Ashoura

It is Ashoura today. I am contemplating whether to attend the rally in Dayihe (Southern Suburbs) or Nabatiya (small city in south Lebanon). The one in Dahiye is – like the entire neighborhood – controlled by Hezbollah. It will be an impressive and fantastically well organized manifestation. However, the one in Nabatiya, where Amal - another shia (political) party- still has a lot of say in daily matters, is much more colorful and authentic, as far as I am concerned.

After Thursday's clashes between sunni and shia students, I assume they are going to make a big rally out of this one. I’ve attended the one in Nabatiya for about ten times now. A very medieval atmosphere descends upon the city during Ashoura. It is not a typical shia thing, though. They do this type of commemoration in Christian countries as well. In Spain, and in catholic Latin America as well. They use chains though, instead of knives, but the result is the same. And there is this one guy, who has made it his mission to drag a cross all around the Middle East in order to apologize for the misdoings of the Crusaders in this part of the world. He’s cheating though, he placed the cross on a little wheel.

An Ashoura participant (Nabatiya, 2002). He was waiting for his juice at the Red Cross Ambulance. The Red Cross cleans up all participants once they've been through the whole experience, and sends them home with juice.

My newspaper already did a story on it (in Dutch) as there seems to be somewhat of a shia community in The Netherlands as well. Most are of Pakistani origin, but lately they have seen an influx of Iraqi shia. No mention of the Lebanese shia yet, so that’s a good sign. Things are not so bad yet that they’ve got to flee the country and seek refugee status outside.
The weather sucks. It is cold, which is good if you can’t stand the smell of blood. In Nabatiya, when Ashoura is in summer time, there is this overwhelmingly sweet smell, a bit like rusted iron that got wet and then dries in the sunlight. To cool down the overheated crowd (they have to keep moving in circles around the town’s center, which is a soccer field in Nabatiya), the fire department sprays water, which mixes in with the blood and sand on the streets, so you wade through this muddy and bloody mixture. I know this does not sound very appealing, but I assure you, if you ever get to Lebanon, attending Ashoura is a must.

Red Cross helpers run with the people, since (especially when it is hot) they pass out left and right. One things has changed since I first got to the country: Aids awareness has made all Red Cross people wear surgical gloves.