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| Artwork by Tarek Chemaly based on the Al Moutanabi poem |
And now Eid is here, yes, supposedly scheduled for tomorrow but the day itself is irrelevant. The Gazza scenario is being applied to south Lebanon and obviously, the voices that were offended about the situation there are nowhere to be found (please note, not that these voices did anything for Gazza so it's not like we are missing much anyhow).
And now Eid is here, to mark the end of Ramadan with people in small tents, or sleeping on thin mattresses, thankfully donations are still trickling in but somehow all this seems not to exist to the powers that be. I mean politicians, specifically Muslim politicians, or to be honest Shiite politicians - these people vote for them. And still, they show up, on the daily, in the news, well-dressed in suits and ties - they "condemn" what is condemnable, as if condemning is going to fend off the rain from the tents.
I am sure, for the optics, there will be maamoul cookies distributed to them tomorrow. But maamoul - the same sweet for Eid and Easter - is not going to heal or fix anything. Is there a fatigue settling in? You bet. We did this before, in 2024, and I said before - now what do we do? (here). I know I should not be saying this, among the goodwill whereby people are still finding ways and things to donate, but there are also people trying to make a buck out of this. Trying to rent rooms at exorbitant prices knowing the refugees have no power to negotiate. Not that it did not happen before, throughout the different wars Lebanon faced since 1975, people were trying to do that for a long time.
I know this seems like condemning but we have a long history in this - During the Siege of Tyre in 332 BC, the Phoenician city-states of Sidon, Byblos, and Arvad (Aradus) gave their ships to Alexander the Great to attack their rival city-state, Tyre. This in itself should be a good reminder.
I truly worry about us as a country, geographically. The odds seem to be stacked against us this time.