A scene of pedestrians walking quickly through out the streets of Beirut
to their preset destination is a warning sign. As if the arriving horizon
is covering the city with dark promises, bringing back a nightmare that
lasted 35 years.

Their destinations are their homes of safe spaces, but soon when the
flying bullets and the snipers deadly jokes performing a symphony of
sporadic noise to the silent city outside, then these homes will turn into
graveyards, of living bodies waiting in despair.

This is the tension of uncertain memories. In a present resembling stories
told by a former militia soldier, once, while finishing his fourth beer
bottle, in an epiphany of regret, that tragically fades in the next
morning.

What Lebanon is currently undergoing is not limited only to the
presidential elections; it would be foolish to pretend that. An
existential and spatial crisis that generations of the Lebanese people
have been going through cannot be limited and solved only by finding a
suitable president.

Portraying the presidential election as the key knot of all these
never-ending conflicts, means that we are procrastinating again the
inevitable tasks of naming the factual reasons of these conflicts as they
truly are. Thus, we again are creating an imaginary setting to hide the
real reasons that would explain the logic of this steadfastness and
yearning to war.

If some Lebanese believe that the Syrian regime is the foe, and some
others believe it is Israel. How would the presidential election be a step
towards bridging this difference? Could the president determine who is the
vital other for the Lebanese, and by identifying this other the Lebanese
would be able to understand the true meaning of sovereignty. Such a
president must be an instant messenger from god and with holy powers, the
kind of leader that the Lebanese people fall for head over heels.

The vacancy of the presidential seat fools no one; this sort of vacancy
becomes an embarrassment in front of international diplomatic presence. A
president needed for a country’s prestige. As unacceptable as this idea
might be for some, it remains a popular perspective that Lebanese share
among them selves. The Lebanese president has no say in war, or in peace,
the Lebanese president decides no allies or foes. A candidate for the
presidency should be neutral; he must be objective to the extent of
detachment. Who will be seated on the chair in Baabda place? Who will be
representing the dominatrix of the Lebanese inter relationships? Questions
that can be avoided at no cost if we would replace them with different
questions, what should a Lebanese president stand for? How close should
this position be to the actual Lebanese politics?

A magnet is pulling people to war. A magnet of sectarian insecurities and
international loyalties, a broken bridge with the past keeps manifesting
it self in the so-called arbitrary acts of violence. If we have never
admitted that we have killed each other for reasons of antagonism, then we
cannot say we might repeat these killing. All records have been cleared,
and rewritten. A new Lebanese identity created in the post Rafik Al Hariri
Lebanon; pre-produced identities sold through Image consumption.

If this war breaks through, we should not complain. We should not run
around and blame people or increase our xenophobia by enslaving more
Syrian workers, Africans, Asians and Palestinians. This time if the war
breaks through we should accept that this is who we are. A group of lost
zealots with self-hatred issues committing crimes in the name of freedom,
resistance and enlightenment. We are our own fear.

If this war must break through, let it be out in the area of Solidere and
let be destroyed again. Let this war if it must break through; erase all
false visions of any future we fool our self to embrace. If this war must
break through then surely, the resistance true face will fall down, and
the men of god could fight openly the men of capitalism.

Bombings and the Lebanese Security tactic

Background:

Most of the pedestrians in Beirut are used to by now to the spectacular presence of the military with in their streets. A presence that the Lebanese themselves had always missed until they got accustomed to its absence, and got over this yearning for law enforcement since the civil war, where a law enforcement was a gun attached to your belly side, and a grenade in your hand.

The civil war ended, and the Lebanese dropped the “manual”id self law enforcement, and handed it out to the Syrians that had their own law explanations, and surly implementations.

This excessive presence of the military spreading around, with tanks, and military jeeps, soldiers at guard with gear and weapon, does not fool fellow Lebanese citizens and co. that they are being protected. The Lebanese unlike any other nation do not respect their army, in fact most of the Lebanese males spent more time thinking about how to escape the military service, then the actual service time. They have a developed a strange practice towards “ the state missionaries that should protect, save and punish counter state activities, such as steeling electricity, that ranks in the same problematic frame as bombing and terrorism for examples.

These tow practices are related to each other, and cannot be separated. The most general practice is to ignore their existence, from the complicated military presence to the simpler from of it the Darak (the men in blue, drive white or black Ford jeeps, and listen to Haifa Wehbe, and they never show up at emergencies or when they are actually needed). This ignoring might be misleading to the army officers and soldiers, and could give the impression that they (the Military) are feared and respected, which is not the case. This leads to the second practice, to refuse and repel against them, like the “Hay El Solom “incident.

The Lebanese Security Tactics

Imagine that there is a “terrorist that is going to place a bomb under some politician’s car; I believe this could happen.

The terrorist is in his can, where in the back he has 20 kilos of TNT, and few gun, and grenades; he is stopped at on one to the checkpoint:

Military officer: ween raya7? Ma3ak shi bel sayara ? (Where are you heading to, do u have something in car?)

Terrorist: in a very typical Lebanese attitude “ 7ad bet walid jomblat, la2a ma3i shi mehem , shwayet metfejrat,heheh” ( next to Walid Jomblat house, nothing important, few explosives, hehehe)

Military officer: bala hadam, het wora2ak. ( it is not funny give me your papers )- looks at the papers, “ ah intah min beit flen, bet3refo la flen flen”

Terrorist” lik sho bek ya zalmeh , ma howeh ibn 3ami il lazam- ( what are talking man, he is my cousin”

Military officer: :”tab head wora2ak wo salemleh 3alih , ilo a7la 2yem walla kenet be il ejbereh, bas neylo faraka, wala sheghel bel jeish metel 2lto“( ok , take your papers, and give him my best regards, we spent our best time in the service together, he is lucky he ran away.. working in the army makes no difference ”

Terrorist: shokran . yalla ntbeh 3a 7alak , ya zalameh il wade3 she bekhwef , kil youm infijar .. (Thanks, take care of your self man, every other day we have a explosion..) .END

Ps :Walid Jomblat was just an example, any incident that my occur has nothing to do with the scenario above, and the imaginary Arab was or will be not a part of it, or even thought about out it, or know somebody who did. The imaginary Arab claims no responsibility of what happens or will happen to Walid jomblat. ( it is the Syrians)