Memory Shrapnel
Aicha Yakan
I do not usually write colloquially… But the memories of the war took me back to the depths of my scattered childhood which I was not able to express in formal language.
Who are they? Who are we? Can anyone tell me who…
Where were they? Where are we? Where are they and we going?
We are the children of the war… Whose children are they?
What were we? What have we become? How did we cross? We never knew
Why did they die? Why do we live? Who are they? Who are we?
They left… Why did we remain? We, the war generation…
They called us thus… thus they brought us up… thus we grew…
And we remain the war generation…
What war? Why the war? Who wants the war?
Can anyone tell me who…
«Daddy, daddy… how did our neighbor become our enemy? And the visits stopped…
If we’re in the wrong, we’re sorry… give us back our bikes…
Let’s play together and continue the stories…
Let’s remove the barricades and play in the streets…»
Boom boom boom
«Run my dears… Get away my dears
Move away from the windows…
Don’t get close… hide, hide, and take cover behind the post»
Bullets are falling like rain
Bullets are coming into the house…
Stray bullets… Not stray bullets….
Rockets going up and down
Showing no one mercy
Shrapnel-strewn buildings…
Buildings were being bombed
All hit their targets… All kill…
All destroy… All burn…
How long are you going to go on with this?
Let me sleep… let me grow… let me live in safety
I want to jump… I want to play… I want to dream of peace…
«Mommy, what are these sounds?
Why are we sleeping in hallways?
Why is the glass shattering?
And the walls shaking?»
Boom boom boom
«Move away my dears… Come back my dears… Get back in from the balcony
Hide, hide from the shells that are ripping through the walls
What did you do, you fool? Why are you out
While all your brothers and sisters are in hiding»
«Mommy, I was worried that my dress would be hit by shrapnel
That’s falling on the balconies…
I want to wear it for the holidays…
And celebrate with the neighbors»
«Can’t you see the bullets are like rain and the rockets like fire…
What holidays are you talking about, let’s hope we make it to tomorrow…
And let’s be grateful to God for the blessing of seeing a new day»
Boom boom boom
«Granny, granny, hide me in your lap, give me a sense of security
Tell me a story with no bombs or guns in it…
If you know a tale whose heroes lived in peace
Let me dream… let me stay in your lap… build my homeland anew»
Boom boom boom
Who’s dead? Who’s injured? Whose ticket was drawn today?
Who’s turn is it today? Ask our neighbor, Abu Amin…
He’s keeping record, making a note every time a new dream dies…
And that’s the disappeared book, its pages are in the millions now…
Killed… disappeared… displaced… emigrated….
A war with who? For who? Can anyone tell me who!
They say it’s a civil war…
Daddy, what’s a civil war?
What parents make war? What parents kill their children?
Why do parents make war? Why do parents destroy their country?
This is not a civil war… this is a barbaric war…
We died in this war and no one recognized us…
We got lost in this war and no one found us…
We live through the years of the war and no one asked us…
How did we grow after the war? No one answered us
They said we are the war generation!
No, it’s not true
We are the peace generation…
But what peace?
Peace is for God
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Our Memory
Raghed Assi
It is our memory betraying us again. We have even forgotten the tears of separation.
Is there a family that hasn’t had its share of separation?
Is there a person who wasn’t bereaved at the loss of loved ones?
Is there a city that hasn’t been destroyed by blind hatred?
Is there a village that didn’t grieve its children?
Is there a street that hasn’t witnessed naïve fighting between brothers who had lost their way?
How do we forget?
How do we erase seventeen years of madness and foolish fighting that have led to destruction, migration and death, and to what we believed was acknowledgement that the homeland belonged to everyone and that no one comes out winning when people of the same country raise their swords to fight each other but everyone comes out a loser?
O Memory, by God, have mercy on us. By God, remind us and rouse us, perhaps we can still come to our senses before it is too late.
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The Shelter
Adel Nassar
In the depths of the night, inside a warehouse, below a building standing on the demarcation lines that divided the capital Beirut into East and West Beirut, many big families sought refuge from the shelling exchanged between the parties to the conflict, which never lulled or subsided expect to give the fighters time to catch their breaths in between their draining rounds of hostilities.
