From: jrad@cbnewsi.cb.att.com (ahmad.m.jrad)
Subject: Re: Brotherhood ... one more time
Organization: AT&T
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1992 18:16:31 GMT

In article <NMOUAWAD.92Jul28120708@math.waterloo.edu>, nmouawad@waterloo.edu (Naji Mouawad) writes:
> 
> Hello Ayman,
> 
>   It might be very well the case that my statements are ambiguous.
> Rather than quoting again and again, allow me to clarify my
> stand-point:
> 
>   I do not oppose brotherhood, or unity amongst people if that is
> their will. Those I call friends are those who have opted for a
> peaceful solution by peaceful means, those who are honnest and those
> who are victims of the violence, in particular that of the militias
> and that of the outiseders.
> 
>  The current Syrian regime is as far as I am concerned a militia. It
> imposes its will on the majority of the Syrians and it is imposing it
> on that of the Lebanese.
> 
>  I certainly feel closer to the diseapired in Syria than to the
> militias in Lebanon. I feel close to the jews who were injured or died
> due to a violent action by some Palestinians, as I do feel close to
> those kids who are still dying in the West-Bank at the hand of the
> Israelee army.
> 
>  My camp is that of the victims. They are my true brothers and
> friends.
> 
> naji.

Dear Naji,

You take a noble stand. The victims thank you.

Let's look at what got us into this mess whereby we are victimized by
the west, our brothers, our cousins, and even ourselves (The Lebanese).

France and England, in their infinite wisdom concocted a formula whereby
they divided us into small and weak states and they instilled bigotry
between us and hatered to our own brothers and to our neighbors. This
was not so hard, it is so easy to convince people that they are better
than others. That is bigotry.

Look at us today, Just a few years ago Israel marched in Lebanon as
fast as their modern tanks could go in 5th gear and only out of mercy
(I suppose) did not totally level Beirut and even march to Tripoli
and took over the whole place. Although they did try to level Beirut,
let's give credit where it is due. There are reasons why they did not
kill us all, (they did kill thousands though, again give credit where
it is due) such as Israeli public opinion, world opinion and other
such silly stuff, but they could have killed us all and we would have
been helpless to defend ourselves. Look at the Serbs killing the
Bosnian Muslims today as the world looks on in shameless guilt. Also
tomorrow if the Israelis decide to invade us again we would be as
helpless as we were 10 years ago. Can you give me any guarantees it
won't happen? can anyone? The answer is NO.

Unification is intially painful, (remember the civil war? of the
USA I mean) the fruits of that civil war was the mightiest nation
on Earth, and we can not help but admire what the Americans have
done. But what are the fruits of our civil war? so far ZIP. Aside
from the hundreds of thousands of dead and wounded and homeless.
It was the biggest joke ever. A very sad joke. We need to turn that
defeat into a victory. We need to become stronger. There is an
opportunity now. Today Syria is like a big leach that is sucking the
blood of Lebanon. Litterally. How long can we stay like this? How
long Naji? I ask you how long? If we were one country they would
not suck their own blood, I mean nobody is that stupid.

Forget it. You know it will happen whether we like it or not. I mean
either we stay oppressed as we are today, or else we get back to
fighting ourselves and blowing our brains out, or maybe, just maybe,
we become one bigger nation (in spite of the objections of some)
and do something positive for our children. Forget us, we had our
fun and play, and it is time to do some of the dirty work. For the
future, for our children. You know Hafez will not rule Syria forever,
he might fall dead tomorrow! and the oppressive regime will die too.
The will of the people will triumph in spite of all efforts to crush
it. It will triumph in the end. What does it matter if people die
for this cause? it is a good cause. We are dying already for no good
reason at all. We have been dying for 17 years. Enough already!

There is no might in Lebanon today, by ourselves we are very weak.
Forget our heroic history and our green phoenecian blood, we are no
better than our Syrian brothers or anyone else for that matter. If
we were one with Syria, I bet Israel would have thought twice about
its 1982 venture. And who knows, we may have been living in peace now.
I mean the Syrians are living in peace! sure they are oppressed, or so
we think anyway, I know some Syrians who really like Hafiz too. Maybe
he is a popular guy in spite of the human rights violations that we
hear about.

Still if we were together united even with Jordan, than we would have been
even stronger, and if we were united with Egypt, Lybia, Algeria, Pakistan,
Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, ... what do you think then. In fact if we were
United with Iraq also, there would have been no Gulf war. Iraq would
not have invaded Kuwait because there would be no such silly boundary
between them. And even if they invaded them, the USA would not have dared
touch us, I mean they are not looking for ways to obtain shahadah here. 
The strongest country on Earth today begins with the word 'United'. Europe
is uniting in spite of their hatred to each other, I mean can you imagine
the English and French united? They have learned the lesson that Prophet
Muhammed (sAas) taught the world 1400 years ago, when a bunch of nomads
united together and shook this very earth to its foundation. This
is the inevitable future, we will unite, I just don't know when. But
there are prophecies about the rise of Islam and the Muslims, and we
can see the seeds of that rise today. Islam is like a dough that is just
resting now and rising, and it will continue to rise untill we are united
and strong. The Europeans divided us and now they unite. Well we have
been imitating them all along, let's not stop now.

Ahmad
Newsgroups: soc.culture.lebanon