Today is the day we remember our war (1975-1990), the one we swore not to forget so that it would never happen again (تنذكر وما تنعاد). But just like everything else in Lebanon, the more things change the more they stay the same. Whatever we said about the war, the lessons learned and chances of it happening again, still stand today, as they stood yesterday and will stand for the decade to come. I read through what I wrote last year – April 13: How can we not forget? – (which you are welcome to read today too) and I would not change a single word of it now. Continue reading “40 Years Later…”
…أنا كإمرأة
Note: This is the Arabic translation of As a Woman, posted on International Women’s Day on March 8, 2015. The translation also appeared in Al Rawaby newspaper. The celebration ended, but the need to keep on fighting for our rights remains throughout the year…
ملاحظة : هذه هي الترجمة العربية لمقالة As a Woman التي نشرت في يوم المرأة العالمي. هذه المقالة قد نشرت في جريدة الروابي في زحلة في 26-03-2015. الاحتفال انتهى ولكن الحاجة إلى النضال من أجل حقوقنا تبقى كل السنة… Continue reading “…أنا كإمرأة”
March 14 and the Myth of the Cedar Revolution
If March 14 2005 would happen again, I would be exactly where I was – in the middle of the chanting and exuberant crowds in Martyrs’ Square – when it all happened. It was history and I was part of it, along with thousands of others who gathered there. Continue reading “March 14 and the Myth of the Cedar Revolution”
As a Woman…
As a woman, I’ve always been unsure as to what I am required to do on International Women’s Day. Take to the streets in song and dance, post a series of pictures displaying the best of my ‘womanness’ (however that may be) or perhaps wear a quaint little dress to receive well-wishers over a cup of coffee and sweets of my own making. Continue reading “As a Woman…”
Love in the Time of Politics
In one of his most acclaimed novels “Love in the Time of Cholera,” Gabriel Garcia Marquez explores the meaning of love through the follies of the heart and the lucidity of the mind. As he recounts, love and its symptoms at the turn of the 19th century could be very well mistaken with those of cholera, which had been spreading across the Caribbean at the time. When there is fever, uncontrollable emotions and madness, followed by either sanity or delusion…can one really differentiate between love and cholera? Continue reading “Love in the Time of Politics”
Time to Re-Evaluate the War against Daesh
We all knew that Daesh was capable of horrible things. However, the death by burning to which Jordanian pilot Moaz al Kasasbeh was subjected to broke through a morbid threshold I believe very few of us, if any, thought would happen. This isn’t to say that the other killing methods (decapitation, execution, drowning, etc..) used by the so-called Islamic State are any less brutal. But we dealt with them by exercising a degree of denial, if only because of the sheer number of times they have and continue to occur and more importantly, as a coping mechanism to deal with the horrors of Daesh at our doorsteps. Continue reading “Time to Re-Evaluate the War against Daesh”
Je suis…hypocrisie
If I were asked to sum up this whole week of Charlie Hebdo debates and discussions, it would come down to one word: hypocrisy.
Eye on the East wishes you a Happy New Year
Having welcomed 2015 from the agitated waters of the Mediterranean Sea, especially when looked upon from Beirut, Eye on the East wishes a Happy New Year to you and all your loved ones. May 2015 be all that you wish for and more. And may it be a much better year for those who truly deserve it, those who battle sickness, misery and indignity, who have lost loved ones or are waiting for them to come back, wherever they may be, for those who flee death and violence and for the children who suffer, for childhood should be about anything by suffering.
Continue reading “Eye on the East wishes you a Happy New Year”
“A century of war and peace in Lebanon”: Eye on the East for Lacuna Magazine
“…resilience might have kept the country from falling apart, but has not helped in truly bringing it together. Resilience is surviving but not coming to terms with the past.”
As part of their World War I centennial issue, University of Warwick’s Lacuna Magazine invited Eye on the East to contribute a piece on Lebanon and we accepted with pleasure. This was the end result:
A century of war and peace in Lebanon
As you may already know, Eye on the East regularly contributes to a variety of online and print publications, listed in the Featured page here. I thought I’d highlight this latest contribution, especially since it isn’t usually something covered on the blog and especially in such length! I hope you enjoy it…
“The West will never understand Iraq’s complex landscape”
It is heartbreaking to watch a country fall apart and become accustomed to its cities becoming synonymous with war itself. Since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, this has been the fate of Iraq. Sadly, recurrent violence in Iraq and the eruption of wars elsewhere, such as Syria, have also pushed the Iraqi story away from the front pages of the world’s news.
Continue reading ““The West will never understand Iraq’s complex landscape””
Eye on the East 