During that time, snipers stood in for them, and, on their behalf, lay in wait for civilians who tried to take advantage of these periods of relative calm to fulfill their basic needs outside their shelters, and took aim at them whenever an opportunity presented itself or they found them in the range of their rifles.
Time was going by slowly and dragged, and boredom was creeping inside the people in the shelter after the children had fallen asleep and their voices and noises had died down, when they heard soft whimper reached them. It began to gradually grow, to take the form of intermittent wailing, soon turning into weeping. Fear gripped the place, and men and women began going around the place in search of the source of that sound, amidst clamor and an indescribable fetid stench due to overcrowding, rare washing up, and excessive heat.
One of the mothers reached the source of the sound, and threw herself on her it; it was her daughter. She wanted to silence her and find out why she was wailing, so as to be able to deal with the matter before the others had learned about it. So she stretched out her hand, patting her daughter’s body, and whispered in her ear to reassure her and inquire about what was wrong. The girl vomited on the spot and muttered one phrase over and over again: it’s a scandal, mother, it’s a scandal, mother. Fear and horror gripped the mother’s heart, so she went silent, stunned and dumbstruck. The mother’s wretched expression made the girl rush to explain the causes of her scandal, saying that they were caused by the stinking smell of her body that she could no longer stand and that had blocked her nose. This restored calm and peace to the mother and daughter’s hearts alike.
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The Spring of Our Youth Faded along with the Autumn of Our Homeland
Toufic Manafikhi
After so many years of war in Syria, with death present everywhere, horror in the streets, in schools, and in the alleys between buildings, war is no longer taking sides in the conflict, and the people are a bridge on all political agendas. Over time, I have become used to the sounds of bombings. They no longer terrify me after all this time has passed since the extensive destruction that has swept through Syria. And my eyes are used to the scenes of rising smoke-they no longer tear up. And my body, which used to be shaken by the screaming of children before the terror years, has adapted and now refuses to tremble in fear.
My university canteen in Aleppo, the time my family studied there, they described the general atmosphere there full of entertainment, scientific competition, and knowledge exchange. I am no longer able to visualize this scene. I was experiencing my first year at medical school. One day, I saw my friends sitting around a table, having their morning coffee to the music of Fairuz in the warm rays of the sun.
One of our boring lectures was over and we were back sitting as usual, enjoying ourselves waiting for our next lecture. Our laughs pealed around, and our minds were addicted to worries. We looked into a future just two or three days ahead, and dreamt of fulfilling our desires. Some time later, some of the young men approached a fellow student sitting next to us, wishing him happy birthday. They were carrying a humble cake with lit candles, dancing to the tunes of their joy. They cut off our boring conversation, no longer interrupted by the sounds of bullets and guns. The moment, which we shared, smiling, was not complete. A mortar shell dropped nearby and managed to silence everyone who was in the university-lecturers, students, trees, and stones. A moment of powerful silence prevailed in the place. If not for the music of Fairuz we would have felt that we all went silent deliberately in complicity with the birds!
We turned to each other, without uttering a word, as if we drew strength from each other’s looks, so as not to panic in that situation, despite our hearts pounding in fear! The sweat on our foreheads had not dried and the blood in our veins had not flown and something unexpected happened. Another shell fell few meters from where we were! The glass was shattered by shrapnel from the shell, the smoke filled the place, and loud cries and calls could be heard! We ran for our lives, rushing with the crowd of students fleeing the canteen. We left our books and pens behind with our dreams and hopes. I could hear my friends calling me but I could not see them amid the throng and the smoke. I saw one of them and headed towards him. I realized the state of shock he was in. I asked him about the others but he could not speak. His tears dared not flow as if afraid of coming out. And before I had time to talk to him and encourage him to collect himself, another shell fell-I hoped it was the last-right before my eyes. It fell next to my friend on the ground. I did not move. I did not know at the time whether I was wounded, but I was not able to move or speak.
I made an effort to look at the sky, the clouds were smeared with black smoke. I felt a cold breeze sweep through my body, and the sunlight could no longer restore the warmth I was enjoying just minutes ago. The fall transported me to another world, as if I were leaving this earth.
I did not understand what had really happened, and my thoughts drifted for moments that felt like hours, until I felt my friend pulling me by the hand and calling the others. I got up surprised and moved as he led me to them, until I joined them and we walked on.
