These double-exposures came about by reloading the roll that got stuck when my Ricoh point and shoot stopped working into a Nikon SLR; the frames clearly didn’t align properly, and the original frames were somehow flipped.
No matter. These work well in visualizing my deep dislocation being here while Lebanon’s under attack. It’s a heavy, jumbled up feeling, but — irony of ironies — it’s far from unfamiliar. This slow, rolling rumble of indignation; I’ve felt it before. This gnaw of fear; I’m used to the feeling. These pangs of guilt; they’re always there. It’s all second nature, at this point.
No, I wouldn’t make for a good propagandist. I’m not great at hiding my heartbreak behind a defiant wave of a finger or a fist. The south will be a swamp and a trap and a grave for invaders, but you’ll still catch me weeping. You’ll still find me counting our sins. We’ve burdened you with them, O Beirut, just like that song we grew up with said we would. Instead of the rose, the knife — again and again.
No, no one would hire me to be a spokesperson for resistance. Let me process with the martyrs instead. Let me cry with their mothers and eulogize the revolution.
One day, the hostilities will cease, and we’ll ask ourselves what we each sacrificed for victory. Before my maker and my comrades, all I can say is this: I grieved. I grieve. I am grief.
“We’re used to people waking up only to fall back asleep very quickly.”
That’s something I shared in response to a question someone asked me on Saturday; we were waiting for Jill to arrive, sharing some honey scones, and he was curious to know how I thought the world will respond to Israel’s wave of telecom-terror on Lebanon, which seemed so obviously outrageous to his eyes. I didn’t have anything hopeful to say.
And I don’t have much hope to share today, as Israel enters a new phase of preemptive aggression — listen to Bibi’s own words; Israel doesn’t respond, it “anticipates,” apparently — as they attempt to redraw the map once again.
Hundreds have already died today. Hundreds more will probably die tomorrow, unless Macron or Biden or whoever’s appointing themselves Lebanon’s patron of the day can stop Israel’s impunity. No one really knows.
What I do know, however, is that Israel has no future after the forever war. It is structurally incapable of gaining support or living in peace by punishing Lebanon. Strike after strike, they will only add to popular resolve behind armed resistance—whoever leads that resistance today or tomorrow. Everything HA lost in terms of social currency by getting itself mired in Syria, it’ll regain today, just like it gained support in 2006. Israel can wipe Lebanon off the map and still not know peace.