The Lebanese village of Ehmej is a place dear to my memory. There a friend had, and maybe still has, an old-style house with rooms supported by stone arches, what they call '3a2d' (see photo), with a particularly acoustic friendly room where my friend had put the best of the best sound equipment and where we drank all kind of things and smoked all kind of things and listened to definitely not all kind of things. We listened to what we considered seriously good music, or at least music that we took very seriously: from Zappa and Mahavishnu to Bartok, Telemann and Wagner.
After I came to Australia, whenever I go back to Lebanon, going to Ehmej was like a ritual which involved a reunion with friends and a reunion with the space. In my case this was more significant than the usual diasporic return pilgrimage. It was so because I was changing significantly. I was transitioning from a right wing Christian Maronite Lebanese to a left wing Australian (I had not become part of a Lebanese left wing culture yet at that time - this happened later while I was writing my PhD). The space made up of my old friends (who were mainly Maronites), and Ehmej acquired a particular importance to me, not least because I could be myself and didn't have to hide my changing world views as I had to do in my parental home. I am simplifying what is a very complex situation, but in an important way, Ehmej was a bubble that allowed me to continue to exist in Maronite Lebanon where my roots and friendships were, amidst the deep divisions of the Lebanese civil war, and despite not belonging there politically anymore.
And yet one day the inevitable happened: here we were listening to some music and smoking some hash when some friends of friends joined us. at first it was much the same, endlessly talking about music, but soon the conversation moved from music to migration, and this guy started explaining why he needed to migrate by producing a classical Maronite war trope: the Palestinians want to take over Lebanon and make it their own country as a substitute to Palestine and they want to kick 'us' out of Lebanon.
'This is just nonsense' I couldn't help myself from saying.
He turned to me as if I had just denied the most fundamental truth that was at the basis of his existence, which probably was not far from the truth.
'Fuck off right, I don't know who you are but fuck off. we don't need to hear this bullshit here' he said.
'well. I am interested. what evidence you have that the Palestinians want Lebanon as a substitute to Palestine. Why would they still be teaching their kids that the most important thing on earth is returning to Palestine if what you say is true. have you got any evidence other than the fact that you believe this to be true?' I insisted.
'you want proof. I'll go to my car and get my gun. will that be proof enough?' the guy said in a seriously threatening tone.
I was scared. But I gathered enough courage to say 'forget it. I don't do gun things. I prefer to just talk'.
My friends were equally upset even if not in the same way that someone was bringing 'the war' and guns into that space. The guy clearly did not belong and was never invited again.
To me, it was a rude awakening: living in Australia as a student and taking intellectual 'revolutionary' politics seriously, spending nights debating and arguing about Marx and world politics, has lulled me into thinking that revolution was a long intellectual debate, involving shouting matches at the worst. In Ehmej, that evening, and for all my revolutionary Marxism, I realised there and then that I was just a silly Australian student. I was not, and more importantly, I was glad I was not, as I didn't want to be unless i absolutely have to, a warrior. For if I was going to be a warrior, it meant that comes a time I'd have to stop having 'interesting debates', and settle things by force.
This is something I think about often today as I witness the rise and rise of extreme right wing culture. I hear the right wingers speak, and spout their half baked 'truths' about the environment and about refugees, etc. and I know that these views are an insult to any kind of rigorous, empirically backed, intellectual thinking, and I have this initial intellectual urge to want to debate them, but then I smell in what they say the whiff of that guy I met in Ehmej long ago, and who wanted to go and get his gun. and suddenly I am facing the sad truth: Notwithstanding all these 'interesting' Q&A that are trying to convince us otherwise, these extreme right guys and girls don't want to have a 'rich conversation' with me or anybody else who disagree with them. They want to beat us, and even beat the shit out of us when they can get away with it (metaphorically and non-metaphorically).
