Stay within the lines (?)

These past few days have been all about kids.

There's plenty of material out there about the effect of this war on children. But I wanted to show you (again, an assumed to be "Western" audience) a few of the things probably not shown in the US media about what happened in the south.

These are comparably tame, but there's no need for you to click here if you have any sort of weak stomach.

These are the images on every television in every cafe across town. It...hits you. Continuously. But there are arguments and theories from all sides on how this could have happened, or why it's "ok" or not...it's exhausting.

E returned from the south yesterday. When I came downstairs to the lobby of Talal's, I found him settling up the bill and collecting his things together. It was like seeing a ghost - never thought I'd see him again.

"There's something dodgy going on there." E takes no prisoners - after a few years of traveling through some tough regions and a few near death experiences you can see that he's both shaken up and incredibly used to being shaken up. It's his job - he's a (quite intrepid and resourceful) freelance reporter. "I went, I went to the Hospitals - the three hospitals. I counted only 27 names. Which is half of what the BBC reported - I don't know what's going on, but I think that the government inflated the numbers."

"But...I mean, can you really keep track of all of the dead just by...I mean, what about people that just, like, didn't end up in the hospital."

"You can't do that - you're not allowed to report a number of dead unless those dead have been officially certified as dead by some official - they have to go through the hospital and I saw the list. There were only 27 names in total - I went to all the hospitals. I don't know, but...yeah, there's something not right there."

It's been an 'interesting' few days in the south. As soon as Israel agreed to refrain from airstrikes, reporters (including E) flooded to the region. "We were there four hours before any aid got there. You would think that the relief agencies would have been ready to get down there...I mean, reporters don't report on reporters but yesterday the reporters were the story."

At that time, Israel promptly reneged on it's commitment and continued striking the region, but not before E had some time to witness "I can't stand it - what is the need for it? We were walking and this man literally just picks up a baby - a dead baby off the ground by its foot - and holds it up and says 'look, look at what Israel does'. They shove it in our faces. There was this supposedly refrigerated truck for all the bodies. It wasn't refrigerated. The whole operation was incredibly slow. They had all these bodies in the truck and they open up the truck to show us the dead and this just wall of flies comes out from the back of the truck. And then they had to take each body out one by one and bury them one by one. They're putting them in coffins - which, they normally do not do that. They normally wrap them. But now they're numbering them so that when the families return they can give them a proper burial. Nobody's going to do that. And I was there and one of the guys by the truck - I was kind of by myself at this point by the truck - and the guy with the truck just shoves me into the truck with the bodies on both sides. They just shove it in your face."
Me: "Did you take pictures?"
E: "I did. You kind of, like, go into this mode..."
We debated the actions taken by the mob that attacked the UN building. E raised some valid points ("They're, like, the one organization actually trying to help you") - in most cases, he'll criticize just about anyone resorting to violence and framing it as...anything, as a "solution" "reaction" "action"...anything.

I actually responded by saying that I understood their frustration, that the UN left the border first thing, that they represented the international community...blah blah blah. The truth was, I didn't have any good reasons for why I thought that I too might throw stones and burn office chairs if I had been caught up in that protest - other than simple frustration. In Beirut, you feel like you're in one of those medical school operating rooms that you sometimes see on television. The kind with the "stadium seating" elevated around the upper circumference of the room for students (or whoever) to sit in and observe the surgery. You're the patient. You're strapped down. You're awake. The doctor is obviously insane; he's given you no anesthetic, he's tearing into your body, he's ruining you and you're in pain. Yet, the students, the spectators just sort of sit and watch. It's them you scream at - I mean, the doctor is insane - it's them you beg for help. And it's them that you hate when pain persists and gets worse. I get it, I feel it - and I'm not Lebanese.

