Month: November 2021

Une dernière fois

Il est 1 heure du matin, l’heure des braves, l’heure des fous. Je me verse un verre de Ron, ce rhum ambré hors d’âge du Venezuela. Pour oublier peut-être. Venezuela, oh, Venezuela. L’un des rares pays qui fait mieux que toi sur l’index de la misère. Il n’y a pas vraiment de quoi pavoiser une fois que tu sais ce que mesure cet index. Tu me vois venir. Tu sais de quoi je vais encore te parler. Le dialogue de sourd habituel. On va ressortir de vieilles casseroles, ressasser de vieux dossiers. Nous allons finir par nous gueuler dessus, nous invectiver, par nous jeter des chaussures, des assiettes, des chaises. Comme d’habitude. Ça finira comme Waterloo pour l’empereur. Tu m’as tellement fait de mal, tu ne t’es jamais soucié de mon existence. Ce n’est pas faute d’avoir essayé d’accaparer ton attention. Rien n’y faisait. Tu étais toujours occupé par tes mondanités, par tes codes sociaux pourris, par ta vanité. Tu as tout foiré et tu t’en moques! Tu… Tu ne réponds pas?

“Non mon garçon. Pas cette fois. Je n’ai plus d’assiettes, plus de chaises. Plus de chaussures. On a tout vendu. Regarde autour de toi. Vois-tu autre chose que du blanc? Entends-tu autre chose que ce bip de mauvaise augure d’un messager de malheur? C’est vrai, tu es venu me dire tes quatre vérités, tu es venu me dire que tu t’en vas. Mais rends-toi compte, ce blanc, ce bip ce sont les urgences. Même pas. Ce sont les soins palliatifs. L’antichambre de la mort. Eh oui mon grand, je suis au bout du rouleau. Je n’en ai plus pour longtemps. Je meurs, dans l’indifférence générale. Les rares personnes qui prennent la peine de me rendre visite viennent déverser leur fiel et leur frustration pour mieux s’en aller. Comme toi.

Photo by Jo Kassis

Dieu sait combien j’ai fauté, combien je me suis fourvoyé dans des combines qui ne sont dignes ni de mon héritage ni de mes fils et mes filles. Et pourtant, l’aventure avait plutôt bien commencé. J’ai connu des heures plus glorieuses, c’est le moins qu’on puisse dire. Est-ce que je mérite ce destin peu enviable? Peut-être bien, j’en conviens, je n’ai rien fait pour m’en écarter, pour conjurer le sort, j’ai couru tête baissée dans ce piège grossier. Mais s’il y’a bien une chose que ma fierté de pacotille a pu t’instiller, c’est qu’on ne frappe pas un homme à terre. Regarde! J’ai un genou à terre, que dis-je, j’ai déjà le nez dans la poussière. Je suis même 6 pieds sous terre. Par pitié pour un mourant, arrête de me cracher dessus. Arrête de me maudire. Je suis déjà bien mal en point, à quoi sert de m’enfoncer encore plus?

Viens, assieds-toi au pied du lit. Donne-moi ta main et arrête de pleurer. Oui, je sais, ça secoue. On a beau craner, mais face à la mort d’un proche, on est bien plus humble. Ne te fais pas trop de soucis pour moi, je me suis fait à l’idée de mourir. Viens plutôt me serrer dans tes bras, profitons de ces moments qui nous restent, ils sont assez courts. Ne pleure pas je te dis! Ce n’est pas la peine. Ne me parle plus de remède miracle. Il n’y en a qu’un seul et je crains bien que son secret ne soit perdu pour de bon. Je le partage avec toi quand-même.

Je suis toi. Tu es moi.

Un pays n’est fait que de ses citoyens et de leurs vicissitudes. Tant qu’une poignée gardera le souvenir des jours meilleurs qui lui furent donnés, tant que l’un de ses fils, l’une de ses filles se souviendra de lui comme d’un père, tant que ses enfants feront honneur à la partie lumineuse de son héritage parce qu’il y’en a toujours une, alors il survivra, même si ce n’est qu’à travers leur mémoire. Alors de grâce, laisse-moi une chance…”

Let the board sound

And don’t forget to vote.

For the sake of your country.

Rabih

Cet article est également publié dans les colonnes de L’Orient Le Jour.

