Will they, or will they not?

It’s not like Lebanon doesn’t have enough problems of its own (problematic presidential elections and a faltering economy only the most obvious of them) to also worry about what is going on in the wider region. It’s just that whatever happens in the wider region will inevitably have consequences for the country. It is thus that a move like president Bush’s, declaring the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization, is slightly worrying. In itself, of course, it doesn’t mean that the United States will attack Iran. Yet this declaration will be very convenient if/when they do attack, because then no ‘martial law’ or ‘human rights treaty’ will be applicable to any Iranian soldiers captured by the United States, and they can be locked away for years without a process as is happening now in Guantanamo Bay, but this time without criticism of any foreign governments or human rights organizations – after all, they would lawfully be labeled as ‘terrorists’, not as ‘prisoners of war’ to whom rules and rights apply.

And there are other things happening in the States that are slightly worrying because of the possible consequences in the region. Once again it is not a remark like that of the French minister of foreign affairs, who flat out stated that ‘we have to prepare for the worst’ in regards to Iran (although words like these have a big impact here, where people know all too well what it is to be in a war and how little it can take to start one, and these kinds of threats are taken very seriously here – judging by the amount of phone calls I received right after the news where the French minister’s words were broadcast to urge me not to visit Iran as was my plan at the time). What is worrying are the much more ingenious ways in which Iran is depicted not only as evil, with its ‘undemocratic, fanatical (Islamic) regime’, but as indistinguishable from the ‘terrorists’ who attacked the United States on their own soil, on 11 September 2001.

Right after the attacks on the World Trade Centre, Osama Bin Laden was the big bad boy and Al-Qaeda, the Taliban and Afghanistan with him. The country was invaded by the American army and its allies (the Dutch, unfortunately, among them), in the name of punishing those responsible for the crime. Yet a year later, in his speech to commemorate what happened on that fateful day in 2001, president Bush spoke of the attacks that “brought grief to [his] country”, but not even once did he mention the name of Osama Bin Laden. He did, however, speak of evil, of Saddam Hussein (whom he mentioned 8 times) and the Iraqi regime (brought up 15 times in his speech)*. This speech was just one of many with which he managed to slowly but surely blur the distinction between those who committed the crime of September 11 (or who, in American eyes, supported them), and generally unwanted Middle Eastern regimes, and was later followed by the invasion of Iraq.

Just a few weeks ago, Iranian president Ahmedinejad visited New York City (I’m still wondering how he managed to get a visa, because the application form clearly states that ‘being or having been part of a terrorist organization will probably influence the outcome of the visa-process’ or something similar, but that aside), where he was told he would not be allowed to visit Ground Zero, the site of the attacks of 11 September 2001. Supposedly, this was because his safety couldn’t be guaranteed. Yet in light of the above, it would not be farfetched to think that apparently, the accusations of ‘providing arms to Iraqi insurgents’ are not providing a big enough aura of evil to the Iranian regime, and thus a new, unspoken but very present, link between September 11 and an unwanted Middle Eastern regime is being made. What the consequences of the making of this connection will be, we can only wait and see, but the past does not bode well for the future.

* Source: Robert Fisk: The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East (2006)

We would never have just one

I was learning names of fruits and vegetables and I wanted to know the word for 'apricot'. 'Mishmosh', Jamil (who is trying to teach me Arabic) said. Knowing just the slightest bit of Arabic grammar, it sounded like a plural to me, and so I asked again. 'One apricot', I said. He looked at me, puzzled. 'Why would you want to know the word for one apricot? These things are tiny! You would never have just one!' I begged to differ; I am pretty sure I regularly eat just one apricot. To Jamil, this was total insanity: you don't eat one rice, or one lentil, do you? It took me a few minutes to get him to tell me the singular: mishimsheh. When I walked home I stopped at the vegetable-seller to get a zucchini. I picked a nice one, took my wallet out of my purse and looked at the shopkeeper for the price. The man waved with his hand. 'Khalas', he said, 'it's ok.' I motioned that really, I wanted to pay - after all, he has a shop and I am buying my food for dinner. He once again told me no, shook his head and said: 'It's a zucchini. Just one.'

Miss-call me

Press-agency Reuters classified it as an ‘Oddly Enough’ news story: the phenomenon of calling someone and hanging up before the call has been answered, in order to save on phone-credit or units (belminuten). It is a practice widespread in Africa, from ‘Cape Town to Cairo’ according to Reuters, and, I would say, further up north – all the way to Lebanon. In Lebanon, ‘miss-calling’ is a verb. A miss-call can literally mean anything, its message depends entirely on what is common among friends, or what is previously agreed verbally or by sms:

‘I will miss-call you when I leave the house.’ ‘Miss-call me when you’re done with work so I can pick you up.’ ‘I will miss-call you when I am 2 blocks away from your house, so be ready to come down because I can’t park in your street.’ “I miss-called you, why didn’t you call me back?”

