Ussama Abu el-SheikhShatila refugee camp, Beirut6 August 2006
Ussama is 19-years-old, a Palestinian refugee, born and raised in Beirut’s Shatila refugee camp. “Although I always dreamt of corresponding with my country and my hometown to see if I still have relatives there,” he writes, “I was unable to because there is no mail between Lebanon and the State of Israel. Ironically, only the missiles of Hizbullah can be sent to Israel. We are not allowed to return, but the missiles go where we cannot.” Ussama reflects on his own life amidst the escalating war, and how the roar of the F-16’s and the missiles has, amidst the worry and devastation, reconnected him to the broader world. Read more about How can you send love with a missile?
They were working in the fields, to save what is left from the season while Israel constantly targets fruit trucks and convoys all over Lebanon. They were men and agricultural workers. They were workers having a break after a long day of peach and plum picking, resting to continue their day of work that extends to the night. They were men, thirty-three of them, who died because they were working at a time when we are supposed to be all sitting home scared or demonstrating against the resistance as the enemy wishes. They were maybe called: Muhammad, Ahmad, Issa, Ali, Hani Fadi, Khaled, Hassan, Tarek … maybe and maybe. Read more about They were thirty-three men and agricultural workers
This siege note is dedicated to Akram. Akram was my first friend from Saida. I had visited Saida before I met him, but it became a whole other story after I went there with him, and after I became familiar with his work. Akram is also one of the constitutional elements of my life in Beirut. Our friendship is peculiar because it has carved a world specific to it, a language of its own, replete with metaphors, a stock of memories, and piles and piles of images and stories. I like to think of it as a space, a retreat, like a small interior garden where a deeply anchored quietude prevails. Read more about The Bougainvillea Are in Full, Glorious Bloom
This video letter was made on July 21, 2006 at the studios of Beirut DC, a film and cinema collective which runs the yearly Ayam Beirut Al Cinema’iya Film Festival. This video letter was produced in collaboration with Samidoun, a grassroots gathering of various organizations and individuals who were involved in relief and media efforts from the first day of the Israeli attack on Lebanon. It was also broadcast at the Biennial of Arab Cinema, organized by the Arab World Institute in Paris. Read more about From Beirut to ... those who love us (Broadband Video)
The attacks of 11 September 2001 gave many ordinary Americans a palpable experience of injustice. Addressing both houses of Congress nine days later, President Bush proclaimed: “Our grief has turned to anger and anger to resolution. Whether we bring our enemies to justice or bring justice to our enemies, justice will be done.” By nearly conflating justice and revenge, the President - and, alas, the vast majority of Americans who applauded him - lost an opportunity to see with new clarity, justice itself cast into relief by the very experience of injustice. Instead, the United States launched an endless war, the first stage of which was to be called Operation Infinite Justice. Read more about "Justice" Comes to Qana
We’re still alive, despite last night. They were busy bombing Gaza, South Lebanon and Baalback, until 3:14 am — that was when they started hitting the outskirts of Beirut. Twelve, thirteen air strikes? I stopped counting at the twelfth strike and fell asleep. Don’t ask me how, I don’t know. My husband and “my refugees” were out on the balcony trying to locate the new targets, but I stayed in bed. I had a terrible migraine and couldn’t even open my eyes. I’d open them only with every new explosion, and listen to the correspondent on TV specifying the number and targets of each. They were all falling on Ouzai, south of Beirut. Read more about We're still alive, despite last night
At 7:00 am this morning the enemy’s air strike got us out of our beds, devastated. The Israeli air force hit the Maameltein bridge which is around 500 meters away from my house. The ceiling felt like it was going to collapse over our heads! Less than 30 minutes later, and while I was standing on my balcony still overwhelmed by the first bombardment, another strike hit the Casino Du Liban bridge right before my eyes. And in the hour that followed, they hit the bridges in this chronology, Maameltein bridge, casino bridge, Halat bridge (complete destruction), and Madfoun bridge (not to mention the rest of the bridges that connect Mount Lebanon, Beirut to the south and the Bekaa). Read more about Birth of the New Middle East?
Last night … last night … I don’t even know where to begin … It seems the bombs are getting louder. Perhaps they are the new ones from the US expedited delivery. They hit everywhere last night. Beirut, Jounieh, roads leading to the north, bridges in the north; the only highway left, leading to the north, the last escape route to Syria, was hit. We are all trapped now. Waiting … waiting … The bombs started around 1 am in Dahiye. We had some friends over. Everyone was in a state of panic. We waited a bit and then everyone made a run for it, to go home. Read more about And it gets worse ...
Despite the threats of Beirut being blown up today, here were people working … here were everyday people, coming together to help in any way they could. I was filled with so much love, being around such passionate people. Something changed tonight. I guess when you are looking at death, straight in the eyes, you find a new kind of courage. You realize how important it is to hang on to what you have. You fight for life with a new kind of passion. I have spent the last three weeks mourning the loss of Beirut … mourning the loss of my dreams and my work. Now, it’s time to accept what is happening and take charge of the situation. Beirut, she will never die. Read more about Beirut will never die
I was just released from prison. It has taken me a few days to sit down and calmly write about this experience as I have been slightly shocked and dazed. For safety purposes I am choosing to leave out the details of my arrest. It is enough to say that the reason for my detention was that I was “suspected of being a spy for Israel.” The ultimate crime: treason. And who but me to be a spy for Israel! I have been trying to tell my story, what I was doing, why I had been here or there, all of it, but every time I begin writing I feel like I am speaking, again, to my interrogators; I don’t like that feeling. Read more about A prisoner in my own land
