Pro-specting : Street war in Beirut

It is hard to retract, to disengage, and to disregard.

At certain moments of time a distortion happens and consciousness represents future rather than past. Certainly, present remains as it is: an illusion of simultaneity, or yet the shadow of an impression.

At times, history becomes pro-spective. These instances are haunting and fearful.

Snipers in the blue skies of Beirut; the image is rich with connotations for those who know or remember the non-civil war of Lebanon. It is hard to think about the street war of Beirut without the ever present sniper. It is this mysterious character who, in his fundamental invisibility, is ever watchful: a prophet-less god.

Had a sniper wrote a book it should be said that it is divine.

Regardless of motives, justification and higher reasons, one thing cannot be denied. Today was a clear call for a civil war. However, the originality of the event lies in one specific aspect of it. Once radical skepticism is moved aside, one must conclude that a government has used militias to maintain order, oppose its opposition or to substitute for its army and armed forces. Automatically the question raises itself; how can a government claim to refuse any arms that are not within the state while its popular forces themselves are using such arms?

However this is far from being the issue at this point. Until otherwise proven by documentation, logic and evidence the events of this afternoon in Beirut are a clear act of dictatorship. When a group of people in a country that preaches democracy, is organized in a clear battle plan to “defend” the government the least to say is that this is a blatantly unlawful act. The decision that is made is clear: no matter what the Lebanese government has to remain standing. It now has the international support to carry out force to keep its “democratic existence”. The mirror of history shows us the Latin American dictatorships. It also shows us in the background the image of the Shah of Iran, a man who was the idol of the world and the devil to his people; the exquisite dictator.

Today on al-Arabia, a Saudi owned satellite news channel, the headline was simple: gun fights between Sunnis and Shiites in Beirut. It is now necessary to distinguish information from entertainment. It is more important to distinguish fiction from reality. If in the minds of the retarded Arab masses and the faraway western viewers, it is easier to understand an event when represented as such, we are looking not to news reporting but to adaptation. It is now clear that a conscious decision is being carried out in the Middle East, some call it conspiracy and the word has been so often used that it has acquired some form of an ironic sense. Therefore, perhaps it should be referred to not as conspiracy but as strategy. The amount of distortion necessary to get to such a headline is so considerable that in any journalistic institute it would instantly be called falsification. It is clear that all the happenings in the Middles East are being tainted in the media with the simple storyline: Sunni against Shiite.

The War might be imminent. What would this war be? How will it be fought? And who will fight it? These are the questions that are now haunting.

Photos: Some shots of the democratic forces of the Lebanese government.