March 25, 2003: the war on the iraqis, 45 years of preparation at least
it is still raining on beirut. depressingly raining. a weather befitting the circumstance. another arab people under attack. it has been a very wet winter, so much so that floods have damaged housing and roads and agriculture, while we are not done rebuilding from wars, invasions, bombardments. i wake up with 1958 in my mind. i am eleven. it is july 14. we are spending the summer in my father's home village (alt 2100 feet). the king of iraq has been toppled on that day. the large balcony of the house overlooks the sea. the mediterranean. my father is a radio addict. i take after him. he hears that the american sixth fleet, the one roaming our sea, is coming to us. he has a small telescope. he spends the day watching the cost. i cannot tell if it was july 15 or 16. i only remember that we went down to the shore. north of beirut. it was a gravel beach with orange groves in the back. gray barges like the one i was to see in movies. the front opened. soldiers, marines probably, walked out towards us weapons in their hands. back bent. looking right and left for the enemy. we were a crowd watching, some clapped.
45 years ago. the americans landed in lebanon in july 1958 because the Baghdad Pact signed by turkey, the shah of iran and the king of iraq had crumbled. kassem the officer who headed the coup had declared himself on the radio an admirer of Nasser. arab unity was in the air. egypt, syria, iraq, lebanon. scary for the oil companies. scary for israel. scary for the US government. socialism. non-alignment.
dates. dates as in calendars not as in fruit. dates keep rushing in my head. i am overwhelmed with their number. what do i remember from wars close-by. 1956. we mix blue powder in water with a little oil and my mother paints the windows blue. second world war type protection from aerial bombardment. war is raging in egypt. britain, france, israel have attacked. they might come and bomb lebanon. but Nasser comes out victorious and the suez canal is nationalized. it has become egyptian. some days ago, demonstrators in front of the american embassy in lebanon carried his picture. 1958. troubles in lebanon. school closes in may. the americans land. i taste peanut butter for the first time. GIs distributed their rations. gray cans. i didn't like it. 1967. last year of college. israel attacks egypt, syria and jordan. three months later i am in paris as a graduate student. it is so difficult to be an arab. a tough exercise to keep head high while humiliated. i get the top grades. 1973. war. 1978. israeli invasion. 1982 another invasion. 17,000 killed. tanks walking on cars. 1991. 2003. not counting algeria fighting colonialism, not counting the wars in lebanon, not counting the ongoing war on palestinians. memories made of wars on arabs.
there are people who demonstrate in beirut. in different cities of lebanon. i don't take part. all lawyers refused to go to court yesterday. i find it ridiculous. our government has taken a stand against this war. who are we harming but ourselves. i read about the egyptian demonstrators just before i went to bed last night. going to my bed. no shelter. no fear. no B52. peace. quite. my son visiting. a message from HRW:
Cairo, March 24, 2003) Hundreds of antiwar activists and demonstrators have been detained in Cairo and some are being tortured by police, Human Rights Watch charged today. Hundreds more have been injured as security forces used water cannons, clubs, dogs, and even stones against demonstrators. Police have arrested leaders of movements protesting the Iraq war and Israeli actions in the Occupied Territories; journalists, professors, and students; and onlookers, as well as children as young as 15 years old.
will people go to the egyptian consulate in san francisco? will they hold their own government responsible? will they know why the US government is to be held responsible. i went to bed, my head busy. how can a US citizen be informed. how can a taxpayer really know where all his money goes.
very early during my ten year stay in california, i understood that it was very difficult to be an american citizen. a citizen of the empire. it was difficult then, it is more difficult now. how can one keep abreast of all the things the government does here and there when the here and there covers almost the entire planet. a well informed citizen would then demonstrate day and night all year round. very early in my stay in california i appreciated my status as an underdog. i find pride silly. i became grateful to be an arab, not proud. what a warm cozy feeling to be fighting stereotypes. to be victim and moralizer at the same time. it made it so much easier to be away from home. home where wars were raging year after year.
this morning i turn on the BBC world service. it is fascinating to hear the brits. sophisticated newscasters. i have followed the change in their tone those past months. how sympathetic they had become to the opponents to war. but now the boys are on the front. their correspondent in jordan was interviewing iraqis in amman. some left their country twenty years ago running away from the regime. others left looking for work. today they are going back home. no refugees trying to enter jordan. iraqis are going back home. not deported. no. wanting to be home when home was attacked.
1985. back home. dear american friends are so worried for us to go back to lebanon. all kind of fighting is going on in beirut. we cannot keep on being schizophrenic with our bodies in the bay area and our minds in beirut. so we went home. and once home, the father of my children said: ah finally i don't need to think about lebanon, i am living lebanon. living a place. living baghdad. living san francisco. living basra. how is it to live the white house.
in beirut i stopped being the underdog. when the canon stopped in the northern part of the country where i live, i stopped being the underdog. i became the lebanese. around me are the foreign workers. i became like my american friends. i carry the responsibility to speak up. to do. and as i was speaking up, i had to learn and learn and think. and find solutions to offer. build alliances. my head goes to my friends in san francisco, in oakland, in berkeley, the old time activists and the new comers to the cause. what cause? the arab cause. and from my screen in beirut, calm sweet beirut, that still carries the wounds of war, i cannot stop from sending a message to whoever is reading.
the anti-war movement is practically a knee-jerk reaction. wars take a long time to prepare. counter-acting them cannot be improvised. this war on iraq was on the making since i was 11 at least, with the marines landing in lebanon on that july day of 1958.
Tina Nanacche is a human rights advocate and lately a filmmaker. Who Hangs the Laundry? Washing, War and Electricity in Beirut, a 20mn documentary by Hrafnhildur Gunnarsdóttir and herself tells about the aftermath of war.
