Thirty-nine years ago armed militias crept behind stone walls, snipers crouched on rooftops, and barricades invaded the streets of Lebanon, commencing a war that lasted for 15 years and claimed the lives of up to 170,000 people. Over a quarter of the country’s population was left wounded and displaced.
Today, sitting in a Beirut restaurant, Abu Firas and Abu Hani struggle to unveil the harrowing memories of the country’s civil war.
“After the 1989 Taef Accord and the 1991 Amnesty Law that covered all political and wartime crimes, warlords shook hands, militias were demobilized, the dead were forgotten, families were left to grieve in silence, and memories of the civil war were swept under the carpet for fear of reprisals,” Abu Firas, a 70-year old university professor told Al-Akhbar, “And that was it.”
Abu Hani, a retired accountant and Abu Firas’s childhood friend, nodded.
“No victors, no vanquished,” Abu Firas sarcastically declared as he sipped his coffee.
“My friend, I think we should replace our coffee with whiskey on the rocks,” Abu Hani laughed, “War is painful. Let it be remembered but not repeated.”
Turning serious, he continued: “I see endless holes that have not been concreted over and rusted blood stains that have not been washed away everywhere I go. I see them in boulevards and buildings … but mostly in people around me. We cannot escape our past. We cannot deny our memories.”
Today Lebanon is facing an increasingly unstable security situation, as the conflict in Syria continues into its fourth year. It has opened and exposed old wounds in Lebanon, revealing that little has been learned from the brutal civil war the country was forced to live through.
While Lebanon’s civil war ‘officially’ ended almost 25 years ago, today’s youth - the ‘post-Taef’ generation - are re-living the painful memories of their parents through the accounts and narratives that have been past down to them. Today these youth recount the stories they have heard, the wounds still visible and raw many decades later, perhaps indicating that not much has changed.
Civil war accounts told by Lebanon’s Post-Taef generation
“Inter Christian conflicts broke up in Kfarhazir, a village in the Koura District of Lebanon, as a bloody war was declared between the Lebanese Forces, especially the Phalange Party, and the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP). My uncle was a well-known SSNP member and was thus under continuous surveillance and in constant threat of being targeted. One day, armed men fired at his car in an attempt on his life. Little did they know that the man in the car wasn’t him. The man in the car was my other uncle who happened to borrow his brother’s car on that day. He is now paralyzed.”
- Mira Obeid, a practicing nurse and recent AUB graduate
“Following the assassination of Kamal Jumblatt in March 16 1977, many Druze invaded Christian villages in the Chouf and a series of mass killings took place. My father, who was living with his mother and six siblings in Mazraat al-Shuf, trembles and weeps everytime he recalls the things that he have seen. Mutilated bodies, dogs feeding upon unidentified corpses, young men executed, and girls and women raped in front of their fathers, brothers and husbands. Christians were subjected to a massive religious cleansing. I, like my father, can’t but tremble and weep when I talk about this.”
- Stephanie Bu Raad, a law student at the Lebanese University
“Two brothers with two different militias were getting ready to fight one another on the green line that separated east and west Beirut. Their father asked them to come into the living room before they leave and then shot them in the leg.”
- Hussein Mustafa, a 23-year-old masters student in the University of Manchester.
“Abu Ahmad fell into his seat and sighed when I asked him about the civil war. He started searching for the pack of cigarettes under piles of paper work on his desk in the AMAL office in Taalbeya, trying to avoid making eye contact. I waited in silence. Abu Ahmad then sat down in his seat and started talking. ‘The headquarters of AMAL requested that it’s office in Taalbeya, a village in Mount Lebanon, send two extra militants to Barbour, where Nabih Berri’s residence was at the time, as soon as possible.The engine of Wafic’s wrecked Mercedes car exhaled, the wheels started rolling and the destination was never reached.’ Abu Ahmad rested his elbows on the table, leaned forward, buried his head between his hands, planted his fingers in his hair and sighed. I have never seen him this way. ‘A few moments after we left the office, Michel Aoun started bombing the area. I told Wafic we should go back and wait until the shellings seized but he refused. The intensity of the offensives escalated and I again demanded that we go back. Wafic rejected and intentionally increased his speed so that I don’t leave the car. I opened the car door, placed my right foot on the road, started moving my leg slowly until its speed was in harmony with the speed of the car, and pushed myself out of the car using my left foot without even falling. Take notes, this may come in handy one day.’ We laughed. ‘Anyway, Wafic looked back and cursed me. I ignored him, adjusted my weaponry, turned around and decided to walk back to the Taalbeya office. Two minutes later I heard an ear piercing sound. I turned around and saw nothing but dust and flame. A bomb had fallen at the end of the street. Wafic! I started running and screaming. Wafic wasn’t answering. It was too late.’”
- Kassem Awada, an engineering student at the Saint Joseph University in Zahle
“The only stories worth telling are the ones about Hezbollah’s resistance in the south. What kind of stories do you want? A story about a suicide attack, a bomb attack, clashes with Antoine Lahd’s South Lebanon Army (SLA), may God burn them all in hell, ambushes, front-line battles … you know what, let me tell you about my all-time hero. On November 11 1982, 17-year-old Ahmad Qassir drove a Peugot car loaded with explosives into the eight-storey building of the Israeli military headquarters at the northern entrance to Tyre killing Israeli military and intelligence staff. Seventeen years old? Can you imagine!!”
- Mahdi Farhat, a 23-year old programmer and computer engineer in Tyre
“On May 6,1985, Bassem Bizri, my uncle, died while serving in the Lebanese Red Cross (LRC) on the Qayaa line of demarcation in the East Sidon war. My grandma is still psychologically traumatized up until now. For example, because my uncle worked with the LRC, every time my grandma hears an ambulance siren she starts trembling and finds it hard to gasp for air. Also, my uncle’s friends and family used to call him “teddy bear,” a word that we were taught not to use around our grandma.”
- Salah Skafy, a hospitality management student at the Lebanese International University in Sidon
Lebanon’s youth predict the future
“A civil war might happen at any moment. The warlords-turned-politicians have heightened sectarian tensions and created a culture hostility that prevented Lebanese people from different religious and political backgrounds from freely engaging with one another. Take a look at the suburbs of Beirut. How many Maronites are in Dahiyeh? How many Shias are in Tarik Al Jadidah? How many Sunnis are in Ashrafieh? The civil war is a ticking bomb waiting to explode.”
- Salah Skafy
“The increasing number of Syrian refugees after the Syrian crisis reminds us of the Palestinian refugees back in 1970. If the Syrians choose to adopt practices that threaten Lebanon’s independence and sovereignty, like the Palestinians did, a war will definitely happen and I will be the first one to grab a rifle and fight.”
- Elias Baaklini, an engineering student at the AUB
“We are now in a cold civil war. Lets not romanticize reality. The war is not about armed men lurking behind every corner and barricades occupying street entrances, the war is in the mind and heart of citizens who decided to dehumanize one another. We are at war as long as the (1943) National Pact isn’t demolished, as long as the sectarian system isn’t replaced by a secular one, and as long as the youth continue to be controlled and manipulated by former militia leaders.”
- Ali Shreim, a 24-year-old reporter and cameraman
“I don’t believe there will be a civil war anytime soon. I don’t think the Lebanese citizens learned from their past and I definitely don’t trust this country’s leaders, but I believe that the super power countries aren’t pushing for a civil war in Lebanon for the time being. I personally think that a civil war in Lebanon is an external decision.”
-Youssef al-Moussawi, political science senior at the AUB
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