Cold Civil War??!
Mostafa, posted an article about "Cold Civil War" today that actually irritated me deeply. He was so cruel in describing our nowadays situation, specially in saying that we wish if the "others" never existed.
Nevertheless, a kind of what he said happened with me today! I was having lunch with friends, good friends actually, one pro-Aounest and the other if pro-LF. We were having "moghrabieh", and I happened to mention that though it is very tasty, but the one done in Tripoli is much better. That's when my friends asked me: "Where from the North you are originally from?" "From Tripoli" I answered. I was then totally shocked to hear their comments after.
"Sunnies are awful people, how can you stand living with them?" "Take politics aside, you can deal with Shiites, but when it comes to Sunnies, you just don't know what will happen, they are far too fundamentalists!"
I'm NOT going to go into farther details, but It seemed as if they are talking about a whole different people that I don;t know. The majority of Tripoli population are Sunnies, but I never felt or saw what my two dear friends were saying. I've never had such "real" problems based on sectarian reasons in Tripoli before. Sure, there are fundamentalists, I won't deny that, but to accuse a whole sect of being "awful and incommunicable people" is just insane to me. I tried my best to clarify the huge misunderstanding that my two friends were having, but then I realized that both of them never lived in Tripoli, and their opinions about the Sunnies community came from "What their friends and relatives say", and NOT based on personal experiences.
Same thing happens if you are to go to the North and listen how people their describe the Shiites. Again, all these "stereotypes" are based on common talks from friends and relatives and NOT from real time experiences.
I don't know how I can describe what I feel, but it's too sad to see that such language has reached the surface in Liban again. I've been living permanently in Liban for 6 years now, but I never based my friendships on sectarian scales, and I still don't believe in "generalizations" and "stereotypes". And most of my friends are NOT of my sect, in fact I never took sects as a factor in choosing my friends. Which is why I chose to disagree with what Mostafa mentioned in his blog, but I saw what he said right in front of me this afternoon. Coming to think about it, maybe Mostafa has a point......
Posted by
FaiLaSooF
9 comments:
Failasoof your count down timer is hilarious... can you give me the script to put it on my political blog?
mmmmmmmmmmm,
first of all, sorry if i mistaken the number of "M"s of your name :P
second, I'm glad that you liked the countdown timer, believe me it gives you a great feeling as you watch it coming closer and closer to zero.
Send me your e-mail and i'll e-mail you the java script for it :)
take care
as a chrsitian from the north, I think both shia and sunnis are fundementalists but as Ayatallah Fadallah of hezbollah said (and I definataley agree): "there are two kinds of fundementalists; one encapsulating genuine obedience to god and moral, humanist behaviour and openess (ie the shia, as exemplified but nuclear-loving/pro-modernising Iran he was basically saying) and not arrogance, narrow-mindness and takfirist idealology" (the sunnis as in taliban, S. Arabia)
Sad but true, as I think chrsitians cannot really live with either, as Gagegae's 'alliance' with the fundementalist-ridden Mustaqbal party really is the act of the century (proof: just the other day Antione Zahra of the LF lashed out at Sinoira calling him 'incompetent' and always running away when he has to help lebanese finacially).
Sunnis in lebain showed their true colours when they burnt down OUR church in Ashrafieh (note: most of the scum there were Mustaqbal supporters, especially from the north, and what really suprised and made me angry most was that many sunni beirutis were there (usually renowned as the moderate ones! and did nothing!)
And that scum Qabbani who thinks of nothing but $$$$ has the nerve to blame his own sunni 'brothers' palestinains, syrians and jordanians! Samir gagegae did nort buy this one bit, and neither did the rest of lebanons chrisitian community! The shia are luck they were not part of this rally, as guranteed their alliance with Aoun would have crumbled.
Your reply Failasoof?????????
Anonymous,
The worst thing any one can do is "generalizing". In any religion or sect, you will find fundamentalism. Shiites, Sunnies , Druze and Christians, they can all be fundamentalists. Just by saying that "Sad but true, as I think Christians cannot really live with either Sunnies nor Shiites" you have shown a kind of fundamentalism, should Muslims take your words and say "Look what Christians are saying, we can't live with them either"!!!??
Everybody was against the Ashrafieh tragic day when group of fundamentalists (regardless what their sect is) went down and started putting buildings on fire. And if you think that this incident makes Sunnies "the scum of Liban", then why don't you remember the other day after LBC show "Basmat watan" when the Shiites went on the streets burning tires and causing troubles? Does that make Shiites "the scum of Liban"?
Going with such logic, we can say that Christians are the scum of Liban as well, when they started beating the hell out of each other during the black Tuesday, they were even worse than the rest, because they were beating up each other!!!!