On a coffee shop for expatriates

!ازيك يا برنس

That’s read from right to left, pronounced “Ezayyak ya brinse“, and Sayyid’s way of greeting you to his coffee shop every evening. It was not a Starbucks, nor a Costa, and certainly not a French café. No fancy décor, no elevator music, no jazz. Oum Koulthoum was the staple as far as music was concerned. Fairuz could be heard as well. Abdel Halim Hafez also, from time to time. It was as real as it gets in this part of the world: Egyptian tenants, and clients from all over the Arab world: Egyptians obviously, but also Jordanians, Syrians, Palestinians, a few folks from Iraq, a couple of people from North Africa and some Lebanese…

Shisha, a.k.a hookah or arguileh, was common ground. Water pipe that is.

شيشة حامض و نعنع من فضلك

Photo by Mohamadreza Azhdari

The rest depended on personal preferences: Koshari tea, ginger, coffee. Backgammon, Dominos. There was however a code for tobacco. The main choices boiled down to either Mouassal or Ajami. The latter consisted of finely chopped tobacco leaves with a couple of embers placed directly on them. Harder on the lungs supposedly, but definitely harder on the pocket, so most of the folks there would put back their ego where it should remain and take Mouassal, or fruit flavored tobacco. “Two apples” meant you were a newbie, a mistake to avoid at all cost. “Mint and Lemon” was a good compromise and most would smoke that, although a few posers would have more exotic flavors. It was a health disaster in all cases, with one alternative just being less expensive.

Most customers would come in around 9 or 10 PM and many would not leave before 2 AM. They probably had a lot on their minds and no one to share their dreams, their hopes, their fears. All they could do was drown their sorrows in the grey and white volutes of a mint-and-lemon-flavored shisha and make it last long enough to count.

Now would probably be a good time to give you more context. Abu Dhabi, 2009. The wave of the subprime crisis had already hit the shores of Dubai and drowned its swollen real estate market, driving most of its workforce to the neighboring emirate where work was still available. Most of Sayyid’s customers fell in that category. They had left Dubai some weeks or months ago looking for the next opportunity as you would put it on your linkedIn profile. Except these folks did not have one. Most were coming from God forsaken places, thriving to provide for families they had left back home, and many were in “professional transition”, which meant they needed to find a job, fast, or risk loosing their work permit. Their only escape from the vicissitudes of their lives was a daily dose of Sayyid’s coffee shop.

This part never gets told in the expatriate official tale. Expatriation is not always about living between the expat compound, the 5-star hotel, the platinum lounge and the Michelin star restaurant. It is sometimes less glamourous. Much less. It sometimes sounds like “immigration”. At least for the poor lads who need it most.

Let the board sound

Rabih

An autumn pilgrim

It would have been a typical French Café, not too far from the Opéra Garnier. Sidewalk terrace, wicker chairs, a small round table, and on it two noisettes, which, for those whom Paris has not had yet the pleasure to greet, consist in espresso coffee with a drop of milk giving it a warm hazelnut color. And two folks, enjoying the pale Parisian autumn sun while sipping their noisettes on a cold November afternoon.

Photo by Grillot edouard

They had not seen each other for years. A lot of catch-up to do, but it would have not been about that, they would have been on a tight schedule. They would have not been there for fun but rather on a pilgrimage.

They would have visited the Carnavalet museum, earlier in the day, in a naïve attempt at grasping, through a specific painting, what they both believed would have been La Belle Epoque, “this stubborn, urgent, romantic, belief in a beautiful world that could really survive, if it fights hard enough“, as one of them once put it.

Since they would have found themselves in the Opéra area after that for a quick noisette, they might have strolled around the Christmas displays at the Galleries nearby. Or would have probably moved towards the Parc Monceau, a 25 minute walk through beautiful streets paved with red and yellow leaves: Rue Auber, Boulevard Haussmann, Boulevard Malesherbes. A walk in the park maybe, or maybe not if time was not on their side, and then past it, walking further north towards a very special chocolate factory… Pilgrimage, again…

They would have wanted to check on an old friend, living in the 5th arrondissement in Rue d’Ulm, not far from the Panthéon. He did not talk much and was kind of lonely but nevertheless, the depositary of a name and a legend which should not go to waste.

They would have ended the pilgrimage in a café in Montparnasse, one of four Art Deco cafés facing each other at the intersection of Boulevards Raspail and Montparnasse in the 14th arrondissement. Which one would it have been? Le Dôme? Le Sélect? La Coupole? or maybe La Rotonde…

One of them would have known.

Would have. Could have. Might have. All virtual, all conditional.

Because one of them did not enjoy freedom of movement, was not found worthy of it.