Thus I will live the rest of my life collecting nightmares instead of memories, hearing the sound of guns instead of Fairuz, waiting for the sun of Syria in January, and trying to tell myself that what does not kill you will make you stronger in this life.
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Love on the Walls of Your Citadel
Hassan Jabkaji
I ran as fast as I could, and my footfall pushed the dust off my way… I stumbled on empty bombshells that fill the place…
I stood dumbfounded in that place that was about a hundred thousand red roses from me, I had left at the doors of your sad balcony one September night…
I closed my eyes… to summon your lost shadow between the paths of a war that has gone on for years…
And years…
I wiped off your big eyes a bottle of aged wine in a cold winter…
«Are you here?»
She did not answer
«I’ve looked for you for long…»
She did not answer either…
I held the shadow of her hand and ran away from the city market…
Maybe I have not yet loved stones like those.
At that moment, I was about to run away as far as a wounded heart from my love; I did not have the courage to look in your eyes again…
I do not know what I would tell my mother if I were to fail to recover my love …
I stealthily glance at my city…
Will I tell her that I was stealing the stones of the city…
Or eavesdropping like women do!
Do you remember when you entered the citadel through its large gate and I said to you:
«Let’s play hide and seek.»
You would run from my cold kisses in the heat of July… You climbed its big stones that separate you from my heart the distance of longing…
I guessed that you were hiding in the «Prison of Blood», I called it then the prison of lovers…
You broke the iron, you were about to break your small warm heart…
I saw all cities in your big eyes…
«That’s my castle and my life in its chapters…»
We dangle on the walls of the citadel like two lost children, and people stare at us…
I failed to recover you…
I did not dare to enter history any further…
My mother said to me: «Hold your head up… The answer to the past means digging in the bowels of the earth…
I remembered the day of the history exam. I was trying to cheat and copy from my friend Muhammad. I told him that it’s just this one question…
He ignored me…
I told him we would play football together and then we would go to Sallora Sweets* and eat delicious ice cream…
While Muhammad came to his friend’s aid in Kurdish, I understood that he was helping him cheat.
«So even you, Muhammad, won’t help me.
Fine, I’ll rely on Bougous… He’s a hinter…
I looked at him, he was up to his ears in his work…
Therefore, I have failed spectacularly in history and in every term…
I haven’t seen them for a while, each has crossed to a different continent…
They fled the dark shadows to reach a small light that grows every day in their minds…
«Life is so harsh, and it feels good to resist life and death all at once.»
My father was killed in front of the bakery and the bread was stained with his blood…
So my brother decided not to stay another day in that house…
As for my mother, the house became her children…
«Here I was born and here I shall die… I won’t leave my children.»
She pointed to the rooms of the house…
By the citadel… Not far from the Prison of Blood
There’s nothing here but ash on the ground…
I have nothing to do but look at the sky, wait for the sun to rise and shine on its white stones…
Place: Citadel of Aleppo, Aleppo
Prison of Blood: an old prison inside the Citadel of Aleppo
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My Academic Pursuits in Homs Come to an End
Rim Haswa
A frightening acceleration of unfolding events, divergent views here and there, small and big gatherings, strident discussions and loud voices-sometimes leading to fights, feeling of hatred, and even the rejection of the other to the point of cutting off all communication-refusal of dialogue and discussion, even fear of sharing one’s views and ideas.
These are all new aspects of our lives that suddenly appeared. Before, they were never prevalent or at least did not manifest themselves as violently. Leading a normal life has become difficult. There is random shooting in the sky at random times, day and night, and, overall, tension prevails.
I still remember that day when my friend and I sat on a bench in the park of our faculty despite the tense situation and the menacing sky that promised rain. I suddenly heard the sound of continuous shots fired from the direction of my neighborhood, which was only a few minutes away from university by car. I was anxious and worried. Many questions rushed through my head: What’s happening? What’s the reason for the shots? My parents, my brothers? Are they okay?
Our lectures and classes were over for that day, and, several minutes later, after things had calmed down, we decided to go home. She stayed with me until I got into a taxi and the taxi drove off.
On the road, the situation deteriorated again and the sound of shots grew louder and louder. The driver decided to change course quickly and took a backroad for fear of being shot at if we were to stay on the main road.
