Masa’ibo Qawmen

On the television that the tradesmen are watching, an American diplomat speaks the warning: “My dear friends, you are in quarantine. Lebanon is in quarantine. You represent a danger for us and our allies, and even for our enemies.” “A slow ritual with two characters straight out of Faulkner. The first, Haj-Ali, runs a funeral parlour, having learnt his trade in 1976 during the civil war. With his macabre sense of humour, he thanks God for giving him his ‘daily dead’ and makes no secret of his preference for the other world as ‘it’s more laid-back’. Then there is Haj-Ali, the perfect opportunist. This second hero, more fascinating perhaps as he epitomises the Lebanese tragedy, is a ‘fighter’ who was released safe and sound from post-combat capture as the right-wing militia had freed him because he was dumb. This man, whose name remains unknown, is reminiscent of those prophetic, fatalistic characters that mime the tragedy of war, and whose dumbness is, in fact, more than eloquent. He also symbolises the powerlessness of the Lebanese people vis-à-vis what the souk merchants call the ‘invisible conspiracy’ of those from elsewhere.” Marc Giannesini