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Faith During War

FAITH DURING WAR

Sunday Age, 6/8/06

 

It was like a scene out of Life is Beautiful – the 1997 movie that earned Roberto Benigni an Oscar for portraying a Jewish father buffering his child during the holocaust.

 

From the 1500 meter altitude above the clouds, just below the village of Ehden in North Lebanon, my child and I gazed down at Tripoli. When the clouds rolled into Ehden, the only visible landmark was the nearby antenna at the peak of Mount Aito.

 

The juxtaposition of the spectacular sunset over the Mediterranean Sea was an awesome sight to behold, conjuring up images of Creation. Indeed, Ehden was named after Eden, where Adam and Eve lived, according to Lebanon’s prospective next saint, 17th century Patriarch and historian Istfan Doueihi.

 

“Is that a thunderstorm in the clouds?” asked my child, pointing to sudden explosions and reflections of light near the Tripoli sunset. Keen to avoid conjuring the bloody scenes on television, I explained that the amazing lights were fireworks from celebrations such as weddings. But I could hear warplanes humming high overhead and knew exactly what they were doing.

 

When we went to farewell our relatives down the street, we were reassured by repeated claims that Ehden was immune from bombings, and that our relatives would remain safe. Within minutes of entering their house full of young children, the first missile had struck the nearby hilltop antenna and broadcast station at Mount Aito.

 

In the multi-storey building and throughout the street, only two words were louder than the deafening thunder of the explosions: faith and family. The origin, purpose, frequency, proximity and precision of the bombing were simply irrelevant to those around us. Indeed, the echo of the impact was disorienting and we had no idea which direction and which hilltop was hit.

 

Children’s faces became pale, mothers were hyperventilating, some startled from their summer siesta, some rushing out of showers dumb-founded, others running like ants from a destroyed molehill. Indeed, this is how it must appear to the boys with the toys above.

 

We saw young and old in neighbouring homes fleeing to lay hands and eyes on their family, as if this was the Last Book of the Bible.

 

When the second bomb hit, the families huddled together with terror filled eyes. All previous promises about safety and my tales about fireworks were now bombed like the landmark antenna. The sky that had been a source of inspiration and beauty was now the source of terror. It was now raining down not with life-giving water but life-taking fire. The place that was renown for Creation and the Beginning was now tainted with destruction and the end.

 

Those who could not reach their family members fell collectively to their knees and commenced the rosary. I had never seen children pray so intensely, clinging to whatever sacred relics, crucifixes or saint icons they could reach. Cell phones were now out of order so rosaries became the hotline to heaven.

 

Beyond the hills, the antennas, the planes and the skies, innocent families fled to their faith, as the only source that was higher, literally and figuratively. All the psychological skills I could muster to calm their spirits had paled into insignificance when I witnessed the power of prayer, and the visible effect on their faces.

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Why would Lebanese board the boat?

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=15529
http://bit.ly/18lyHUy
On Line Opinion, 1 October 2013

Why would Lebanese board the boat?

The tragic drowning of the Lebanese citizens in Indonesia should be a wakeup call for officials … Lebanese people cannot build their future in their own country.

Former Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora galvanised the tragedy to highlight the desperation of poverty-stricken parts of Lebanon.

But this sentiment may be music to the ears of Prime Minister Tony Abbott who has been singing the same tune that our primary responsibility in these tragedies is to stop the boats.

While Abbott may galvanise the tragedy to highlight the fatal ‘means’, the source countries are navel-gazing about the human ’cause’.

But in a new military model that is driven by Operation Sovereign Borders and immigration policies coupled with Border Protection, questions of why asylum seekers leave their home countries are off the political radar.

To seriously and simply ‘stop the boats’, we cannot afford to be simplistic. We need to stop the causes of the people inside the boats. This does not mean solving all the inhumane push factors that drive this desperation, but it does mean looking beyond the ‘people smuggling’ pull factors and looking more at the people than the boats.

Who were the people inside the latest boat tragedy?

We know that they were an estimated 120 people from Lebanon, Jordan and Yemen, of whom there have been only 28 survivors so far.

We know that they were at sea for five days before food and water supplies depleted before the two Indonesian crew became disoriented then decided to return to the Javanese coast in six meter waves.

We know that the Lebanese boarders were mainly from Akkar, the northernmost region of Lebanon bordering Syria.

We know that more than a million Syrians have fled the war to Lebanon which has placed enormous economic strain on this struggling neighbour of only four million residents. Stories of Akkar families struggling without affordable schools, electricity and food to feed themselves abound. Stories of Syrians resorting to cheap labour, crime and even prostitution abound. Stories of car bombs exploding near Lebanese mosques in August, echoing the seismic sectarian strife within Syria and threatening to widen the fault lines within Lebanese civil society abound. Stories of frustrated Lebanese crying out for some of the foreign aid that is sent to their new Syrian ‘neighbours’ abound.

