7 May 2008: where to turn?

My IB history teacher always used to say that empty stomachs are the fodder for revolution. That hunger is principal metaphor for general economic and social strife is given. But I would add my own note to that formula, and suggest that a handy ingredient in the recipe for revolution is the inability to channel the frustration and discontent that such strife produces into more productive channels.

Groups of excitable, passionate youths, gathered on street corners, revving the engines of their motor scooters, staring jauntily at the tanks, sandbags and camouflage-clad army men on the other side of the street. Burning tyres, blocking roads. Organizing construction machines in order to dump piles of debris in the middle of highways to block access in and out of Beirut.

I always wonder what would happen if all that anger, that desire for change, that drive to show the leaders that they want to make a difference to their own lives and those of their compatriots were mobilized into a constructive solution for the problem instead of compounding it.

For example, I can’t help thinking how mutually beneficial it would be take all these energetic, able-bodied young men, give them some shovels and wheelbarrows and send them off to Nahr el Bared, the Palestinian camp north of Tripoli that was destroyed last summer in fighting between Fatah al Islam and the Lebanese Army. There, they could contribute to reconstructing the lives of those who also suffer from systematic oppression, which would in turn help to counteract the negative stereotypes about Palestinians that plague this country. And it’s not like there’s no resources: there are over 50 million dollars worth of funds available for Nahr el Bared’s reconstruction, donated from various countries and international organizations. This would be a win-win situation: the inhabitants of Nahr el Bared, twice refugees in sixty years, would be helped in regaining their lives, while the boredom and economic precariousness of the unemployed would find temporary remedy.

Or is that just so plainly naïve? Does my undying humanism make me unable to fully comprehend the sense of hopelessness that grips those long-time victims of disempowerment, that mobilizes them into aggressive confrontation with the army, that pushes them to the brink of their lives in order to convey their desire for a decent livelihood?

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And here we sit, listening to the machine-gun rattle and rocket-propelled grenade explosions, while flicking between Lebanese news and American Idol, not wanting to miss either the latest developments in the ubiquitous and escalating ‘situation’, nor the quarterfinals of that epic reality television phenomenon.