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Samar 15 days ago
Beirut is back in the news, and no it's not another war or protest. Beirut made it on to the New York Times "The 44 places to go in 2009". Pretty astonishing taking into account that the country went through a war in the summer of 2006 that resulted in one of the largest evacuation efforts. Canada alone evacuated 15,000 of their 40,000 citizens that were their that summer. And for the New York Times to have faith in recommending it in it's top 44 destinations for the year, well that does say a lot. I spent 5 weeks this past summer in Lebanon, and Beirut was unbearable. It was projected that close to 2 million people will visit Lebanon in 2009 and it seemed that the 2 million extra bodies were residing in Beirut last summer. Now the reason I am posting this is because I came across an article in the Guardian about the city, how glamorous it is. As I read I was proud of my little country for bouncing back. Yet I still wish more for Lebanon than ...Samar 200 days ago
“I declare May 7 [2008] a glorious day for the resistance in Lebanon.”(Nasrallah, May 15, 2009). May 7th, 2008 was the day Hizbullah along with it supporters invaded Beirut, held its people hostage, burnt their opposition’s TV stations and started a string of violence that led to the death of over 60 people, of which my aunt was a victim. Today Nasrallah, Hizbullah Secretary-General, glorified the events of that day. Stating that it prevented a civil war, that it protected the resistance. All this in effort to spin the events of that day, to persuade the voters that it was just. But even the blind can see through this spin doctor’s web of lies and deceit. Last year after the violence, Nasrallah, denied his support of the event of that day. Blaming his allies as the perpetrators of all the violence, that Hizbullah was far above and much more restrained. Today in his speech he implicated himself, as being the mastermind for the May 7th events. He finally came to the ...Samar 290 days ago
Today is celebrated by many as Valentine's day, but in Lebanon this day of celebrating love has forever changed to a day of rememberence. Today marks the fourth anniversary of the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Harriri. His death sparked a revolution, which became known as the Cedar Revolution, in which a million souls marched to the capital demanding justice for their fallen hero, demanding freedom from Syria. The international community finally stood up to the call and pressured Syria to leave Lebanon and eventually the UN agreed to set up a criminal investigation of the assassination. As with every year since Harriri's assassination, hundreds of thousands marched to Martyr's square in Beirut to commemorate 4 yrs since his assassination. With the approaching elections the large turnout was also considered a strong message to the opposition. This month another goal of the cedar revolution was close to materializing, currently final preperations are ...Samar 531 days ago
A couple of years ago on the day Israel decided to wage war on Lebanon, I remember a conversation with a friend, telling him, that everything will be ok, this kind of thing happens all the time. That war cost Lebanon thousands of dead and millions in economic and property damage. Years before that after PM Rafic Harriri was assassinated, and the cedar revolution began, we all thought it was the end of tyranny in Lebanon. Little bombs started soon after that. It seemed like every weekend a bomb would go off somewhere. Yet every weekend my friends and I would have plans, we would always be optimistic that the latest bomb would be the last, but it wasn’t. Last month Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah waged war against Beirut, sparking violence between the sunni and shia population in Lebanon. A deal was reached between the government and Hizbuallah at Doha soon after. Everyone rejoiced, Lebanon was finally going to return to its peaceful days. However once the cycle of violence ...Samar 571 days ago
It started two days ago. Earlier in the week the government announced its decision to replace the Beirut airport security chief Brig Wafiq Shoqeir for alleged ties to Hizbullah, He allegedly allowed Hizbullah to install their own security network with in the airport. The government also announced that it will close down Hizbullah’s telecommunication network. And thus overnight Hizbullah leader Hassan Nassrallah contended that these decisions are declarations of war and thus moved his gurilla army to take over Beirut. And so much like Israel’s 2006 war on Lebanon, Hizbullah has launched their own version of that war internally. Once Hizbullah vowed never to use their arms in internal fighting but much like other promises they made they also failed to keep this one. On Wednesday, May 7, Hizbullah supporters closed off the airport road, leading to the complete shut down of Beirut’s international Airport, a similar move to what Israel did in 2006. What Israel didn’t do however ...