Stories of people predators with promises of visitor visas to Indonesia then a ship to Christmas Island abound. Akkar families with ‘nothing to lose and everything to gain’ became the perfect prey, in the hope of a future life in Australia.
Their voices of desperation drowned out the voices of reason by their Australian relatives over the phone, discouraging them, warning them that there is no such ship – it is a suicidal fishing boat.

The rest is history repeating itself, as recovered bodies are identified then flown back to their village for burial, if indeed they are recovered.

The latest tragedy has sent shock waves throughout Lebanon, prompting introspection about poverty and safety for those who see no future for their children. Local MP Nidal Tohme blamed “the neglect of [Lebanon] to Akkar residents” claiming that “their deprivation and leaving them alone to face poverty and unemployment is what led the sad citizens to venture to the unknown.”

Legitimate questions have been asked about how the boat boarders could use communications technology as an SOS, but could not use communications technology to predict the rough seas or discern that the smugglers were lying about the safe ships. They paint a picture of the asylum seekers as illegitimate and unsophisticated. Compatriots from Lebanon are likely to be deterred by the news of this tragedy, and may attract more attention from their government, both of which may be constructive outcomes.

But our discourse in Australia and Prime Minister Abbott’s discourse with his Indonesian counterpart this week needs to extend beyond the boats per se.

The Abbott government’s decision to curb foreign aid by $4.5 billion to pay for infra-structure is an example of compounding the causes of the people inside the boats. By steering and supporting a political solution rather than a military solution for Syria in the UNSC, Australia could again be redressing the causes of the people inside the boats.
As UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon stated, “the burden of helping the world’s forcibly displaced people is starkly uneven … anti-refugee sentiment is heard loudest in industrialised countries”.

Speaker of Lebanese Parliament Nabih Berri called on authorities in Australia and Indonesia to launch an investigation to determine who was responsible for the incident.

But while Lebanon looks in the mirror, perhaps our prime minister can also look into his moral mirror and realise that his honourable mandate for humanity must always prevail over his political mandate for sovereignty.

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Don’t turn your back on refugees

http://bit.ly/12WOdkU

Don’t turn your back on refugees
Herald Sun
18 July 2013

“AUSTRALIANS are essentially a warm-hearted, kind people who want to have the continuation of an orderly migration system.”

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s recent attempt to focus these two lenses of the Australian binoculars on boat people was missing the third lens: a global perspective.

When asked if we could be “more compassionate to the refugees” at a community cabinet meeting in Rockhampton, Rudd should have known that compassion requires a lens from the outside looking in, not the reverse.

On the other side of the world where I was born, my 4 million Lebanese compatriots have accommodated more than 1 million Syrian refugees, and counting.

Ironically, even the 500,000 Palestinians in South Lebanon refugee camps have opened their tents to the Syrian families. To reject fellow humans at their doorstep was deemed unthinkable and heartless.

This lack of perspective was confirmed by World Vision Australia’s Tim Costello, who recently returned from refugee camps in Lebanon and Jordan, where he met many host families, who explained: “I tell my children we are still lucky we must accept them.”

When comparing the Middle Eastern perspective with Australia, he concluded that “we are thinking in stats and categories, not looking into faces”.

According to Lebanese UN ambassador Nawaf Salam, “Lebanon will not close its borders. It will not turn back any refugees”, even though one in five residents in this war-scarred country is a Syrian refugee.

In contrast, only about one in 200 residents in our land of plenty is a refugee.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees website provides further factual perspective, with 15.4 million refugees seeking a home in 2012, of which only 16,000 were in Australia.

Lebanon and our island nation are geographically and historically incomparable. Many may also argue that Syria and Lebanon share a border, a language and a culture.

This is akin to arguing that New Zealand shares the same affinity with Australia because of our shared language, Tasman Sea and British colonial history. Would Australia have taken a million Kiwis if they were rendered refugees due to war, earthquakes or global warming?
Would rejecting them be unthinkable and heartless? Are our refugee binoculars fitted with a cultural lens?

Our true colours are exposed if we see our trans-Tasman neighbours as “different to other refugees because they are the same as us”. They do not count as stats because we see their faces. Yet, ironically, neither of our “mongrel nations” are monocultural or monolingual.

Hence, it is peculiar that Rudd would be “looking at this right now globally in terms of the effectiveness of the Refugees Convention”, as Article 3 stipulates that the provisions shall apply “without discrimination as to race, religion, or country of origin”.

The 1951 Convention, which was initially a response to World War II on the European continent before the 1967 Universal Protocol, makes no reference to refugee applicants by sea or air.

So long as the applicant is “outside the country of his nationality” and has a “well-founded fear of being persecuted”, the refugee definition applies.

If Rudd intends to capitalise on Australia’s seat at the United Nations Security Council, perhaps he should take a more global rather than Australia-centric perspective.

He may propose to redefine Australian territory to exclude the sea, or redefine refugees to exclude seaborne asylum seekers, secondary points of origin (Article 31) and voyages arranged by people smugglers.