During those few minutes, I could feel each second go by, all alone in the taxi, afraid and anxious. Perhaps what made me even more afraid was the state of the elderly driver who was visibly anxious and afraid too as he sped down the road, going from side to side and maneuvering.
Finally, we arrived at the destination. I told him that I wanted to get off up the street where I lived with my family. He said, «Go ahead, but be quick.» I got off and quickly rushed home. Most of the men were outside, standing in the doorways of their houses and chatting. I entered the house and made sure that each member of my family was safe. I also called my friend to let her know that I had made it safely home. She was worried about me then although she too was at risk, as her neighborhood was adjacent to mine. But she had always been, and remains, a person who worries and cares about her friends and feels responsible for them. I used to consider her like a mother of our group of four girlfriends who had bound by a close relationship for many years, and remain so today.
This scene was repeated over and over again in recent times, until it became difficult and dangerous to attend university. It may have resulted in my death, just like the deaths of some students at the door to the university or inside, according to the news I received at the time. That was why my family and I decided that I interrupt my studies until the situation changed, praying to God that it would change for the better.
At the time, I did not know yet that my academic pursuits and my residence would soon come to an end in Homs…
The Many Capitals of My Homeland
Tareq Chams
When Israeli planes began shelling the city of Nabatieh in South Lebanon, and the bombs were dropping on its neighborhoods in 1978, everyone realized that an invasion by the enemy was underway, especially with the announcement of the launch of Operation Litani. This was the time when many Lebanese families decided to move to safe regions, such as Beirut. Beirut in 1978 was divided into two parts: East and West. I remember that we were staying in my aunt’s apartment in the Ras al Nabaa district in the western part of the capital. The view from the apartment presented the two tall buildings of Rizk Tower and Abu Hamad Tower in East Beirut, in the neighboring district of Achrafieh.
As soon as we arrived and I was enrolled in the primary school in that same neighborhood, violent clashes broke out between the Syrian forces, their Palestinian allies, and the so-called national forces, on the one hand, and the Lebanese Phalange Party and the Liberation Tigers and their allies, on the other. We felt like we had moved from one front to another, from one conflict to another, where the bodies of the sniper victims were strewn on both sides of the demarcation line going through the capital. That same year, Beirut witnessed an internecine war between its inhabitants that lasted about fifty days. Sniper shots hit my aunt’s apartment. At the time, I would tremble in fear seeing sniper bullets heading our way from the Rizk and Abu Hamad Towers. I would wake up terrified when these towers appeared in my nightmares. That same year too, my classmate Ahmad, who was 9, died. We were told that he was hit by a mortar shell. A friend in class said that he had seen his body and it was in pieces.
In the course of 1979, 1980 and 1981, I would go to my school through streets protected by sand barricades to protect us from the crosshairs of snipers trying to hunt us down. I used to think that the residents of East Beirut were not humans like us. A classmate once told me that they had three feet. Then I borrowed a pair of binoculars to watch those who were killing us. The flat in the building across from us had been hit by a shell, and there was now a wide opening in its wall presenting a view of the eastern part of Beirut. So, I began observing that area. I was so happy to see cars driving there that looked just like our cars! Then I saw a woman hanging her laundry on a clothesline and I stared, petrified… She’s one of those residents in East Beirut and she looks just like us! Maybe it is difficult to see her three feet from where I’m standing!
The next day, I talked about this at school. I said, «I saw the people of East Beirut.» My classmates were eager to hear about them. «How do they look?» I said, «Very much like us.» They were silent…
A few years later, in 1983, the border between the two «Beiruts» was opened and I went to that border to see Achrafieh, the area inhabited by the sniper and the people who were different from us. I was frightened and I was on edge. I was afraid of my own shadow. They might kill me or cut me to pieces. But I had to enter that area. I arrived at Rizk Tower and stared at it for a while. That was the tower that was killing us and terrifying us, and here I was standing right by it. I walked to Burj Abu Hamad, observing it carefully. But I quickly retraced my steps, my heart pounding, back to my country, West Beirut. Before crossing the border to my devastated homeland, I entered a candy shop and bought a biscuit. It was a shop in Achrafieh and I was careful in how I talked to the vendor, afraid of my identity being discovered. I quickly returned to my area as I munched on a biscuit from the country of East Beirut…
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Civil War Through the Eyes of a 6-Year-Old Boy
Wassim Katerji
On a regular school day, back in 1989, I, only six years old, was sitting in class at the Saint Joseph School in Jbeil. My daily routine was suddenly interrupted when I heard my father rushingthrough the hallway. He stood at the door of my classroom, holding my older sister in one hand, and waving at me with the other to take my things and follow him quickly. The principal of the primary sectionwas following him in confusion. I didn’t see the fear in his eyes; I was too happy to skip class.
