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| Artwork by Tarek Chemaly |
When Marvin Gaye issued his seminal album "What's going on" in 1971, Sly and the Family Stone released their own "There's a riot goin' on" on that same year. Which brings us back to the Middle East. The cursed region which seems to know no respite.
I refer you to this passage from "Beyrouth Mayhem-ek" which you can find here:
… And the bombings over Beirut intensified, and I found myself…Strange how some statements seem ageless and dateless, as if their only reference is simply their own being. The above could have taken place anytime between 1975 and 1990, then sporadically – yet recurrently – after that, although choosing 1996 and 2006 would give a better statistical opportunity of be dead on. Excuse the pun. It seemed the same as saying “the sun rises”, a benign statement with no implications whatsoever in the grand scheme of things, a mechanic, repetitive act – a little like sex when the initial impulse of the discovery of the other’s body has gone.
Replace Beirut with Gaza and you get the drift.