Mr. Chamoun,<br>
<br>
I'm stupefied by your admiration for this article and your failure to
see how offensive it is for any Shiite, and only the more so because the prescription is written by a Shiite.<br>
<br>
Here's a response to the good professor, explaining what it would have meant to be a Shiite to her preference:<br>
<br>
<a href="http://www.annaharonline.com/htd/DAYA060810-3.HTM">http://www.annaharonline.com/htd/DAYA060810-3.HTM</a><br>
<br>
A look at history is always beneficial, and the further back one looks, the more it is. <br>
<br>
Unfortunately, the article is available only in Arabic. Whoever
translated the original article, I am sure, is not interested in
translating the response.<br>
<br>
-rabih<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br><br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 8/10/06, <b class="gmail_sendername">Walid G. Chamoun</b> <<a href="mailto:walid@chamoun.org" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">walid@chamoun.org
</a>> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div><div bgcolor="#ffffff"><div><font face="Verdana" size="2">
</font><div><font face="Verdana" size="2"><font face="Arial">Editorial in Arabic (attached); English translation (below). W-</font></font></div>
<div><font face="Verdana" size="2"><font face="Arial"></font> </font></div>
<div><font face="Verdana" size="2"><font face="Verdana, Helvetica, Arial"><span style="font-size: 12px;">
<hr>
</span></font></font></div>
<div><font face="Verdana" size="2"><br>I thought you might be
interested to share this outstanding editorial that was written by a
Shiite Lebanese Female University professor. It is also posted on LCCC
site in both Arabic and English <a href="http://www.10452lccc.com/" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">http://www.10452lccc.com</a>.</font></div>
<div><font face="Verdana" size="2"> </font></div>
<div><font face="Verdana" size="2"> </font></div>
<div><font face="Verdana" size="2"><font size="5"><span style="font-size: 18px;"><b><u>To Be a Shiite Now .... <br>By: Mona Fayyad/ Professor at The Lebanese University <br></u></b></span></font><span style="font-size: 12px;">
<br>Beirut, August 8, 2006/Prof. Mona Fayyad - An Nahar Newspaper/--<br><br>We are going through a catastrophic and existential period that will <br>have
long lasting impacts on our country and region for the next century;
and since we are facing such a dangerous juncture I saw it fit to pose <br>some
questions that one might pose within himself or in secret and wouldn't
dare publicize, in fear of being accused of being a foreign agent or a
traitor, or even a blasphemer. Confronting difficult questions and
putting them out in public could help prevent us from falling to the
precipice that has no return and could help leaders take the
appropriate decisions in order to stop this hellish war whatever the
cost may be. <br><br>What is the meaning of being Shiite - for the majority of Shiites at this point- and at this critical juncture ? <br><br>To
be a Shiite, means that you entrust your fate to the wise and
infallible leadership without daring to ask any question even if just
as <br>a point of understanding.<br><br>To be a Shiite means that
watch the Al Manar channel, or New TV or NBN, exclusively and that you
enjoy their inspirational songs and their exclusive news and that you
look with enmity to all other channels because they are either
"American" or "Zionist", as long as they refer to Israeli forces by
their name and do not call them the "forces of the enemy" , and do not
have enough eulogies and is only broadcasting information. <br><br>To
be a Shiite means that you do not question the meaning of victory. Is
it the victory of armies while keeping soldiers - flush with weapons-
alive while destroying all of what is built and the killing of the
human beings that worked hard to build it up a nd constitute the true
protection to the fighter himself? <br><br>To be a Shiite means that
you do not question the meaning of resistance and pride, is it the
fleeing from bombing and their stacking up on the tile floors of
schools and their dust? <br><br>To be a Shiite is to contribute to the
creation of a Lebanese "Karbala 2" as the Iraqi "Karbala 1" did not
perform its role as needed in <br>building up the Arabs and carrying them on to victory over the enemy. <br><br>To
be a Shiite is to be a hero that does not hurt nor complain, and does
not have psychological crises, and accepts sacrificing himself and his
country and everything that was accomplished so that he can teach
Israel a lesson, and expose its craziness and ensure its defeat as was
indicated to us by the Syrian Minister on the LBC station that Israel
is the loser with "accentuation on the punctuation of letters". You see
it is now hated more than ever before and it is indicted by most of the
nations of the world...Now that they see for sure - and the lesson is
still proceeding- the extent of its savagery and folly. When you are
Shiite, you have to accept this logic, and even praise it, admiring its
eloquence, its wisdom and its global role in spreading the legal
education and the enactment international treaties and its role on a
popular level in resistance and liberation. Did 'nt we see for sure
through this war on us, that "Syria is the cornerstone in this region"?
These are the very words of the minister himself. Of course all this
destruction was necessary in order to ensure with concrete evidence the
validity of this reasoning be cause of the level of our objective
thinking we only work with evidence and empirical experimentation. <br><br>To
be Shiite is to accept that your country be destroyed in front of your
very eyes- with no surprise- and that it comes tumbling down on your
head and that your family be displaced and dispersed and becomes "a
refugee" at the four corners of the nation and the world, and that you
accept standing up to the enemy with no complaints as long as there is
a fighter out there with a rocket that he can launch at northern Israel
and maybe even at its south without asking about the "why" ? or about
the timing? or about the usefulness of the end result? <br><br>To be a
Shiite is to accept that you sacrifice all as long as you have someone
that will compensate you with money, and that someone will look over
you as you rebuild what he destroyed. What is your problem with that?