You see, one of them would have come from a small country on the verge of oblivion.

Let the board sound

Rabih

Whatever the cost

I tend to shy away from topics related to faith in my posts, as I believe it to be a very personal matter. This post will not create precedent from that respect. It is not really about faith, even if written from a faithful’s point of view. It is about guilty silence. It is about Omertà. About the moral imperative to break the silence and speak up when our brothers and sisters are in jeopardy. It is a call to do what is right whatever the cost when the innocent and the weak are at stake in our communities. And more so in a community of faithful.

So, dear reader, bear with me on this post if we do not share the same faith or even just faith, and more so if we do, for truth and doing the right thing are virtues which transcend faiths. Here I go.

You, shielding yourself from the truth, silent when you should have spoken, listen. Can you hear the inner voice?

 “Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free”

That’s black on white. A verse at the core of your faith. A verse you chose to ignore. Why? Do you dread the truth? Are you afraid to be blinded by the light?

Photo by Bruno van der Kraan

“I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness.“

What did you make of that other verse then? Is the world so dark that you forgot about the light? Or maybe you are betting on a prophecy. Ah, I see…

“And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.“

How convenient. But you see, this monument will not stand on its own, victorious against the gates of hell by virtue of some magic spell. This verse is to be read by the faithful not as a self-fulfilling prophecy but as an imperative: The gates of hell shall not prevail against it for YOU will stand in their way! There is no alternative. Reading it in any other way makes your faith a David Copperfield show. Pointless. The Almighty will not yield a magic wand to turn things around. He has better means for that: you!

And what have you done? Instead of protecting the innocent and the weak from the gates of hell, you have sheltered in your silence the fallen who dared to defile the most sacred of all.

“It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones.“

Not often does the Lord speak so harshly of someone in the Gospels you read every Sunday…

You already know the truth. Allow it now to set you free.

Let the board sound

Rabih

Against all odds

They are too strong, tool powerful for us mere mortals. They pledged allegiance to gods too vile, to masters too dark.

They have taken our jobs, our homes, our families, our dreams, and trashed them on the altar of Filth.

Photo by Jo Kassis

They have branded us with the shameful iron of the corrupt and we have thus become slaves to their corruption.

They have shattered us around the universe in a diaspora spanning 150 years and 5 continents.

They have driven us to wars we should not have fought, to endeavors we should have blushed with shame to even consider.

They?

You know them. Some are people indeed. But some, most, are daemons lurking in our souls, deep within. The worm is in the fruit sometimes. Many times. All the time.

All is not lost however, dear knights, for as long as you can find a spark of light in you to outgrow the darkness within, we stand a chance. A spark, that’s all it takes. Your loved ones. Childhood memories. Summers. A long-forgotten dream. Whatever brings a smile to your face, some tears to your eyes.

And we will prevail. We must prevail.

Against all odds.

Let the board sound

And don’t forget to vote

Rabih

On some folks

Behold.

A hardcore right-wing capitalist, very vocal on free enterprise and economic liberties, a bit too much to the taste of

a fellow hardcore left-wing socialist, desperately trying to bring this impenitent capitalist to his views and into atonement, but to no avail, taking solace in

another hardcore left-wing socialist steering so much to the left she sometimes closes the loop, ending up on the right, next to

a right-wing conservative minding her own business, and

an anarchist, minding his own business as well, distractedly listening to

a moderate left wing progressist, always agreeing to disagree with his conservative fellows, while

another moderate, right in the center of the political compass this time, is carefully listening to the argument and then doing as he pleases.

Oh, and me.

These folks do not share many features, apart from the fact that they are human, speak the same language and happen to exist in the same place and time. Oh, and they share a very active chat group over WhatsApp and have lunch together at least once a week and have been for years.

Photo by MissMushroom

It happens that they also share the same origins. All Lebanese, living abroad. You saw it coming did you not?

As you might or might not know, religion and confession are core defining attributes of one’s political and social self in this small country, at least in the eyes of the Lebanese State, and this group is a good enough representation of the Lebanese society from that respect: Sunni, Shia, Catholic, Orthodox. But also, believer, agnostic, on a quest. And even more than that:

Despite their very heated arguments over lunch or over chat, they do appreciate each other’s presence on the table and in the chat group, and they appreciate each other even more as people. In fact, they are quite good representatives of the Lebanese society from that respect as well. Yes, the same society which tore itself apart in a 15 year long civil war and is still struggling in the midst of one of the worst economic crisis ever.