We are all living in Liban, and we should realize that individual acts do NOT represent a whole sect or religion. Political arguments should NOT be interpreted as Religious ones. What Zahra said regarding PM Seniora doesn't mean that Sunnies are thugs and Christians are defend less, it is a political argument, and I recall that what Zahra said was: "PM Seniora is always cautious when it comes to paying money, but he must be fair" That doesn't mean that Sunnies are bad who are trying to steal money out of our pockets!!
How would you feel if a Muslim called Batrak Sfier (that scum Sfier)?? Qabbani, Sfier, Fadlallah and the rest are religious figures, and it's NOT right to call them names, for you will be only provoking others and getting on their nerves.
What you said in your post is pure hate, which blinded you, and made you wrongly "generalize" that all Sunnies are bad, and Christians can't live with Muslims, and God knows what else. Judge a man according to how he behaves with you, NOT according to how some groups of fundamentalists behave.
Now come on Failasoof!!!, I was not generalizing, I am simply expressing the opinion of a majority of chrsitians, whether LF or Aounist or phalange, Marada or whatever in the 47 years I have been alive and all these been living in lebanon itself (by the way I am a travelling salesman so I have been to nearly every chrsitian suburb in lebanon you can think of0.
I assume your too young to note the following and that by even hinting to some logic in my argument about sunnis you may 'offend' some of you sunni friends. MOST, but not all, chrsitiana I have spoke to 9inlcuding orthodox, Melkite, Armenian, even the Protestants in lebanon) have many such things about the sunnis as following:
they colloborated with the ottomans in ruling over (and massacaring chrsitians, even druze and shia)
-they, at first, opposed the very idea of lebanon, always insisiting to be united with sunni 'brothers' in syria, delaying our progress as a nation
-selling chrisitian land to gulf arabs tourists under Solider's corrupt banner, and p[romoting the failed 'arabness' policy
A major argument I keep hearing tp this day is that throughought history, our beloved monks of kaslik have been killed by sunnis
If Syria loses its Alawiate wako Loonies, and becomes sunni again, whose to say sunnis in lebanon will not again want re-unification???? (I bet you $1 million that chrsitians, shia and druze will unite to stop this)
they claim to be lebanese, yet always proponed 'arabism' instead, yet became either one depending if a saudi or american businessman threw $$$$ at them
Their scumful clerics like Jouzou bought wahabi's into lebanon, (have you read Seyor Hersh's report yet????) a species of animal that never existed in lebanon! and they with 'moderates' burnt down our sacred churchin Ashrafieh!. Reemeber you 'moderate' sunnis took no action at all against the wahabbi's, proving they knew it would happen if not downright encouraging it! And typiccal of your rags like 'mustaqbal' (i call it mawthoo) newspaper, blamed foreigners. They are te foreigners!, and whats worse, their clerics ivited those SUNNI foreigners to the church burning parade: Qabbani just cannot be trusted. The March 14 chrsitians just cannot at the moment override the sunnis as they are outnumbered, thus no crticism of corse by them.
I am sorry if you felt offended, but I would be happy for you to publish my comemnts and pass them onto fellow chrsitians and see what they say, and publish their comments, for I am happy to be proved wrong, but for now brother I am convinced as I'll ever be.
anonymous,
It's not useful to go back to the history of the sects of Liban, ALL sects. Following your argument one can say that Shiites are not lebanese , they would love to be part of Iran, Druze are not lebanese, they'd be happy to be part of Britain, and Christians are not lebanese, they'll be happy to be part of France!
All sects of Liban tried to take Liban to where they feel "safer", and all of them under such logic are NOT true Lebanese.
You are criticizing the Sunnies, saying that they are actually seeking to be united with other Sunni countries. I've lived in Kuwait for over 15 years, and let me tell you something, there is NOTHING related between Sunni Kuwaities and Lebanese ones. The whole "Arabism" methodology was part of the history of the whole region, NOT just in Liban, and many Christians were pro-Arabism, and some of them still are till the moment. But now, if you come to ask a Lebanese Sunni if he/she would like to join Egypt, Syria or KSA, you will hear one very clear answer: HELL NO!
My point is: each sect in Liban had its share of trying to convert Liban to what suits it the best, but they have all failed, for the simple reason that in Liban, when one sect tries to take it all, other sects simply unite against it. So judge poeple accordng to their nowadays deeds, and stop "generalizing". Many Sunnies were disgusted of those who attacked Achrafieh, and living in Tripoli, I was able to see this with my own eyes. I won't say that some of them were agreeing, but the majority were totally against what happened.
You say that you are certain that most Christians feel what you said regarding Sunnies, well have you considered how Sunnies feel regarding Christians? What goes around comes around, and like we have our doubts, they sure have theirs, and as you accuse them of being pro-arabism, they accused you once of being pro-Israelism, an endless circle of accusation that will lead to no place at all.
