And the Resistance can even cure cancer!

Last Monday was Liberation Day, and to celebrate the end of the Israeli occupation of South Lebanon in 2000 we went to Bir Hassan to see the movie ‘Ahl el wafa’ (‘the loyal people’). It’s the story of a Resistance operation in 1994 against the Israeli army and their collaborators (the South Lebanese Army) in the valley of Nabatiyeh, as directed by the famous Syrian director Najdat Anzour. A group of fighters from the Resistance (the name of their party is never specified) is smuggled into an old house in an occupied village, from where they attack an Israeli convoy that is patrolling the road below Beaufort Castle. We knew the movie was coming because we happened to be in Beaufort Castle on the day they were training for the special effects, and we expected quite a bit of it because they had flown in a stunt-team from the USA – and those people know how to make dead bodies fly around, after all.

We were not disappointed in the flying bodies department. There was plenty of blood, explosions, burning soldiers and throwing of handgrenades. The fighting scenes, preceded by lots of crawling around in the bushes to get to the desired destination unseen, were supported by upliftingly ballistic music known from the promotional videos of Hezbollah on Al Manar TV.

The acting, however, was worse than a Mexican soap-opera. On top of that, there was a second storyline about a girl whose nagging mother suffers from cancer and cannot get the right medication because of the occupation, and the girl is harassed by a member of the South Lebanese Army who doesn’t care that she’s already married – he wants her, and he and his evil grin just pretend that her wounded husband doesn’t exist.

The girl is obviously added to show human dilemma: she discovers the group of Resistance fighters hiding in her (grand)parents’ abandoned house, but they trust her and let her go when she promises she won’t tell anybody. The girl is torn; if she tells the Israelis about her find, she can get money to help her mother! Or get the SLA-guy to stop harassing her! It’s so hard to decide what to do! But she doesn’t rat on the Resistance fighters, and is rewarded for her loyalty by the fact that the evil SLA-guy is among those who die in the attack on the convoy, and the Resistance transfers her mother to a beautiful hospital where she suddenly stops nagging.

They added one more scene – in the end, she offers the Resistance the key to the house, a not so subtle invocation of the Palestinian symbolism of carrying with them the keys to their old houses as the last proof that the places were really theirs, and here she voluntarily gives it to the Resistance… a fitting ending to a beautiful piece of propaganda ideological movie. Go see it if you have a chance.

Multi-cultureel gekrakeel: in de olie

De Nederlandse ambassade organiseert deze week een ‘Holland Week’ in een van de duurste hotels van Beirut, en heeft wat chefkoks van het Amstel Hotel laten invliegen om ons stamppot, bitterballen en haring voor te schotelen. Lekker hoor, en zo origineel! Ik geloof dat er ook een paar klompenmakers zitten om aan alle belangstellenden dit waardige ambacht te onderwijzen. Het zal je niet verbazen dat het eten niet bovenaan mijn lijstje staat van dingen die ik mis uit Nederland. Het is maar goed ook dat ik het wel kan vinden met de Libanese keuken, want de verdeling bij ons in huis is zó dat Walid voor het eten zorgt – en dat betekent weinig pasta, maar heel veel bonen en aubergine. En heel, heel veel olijfolie.

Je raadt het al: een ander heikel punt in onze multi-culti relatie; onvertaalbare grapjes zijn niet het enige obstakel. Het feit dat ik geleefd heb in een tijd waarin het normaal was om alles, maar dan ook alles in boter te braden, en dat de sla met zonnebloemolie aangemaakt werd, is voor Walid onbegrijpelijk. Ik heb de transitie naar olijfolie bewust meegemaakt, terwijl hij zo ongeveer geboren is in de olijfolie; kleinzoon van een man met olijfboomgaarden die de dag begint met een eetlepel olie.

Goed, we bakken en braden in olijfolie dus – ik ben heus overtuigd van de kwaliteiten ervan. Het enige probleem is wanneer ik Walid vraag eens wat anders te koken dan Libanees – een Thaise groenteschotel met rijst, bijvoorbeeld. Ik snap dat het moeilijk is de olijfolie te laten staan als je gaat roerbakken, zelfs als er in het recept aangegeven staat dat er geen olie nodig is. Maar is het werkelijk nodig de rijstkorrels eerst te frituren voordat je ze in het water kookt? Ik vrees dat het weer zo’n gewoonte is die we nooit van elkaar zullen begrijpen – en dat ik zelf de keuken maar in moet als ik olie-loze rijst wil eten...

Know your constituency...

In less than one month there will be elections in Lebanon, and there is no escaping the electoral campaigns. Posters for candidates/parties running in the different districts are literally everywhere, usually with either insanely stupid or offensive slogans, or just plain old ‘n’ boring faces of (old) men. But then there is Michel Mouawad. He is the son of MP Nayla Mouawad and former president René Mouawad, originally from the town of Zgharta. Michel himself is therefore running in the district of Zgharta, but I guess he spends most of his time in Beirut, considering this poster from his campaign:

We see a girl with one Lebanese flag on her cheek and one in her hand, presumably at a ‘pro-government’ (March 14) rally, on the left, and a guy with a gun and a yellow flag next to him, so presumably ‘opposition’ (March 8), on the right. Himself part of the March 14ers, Michel Mouawad’s question to his constituents is: ‘Who resembles you more?’ Keeping in mind that the last time a popular politician from Zgharta (Michel's rival Sleiman Toni Frangieh) became a minister in the government, the following party erupted in his hometown to celebrate his new position…

… I guess Mouawad either doesn’t know his people, or he’s appealing to a small minority of Zgharta’s voters. Neither of those is a very smart election strategy, if you ask me.

Overheard in Beirut

THE WILD WILD NORTH OF LEBANON Guy from Tripoli, smoking a cigarette

Biology student from AUB: Smoking kills

Guy from Tripoli: I’m from Tripoli, you really think that’s what’s going to kill me?

A mix of Italy and Belgium, with much better food

I’ve spent the past week touring around with two teenagers (whom I used to babysit, but who are now old enough to visit me in Beirut!), their mother and her partner. For five days, we drove to every corner of the country, tasted every dish available and discussed every topic related to the culture, nature and politics of Lebanon. The most intriguing part, according to them? Lebanese traffic. They were fascinated by the use of car horns instead of side-mirrors or indicator lights, the inability of the drivers to stay between two lines on the road, and the seeming absence of a maximum speed anywhere. The best thing of the trip, according to one of the teenagers, was the trip to Baalbeck. Not the ruins themselves, oh no, he meant the ride there on the mini-van. Why? It was just like a rollercoaster, lasting an hour and a half!

A good second was the way back from the South, where we ran into this gem:

He seems quite comfortable there, doesn’t he? While that truck is going 100km/h on a three-lane highway… Overall verdict? It’s like a mix between Italy and Belgium, and we don’t know if that’s a compliment…