Friday, 18 February 2005View: Ghassan Charbel
Capitals know their knights. They do not err. They are not deceived by tales. They are not impressed with contraband medals. They do not believe fake gold. They are not cheated by deceiving times. Whomever the capital believes and loves is endorsed by the homeland.
Beirut is a veteran court. It stood the test of time and in turn tested time. It is a precise scale, more accurate as it ages. It observes its men. It questions them and asks about them, and classifies them. Some to be forgotten. Others in the files of the ordinary. Others are passing through. Only the knights from the depths of its soul win its admiration if they walk its streets or lay under its soil.
Rafiq Al Hariri.
A slain knight, whom Beirut dearly loved, roamed its veins yesterday. He would check up on its living, even if sleeping in a casket. The lover does not leave without saying goodbye. The city summoned the homeland to be a spectator of and witness to a flag that covers a casket; the casket of the great knight.
Rafiq Al Hariri.
Nations do not renege on their appointments. Beirut came out to embrace those coming from the cities and villages. Angry, sad faces with black banners. Souls exhausted by suppressing their emotions, subsequently burst screaming accusations those streets never knew before. They mourned him and walked in his funeral. They bid him farewell, and elected him.
The mourners' river dripped and became a sea. Processions and banners thronged. Men dressed in rage, women covered in the night's darkness. The youth's anger connected with the adults' pain. The city seemed in disbelief, or does not want to believe. As if it was asking him not to go away, wishing the killers had backed down from the crime before committing it. The farewell scarred the heart of the city. It threw rice and tears on him. The flowers on the balconies wept; the balconies wept. Amidst a deep and petrifying bellow in the homeland's veins, the procession approached its final destination.
Beirut never knew a farewell of such magnitude; the number of participants, the depth of the wound, the extent of fear, and the question. As if it has lost its voice, shield, and the heart big enough to accommodate those who do not fall under the burdens of crises.
The killers are mistaken if they are cheering. Some victims never stop haunting the killers. They go after them with what they left to their homelands, and what they leave in the hearts of those who loved them. Some coffins turn over stages, start storms, and cancels dictionaries. The killers are mistaken if they rush to cheer. The man chose his final resting place on the banks of Martyrs Square. Martyrs never lose.
That is the knight's tale. They are not seduced to live under the safe tent. They wrestle the storm and try to face the earthquake. They wrestle and leave with the sound of the balconies' cries and handkerchiefs drenched with tears. The destiny of the greatest warriors is to fall in the arenas.
When they dug his final resting place in the heart of Beirut, the earth's smell gushed. Hard questions surged. This man is larger than life. History alone can fit his stature. If he enters a grave, he makes it a palace. The destiny of saviors is the palace or the grave. |
Friday, 18 February 2005
Al Hayat
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