Why? How? Well let me argue, at the risk of puzzling the audience, that the people in this country are naturally tolerant and well meant towards each other despite the war and the difficulties faced by their homeland. How can they not be when they amount to 18 communities still cohabiting in this small land and having been for centuries? Had they not had minimal social skills, the landscape would have been much more uniform I suppose. Let us just say that the tolerance they display to each other has sometimes extended to leaders who should have rather been shunned.

To be honest, I did not want this post to be about Lebanon and the Lebanese people specifically. I wanted it to be a nod to these seven folks who joyfully fuel their lunches and chat groups with their differences and idiosyncrasies. So here’s to you folks, you might recognize yourselves if you are reading me.

Let me know what you think in the WhatsApp chat. You know which one.

PS: who’s in for lunch on Friday?

Let the board sound

Rabih

On an encounter, somewhere in Paris

This story takes place somewhere in the 13th arrondissement of Paris, in an area delimited north by the Place d’Italie, and south by the Poterne des Peupliers.

An area less walked by tourists and typical Paris enthusiasts but not less interesting in my opinion. Nothing can illustrate it more than a walk down the typical Rue du Moulin des Prés to the Abbé Georges Hénocque Square and the lovely tiny little house-and-gardens leading to and surrounding it, then west through the Rue de la Colonie and the intersection with the Rue Tolbiac right at the Saint Anne church, and north through Rue Bobillot passing the municipal pool which waters are heated by the data center severs computing below it, up to the Butte aux Cailles and its many small restaurants and alternative bars, where you can finally take a stab at the escalope montagnarde, an institution in its own right courtesy of a cosy and casual dining room from Southwest France, right at the end of the walk. Worth a thousand words.

You will not be walking by famous iron towers or triumphal archs, and even less by paintings of mysterious half-smiling ladies from the Italian renaissance, but the area has a distinctive atmosphere which you can only feel by walking its streets.

Somewhere on this pathway lies a musical instruments shop, held by old school blues musicians, which meant there was no bling there, no fancy useless gimmicks, no lame talking. The guys used to cater for Hugue Aufrey’s guitars. That says it all. I was a regular customer of theirs.

This is where I met her, on a Saturday morning 13 years ago.

She was not thin, at least not in the traditional sense, and she had these shapes and curves which drove me crazy. A dark red belly-shaped maple top on a solid mahogany body, silver hardware, and no compromise on her beauty, even at the expense of ergonomics, especially at the expense of ergonomics actually. And the roar… a creamy roar sending shivers down the spine of whoever would pretend to tame her. She was a hard player, smooth to the touch, harsh on the back, not only because of the weight of the legendary names behind her kind like Jimmy Page, Les Paul or Neil Young, but also because of the 10 pounds of unchambered mahogany straining your shoulders, heavier than any of the other roaring hot rods out there.

I had been fantasizing about her since my early teens.

She was a 1994 Gibson Les Paul Standard in Red Wine finish. A guitar of legends, a roaring beauty. A Rock and Roll icon. The F50 of guitars, like an iconic car which few could tame at the speeds it was supposed to reach on track.

She would follow me to Paris, London, Abu Dhabi, Beirut, any place in which I lived or spent a significant amount of time and for years would be pretty much the only constant in a hectic life spent on roller coasters.

Until I met a girl with a sweet smile and a gentle creamy roar, somewhere in Paris, but that’s another story. Maybe for a later post?

Let the board sound

Rabih

Plaidoyer perdu d’avance

Votre honneur,

Je ne sais comment débuter cette plaidoirie, d’une part car je ne sais jamais comment en débuter une, d’autre part car le sujet que je souhaite plaider a été tellement rabâché que ça en est devenu le cliché le plus éculé de l’histoire moderne. Je tiens pourtant à rajouter sans prétention ma pierre à cet édifice auquel maints théoriciens de la chose publique et de la politique, tous bien plus éminents que moi, ont déjà contribué. Permettez-moi donc de m’adresser aux prévenus.

Prévenus. J’aborde ce sujet avec tellement de candeur, et je m’en rends compte, que je suis à deux doigts de lâcher ma plume par crainte du ridicule de ma position. Ou de la vôtre. Cela étant, c’est peut-être justement cette candeur qu’il vous faut, puisque vos interlocuteurs habituels et autres contradicteurs de circonstance sont tous sans exception des sherpas de la politique alambiquée et tordue de ce coin du monde. Expertise que je suis loin d’avoir, Dieu merci.

