the pull of the ordinary
Lebanon after Gaza: again & again
I reached out to two Lebanese friends last week. One is in the US - missing home - and the other is at home bearing the brunt, stoic and brave.
And one of them reminded me of July 2006, the last time Israel invaded Lebanon. I was there with Munira and Amina (7 at the time); stuck and then UN-convoyed out of Beirut by bus to Jordan via Syria. In a caravenserai on our way out of Beirut, Munira spotted Anthony Bourdain. And sure enough, there were pictures to capture that.
Bourdain was every bit the spirited mince-no-words anti-imperialist. Brings to mind Don McLean’s words which he wrote for VanGogh: ‘how you suffered for your sanity’ and ‘this world was never meant / for one as beautiful as you.’
And then there is the extraordinary beauty - and tenacity - of ordinary people. That is the reminder that is so easily missed in all highfalutin analyses of evil. In sharp-focus in Gaza for a year, and now in Lebanon. Again and again.
A couple of days after Beirut was bombed in July 2006, a friend from work called me at our hotel to ask if we were okay. The day before, Israel had bombed the building next to where he lived. And in the midst of that he had called to find out if we were doing fine.
the pull of the ordinary is anything but -
it is the text which is unspoken the
good that is of no worth the known
which we knew before it was known the
pull of the common is that which we
knew as ours before it was one's own 