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| Artwork by Tarek Chemaly |
"It's a repeat/Of a story told/It's a repeat/And it's getting old"
These lyrics come Red Hot Chilli Pepper's "Throw Away Your Television", and it is a very at epitaph for today's events in Beirut. We've seen them before. We experienced them. To my generation they are a stark reminder of what already has been. And to all the idiots who for one reason or another say "rizkallah 3ala eyam al 7arb" (oh may the day of the war come back), I can safely tell them to get lost.Get lost and never find their way back.
Because just when you think the trauma has subsided a little, it shows its head once more.
Like it never left.
And make no mistake, whether dressed in bell bottoms as they were in the 70s or in fake Yeezys as they are today, it is the same people - their children maybe - but the same people. I am sure there is a "cause" somewhere, what it really is, not sure anyone knows. Especially not the people holding the guns and shooting. Indiscriminately shooting.
But there they were, proving their masculinity. Protecting their lords. Acting like faithful serfs.
Not even sure what they will get out of it.
To me it was scary, perhaps I have seen in the events things which I have already seen before.
In 2013 I did an exhibition called Fargo (which is the brand of the bus that exploded the Lebanese war to no return), and for it I built a labyrinth, the interesting thing was the entry of the labyrinth was the same as its exit. That was the war, we went in, and went out, and in the middle did not know what hit us.