Fashion and Wardrobe
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Blog: Calling Beirut From New York City
"This is unbelievable what is happening: children, children, children. . . What did they do wrong?" I knew that something was wrong but I couldn"t guess what! Although I wanted to sleep, I turned on my computer to see what is going on. I went to Naharnet.com. I was shocked to read that an Israeli air strike on Qana killed as many as 57 civilians including 37 children, although some put the numbers much lower. I could not believe that happened again. Ten years ago, when I was 11, the Israelis fired artillery rounds into Qana, killing about 100, again civilians, including women and children. My parents did not let me watch the news that night. They shuttled me and my sister into another room so we could not see. But the other kids in school had seen the news and told me the gruesome details. Now, this terrible history is repeating itself. I couldn"t believe that this is happening in the 21st century in a world fighting for "Democracy," "Freedom" and "Human Rights!" For a while, I felt as if time had stopped and went back to the barbarism of thousands of years ago. I couldn"t get up from my chair. I sat for about 30 minutes thinking about a news analysis published on Thursday in Maareef, an Israeli newspaper, written by Amon Dencker, the paper"s editor, and Dan Marglet, a military analyst. "It is time to have a tough heart and to not show any sensitivity toward the Lebanese villages," they wrote. "It is time to profit from our military power and to destroy every street and every house so buildings remain ruins and cemeteries." I began wondering what would be the feeling of the pilot who dropped the bomb. Was he happy? Satisfied? I wonder if he can sleep at night, if he sees these innocent dead children in his dreams, if he thought of his children when he lobbed the bomb. What did these kids do to Israel? Did they shoot rockets across the borders? I don"t think so. They don"t even know what is going on. Later, I felt like exploding. I called my friend who text-messaged me. I said: "Hey how are you? How is everything?" She answered: "Oh, I am alive!" and she laughed. "Everything else is so bad. There is no fuel any more. The electricity will be cut soon. The food will expire." We were both silent. I asked her if she is trying to flee the country. She told me: "We tried to go to the United States where my grandparents live but the U.S. Embassy is closed and they are not giving visas. The Canadian Embassy is giving visas to those who have cousins there, as well as the French Embassy. We might try to go to Denmark to my other cousin there." We lost cell phone contact. It is inhuman what is happening in my country Lebanon. It is so sad the reaction of the international community. It rejects this war but it doesn"t do anything to stop it. July 28: Listening to Evacuees, Remembering the Past The Network of Arab American Professionals in New York invited recent evacuees from Lebanon to talk Wednesday at St. Bartholomew"s Church about their experiences. I attended, although I had an idea about what the evacuees would say because I already heard it from my friends living in Beirut. The looks on the faces of the four speakers, three women (two Lebanese and one Iranian who went to Lebanon for a summer vacation) and one man (an American studying at American University of Beirut) reflected the reality that they faced there. One of the women was crying silently throughout the evening. One of the speakers was living near the center of Beirut where my friend, the unemployed clown, lives. She also spoke about her experience and her terror. She described her feelings when the warplanes were near her apartment and when her building shook with every bomb. During her speech, I thought about my friend living in the same situation. My friend"s situation may be more critical because she has already lived through a great part of the Lebanese civil war (1975-1990). With bombs dropping again, she would have relived all the horrible events she experienced during her childhood. I wished I could prevent her from remembering those horrible moments that she couldn"t speak about in detail. Also, I recalled the 1,000-ton explosion on Feb. 14, 2004. On that day, I was in class in my college, which was 15 kilometers (about 18 miles) away. At the moment of the explosion, my desk, 5 centimeters from the wall, skidded across the floor and hit the wall. I was terrified and said to myself: "What is wrong? Is Israel attacking Lebanon?" I found out an hour later that it was not Israeli attacks but an explosion which killed the former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and the former Secretary of Economy Bassel Flayhan and 18 other people. I believe that what I experienced at that moment is nothing to what Lebanese people are living through now. Some experts said that the value of bombs dropped on Lebanon since July 12 is nearly the same as an atomic bomb. It is hard for me