You see we are a people of heroes that know nothing but sacrifice and
we can absorb mental shocks and the death of loved ones and the
humiliation of displacement and the destruction of the infrastructure
of the state - since its is a weak, corrupt and follower state- is it
not enough to have on our side a strong country that we work to support
its foundations in confronting the unjust American might and the
American Israeli war machine from hell? That machine that whose
meekness we have to prove as well as its inability to inflict any harm
to the fighters of "Hizbollah" or its ability to limit their military
capabilities and we will prove that at any price. <br><br>To be a
Shiite is to keep silent and not to ask what is the purpose of
liberating a country. Is it to destroy it all over again and to make <br>it
possible for it to be occupied once more? and not to ask about the
leadership role: is it to preserve its military power and its men flush
<br>with arms without any care or concern for the normal human being?
Being a Shiite means that you can only thank the Hizb for its heroism
and sacrifice , it is not your role to contribute to "weakening" it or
to "break its word" or to make him know when to back down or compromise
to preserve his victory on the one hand and to preserve the Lebanese
nation and its openness as well as its development on the other hand!!
That means never to question whether pride takes precedence over the
lives of others and whether stones take precedence over arms. <br><br>To
be a Shiite means to confer to the leader of the resistance his role as
a loyal hero to the cause of the Arab nation in its entirety, not <br>whether
you like it or not, but whether that nation likes it or nor. You only
have to hear the popular praise of the masses, that was <br>preceded
by the praise the masses heaped on their loyal hero Abdel Nasir and is
still shedding tears for its other hero of Saddam Hussein. And the
masses are still able to heap praise on any hero that tickles its
dreams and its feelings so that it can sleep tight at night. (You can
here review the literature of the educated in the Safir newspaper and
the Hayat). Or to recover its lost dignity under the boots of rulers
like Saddam as long as we and only we pay the price until your real
awakening. But the question is to what degree can we rely on these
incapable masses, that are enslaved by their rulers to liberate itself
without even thinking about reconsidering this Jihadist and
revolutionary plan !! Is it empowered? Is it it wise enough? Has it
prepared the ground for that? Does it have the tools for resistance and
fighting other than the arms of zeal and emotion and oratory? If you
are a Shiite you are not to ask this leadership how the ground work was
prepared to absorb this indiscriminate war and its
"potential"consequences. Where are the hospitals, the ambulances, never
mind the shelters. These are the responsibilities of a state- That was
never consulted in declaring war- so that it can be blamed for its
weakness and lack of wit. You see the state is only needed when it is
called upon to heal wounds, but the wise and existential decisions are
not within its realm. <br><br>To be a Shiite means to incapacitate
your mind and leave it to Sayyed Khamene'i to guide you and to decide
for you what he wants for arms to "Hizbollah" and he imposes on you the
meaning of a victory that has little difference from suicide. <br><br>To
be a Shiite means to defend the meddling of the Iranian minister in
Lebanese state affairs without even trying to care for appearances. <br>Maybe
he came to "warn" the ministers of Hizbollah that "they did not agree"
to the 7 point plan especially the point about the multinational force
so that the door of the resistance would not be shut, and we remain a
country exploited and abused after it was proven that the Shebaa Farms
are Syrian and would be dealt with in accordance to Resolution 242 and
that there is no concensus on that point. And in that he is warning
them about their putting their Lebanese belonging ahead of their
following to Iran. They have to, in spite of their noses, put the
Iranian nuclear program and the interest of the state of Iran ahead of
the interest of their state, and ahead of the preservation of the lives
of the Lebanese or their possessions, whether these Lebanese are Shiite
or otherwise, but especially if they were Shiites. Isn't it a priority
to make Iran a regional Shiite super power ? What is the problem with
sacrificing a country called Lebanon ? or the Shiites of this
"Lebanon"? <br><br>And in this tense mood if you are a Shiite you have
to listen to your Shiite speaker who is disturbed and angry and who
wants to turn the world on top of the 14th of March, and who wants to
forbid the deployment of multinational forces. And you hear him
distribute labels of foreign servitude, treason, Americanism and
Zionism left and right, without raising your lip. You have to absorb
his anger and agree with all his opinions of which we have shared but a
small sample. This is what takes you as far as possible from thinking
who the heck you are? are you a Lebanese citizen? Is you being a Shiite
means that you have to give priority to Iran over Lebanon? Do you have
the freedom to have your own opinions? the freedom of expression? Is it
possible to think calmly and to ask where are we going with this
nation, the institutions of this state, with plurality, with the
coexistence that we have to defend now? <br><br>If you are a Shiite
and you dare write such writings and such think such thinking, then you
must be a foreign agent and a traitor, in favor of partition and
absorption of Palestinians. You must be with the Zionist and Israeli
projects, and you defend the state, with its corruption and favoritism,
and you support the American biased policies, and you accept its short
sightedness, and its support for the terrorism of the Zionist state,
and its failure to give the Palestinians their state like all other
creatures of god, with the excuse of supporting the terrorism of
"Hamas". And that means you support Israel itself and its satanic war
machine and its extreme savagery and you justify its killing, its
occupation, its folly and you are lucky if you are not accused to be
the one destroying the houses on peoples' heads and the dismemberment
of children's corpses and their scattering on the heaps of debris by
raising your voice. <br><br>Did I forget any of the symphony? If I
did, please excuse me because I cannot miss any of the news shows any
more, I have to go see who is being displaced and whose house is being
destroyed at the moment that is if he manages to survive. <br><br>Mona Fayyad is a Professor at the Lebanese University.</span></font></div></div></div>
</div><br>_______________________________________________<br>Lebanon-Articles mailing list<br><a href="mailto:Lebanon-Articles@mit.edu" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">Lebanon-Articles@mit.edu
</a><br>
<a href="http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/lebanon-articles" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/lebanon-articles</a><br><br><br><br clear="all">
</blockquote></div><br>