Image: Guerilla, Kahled Sabsabi
LEFT
Never once in my life I liked the war, I wanted to enter the battle arena because of certain leaders and their propaganda, encouraging the people to resist and take up arms, yes, I was one of those people that got inspired to fight even at a young age, I used to tell my dad “I want to fight” and he would respond “no you can fight with the pen and your knowledge instead”. Of course I owe him my life because I have no doubt that I would have ended up like those who were butchered without any use. In my opinion the war changed nothing, the discrimination today still exists, this separation between ethnic or religious groups, nothing has changed even though I feel that there is a new generation that rejects all this but no one is helping or supporting them, instead they are being pressured to take a discriminatory stance if they want to become part of the broader society, some people try to hide their discrimination but through their actions and emotions it remains obvious. During the war I studied in the East of Beirut, at first many of the students were happy because I didn’t have a Lebanese accent, in excitement they would ask “where are you from” and I reply “I am Palestinian”, with a surprised look they would say, “you don’t look Palestinian”, so I responded “we aren’t trade marked with a certain stamp you know”, this continued for three years and no one spoke to me.
What is important is that this war displaced people, destroyed homes, dreams and many thoughts without any use.
We in our neighborhood were the majority, Muslims, mostly Sunni, some Shiaa, many nationalities, Syrian, Palestine, Lebanese and others. Before I tell you about the Christian Militias, about the religious wars, for example when Shiaa’s ruled, we would write on our doors Ali or Fouad even if it’s a lie, in the time of the Sunni we would write Mohammad so they wouldn’t enter our houses, in the time of the Christians, they came in our houses, broke our doors and took my father in front of our eyes numerous times, it was an experience that I hope no one has to endure, I can’t forget their faces or their images, there was a group known as the Bulls, Twisted Muscles, their looks, like apes, big dark, scary, these people have no mercy, there method was butchery on identity, I can’t picture how God can create a human being with this much anger and hate.
Personally for me, the war never ended, not with or without a result and all my life I couldn’t understood this, even at this age after the so called peace also considering that there is a current economic war against us, every time I say there can’t be more, they create a new bomb a new bullet a certain way of torture or specific way of death.
I will speak to you about the invasion, I know that countries all over the world opposed it and protested against it but couldn’t they stop the invasion or the slaughter of three thousand people in three days, I will never forget after Sabra and Chatila in my neighborhood, suddenly people are running every where, without shoes, believe me, running and screaming “Saad Haddad, Saad Haddad”, who is Saad Haddad, yet another person responsible for killing people.
Every time a new bomb is invented they test it on our heads, even toy bombs in parachutes, you can’t trust anything, has the war ended? No, do we feel secure? We still fear to this day that someone will come and attack us.
No one is fulfilled, no one is fulfilled enough to leave us alone, I imagine if we don’t have a president the situation would become better, like any other free person without any leader sitting on our heads, enough.
Even our borders aren’t secured, any time they wish, they fly over and bomb us, there is no security. I often think about my son, did I burden him by bringing him into this world, I don’t find any good in this world for his future and he is only four years old, I ask myself is this child going to be pleased with me for bringing him into this world, some days I ask myself, why did our parents bring us to do in this world.
My father because he left Palestine once, he would not agree with us to migrate, we had the opportunity to migrate to America, Australia, Cypress and Greece, he will not leave Lebanon he says “I migrated once I will not migrate again”. My father has relatives and family all over the world without knowing where they are because when the mass relocation happened from Palestine in 48 all left in chaos, scattered all over the world, once he carted us to Egypt to see his aunty that he hasn’t seen since 1948, why, because he dreamt of her and wanted to see her.
In the end I don’t want to die in a foreign land, we love this place; I think we took this position from my parents. I will tell you something if I can have the opportunity to go to Palestine I will never say no, even if monkeys lived there, but this is a dream, but definitely I want to stay here for my son’s future so he can be grounded with his religion and his home land to have an ambition of growing up one day to join the resistance and liberate our land, I have no problems with this, but to leave this place, No.
I am not going to blame everything on the Jews, it is us, there are people amongst us that are psychologically sick and don’t want peace and security, I can’t explain how these people think but I am pessimistic about the future, I hope I die before war happens again because I don’t think my nerves will carry me any longer.
I imagine that there will be many crazy people if there is another war.
I always knew it’s a lie from all the leaders, they are all the same from one to the other, this one is oppressing, this one is oppressing so is this one, in the name of liberation that we are yet to achieve, still unmoved in our ground, Syria oppressed, Israel did worse, the Lebanese between each other caused major atrocities, I tell you they are all the same.
What we heard about Palestine, I hope we return.
Let me tell you something, currently, I am the type of person that will have no problem in carrying out an operation, but it has to be an operation against the military not people, I am against the death of people who ever they are or what ever they are, because the innocent have no role in this, there are leaders turning this, I know if I am called to action but purely against those who hurt us, not the innocent I am against this because I have witnessed this with my own eyes.
This circumstance I live or any Palestinian lives because of our identity, this blue identity card that the world laughs at us with, for our Lebanese identity because this country has allowed us to settle here and has allowed us to work even if they still treat us like foreigners.