I know that the older you are, the more awful memories about the civil war you have, but that doesn't mean that we should always go back to history and refuse to see how things are now.
As for Hersh, he is just an american journalist, and he had a point of view that he expressed, to adapt what he thinks and say that it is the only truth would be as if you are considering "Al-Akhbar" the only representative of the Lebanese point of view!
You also said that Christians in March 14th are outnumbered, and so they are NOt a true contributor to its policies, wekk excuse me, you think that Christians in March 8th are NOT out numbered???!! In Liban, numbers means nothing, and I think the Civil war showed that very clearly.
What's going on right now is that everyone will come with some consiperacy theory, and sure such theories are extremely popular in our society, and you will have group of ppl believing this, and the other beliving that.
As it for me, I judge a person by his stand at the CURRENT time, I don't care about what his grandpa once standed for. And right now, the ones whose stands are NOT lebanese are NOT found among March 14th, and so I'm choosing to be with March 14th, as simple as that.
You know I am bery bewildered by your last comment Failasoof, and I think you are showing nothing but pure hatred and ignorance for whoever does not support March 14, which is typical of some in that group(I am really starting to think that your just another sunni posing as a chrsitian: I overheard a group of students in a kesrouan cafe' the other day saying this is what many sunni bloggers are doing to give their 'future TV'-type arguments more legitimacy. And I have also noticed when you criticise you always give the shiites a good bashing and mention them first - are southern village people not to your liking?? (where I hail from??)
Even though I support Samir Gagegae, even I think your last comment was full of hate: "And right now, the ones whose stands are NOT lebanese are NOT found among March 14th, and so I'm choosing to be with March 14th, as simple as that".
So does that mean the chrsitians, and maybe shia and druze, who are part of the opposition or the new March 11 are not 'lebanses'.
The thing I hate about Dr Gaegae allying with the Mustaqbal scum is that the mustaqbal were the biggest promoters of Syria when Rafik Hariri was in power. as they benefitted the most: those looney Hezbollah only cared for their weapons transfers from syria and were not even interested in all those years of syrian tutlgae in dmenading better conditions for their people: the sunnis did just that (mind you, you can go downtown to beirut and here sunnis there still spek favourably of Hafiz Al assad the mafia-boss but denegrate Bashar his son - puire hypocracy!). That Hezbollah actually admits its friendliness and service for syria-which is why they are so mocked but as much as i despise their fanatical orientations, at least they are honest unlike 'shiek' Saad hariri the liar! Everyone knows only the phalange and the LF are the true anti-syrian (baath-party Syria that is), not people as some muslims say) groups in lebanon, which is such a shame to be allied with scumful future party (Remember both March 8 and 14 are ruled by syrians: March 8 freely admits relations while March 14 takes orders from that murderer Khaddam! - the syrians must be having a great time being in full control of both ignorant camps - would not be suprised if its all a big plot)
And now the sunnis are suddenly so anti-syrian?? Oh please spare us!
I dare to reveal what your two 'dear' friends said about sunnis, after all, does not our March 14 say lebanon is democracy. Please lear to repsoect others' opinions, you'll need it brother
All the best (p.s. I went to that blogger friend of yours-taht Muustapha beirut spring - my goodness he seems such a stooge, and I happy to admit that your blogging is much more mature than his, he really seems like a 10 year old writing and does not even dare criticise his neloved mustaqbals nob-head characters like that idiot Walid Eido,instead making them look like hero's)
So keep up the good work: I am recommending your blog to many friends!
anonymous,
starting from the last thing you said, thank you for the recommendation, and I hope you will remain a constant reader of my blog.
Concerning me, I have never ever said what my sect is. I never said if I'm sunni, shiite, druze or christian. I do believe that it is meaningless to judge a person based on his religion, for the simple fact that he didn't choose what to be, he was just born with it.
As I said before, judge a political party based on their current stand, stop going back to history. All parties (in a way or another) sided with a foreign regime at one time, and to group people based on their sect means that you don't have any regard to their mind and thinking what so ever.
Concerning al-mustaqbal, I never said that they are 100% right, in fact they have many mistakes, and so do many other parties. But the main points of their policy nowadays fit my agenda and beliefs, and that's why I consider them allies. And this is normal, no body is perfect, regardless what he/she says.
As for Mustafa, if you had put some effort in reading his blog thoroughly, you would have realized that the guy criticizes Mustaqbal A LOT! Especially their media empire when it comes to news broadcasting.
As for my statement being full of hate and ignorance, where did you sense that? All I said was that I believe the choices of March 14th are the ones that seem Lebanese to me, which is why I'm siding with it. That doesn't mean that I'm cursing the other side. But let me ask you this, If Iran and Syria accepted an agreement in Liban where the opposition doesn't have the blocking third, what would the opposition's (mainly HA) reaction? You can bet they will end their strike as if nothing ever happened!