Allez. Candeur. Je me lance donc avec une première question plutôt candide vous en conviendrez:

Quand donc avez-vous fini par verser dans la prostitution?

Photo by Vadim Kaipov

Avant d’avoir vendu vos idéaux au plus offrant? Après les avoir perdus?

Avant de vous autoproclamer champions du socialisme et du progrès? Ou après, une fois que votre système féodal ait étouffé ce qui restait d’idéal chez vos ouailles?

A moins que ce ne soit avant d’avoir trahi la cause des déshérités? Après les avoir asservis à votre clientélisme, cette drogue dont dépendent aujourd’hui les enfants et petits-enfants de ceux qui n’avaient déjà rien? “Mais à celui qui n’a rien, cela même qu’il a lui sera ôté“. Je ne vous croyais pas si pratiquants, si pénétrés de la parole du Seigneur…

Quand donc avez-vous vendu votre vertu? Avant d’avoir renié le serment qui vous reliait à votre patrie? Après? Avant d’avoir vendu vos frères d’armes, ceux-là mêmes auprès de qui vous aviez juré de protéger le sol de votre partie, ceux-là mêmes dont votre serment vous rendait responsable? Ou après avoir baisé la main du maître de ce monde, le fauteuil du pouvoir?

Avant d’avoir pris les armes? Après avoir abandonné vos études, vos vocations? Au cours de vos luttes fratricides qui ont laissé sur le carreau tant de vos frères, de vos alliés? A partir de quel assassinat l’innocence de votre âme à-t’elle péri?

Au bout de combien de sesterces avez-vous réussi à changer d’allégeance? Combien d’expropriés, combien de pauvres hères conduits à la banqueroute aura-t-il fallu pour anesthésier votre conscience? Combien de fois avez-vous dû courber l’échine, combien de mains, de pieds avez-vous dû baiser pour toucher les piécettes qui vous sont aujourd’hui refusées ?

Quand donc avez-vous décidé d’oublier la piété de vos parents, les préceptes de votre prophète, le dieu de vos maîtres spirituels, celui que vous aviez juré de prier, de servir, pour vous tourner vers d’autres idoles, celles du pouvoir armé, celles de la corruption du pauvre peuple, celles des alliances opportunes et opportunistes?

N’êtes-vous pas revenus à la raison quand le destin vous a éprouvés dans votre chair? N’avez-vous pas ressenti l’urgence de vous racheter quand vos pères, vos frères ont été assassinés par une main sans honneur et sans nom? Quand vos fils ont péri sous les balles? Quand vous avez été bannis, quand vous avez connu la flétrissure de l’exil, de la fuite, la damnation de la prison, le poison de la calomnie? Quand la maladie vous a rongés?

Il fut un temps où vous aviez sans doute d’autres ambitions, d’autres valeurs que celles qui vous font tourner aujourd’hui. Vous étiez nés dans des familles humbles, dans des villages montagneux, des banlieues populaires. Rappelez-vous de cette époque. Puis les premières compromissions, avec vous-mêmes d’abord, petit coup de canif à vos idéaux d’alors, puis, de coup d’épée en coup de sabre, vous êtes devenus les apôtres sans vergogne de démons immémoriaux: la guerre, le pouvoir. La corruption.

Vous êtes trop puissants pour le commun des mortels, on ne peut plus vous atteindre. Vous avez le monopole des armes, du pouvoir, de l’argent. Et surtout la capacité, que dis-je, la malédiction d’accaparer les âmes des pauvres gens qui voient en vous la seule lueur d’espoir et qui sont nombreux à se damner pour consolider votre emprise sur ce qui reste de ce pays, de ce peuple. Vous servez des dieux trop vils, des maîtres trop sombres.

Vous pouvez toujours inverser le cours des choses et éviter de finir dans les poubelles de l’histoire. Faites-le pour la mémoire de vos pères. Faites-le pour laisser autre chose que des dettes infamantes, un héritage qui jette un peu moins l’opprobre sur votre nom. Et si cela ne vous parle pas, faites-le pour faire la Une des journaux. Pour vous refaire une virginité. Pour pouvoir vous regarder dans une glace sans vous cracher dessus, que sais-je! Mais faites-le vite car bientôt, il ne restera plus grand monde pour chanter vos louanges en ce bas monde. Et ne comptez pas trop sur l’au-delà pour vous couvrir de lauriers…

Je n’ai rien à rajouter à cette plaidoirie votre honneur.

Let the board sound

Rabih

Cet article est également publié dans les colonnes de L’Orient-Le Jour.