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Dear Friends,
Today, August 16, 2006 has been the closest day to normal since July 12,
the day when hostilities started. Many Haigazian University students and
faculty called or visited the campus, inquiring about the fate of the
Summer Semester that was interrupted. A few prospective students
submitted their financial aid applications, and the staff felt like
working efficiently. It feels good and I thank God for His mercy.
The UNSC resolution #1701, with all its limitations, shortcomings, and
potentials for misinterpretation and misapplication, has intervened. As
soon as the ceasefire came into effect on August 14, a day after the
heaviest bombing on the southern suburbs of Beirut, dozens of thousands
of displaced people headed back home. In thousands of cases, this meant
driving on dirt roads to reach the rubbles once called houses and
apartment buildings, where countless unidentified corpses have long lost
count of the days since they were overcome by bombs and bricks. Our own
community feels an undeserved privilege. It suffered much less than many
others. Yet, in more genuine ways than ever before, all communities in
Lebanon succeeded in reaching out to the displaced in effective and
practical ways.
It took more than a month for the sanctimonious powers of this world to
allow for and negotiate a fragile ceasefire in a region that has become
even more brittle than before. In the meantime, at least 1,150 civilians
were killed in Lebanon, more than 4,000 were injured and so much was
destroyed. The whole Middle East and indeed many people around the globe
were traumatized as a chapter in this “Crisis in the Middle East” seems
to have tentatively closed. And now, every party has claimed a
“historic” victory in an “existential” war. No one has apologized, no
one has admitted they were wrong, no party has promised to work for
peace, and probably no ethical discussion will be allowed to consider
the war crimes committed. Psychologists often divide cultures between
those that are shame-oriented and others that are guilt-oriented. What
about a third category, a self-distancing majority that has an arrested
or suspended feeling of both shame and guilt?
On day one of the crisis, I had an engaging conversation with a number
of Haigazian University students on campus. The Israeli planes were
hovering above us, the population fleeing the South, the war escalating.
Some of the students were blaming Hizbullah for disrupting the tourist
season in the country and upset about having an abrupt disruption of
their summer semester. One of them said, “All I care about is getting a
degree and leaving the country, and I want no one to interrupt my
plans.” Another student, offended with what he heard, tried to explain
that the question was deeper than tourism or university studies. There
was a just cause that required sacrifice and resistance on every level.
“The fate of the whole region is at stake,” he said, “and all you talk
about is your own lives?” The answer was: “Yes, but I want to be left
alone to work for my future.” And I agreed with both!
Today, 35 five days later, I met four of the same five students. The
“just cause” student hurriedly congratulated me for the “great victory”,
and joined me in a re-visitation of the same old discussion. Only this
time, there was more humor, sarcasm, disdain and reflection in the
conversation among them. One asked me to promise to continue normal
studies no matter how bad the situation gets anytime in the future.
Another shared his plans to leave Lebanon as soon as he graduated. A
fourth one expressed his fear that the Lebanese politicians’ daily
television debates would ultimately lead to a civil war, a prospect
Israel would immediately endorse if not propagate to start with, he
thought. Then it was my turn to share stories and lessons of the
1975-1990 civil war: endurance, meaning-making, courage, and the like.
Lebanon is under political and diplomatic pressure now while the Israeli
blockade of sorts continues and my questions get more complicated: How
will the country handle the pressures, continue in its divided ways, and
at the same time rebuild all that was ruined and shattered? While the
South of Lebanon is promised days of caution and tension, can Lebanon go
back to normal life in one part and be insecure in another? Will the
one-month unexpected Hizbullah survival encourage and boost other
radical resistance movements in the world to use similar guerilla
methods? Will the Israeli carte blanche to use state violence as a means
of national existence further lower the barely ethical standards of the
international community? Will the current global unintelligent and
uneducated “war on terror” use the fear of the world population as a
means for greater control of minds, policies and governments? Will the
definition of mainline religion, i.e. Christianity, Islam and Judaism,
continue shifting into intolerance, violence, neo-totalitarianism and
uncritical living?
During the past month, numerous Armenians in our community have repeated
the following disappointment: “We always thought the Ottoman Empire was
not deterred in its Genocide of Armenians during WW1 because there were
no television crews then, but now we see that the media are not only a
source of information but also part of the war machine.” True, Lebanon
has made the news for long weeks, but I do not think that most
international viewers have become more educated or sensitized in
relation to what is fair and just in this region or in this crisis.
Still, I am grateful that most networks did not leave us behind. Some
truth was heard some of the time by some people. What more could be
possible?
I had ended my very first letter on July 19, 2006 with a set of
conclusions and questions. Some answers have begun to emerge. A high
percentage of youth in church, university, and market have become really
hopeless. Those who were either economically or emotionally vulnerable
have received a heavy blow during the past month. The most common and
unfair conclusion I hear now is that a Lebanese of value is the one who
also owns the citizenship of a Western country. Those countries could
evacuate your family, pay for the trip, put pressure on Israel for your
safety, etc. It may be temporarily pragmatic, but certainly sad and
exaggerated.
As in every letter, I see reasons for being hopeful and encouraged. In
my previous letter, I had mourned the fact that bridges were destroyed
before anything else. Now, since the very first hours of the ceasefire,
a dozen Lebanese businessmen and banks have pledged that the first they
will build are the bridges. As we always expect of the Lebanese, even
within 48 hours, some make-shift roads and bridges are already
functioning and thousands of returning cars are hitting the road, not
bombing them. I have no doubt that the world will be surprised, again,
at the speed of reconstruction of the country.
This morning, we announced that the Summer Semester of Haigazian
University will be resumed on August 23. To my knowledge, that is the
earliest date for any university to reopen after the crisis. As students
of various backgrounds and ideologies re-gather at Haigazian, we will
re-capture our opportunity to create an atmosphere of dialogue among
them; we will hopefully re-kindle their zest for education; we will
attempt to re-configure their hopelessness into creativity; we will
re-treat their disappointment in God and humanity with examples and
messages of faithful service; we will try to re-create all the positive
and beautiful that Lebanon has been known by. It is a prayer that will
hopefully turn into a plan of action.
In this politically volcanic region of the world, and amidst the
uncertainties of the present and the future, I celebrate our faith in a
God who sustains us in everything. This is our belief, our experience,
and our hope for the future.
Whether the future will bring further violence or not or how soon, we do
not know. In fact, globalization of all sorts of processes and realities
in the world will also and increasingly mean that the insecurity of one
is the insecurity of all, a lesson we should have learnt from our
Christian faith but failed to do so.
What we know here is that we can bring our share in peacemaking among
and through those who enter our gates at Haigazian University: an
institution whose foundations go deep into the history of the
perseverance of the Armenian people, into the Christian sacrificial
message of forgiveness, and into the deep roots of the magnificent
cedars.
This letter has the tone of a closure but it is not! I am sure the
conversation will go on: the resourcefulness of one will be the strength
of the other, and the message of one will be the story of another.
Rev. Paul Haidostian, Ph.D.
President
Haigazian University
P.O.B. 11-1748
Riad El Solh 1107 2090
Beirut, Lebanon
Telephone: +961-1-739412
Telefax:+961-1-350926
<www.haigazian.edu.lb >
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