Amal Saad

So this is what alienation feels like. I walk down my once favourite area in Beirut, Hamra, and I don’t recognize it any more. I watch some of my compatriots live in their bubble of neo-liberal denial, chanting their “I love life” mantra, and I feel so estranged from them. I read and watch news about the latest advances we have made against al-Qaeda in Syria and Lebanon and I just don’t feel any safer or any less uncertain. And while I have always enjoyed hating my enemy, Israel, I don’t even enjoy hating this new enemy. I feel no sense of triumphalism even when we win battles. Every day feels like a blur; every small pleasure feels like an absurdity. Even grief and sadness feel unreal. People who once meant everything feel like they belong to another lifetime. Aspirations and life goals feel naive and infantile. And with every Dahyeh or Hermil terrorist bombing comes that sense of shame because you are still safe and their residents are not. This is not defeatism, this is the reality of the sporadic and unpredictable nature of terrorist warfare. No matter how many battles we win, we will never get Lebanon back. It will never be the same again.

Related by the Author:
Remaining Faithful to the Revolutionary Struggle Against Imperialism
Fuck Your “Revolution”!
New Definition of Terrorism | The Saudi Regime Must Go
Obama’s “good” al-Qaeda
Yarmouk: The Resistance Camp Needs to Reflect
Imperialist Wars in the Muslim World: Reassessing the Syrian Spillover
The Rise of Secular Liberal Takfirism
A Brief Glossary for Resistance : 20 Political Terms to Avoid
Beirut Bombings and the Saudi-Takfiri-Israeli Nexus
Hezbollah and Lebanon: We need a “Beyond, Beyond West Syria” equation
Nasrallah: War in Syria is “existential”
Challenging Imperialist Propaganda: In Defense of Hizbullah
Syrian Refugees Want Their Country Back
The war on Syria and racist and colonized understandings of democracy
The myth of the Syrian opposition—the latest in US psycho-ops
Two Cheers for Amerikan Jihadis!
Syria, Imperialism and Zionism: Fighting the Real Oppressor
The Root of Muslim Outrage is Western Imperialism