The war celebrations / commemorations are over. Not very well organized, nor was there much line in it all. Several groups were supposed to play, but were deemed too ‘modern’, it seems, it had to fit the average taste, which is rather basic. A power failure during the performance of an Arabic singer made it all pretty authentic. But it was better than the other fourteen years, when this day (April 13, 1975) was totally ignored. Most countries – after a civil war – seem to have some sort of therapy to get over it. South Africa had its Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Rwanda has its War Crimes Tribunal and Yugoslavia does it through the International War Tribunal in the Hague. Here in Lebanon we have the ostrich approach; ignore it, censor it, erase it from the history books, take it out of the curriculum, don’t talk about it, pretend it never happened, call it ‘the events’ instead of a ‘civil war’ and hope it goes away.
Hana liked the balloons, and Adrian was bored.
