A similar text to that below first appeared in the Yukon News, Aug. 16 2006

Nous passons par les coeurs des gens

Beirut, 16 August 2006.

At 0800 local time on Monday 14 August, a cease-fire between Israel and Lebanon went into effect. Hizballah promptly declared victory.

Within hours, tens of thousands of Lebanese – bunkered down for the past month in public schools, mountain villages or relatives’ homes – flooded the streets of Beirut’s suburbs and the highway to the south of the country.

In the southern suburb of Haret Hreik, one of the worst hit urban areas, hundreds of awe-struck observers strolled amid collapsed buildings in streets where no car can now pass, their neighbourhood transformed into a bizarre pedestrian mall of destruction.

A man named Ahmed Khatib, who appeared to be waiting for something, asked if we were from the BBC. No, the Yukon News. Perhaps you’ve heard of it also?

"Then I hope that you can ask Mr. Tony Blair why he has taken away my home again. I lost one home already in the 80s. I have come again today and found that my apartment is gone." Did you lose any family? "No." Well, perhaps things could be worse then?

"I did not lose any family today because I am the only one left. I already lost 9 members of my family in the 80s," replied Khatib.

"I am Palestinian, from Haifa. My family used to have a home there. I pray to God that Hassan Nassrallah will hit my home in Haifa and whoever lives there now. If I see a Jew I will hug him. But if you tell me you are from Israel, I want to kill you."

Ahmed Khatib, it seemed, had lost.

In another sector of the suburbs called Bourj el Barajneh, we came upon the smoldering wreckage of a massive apartment block being worked over by backhoes, bulldozers and a bobcat. Water containers, ventilation fans, and other fixtures normally on rooftops twenty storeys up were strewn on the ground.

Shouts erupted as the backhoe uncovered something. A body. According to an observer, there were nine the day before; this was the first on this day. As it was dug out, rescue crews immediately covered the cadaver with a shroud. There were shouts to the journalists not to take pictures of the body itself – a gesture of respect for the dead, I presumed.

More shouts. Two bodies this time. Caged in twisted rebar, they could not be freed. A firefighter produced bolt cutters and began chopping them out.

The second body was covered as it was removed, as the first had been. And again, workers again inched up an improvised shroud (a garish multi-coloured bath towel) on the third body as they dug.

The feet of the third body stuck out, but his torso and head were buried. When an arm was loosed from the rubble, I saw that it was small, and that this was a boy, not a man. I prayed that the workers not pull on the arm to try and dislodge the boy – if the body was rotten it might tear off. Mercifully, they continued digging. My gruesome prediction would not have come true, however: The death was too fresh and the body had not yet begun to decompose. The blood on the arm was only half-coagulated and still red, not black.

When finally the boy was extracted, he was not wrapped in the towel. Instead, one of the workers grasped the dead boy and held him up by the armpits to the crowd, like the monkey-shaman in ‘The Lion King’ presenting the newborn cub to the trumpeting and braying animal kingdom.

Another worker ran his latex-gloved hand through the boy’s dusty black hair and pulled his slumped head upward to show his face to the crowd, as they did in the French revolution, displaying the severed heads of the decapitated. The shutters of journalists and bystanders went wild.

I knew that somewhere, someone was happy about this death, for it sent a thousand gruesome images of Israeli barbarity around the world. This boy, indeed, everyone in this building, had contributed to the "victory" Hizballah now declared. They needed him to be killed – and the Israelis had obliged.

The boy, I imagined, did not want to die. He had lost, but it did not matter. He was part of something bigger, something that, frighteningly, the man holding him up seemed to grasp, while my pitiful and only precedent for the morbid spectacle came from a Disney film.
Leaving that place, I saw a teenager looking stoically on. He had Roman, statuesque features. His arms were held firm and straight by his sides; his chin was slightly upturned. On a blue T-Shirt, these words appeared: "Freedom. You can wish for future happiness but the only time you can be happy is now."

Did he know what the words meant? "No." I asked a bystander to translate them to him. He listened, then smiled, sweetly. But I could see how big and moist his eyes were now, as a crack appeared where there was a flaw in the marble.

On Tuesday we traveled south toward Marjayoun, a city close to the border from which Israeli troops had withdrawn only a half-day before.

Although the ceasefire is unproven and, many believe, fragile, the people displaced by the conflict were returning in droves to the places they are from.

"No one expected so many to return so quickly," said a Lebanese doctor. "But [Hassan] Nassrallah has told them to return, so they do."

Southbound buses, cars and trucks filled both sides of the divided Beirut—Sidon highway. In the previous weeks, two overpasses (in addition to numerous bridges) between Beirut and Sidon were bombed. At each collapsed overpass, the 8 southbound lanes bottlenecked into a single track, resulting in heavy traffic jams. Many vehicles had to be pushed up and over the steep incline, further slowing the progress of the massive millipede.

"Where is the government of Lebanon?" complained one man, referring to the absence of any construction equipment to clear the road. While the cabinet has yet to meet since the beginning of the ceasefire, Hassan Nassrallah made promises of money for reconstruction in a televised broadcast Monday evening. Numerous Hizballah flags and posters made clear the crowd’s allegiance.

Some of the returnees, expecting to find their homes destroyed, tied foam mattresses on the roofs of their cars. At least they will have something to sleep on when they arrive. They reminded me of people who return to the Mississippi valley after a flood: They have lost everything and know they will lose it again, yet still they return.

The Lebanese have an attachment to places, to the land, that is difficult for North Americans to understand. Our Lebanese hosts explained one evening that when they build a new house, they build it for one hundred years.

"We never move. We are born in one place, and we die in that same place. This is not a matter choice."

At last, a few kilometers from Marjayoun, we could go no further. A bridge over a cool blue creek had been bombed and there was no alternative route. Approximately 100 people were waiting as a work-crew slowly rebuilt the bridge.

The creek flowed in an idyllic valley where people might have lived, at another time, without knowledge of victory or defeat. Children tossed stones in the water; a man waded across carrying a watermelon. The sun was setting and, overwhelmed by the peacefulness of this place, I wanted to stay forever. I tried to convince my photographer to sleep the night, but he wished to return to Beirut. With the sense of having missed the chance to understand Lebanon for the first time, infuriating rationality prevailed.

On the road home, our motorcycle was rear-ended at a stop. As we inspected for damage, I turned and saw a banner stretched across the road. It read: "Vous avez détruit les ponts. Nous passons par les coeurs des gens."

You destroyed the bridges, but we pass through people’s hearts. So it is. Hizballah has won – the first round at least.