Tuesday 21st November 2006

Hi everyone, Tried to send this on Saturday night from Beirut, but sent
it from the wrong email address. This is the first installment. We
travelled to South Lebanon on Sunday, to a village on the Israeli
border, which has been devastated by the bombing. Will write a report
tomorrow - jet lagged this evening. We will be doing a report back
meeting, with a video presentation of the trip, on Thursday 30 Noevmebr
in the Void Gallery, Patrick St. More details later. Best regards, Colm

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Hello folks,
 
We've been in Lebanon for three days, it's now 10pm on Saturday night
and I'm in an internet cafe on Hamra Street in West Beirut and just
wanted to drop you all a line to let you know how we're getting on.
 
It has been incredible, inspiring and humbling to be here, for all of
us. We spent most of today in and around the Dahiya suburb of South
Beirut, the stronghold of Hezbollah and the area worst affected by the
Israeli bombing. This is a highly built up, poor area, perhaps a 5 or
ten minute taxi ride from the new office blocks and hotels in the city
centre. It is home to the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Chatila
(and many others) where the refugees still live in awful, overcrowded
conditions. All the photos and TV footage didn't prepare us for the
sheer scale of the devastation. Doxens of 8, 10 or 14 storey buildings
had been completely levelled, some with craters three, maybe four floors
deep into the basements. There has been two months of clearing and
demolition (all carried out by Hezbollah, the government refused help,
hoping to turn the population against Hezbollah abd blame them for the
Israeli attacks, a cynical stragey which backfired badly) but still we
walked through scenes that were like pictures you see of Dresden after
WWII. And all of this took place in a crowded city, with people still
living and working alongside it. 200 people were killed just in this
small area, more than 5000 wounded. But what really stood out was the
spirit and the resilience of the people themselves. There was a complete
absence of any sense of victimhood or appeals for pity, everyone was
immensely proud of the resistance, they all feel part of it, and they
feel that they won, that, as Kieran put it 'they threw all of this at us
and we still stared them down'. We recorded a lot of this on video, as
well as the thoughts we had when we were there, and perhaps the most
striking comment was 'Is all of this worth 40 jobs in Derry?'.
 
The welcome we have received has been so warm. Everywhere we have been,
people have introduced us as the people from Derry who took action
against Raytheon. We met a very devout Muslim woman at the conference on
Friday night who spoke to us about how she had no idea that there were
other people who supported the Lebanese people and was very touched by
the action we'd taken. Ibrihim Mousawi has been wonderful to us, making
loads of introductions, arranging accomodation for us and spending lots
of time talkiing and explaining the situation in Lebanon. He arranged
many interviews for us with the local press and we've just come back
from a half-hour interview for Al Manar's current affairs TV show (which
they promise to send us a copy of ). The political situation here is
just ripe for positive change, and things are in an incredibly fluid
situation. I don't have time to go into the details, but it stems from
the resistance and it's success, which broke down many boundaries in
Lebanese society, uniting Muslims and Christians especially in
solidarity work for refugees and exposing the corruption of the current
government. There is now an alliance being forged (at the top) between
Hezbollah, the backbone of the resistance, and other Shia parties, the
Communist Party, and Christian groups, but underneath there is a
groundswell of wanting to settle accounts with the corrupt elites, who
are guaranteed representation in the goverment (because it is based on
sectarian divisions), and who virtually took the side of Israel and the
US in the recent conflict. It is an open question whether Hezbollah will
carry this through - they are planning major demonstrations next week -
but the grassroots activists we have been speaking to feel that much
more far-reaching change is possible and necessary. 
 
In this situation, the anti-war conference was a bit of a missed
opportunity (and a bit of a let down, as we half-expected). Perhaps 400
there at most, very few local people, hardly any advertising and many of
the international people who came (often from groups who you suspect
don't represent much in the anti-war movement) happy to make long
speeches about how great Hezbollah are, but reluctant to discuss
strategy or debate the way forward. Even Hezbollah got a bit impatient
with this, saying, ok, enough of the congratulations, what are the
lessons we can learn. Despite this, we have met some wonderful
individuals, people who are investigating and researching the bomb
attacks, and especially some of the local activists - who are themselves
frustrated at the way the conference was organised - and who have been
very involved in the relief work and also the political scene. These are
the people in the Samidoun network, which grew out of the anti-war
movement here in Lebanon. We hope to meet many more of them tomorrow and
the next few days when we travel to South Lebanon (assisted by Caoimhe
Butterly, the irish activist, who is based down there in one of the
villages and who has been a tremendous help to us here).
 
Those are just a few impressions, but I hope they give you some idea of
what has been happening. We have been filming and interviewing people on
camera all the way through and we hope that we can bring some sense of
what we have experienced back with us. We are all full of even greater
determination to spread the word about what has happened, and to
encourage everyone to have a sense that what we do in ireland (even whan
it doesn't seem like much sometimes) makes a big difference to people in
the Middle East. The woman from Al Manar who interviewed us tonight said
'it is not about what sect you are from, or your race, or your
nationality, the real divide in the world is between the elite who rely
on oppression and those they oppress', and this is a real living
tangible thing here, among the people who have resisted. This is a
tremendous fascinating city and we wish you all could here with us, but
I hope we can convey some of it to you when we get back.
 
In solidarity, always
 
Colm