January 22nd, 2007

Well, things have been all quiet on the western front for a while: the sit-in downtown is still taking place but, of course, the numbers have been steadily dwindling ever since the first demonstration; all was quiet (...they tell me) over the winter break, the newspapers have been quiet, all seems to have calmed down. On Friday night, however, Nasrallah gave a three hour long TV interview, featuring (from what I could gather) what appear to be his usual rhetorical tricks. The long and the short of it, though, is that 'Stage Three' (as it is now becoming known) begins tonight: Hezbollah want to close the port, the airport roads, the usual southern suburb stronghold, rejuvenate the protest (whilst denying that this, precisely, is what they want to do, but the 'translate Hizbullah codes into normal language' seems to indicate that this is the aim. Everything, then, is going to come to a halt tomorrow (...meaning tonight) and, indeed, it is now 16.37 and it has already begun in the usual manner - the cars 'n' flags 'n' noise roadshow has begun, even here in tranquil, Bohemian, yuppy-ish Ras Beirut. Apparently the left-leaning
newspapers announced this morning that schools etcetera would close, so they are trying to push for it. Down the hill at the Yankee Community School, however, we have the usual twofold response to such things - the 'local hires' (yes, friends, this is how the Lebanese members of staff are lovingly referred to) can talk about nothing else, and most of it is critical (...and the few Shiites are keeping quiet in the face of the Christian/Middle class majority), everybody is involved in displaying various shades of bravado of one sort or another, and the simplistic assessments are coming out for whoever will listen. I don't exempt myself from this last comment - I don't pretend to have ANY kind of authoritative angle on what is happening, I merely observe and offer my unedited perspective: if it gets me hung for being naive and simplistic, so be it. Our school, needless to say, is not closing, and that's why the phrase "giving in" has been used a great deal today, usually prefixed by "not." As I said, all a bit simplistic. If anything happens, I will let you know. What I can see from the window is a large lorry-load of armed policeman outside the local torture centre (Police station), although it has to be said that this is not anormal, plus the aforementioned wannabe yoof rally drivers with the flags and car stereos jacked up. Let's see, shall we.