On the way home, he didn’t say a word. Even though he was an easy driver, that day he was driving at full speed. Although I merely recall that the roads were practically empty, I clearly remember how we crossed the bridge of Fidar so fast in our old VW wagon that I felt we were going to fly off that bridge. We reached home in no time to find my mother waiting anxiously at the front door.
When we stopped, we heard deep sound of rifle shots. These terrifying sounds got louder and more intense so fast that we didn’t get a chance to say a word. We slid down a wooden ladder inside our home that led us to the underground level, where the four of us hid in a two-by-one corner next to the bathroom on the floor. I don’t remember my parents getting the chance even to lock the front door before we went down. We sat there for hours as the sound of the bullets and shells ripped the air. We didn’t eat or drink, nor dared to go to the bathroom in front. We just waited for the sound of terror to stop by the end of the day… The rest of that year was even worse, and we spent most of our time in that basement hiding in fear. However, it was precisely that day that I realized, despite being a very young boy still that we were living in a war.
Many years later, I asked my parents about that day to understand what had happened and why. Back then, my parents were sitting in our front garden facing the coastal road in the town of Halat. As the highway was blocked to be used as a military airport, the coastal road was the main link between Beirut and Tripoli, and therefor was usually busy. On that day, the traffic suddenly stopped completely, which made my parents very curious. They stopped a worker who was passing on foot in a rush, and asked him if he had noticed anything on his way. He told them the Lebanese Armyblocked the road at the nearby town of Okaibi, and was mobilizing its troops and tanks to advance toward Jbeil to face the Lebanese Forces. My parents freaked out as my sister and I were at school in Jbeil…
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My Reason Telling me About War
Samira Fakhoury
Looking at my blank page, I wonder whether the war that has ravaged Lebanon since 1975 is really over. I wonder whether in our Hearts we feel the calmness of peace.
My reason suddenly rebels:
«Are you trying to kid yourself? Or are you trying to convince me, your reason!»
«No, no!» I try to sum the experienced situations and dangers to date them. You know full well that days and events succeeded one another. They seemed to resemble one another. But I have to begin at the beginning. That real first shock, in a country where the majority was not aware of what was being plotted in the shadow. In a serene village that had been forever protected by a Lebanese Army barracks… It was 1976.
There’s shattering news: The Army has left the place-it has divided. And the bolt of lightning is promptly followed by a crash of thunder. «Don’t leave your houses: a convoy armed to the teeth will be passing through the village to join the others.» Armed, yes. But not the Army.
Just passing through. But no. They have left on their way some young and not-so-young people shot down, some in the streets and others on their doorsteps. More than a dozen corpses on this first day of a terrible cycle that would change faces but retain the same heart: division, carnage, terror, and it went on, and on, and on.
I can no longer remember how long… maybe days? Months? Years?
That’s what I’m trying to sum up. By adding dates.
Fleeing seemed to be the only option. Today we call it emigration.
But it was not a solution we chose: How do we abandon our three houses on the hill?
My parents’ house where my mother lived; my sister’s house, already living in exile with her husband who left for work, since before the «war»; and ours. Our house.
Thus the decision was made: make sure that the kids are safe in a house in Beirut (choosing the lesser of two evils?); transform our garage into a shelter. This became easy after our car was stolen. When then? 1978? No, the beginning of the 1980… but also in 1976. With the car. Indeed! Makes no difference surely. It was such a long time ago.
In that garage, then, which was actually on the ground floor but sheltered from three sides by the mountain, my husband and I survived the shelling on an enemy army targeting another enemy army that was camped just outside our house.
We survived the bombs of the wonderful very Western warship that was aiming at the same targets. Was it 1983? 1984? Incredible.
We survived the terror. And we protected our houses.
«Maybe so,» says my reason, «But at what cost?»
And today I ask myself, did we also protect Lebanon?
I won’t listen to my reason. My heart tells me yes.