Aaaaand we're back.
Hariri slams Assad for trying to "steal" Lebanon victory from the Daily Star.
Finally, things are back to normal.
Finally, things are back to normal.
posted by Dana at 6:29 PM
Thursday, August 17, 2006
About Me
- Name: Dana
- Location: Cairo, Egypt
I like filling out forms at 4:03 am. I just graduated from the University of Michigan (in April 2008) and I'm spending the next year studying Arabic at the American University in Cairo. I get angry sometimes, and this blog is where I put the anger. I also get pretentious sometimes, so I put that here too. Enjoy.
Previous Posts
- Timeline continued
- How to enjoy Athens
- Athens and Beginning of Timeline
- Woohoo Internet!
- Standstill
- Croatia
- Alive in Austria
- Still Prague
- No rest for the weary
- Prague
3 Comments:
yes , the usual suspects are back in business....strangely comforting!!!R.
Dana,
there's a famous Lebanese fiction author who writes in French. His name is Amin Maalouf. We have many of his books at home. In Feb. 2006, at a speech in the Musee d'Orsay, he made a beautiful analogy. He said Lebanon was like a wild rose bush. (Now trying to translate, wish me luck!!!) He said: Lebanon is like a wild rose bush. Be careful of its thorns, but take the time to smell the flowers. In the wine country of Burgundy and Bordeaux, rose bushes are planted at the head of each row of vines. This is because, if some disease is coming to the plants, the roses are more sensitive and will show that they were attacked before the vine is damaged, alerting the vine grower and giving him time to react. However, man does not always understand the message. Some by idleness, ignorance, or blindness, when they see spots on the rose bush, still think that their vines do not risk anything.
Thirty years ago, Lebanon, the rose bush, that fragile plant, was afflicted with a disease. The rest of the world did not see the warning signs, and soon, ethnic cleansing multiplied throughout the world: In the Middle East, in Africa, in the south of Asia, and in old Yugoslavia. What seemed at one time, the sad prerogative of some suburbs of Beirut, has today as theatre a whole planet, from Manhattan to Chechnia, passing through London, Madrid, and Bali.
The rose tree is a delicate plant. Lebanon is a mosaic of communities, and the whole Earth is a mosaic of communities. Oppressed ethnic groups, itchy religions, unsatiated nations, they are more frightened each day and tempted to resort to violence; to protect or to affirm themselves, or to seek revenge. If the humanity of today appears unable to live together, in harmony and in dignity, on the tiny territory of Lebanon, how could it manage planetary diversity?
To this difficult question, this century brings a non-reassuring answer. Violence does not move back, and the ditch between communities is widening, particularly when opposites are on the banks of the Mediterranean.
Friends of Lebanon, do not lose sight of the wild rose bush which grew precisely at the edge of this fault! If you see blossoming flowers, then freedom and coexistence have triumphed, and the vine of men will yield healthy grapes tomorrow. If you see the flowers trembling, staggering, then fall down, if you see the leaves rotting, then the whole vine is threatened, and then the wine of the future will be sour.
Nice, eh?
Papy Warbucks ("The Bank of Dad", "The guy who is spoiling you rotten", "The Lebanese Diasporiac")
Dana,
there's a famous Lebanese fiction author who writes in French. His name is Amin Maalouf. We have many of his books at home. In Feb. 2006, at a speech in the Musee d'Orsay, he made a beautiful analogy. He said Lebanon was like a wild rose bush. (Now trying to translate, wish me luck!!!) He said: Lebanon is like a wild rose bush. Be careful of its thorns, but take the time to smell the flowers. In the wine country of Burgundy and Bordeaux, rose bushes are planted at the head of each row of vines. This is because, if some disease is coming to the plants, the roses are more sensitive and will show that they were attacked before the vine is damaged, alerting the vine grower and giving him time to react. However, man does not always understand the message. Some by idleness, ignorance, or blindness, when they see spots on the rose bush, still think that their vines do not risk anything.
Thirty years ago, Lebanon, the rose bush, that fragile plant, was afflicted with a disease. The rest of the world did not see the warning signs, and soon, ethnic cleansing multiplied throughout the world: In the Middle East, in Africa, in the south of Asia, and in old Yugoslavia. What seemed at one time, the sad prerogative of some suburbs of Beirut, has today as theatre a whole planet, from Manhattan to Chechnia, passing through London, Madrid, and Bali.
The rose tree is a delicate plant. Lebanon is a mosaic of communities, and the whole Earth is a mosaic of communities. Oppressed ethnic groups, itchy religions, unsatiated nations, they are more frightened each day and tempted to resort to violence; to protect or to affirm themselves, or to seek revenge. If the humanity of today appears unable to live together, in harmony and in dignity, on the tiny territory of Lebanon, how could it manage planetary diversity?
To this difficult question, this century brings a non-reassuring answer. Violence does not move back, and the ditch between communities is widening, particularly when opposites are on the banks of the Mediterranean.
Friends of Lebanon, do not lose sight of the wild rose bush which grew precisely at the edge of this fault! If you see blossoming flowers, then freedom and coexistence have triumphed, and the vine of men will yield healthy grapes tomorrow. If you see the flowers trembling, staggering, then fall down, if you see the leaves rotting, then the whole vine is threatened, and then the wine of the future will be sour.
Nice, eh?
Papy Warbucks ("The Bank of Dad", "The guy who is spoiling you rotten", "The Lebanese Diasporiac")
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