to imagine that the blue Lebanese beaches turned to black from the petrol spilled over there; that Lebanon"s smell is bullets and that death is in the Lebanese streets where I used to enjoy walking. July 24: Despair and Anxiety Far from HomeFrom Friday until Sunday evening, I lost contact with my family and my friends living in the North of Lebanon. I didn"t know the reason why my parents and my friends are not responding to my phone calls or my e-mails until Saturday evening. That was when I received an e-mail from a friend living in Beirut that said, "I want to tell you something, but don"t be worried. Everything is fine but the radio station antenna, the mobiles" antennas and the Internet satellite were bombarded." All these communication facilities are located four miles away from my family"s home in the mountains. It is hard to describe the feeling when you are far away from your family and where war is reaching all regions and all people. The waiting. Saturday noon, I signed on the MSN Messenger hoping to have news from my parents and my friends. After two hours, a friend of mine living in New Jersey came and picked me up to go for lunch in a Japanese restaurant in Somerset, N.J. The sushi"s taste was so different from usual. I felt like I was eating nothing. I believed that my parents were safe because I had seen no reports of killed or injured people from there. Yet, still I worried. Calling them and talking to them was the only thing that would calm me down. Then my friend took me to a park in Princeton because I love parks. We sat near the lake talking about my situation when I get back to Lebanon if I am able to return. All I could think about was the contradiction of life: On one hand, I was with people smiling, enjoying their time together and on the other hand, the images in my mind of friends in Beirut, crying, wishing that time could stop. On Sunday, I went with the same friend to Connecticut to see an IMAX movie. I kept thinking of my family although I knew that they were fine, as my friend, who is living in Beirut and e-mails me often, told me. Today, in the morning, I received an e-mail from my youngest sister, 17 years old, telling me that the mobile"s network and the Internet connection are back, but that they are very slow. However, I believe that what I have been through this weekend is nothing according to what other Lebanese without shelter, without food, without water, without security are living. My country is still burning, the bodies of its children are under the ruins, the citizens are prisoners in their country, the foreign people are running from it and the world is watching how a whole country becomes deserted and desolated. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice traveled to the region Tuesday trying to find a solution for this war. She might succeed in her mission. But, does she have the solution to take out hate that this war has created deep in the hearts of civilians on both sides? Does she have the solution to the terrified children who lost their parents or to the parents who hold their dead children in their hands? Does she have solutions for those innocent children badly injured and who will bear the marks of their ordeal for some time to come? Is she able to bring back peace to the Lebanese people who were rebuilding their country? July 22: A College Pal Reaches MeToday, my friends" e-mails to me are filled with despair. My friend who worked as a birthday party clown now spends her days in her Beirut apartment, terrified. "The dark situation in Lebanon looks like it will stay for longer time," she wrote in her morning e-mail. "Death is walking in the streets of our country. Do you imagine that? Some people are stuck in their homes and they are waiting for their death. What can be crueler than knowing that at any moment you can die?" she added. Referring to the widespread death toll, she mentioned that members of the Lebanese military are dying, even though they are not participating on the attacks on Israel. "Christian and Muslim regions, civilians and Lebanese soldiers, churches and mosques, men, women and children are attacked," she wrote. She continued: "I wish that I can wake the next morning and find out that all of this is nothing but a nightmare. I wish can I stop thinking; it is making me so tired and depressed." She said at the end of her e-mail where sadness could be sensed: "I don"t know if we are able to live in this area in peace with dignity. I don"t know if we have the right to smile once again." Also this morning, I received an e-mail from a woman who is in all my classes at Lebanese University. "I don"t know if we"re going to live the lovely university days again. I don"t know if we"re ever supposed to build a future in this country. I don"t know if we are meant to live in peace in Lebanon." I believe she is right. We may not come back to school; we may not be able to meet again. It is very sad to be deprived from the right of eating, drinking water and learning.Pages: 1 2 [3] 4