Calling and hanging up before you before you’ve even had a chance to say hello (the trick is to not establish a connection) is not because Lebanese people don’t like talking. They do. They just don’t like to pay for it, and especially not the exorbitant amounts of money that the local phone-companies charge. If you have a cellphone, you have two options: MTC touch or Alfa. There is hardly any difference between the two, other than that one of the companies is owned by the brother of the minister of telecommunications, and the other is not. They both cost the owner of the phone-number about $50 per month, which let’s you send ±180 messages OR let’s you make 22 calls of 2 minutes. Not a very good deal. Hence the miss-calling.

As the Reuters’ article says: there are certain unwritten rules to follow when miss-calling. It is accepted to miss-call your friends of a similar social class only when you know they are at home and their parents pay the bill of the landline. Otherwise, don’t miss-call your friends and expect them to call you back – unless they are seriously rich, in which case you can leave it up to them: some of my better-off friends who know I don’t have a job right now will not pick up the phone when I call them, but will call me back a minute later, pretending they were busy. Other than that, It’s not ok to miss-call someone you want to ask for a favor – but it is fine to miss-call the pizza place and have them call you back to take your order.

All in all, one has to admit miss-calling is quite an effective method of (tele)communication. Consider the following sms:

‘Want to go see a movie tonight? Pick you up at 8pm. 1 missed-call = yes, 2 missed-calls = no.’

One unit spent, and the evening is arranged.

You know things are going wrong...

… when you find this advertisement in a magazine called ‘Lebanon Opportunities’. “Blindcorp’s offroad vehicles are designed to withstand the most difficult rough terrains in the world. Maximum armor protection system is provided to meet the unpredictable as well as the anticipated threat, without impeding the vehicle’s performance capabilities.

Blindcorp’s Armored SUV… The Trusted Bodyguard.”

Even though Blindcorp’s vehicles probably won’t protect you from the ‘anticipated’ threat of car-bombs (favorite way of assassinating people here), the advertisement is clear in its assessment of the needs of the Lebanese market. “… it was only recently that Elie Soueidan (…) decided to branch out into armored car business. Defending a passenger from bullets is, after all, a very different exercise from leasing luxury vehicles. But clients kept asking for the service …”

Other countries Blindcorp serves? “Iraq, Afghanistan, and African countries.” Also: Columbia and Venezuela, amongst others.

And what do you know? Sietske recently found a similar ad.

On a Su-Shi Diet

“You are fasting? Ah, for the day. No? For the whole month? Why would you do that? Next thing we know we will see you wearing a veil!” Yes, I am fasting during the whole month of Ramadan. No, I am not becoming Muslim. I am merely practicing what Anthropologists like to call participant observation. You do what the people around you do, to experience what they experience and thus, hopefully, come to a better understanding of why people think what they think and do what they do. As many people around me are fasting, I decided to join them and not eat and drink from sunrise to sunset for one whole month (in Lebanon, this is from around 4.45am until 7pm – apparently, in The Netherlands sunset isn’t until 8.30pm… pfff!).

The first day was a big shock. I had decided to wake up at 4.30am to drink enough water for the whole day. Big mistake: as I laid back down, my belly was playing storm-on-sea and there was no way I would sleep again. At noon, my brain started to fade, and at 6pm I had trouble looking straight. Dinner, at my beloved’s parents’ place, was a relief. The opening bite was the traditional date followed by a sweet drink, and then the equally traditional lentil-soup and fattoush (a Lebanese salad) which went down faster than a fish down a waterfall. Glasses and glasses of water to quench the thirst, regretted half an hour later as I sat on the couch to digest, feeling I was about to explode.

Fasting has become less hard over the days. The hour at which the fatigue sets in gradually moves to later in the afternoon, and I occasionally manage to think about something else than food or drinking. The good part are the iftars – the dinner to break the fast after sunset. Here goes: the more the merrier, and eating alone during Ramadan is not done, so I am, like last year, invited to many a home-cooked meal. But I don’t mind eating my iftar alone. There is a certain magic to preparing the meal without so much as licking my fingers to taste what I am cooking, setting the table on the balcony, and then, with so many people on the balconies around me, waiting for the mosque to start singing; the sign that dinner can be consumed. The only problem is which mosque to follow: Sunnis start eating when the mosque is done singing, but Shia generally wait another 20 minutes or so, just to be sure that the sun has gone down completely.

On the balconies across the street I see two families – one on the 5th, one on the 2nd floor. The grandfather on the 5th floor usually sits down at the table long before sunset, and he is joined quickly by his family members as the call to prayer ends. Silence, interspersed by the clicking knifes and forks on the plates, ensues. I am guessing they are Sunni. It takes another quarter of an hour for the grandmother to emerge on the 2nd floor, with a big bowl of soup in her hands. Their dedication to fast until the last moment implies they are Shia. Me? I have started eating somewhere in between the two. I am on a Su-Shi diet.