About the displaced, again.

Artwork by Tarek Chemaly as part of his collective memory series

Remember Farid Boustany? (here) Well, here's the idea - a Chouf district MP had his ads on the Jounieh highway in Kesserwan. Which does not make sense. Except it does. You see when the Mountain war happened - one of the many sub wars of the Lebanese war (here) there were many displaced people/families who populated the Kesserwan region. And despite repatriations and people rebuilding houses here, in the end, they remained in Kesserwan and bought properties here. 

Which brings us to the refugees. One of the things about people in the south is how attached they are to their land. As soon as hostilities end people go back in droves (here). Now the major question is - what is there to go back to? Who will go back? If you look at maps, this is the same carbon copy of the Gaza scenario. Do note, I am not trying to be a third rate expert in geopolitics am just trying to read things as is.

Interestingly, and to draw a parallel with the Syrians, many - as in the hundreds of thousands - have gone back to their country. Or to be more specific, we are almost back to the pre-Syrian war phase (almost, again): the men remain here and families go back to Syria. Sure, just take my village, many women and children remain here, but on the whole the pressure has eased considerably. 

Now, not to stir the pot or anything, but the people who fled the Chouf at the time were Christians - specifically Maronites - who came to other Maronite areas (Kesserwan as an example). The people who got displaced from the south are by and large Shiites. Which "area" will take them in remains to be seen. Also, and again not to stir the pot, I do live in a Maronite village myself but now the sight of a veiled woman or rented houses with blackened windows is also nothing new.

I am not even sure if this is a sign of progress or pragmatism. The woman who - during the war - was a staunch supporter of the extreme right militia of the Lebanese Forces has rented her downstairs apartment to a Syrian family. And yes, they are Muslim. So now what? To be honest I have no idea what this means or where this is leading us to.

Elections 2022: Farid Boustany - Chouf by way of Kesserwan

All right, now that's interesting. How? A Chouf candidate having an ad in Kesserwan. Logically it does not make sense. But practically, it does. A lot of sense.

Let me explain: During the war many, many, people from the Chouf area got displaced, a lot of them eventually ended up in Kesserwan (to be clear the displaced people were Christian), and despite the whole surge of rebuilding their houses in the villages they left, basically they remained in the areas they migrated to - using the Chouf houses are some sort of weekend/summer escape. 

Which bring us to Farid Boustany. The ads - a whole bunch of them are interesting conceptually. "I am and extremist for the development of the Chouf" or "I am an extremist for inter-faith living in the jabal" (jabal is euphemis for Chouf area). Again, whereas these are classic elections ads - promising anything and everything - at least Boustany played it smart.