But such proposals may amount to a breach of Article 33, the principle of non-refoulement: “No Contracting State shall expel or return a refugee to the frontiers of territories where his life or freedom would be threatened.”

If Australia were to move to modernise the 1951 Convention, it ought to broaden rather than narrow the definition of refugee beyond “fear of persecution”.

Given the growing effects of global warming, there are refugees as a result of sinking islands in the Pacific.

There are internally displaced refugees in the face of natural disasters such as hurricanes, tsunamis and earthquakes. And of course there are refugees from war-torn countries such as Syria, regardless of their race, religion, regardless of whether they are a majority or minority, and regardless of their economic status.

Only then could the revision of the refugee convention be given a global perspective.

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Christmas Recipe for Human Culture

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=14493&page=0
http://bit.ly/VR7waZ

ON LINE opinion – Australia’s e-journal of social and political debate

Christmas recipe for human culture

Posted Thursday, 20 December 2012

As families prepare to congregate around the Christ child, the carols, the churches, the Christmas trees, and the Santa Claus, there is one other C word that cements them all together: culture.
Families activate traditional recipes to honour, celebrate and top up what has been handed down through generations. But there is one simple recipe that has always intrigued me when making Lebanese yoghurt: culture.

The same word used to describe the same vital process is no coincidence. This age old recipe for sustaining yoghurt culture is more than metaphorical in teaching us about preserving human culture.
The English word culture derives from the Latin word cultura which means to cultivate or till. In sociology, it means to transmit through language and ritual from one generation to the next. In science, it means to grow micro organisms such as bacteria in a nutrient medium under controlled supervised conditions. In yoghurt, the starter culture contains a variety of lactic acids producing thermophillic bacteria.

My grandparents’ generation handed down stories about Lebanese emigrants boarding ships a century ago carrying luggage with one hand and nursing a jar of yoghurt culture or rowbi with the other hand. They would seek favours from the shipping crew to refrigerate the jar so it could be preserved across the sea voyage.

The jar would be protected like a holy grail, containing the DNA of their ancestry, religiously handed down across generations. A century ago, the loss of that edible culture amounted to catastrophic severing of the ancestral culture because it was a living link to their unique family flavour. A child who had accidentally eaten the starter culture from the fridge was accused of culture-cide.

Like a chicken-egg quandary, debates abound about which came first – the culture or the yoghurt. What is not debated is that yoghurt cannot be made without some starter culture from a previous batch. Like human culture, yoghurt cannot be created from scratch – it needs a clone sample from a parent body.

Boiling the milk, whether full cream or skim, enables fermentation. Like human culture, it needs high heat to be borne out of passion and purity.

The boiled milk is then transferred to a heat proof bowl which will become its stable home environment for the duration of its batch life. The milk needs to cool to a tepid temperature. The traditional method for testing this is dipping your pinkie until you can count to ten comfortably – the only time that a human hand touches the mixture like a literal handing down anointment.

Human culture is best preserved if it is passed on in lukewarm moderation, not with hot-blooded cultural chauvinism, nor with cold-blooded cultural cringe, or cool indifference.

The refrigerated jar of culture is opened and the active living bacteria are ready to be embedded.
To prevent any culture shock, it is mixed with some of the tepid milk so it is more fluid and ready to permeate the new host body.

It is stirred in gently so that the DNA imbues its unique flavour, language and rituals.

It is essential that this new mixture can set as it only incubates in a still and warm setting. Like a newborn baby, the mixture must never be rocked or shaken. In some Christian traditions, the mixture is blessed with the sign of the cross before being covered, like tucking a baby to sleep, or preparing for a miracle as the milk transforms to yoghurt. It is covered with a woolen blanket, and kept in one stable location such as the kitchen bench. As it needs about 8 undisturbed hours to set, it is usually safest to leave it overnight so it ferments while we are sleeping.

If opened or moved during this incubation period, the mixture would neither ferment nor cement, but fragment. Like humans, if it lacks consistency as a child, the culture is harder to define.
In the morning, the blanket and lid are carefully removed. Two table spoons are removed from the heart of the yoghurt as the starter culture for the next batch so that the cycle can be repeated and regenerated perpetually. The yoghurt is then transferred to the fridge and ready for human cultural celebrations.

The yoghurt has culture, identity and a solid foundation. It can now transform from mono-cultural which is delicious, to multi-cultural where it can be enhanced with a fruit salad, olives, herbs, as a frozen dessert, as a savoury dip or mixed with a meaty main course.

The significance of yoghurt in Lebanese DNA extends beyond a staple dish in their cultural cuisine. It is the genesis of their country’s name. In many Semitic languages such as Assyrian and Hebrew, variations of the word Laban mean white, which was used to name the perennial snow capped mountain range in Lebanon, as stated over seventy times in the Old Testament. The same word Laban was adopted in Arabic to name yoghurt.

Hence we have come full circle, with some dreaming of a white Christmas, where the cultural celebration is not complete without Laban illuminating the banquet.

The culture not only sustains the generations. It preserves a civilisation.
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