Now you are going to say same thing goes to March 14th. I'll show you that this is NOT the case. Did Americans want Berri to be elected Speaker of Parliament? Did the Americans wanted HA in the government form the first place? If March 14th were slaves of US, how come Berri was elected, and HA joined the Government???!!
True, the Americans have an INFLUENCE on March 14th, but the decisions are purely Lebanese, can you claim the same regarding HA, SSNP, Baath and the rest?
And NO! I don't despise Shiites, what I argue is that HA policy is not the right policy for Liban, at least from my point of view.....
Hi Failasoof, sorry fro the late reoly: its hard to reply when you stuck in business delays thanks to the ethical 'practices' of your beloved Triploi folk: they brought me up to Tripoli for a week only to try shod me and then brought sectarianism into it: on my storming out of the building I heard a person say 'shoo hal khashabe' (an insult to chrsitians that lebanese sunnis, especially those in Australia I have heard from relatives, use to describe chrsirtians such as myself and they accusing me of hating them because I was not accustomed to their 'traditions'! (what is that suppost to mean!?) I really undertsand what your chrsitians friewnd said now about some sunnis: I really have depressed this past week.
Anyway, now lets look at your questions:
"Concerning al-mustaqbal, I never said that they are 100% right, in fact they have many mistakes, and so do many other parties. But the main points of their policy nowadays fit my agenda and beliefs, and that's why I consider them allies."
Really, you consider them allies, this same that which YOU have JUST criticised that wants Saudia Arabia, the country that is the focal point of hate thus being the only unifyer for LF and Aounists, to choose a 'neutral' (as long as he is wahabbi) minister!!!!
You say when has Maustaqbal has ever been influenced by outside parties. This same party, which praised the 'martyrs' of HA when the war broke then lashed HA whne the Saudi scums criticised HA's 'adventures'??? Os this same party that kept (and still do like dogs) beggimg Sasudi Arabia to inyervene with a solution and when they did, rejected it when Feltman istructed them so, and then Saad Hariri like an idiot goes on national TV and admits this was a mistake!!!!! So letting this way the opposition have as much ammunition as possible and the lF and phalange showing disgust with Hariri!
"As for my statement being full of hate and ignorance, where did you sense that? All I said was that I believe the choices of March 14th are the ones that seem Lebanese to me, which is why I'm siding with it."
-in this statement my friend you have contradicted yourself, re-read it again: please, 'they seem lebanese to me': DO NOT tag people as lebanese and some others (ie the opposition) as not, it is wrong: though i disagree with the oppoosition, I conaider all the parties lebansese, as I realised that lebanon will aleways have divisions, and with every sect being a minority, no-one (especially Mustaqbal!) can claim to be lebanese soley and others not! (even though HA are to me nothing but unstabling and simple strange fanatics, I do consdier them to be more honourable than Mustaqbal, consaidering the fact they did not burn chrsitians' churches (like mustaqbal supporters did) after the 2000 israeli pullout.
"If Iran and Syria accepted an agreement in Liban where the opposition doesn't have the blocking third, what would the opposition's (mainly HA) reaction?" Failasoof think! the whole reason they want the blocking third is beacuase Syria and Iran want them to! And even if these two extremist ountries don't want it in the end, they will get something in return, even if its a bribe from Hariri (HA will consider this 'victory' and buy more weapons, instead of having what they think wahabbi ISF or LF taking their truckloads of weapons (even though sunnis in Triploi have astounded the world and have manged to import ONE ak-47 from weapon-land AKA Iraq ha ha ha idiots)
"Did Americans want Berri to be elected Speaker of Parliament? Did the Americans wanted HA in the government form the first place? If March 14th were slaves of US, how come Berri was elected, and HA joined the Government???!!"
-You really need to know you politics better: the Amal goons would have started a civil war if Berri was not re-elected; he is the dictator of shia-land did you not know? And plus, Berri was on good terms with Rafik and mustaqbal (ie $$$) especially when Rafik got killed, so there was never an issue with Amal, as Amal is nowhere as strong as HA, anyone can tell you this. And of course HA joined the governemnt! they have been since 1991! And what better way to to keep a potential enemy in check than to join his governenment and decide to stuff him up by resiging for 5 months and then permanenetly as HA did causing the current crisis (hint! hint!)
"True, the Americans have an INFLUENCE on March 14th, but the decisions are purely Lebanese, can you claim the same regarding HA, SSNP, Baath and the rest?"
-Of course, what party does not have external backers??????
Anyway, really do enjoy your blog and appreciated how you made your anti-sinoira post regarding the 'saudi' decision: I am sure if we were to meet we would have many (friendly) arguments and somke much nargileh ha ha; dont take anything perosnally my friend
please reply, and keep well
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