I just want to tell you a quick story, once I was filing a work application, all people have good in them regardless of race, the person looks at me asks me and says “I hope you don’t think you are better then a Sri Lankan”, he wanted me to have an Aids test and a Death Transfer certificate, I said to him, “where do you want to transfer my body to, better than a Sri Lankan I am not, to my neighborhood in Beirut do I need certificate now, can you take me to Palestine, do you want me to write this in the contract”, he looked at me in silence.
Tags
Derived from
Blacktown Art Centre
Alert Moderator
Comments
1 comments
More Work by Blacktown Arts Centre
-
Audio: Tales Opening
0
Tags
-
Text: Blood, Art and Tears
0
Tags
-
Image: Guerilla
0
Tags
-
Image: Guerilla, Kahled Sabsabi
1
Tags
-
Image: Guerilla , Khaled sabsabi
0
Tags
-
Image: Jamal Joumaa, Composition
0
Tags
14.08.08 — Blacktown Arts ...
CENTER
Guerrilla warfare is a confrontation that is embarked on by two groups, the so called weaker group the people against a stronger one that has access and resource superiority and advantages of technology, usually much greater than what the people have, so, the face off begins against this stronger group or force to result in what is know as Guerrilla warfare, which consists of pockets / groups of people and urban warfare, its objective is to resist without a permanent location and or any central positioning, the purpose of this is to surprise the enemy and by this method the people become empowered in dealing with their issues by strategically targeting where and what they want with the advantage of disappearing, to result and defend their position, the people front can’t afford to formalize a permanent line of defense due to their limited resources so this results in the formation of smaller fighter groups with light weapons, the resistance happens in two ways, one through a constant and ongoing resistance / movement and two in secrecy through invisibility, disappearing into the jungles, the city streets and amongst the people.
The Guerrillas will continue with this struggle until they reach their objectives, to transform or weaken the enemy by utilizing all their available resources, which is the support of the people, to realize victory and to push the enemy from their lands.
So, it is a mixture of smaller battles consisting of hundreds even thousands of fronts inside one war and through time this will result in defeat for the enemy, because the enemy primarily wont be able to sustain its casualty losses for long periods, this will lead and result into total physical, finical and psychological stress for the enemy, as the resistance is unlimited through its people reservoir that can never tire.
The main condition for the resistance to succeed is that it has a humanitarian objective, which separates or detaches it self from other groups such as mafias or crime battles, a resistance is a humanitarian war, with objectives of freedom, liberty, justice and with a goal to lift oppression against it’s own people, if throughout the process it remains under these guides it will unite the people in a common cause for liberation.
Its victory is unification of its people, its limits is its people and without the masses it becomes minor, limited battles that can, yes, hurt the enemy but won’t achieve total victory, it’s a conditioned relationship with its people and without this it is impossible to attain victory.
Reasons for resistance failure is the individuality of cause from social or political to the personal, this is the great temptation of this type of war, since power through weapons can yield possessions and or situations which can be used for personal or certain party ideology.
If a resistance is corrupted, the start of its destruction begins by festering internal formations such as spies, informants and secret police, detaching from the people and becoming separated from the initial cause, like fish without water. As far as the war in Lebanon, here I stress that this wasn’t a Guerilla resistance, it was a civil war, the war period between the 70’s through to the 90’s, it was a battle between individually driven groups within the people themselves, every group fighting each other to improve their positions and this became a war educated by religious or ethnic terms, this form of war is never ending, time may pass to the stage where all groups are defeated and exhausted with no outcome, this ongoing conflict becomes a war without any rules or limits transforming each group into its own entity while demanding the end of the other, so these hostilities have nothing to do with Guerrilla resistance, this is civil war.
On the war of liberation of South Lebanon, from the invading forces can be marked as a successful and modern example of Guerrilla resistance, dense confrontation, limited resources with light weight arms, in an area limited geographically against a well resourced military / enemy, the advantage for the resistance was its cause and its people, guided by humane principles, freedom fighters persisting against all military odds in maintaining an ongoing battle with consultancy and unity with the people.
The result of continuous raids against the invaders weakened and exposed their losses forcing them to retreat. This is what happened in South Lebanon, constant battles and raids against the invaders, even after long periods of attack. The main accomplishment was that all of Lebanon’s people were united with the resistance in the South, as they represented the people, never losing sight of the cause and its vision.
So the invaders propaganda began from the time and throughout the resistance in the South till this day, they manipulate the truth, by intending that the resistance wasn’t a people front but rather an external or international political agenda, for example, claiming that it’s a Syrian or Iranian agenda or war that they are fighting, it is like what we heard previously in Cuba, “it’s the Chinese and Russians we are fighting”, but the truth is no matter how much international support is pored into a resistance there is no resistance without the people fighting and dying, this external support will not yield a result, this propaganda is an old lie to justify the aggressors defeat.
The devastation in Palestine and the genocide against the Palestinian people today has caused this never ending tension for past and coming generations leading to so called terrorism, we are not acknowledging or approving but these are actions of despair in response to the invaders politics, they are the instigators of terror, through their history and their actions.