•Jordan Bach-Lombardo, October 3, 2008
•”Beirutis Happy to Wave Goodbye to Party Flags” Column
•Asharq Alawsat (Arabic International) — http://panet.andover.edu/bin/common/course.pl?course_id=_9780_1&frame=top
•Article Summary
Time – September 29, 2008
Place – Beirut, Lebanon
Key People/Groups – Hezbollah; the Future Movement; the general public of Lebanon.
Vocabulary — Sectarian
Main Ideas
Political party flags disappeared from public view all across Beirut in an effort to reconcile the two main rival groups, Hezbollah and the Future Movement, whose members have frequently clashed, leaving 65 dead in the past month alone. The two parties had been working for months to fix the problems between them in anticipation of elections next year. The political divides are so deep that fights have broken out over posters, such as the brawl over the hanging of a political banner that killed two people two weeks ago. Many citizens of Beirut expressed relief at the measure taken and believe that it will go a long way to curbing the violence between the two factions, but others expressed doubt, saying “In principle, it’s a good step. But it doesn’t solve anything. You’re curing the side effects and not the core of the problem.”
Your Response to Article
The most striking part of this article to me was the fragility of relations between the two groups. Fights break out over posters??? While I understand how deeply people can feel about their beliefs and the anger that can arise when a symbol is disrespected, that people die over these material things shows just how tense these people are. I tried to draw parallels to these things happening in the US, but I couldn’t think of any examples of a Republican clocking a Democrat because the Democrat tried to take his big elephant poster down.
The problem brought up at the end of the article (articulated in the quotation above) is an interesting one. I think that the speaker has a good idea but might need to rethink a little bit. Removing the posters certainly does not instantly mend relations between the two parties, but it might go a ways to curbing the hostile feelings of the parties’ respective supporters. Because the majority of these common people are so removed from the actual parties, they look for other ways to become a part of the groups whose beliefs they support. This manifests itself in the physical defense of a poster or banner because it is the only way they can feel involved. If these objects are removed, open hostilities between the two parties might cease which would pave the way to a reconciliation between the two parties.
Post a Comment