would be sufficient to awaken the need for citizenship and accountability.
That each community would demand the Rule of Law sheltering the country from the perils of civil unrest.
But the toxic culture of sectarianism prevails.
One would think that the leaders of this precarious nation would recognize the flaws of a system that fosters mistrust, nepotism and corruption and acknowledge their own illegitimacy as a product of that system.
That they would remedy to that defect through a much needed representative electoral law.
But the preservation of their own power is far more important than the basis on which to build a solid nation.
One would think that a nation repeatedly shattered for more than half a century where land mines remain buried in contested areas, where tanks still roam the streets on the lookout for arms smuggling, would solemnly swear to cleanse itself from vicious bullets and fatal rhetoric.
But tolerance and integration lags far behind mistrust and cynicism in the race for national reconciliation.
2008 : Insurrection breaks out in Beirut.
4 dead, dozens injured.
Headlines read: Muslims push government to join Unites Arab Republic. Christians reach out to Western allies.
4 dead, Dozens injured.
1975: Insurrection breaks out in Beirut.
Headlines read: unidentified gunmen fires on church in Christian Beirut suburb. Militia retaliates on Bus of Palestinian civilians.
34 dead, Hundreds injured.
1990: Insurrection breaks out in Beirut.
Headlines read: Lebanese Army clashes with Lebanese Forces.
300 dead, Thousands injured.
150,000 were brutally killed in the Lebanese civil war, my uncle was one of them
100,000 were permanently handicapped by battle injuries, my father was one of them.
900,000 were displaced from their homes, my family was one of them.
A quarter of a million emigrated from the country, I am one of them.
Shiite, Sunnis, Maronite and Druze ruthlessly divided in hostility, violence and crime reconcile under the fate of one same scar: that of a child without a parent, that of a sister without a brother, that of a wife without a husband.
And Beirut lingers in the hopeless echo of a silent grief: that of a mother without her sons.
The soundless sigh of a thousand graves is more stringent than the loudest cry of a million living.
And Beirut drowns in an abysmal fall as the last drops of her competent labor force, her voluptuous markets, her vibrant economy, are drenched from her veins only to nourish the prosperous rise of foreign cities that surround her.
One would think that enduring days of pounding rifles and nights of rattling buildings would be sufficient to awaken the need for citizenship and accountability.
That each community would demand the Rule of Law sheltering the country from the perils of civil unrest.
But the toxic culture of sectarianism prevails.
One would think that the leaders of this precarious nation would recognize the flaws of a system that fosters mistrust, nepotism and corruption and acknowledge their own illegitimacy as a product of that system.
That they would remedy to that defect through a much needed representative electoral law.
But the preservation of their own power is far more important than the basis on which to build a solid nation.
One would think that a nation repeatedly shattered for more than half a century where land mines remain buried in contested areas, where tanks still roam the streets on the lookout for arms smuggling, would solemnly swear to cleanse itself from vicious bullets and fatal rhetoric.
But tolerance and integration lags far behind mistrust and cynicism in the race for national reconciliation.
2008 : Insurrection breaks out in Beirut.
4 dead, dozens injured.
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