Things I Hate About Explosions

sawt-al-niswa — Thu, 15 Aug 2013 21:00:00 +0000

Big Explosion

Leila Ghassan

I hate that it takes place, that a complete stranger has this much hate toward another complete stranger, that again and again this place is not safe for all of us, regardless of how annoying a wide percentage of the “us” are, on days where explosions don’t take place.

I hate of how much I realize I’m a coward, and that the first thing I do is run back home, and sit, absorbing the images as they go on TV, realizing that this is too much death to reconcile with, it’s too much violence to forget about, wanting to examine these images again and again, making stories about the random people I’m watching, they are always full of despair and anger. Sometimes their anger seep into this living room, where it often leaves me lonely and miserable. That all of this has nothing to do with me, and that yes, we all are in fact prisoners, and there is no place to run to, or to hide in. That this is the segregation that slowly asserts its presence, and it’s coming for us. It is coming for all of us, to mark each neighborhood as a trap. That it was here and it will move to there and there.

I hate that Marwan Charbel gets to be the superstar of the event, that we are forced to hear him out, as he pretends to be doing something real, and that we have to play along and be angry with him for doing something in pretense. That those who have been fucked up completely and royally by the explosions get TV snippets in which they are made to fit this image of being victims and of us saying haram, that they don’t get enough time to tell us about how this has effected them, or this is how they felt, and this is what it means to be hit by an explosion, that this is how it interrupts your life for good.

I hate that TV stations have no morals what so ever, that all these corporate traits of competing for the “scoop” is so goddamn visible, it becomes the news itself, and so the word “exclusive” is repeatedly said:

“Exclusively we broadcast to you live the hand of a victim X that is on the floor”.

“Exclusively we talk to the dead body of this victim, where you can exclusively see his gut falling apart yet enjoying the moment of having made national TV”.

“Exclusively we are here with an eyewitnesses from the neighborhood who are still in under the effect of trauma and we have an exclusive zoom in to the blood stains covering their face”.

We will exclusively ask this eyewitness “Who do you think hates you this much?”

Fuck this shit to begin with. Fuck these solidarity phone calls of politicians that have killed the sum of those already killed in the explosions multiplied by a 1000 over the course of 25 years and pretty much for the same reasons.

I hate how everyone on Twitter and Facebook is hashtagging racist and chauvinistic tweets, that “people need an explosion like this to remember that they hate violence and sectarianism”.

When suddenly traps become virtual, hashtagging the blame on Syrians because they have a revolution and they are bringing “terrorists” inside this allegedly terrorism-free country.

Hashtagging a fake sense of loyalty to this prison called Lebanon. Hashtaggingpowerlessness that we are all feeling. Hashtagging anything that can divert our attention, we literally have nowhere to go.

I hate that some foreigners start talking about this as if they own it more profoundly than the rest of us. As if they have no exit out anytime tension escalates, when they start quoting Fairuz, asking everyone to stay safe. That it becomes this event where it was “2 service” away from having a near death experience. That it all becomes so simple, why can’t Lebanese people love each other?

I hate that my anxiousness breaks easily after explosions, anxiety that I spend most of my days controlling, and attending to, calming down, struggling to keep at minimum.

I hate that things become trivial, that we are all implicated in this whether we like it or not, and that I don’t know who to blame, and I really need to blame someone.

I hate what comes after explosions. I hate that time doesn’t stand still, that there is not a single way to deal with this, without you having to deal with it in a hurry because you need to show up to work tomorrow.

That you need anticipate a reaction to it (that I need a reaction to it) because anticipation is so tiring.

I hate explosions and what comes after because it gives me a sneak preview to the reality we tend to avoid, that things are so bad right now and death is easy.

I hate that it becomes about taking sides, and really there is no sides to take. It’s either you died in it or you didn’t.

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Things I Hate About Explosions

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