Be Aware

I read yesterday an interesting article in the Washington Post about Civil war it was written by Doug Tunnell. The article explains what a civil war is and how it starts. So the author mentioned the civil war in Lebanon and he wrote: "There are as many varying accounts as to where, when and why the Lebanese civil war began as there are survivors of it.

Some insist that fifteen years of violence started with an argument between a Palestinian and a Maronite Christian over a pinball machine in a sidewalk café.

Others cite the massacre of a busload of Palestinians coming home from work through a Maronite neighborhood in east Beirut.

To this day there are those who argue that Lebanon's war was not a civil war at all but rather an international conflict played out by proxy in the streets of a fragile, religiously diverse Arab state.

If the Lebanese model holds, we may still see some prolonged periods of relative calm in Iraq. But as another veteran of Beirut, New York Times correspondent John Kifner wrote not long ago, civil wars have a particular "rhythm." That rhythm makes them very different from other kinds of war, and even more difficult comprehend:

A provocation -- like the bombing of Samarra's Shiite mosque on February 22 -- is followed by an outburst of sectarian killing. Stunned by its own brutality, the populace withdraws for a time into a period of self-examination, denial and shocked disbelief. Politicians seek to break the gridlock with renewed urgency. But the respite offers provocateurs and militiamen time to regroup and rearm. They further infiltrate the police, the military and the security services. In the absence of strong central authority, neighborhoods take the law into their own hands and brace for the next attack. The violence spirals upward. Each reprisal is even more horrendous than the last.

All these steps have been described in reports from Iraq in the last month, including a proclivity for denial.

Apparently unwilling to accept the fact of a near total collapse of social order, many Lebanese chose to call their conflict "the troubles," instead of war, for years after it began.
There seems to be no universally accepted definition of a civil war. But then, civil war is in no way universal. It is brutally specific, horribly individual.
Don't look for armored columns breaking through the berm. A civil war doesn't start on a battlefield. It starts in hearts and minds".

I think that Lebanese should be aware of this reality, civil war "starts in hearts and minds". So be careful and don’t let this political “masquerade” we are watching to influence you and affect your mind and soul. And be aware of the jokes repeated without noticing its effect on our feelings. And most of all we should be careful of what we are saying in front of our children because we don't need a new generation of sectarianism in Lebanon.