"It is pathetic. The entire UNIFIL operation; these are the guys actually operating the machinery trying to dig people out of the rubble. Reporters had to do it - we were digging people out. The UN team; there were all Chinese operators and there were all Arabic people trying to tell them where to dig. No one spoke both languages. The language barrier was just...I couldn't believe it. I had to translate for like four hours just to help them dig out bodies. (E speaks both)."
E said that he'd be leaving to Israel, to cover the story from the other side, to see some old friends and generally search for some explanation of the recent actions that Israel had taken that could help him personally come to grips with everything he'd seen. I wished him luck.

If E helped me to reconsider my opinion of the media here, Nic Robertson and his CNN crew actually officially changed it. At least expanded it.

Nic: Can you just talk a bit?
Me: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6....
Nic (looking at my face): How are you feeling?
Me (breaking out of 'the stare'): Sorry, just a bit exhausted.
Nic: I recognized the look - it's staring back at me in the mirror every morning.

I've pitched the SDC's work to ABC, CBS, BBC, CNN and the Washington Post. "This is some actually good news from Beirut, truly amazing work, you just have to come down..." ABC and the BBC have agreed to contact Selim if "it's a features week", the Washington Post called and interviewed him...but only Nic and the CNN crew came down to see what we do. They came in part for the story about the crazy American who jumped a French ship to do relief work - but Selim's golden tongue changed their focus.

CNNProducer (to me while watching Selim answer Nic's questions): "He's...amazing"

Ashoka fellows: An aura glows about them when they talk about their work; they motivate, they inspire, they get TV producers who watch for "what plays well on camera" to fall in love with them. Selim was brilliant. CNN said they wanted more, that there was a real feature here, they called later that night to ask about another set up for the next day - then they called the next day to say that Nic had family business that he needed urgently to attend to in London...

Heartbreak.

We'll find out tonight if another production team will pick up the story/when Nic is scheduled to return. Wish us luck.

MadeUpWoman: "There is something I need to tell you. You need to know, you need to tell people that this is nothing new for children. For years they are used to gunfire, they are used to this."
Nic: "We are. We are telling these stories. We tell them - look, I was in Bosnia reporting for months telling people what was happening. No one was listening, they just don't listen, they - "
Me: "Why don't they listen? Why don't people pay attention?"
Nic: "They would rather go to the movies or watch...I don't know...Look, there's only so much a 24 hour cable news network can do."

I empathize with Nic - he, to my mind and from our limited interactions, is a good man. But I think Nic is wrong. I think people would watch more if they felt not only that what was happening affected their own lives - but that they were actually more an important part of what happened, that they actually could do something about it.

MadeUpWoman was not the only person accosting Nic. A number of the residents of the school we were at that day were more than proactive about getting their feelings on the air. There is anger, there is suffering...there is a camera and a microphone, a way of screaming to the observers sitting in a ring around our heads clinically taking notes.

MadeUpWoman was not one of the displaced, though - she was a volunteer with us that day. In her own way, she's been rocked by the recent events. SDC is the second organization that she's volunteered for - her first was the local hospital now having to scramble to deal with the massive influx of new patients. Her assignment lasted, from what I've heard, only a few hours. After registering as a volunteer, hospital staff asked her to attend to one group of patients that they had not had the opportunity to visit with in days - a room full of developmentally disabled individuals. Upon entering the room, she found that the group (having had no attention in days) was covered in their own feces and simply screaming in discomfort.

One of the displaced staring Nic down is Hizbullah. Before the arrival of the CNN crew, he had directed his gaze at me, watching me with intent. Too, he had been circulating a cartoon popular among Hizbullah sympathizers and, really that day, most Lebanese - it was a cartoon of C. Rice smiling while stepping over the bodies of the dead children hit in Qana. Five minutes after our crew of relief workers came to work with the children, it was on every wall of the common space of the school.

Mohammad (to me, holding picture up to my face, smiling): "Rice? Bush?" Other kids had showed us pictures that they had drawn before we had gotten there - pictures of bombs directed towards the Israeli ships with excerpts from Nasrallah's speeches etched in crayon above the pictures.
Me: (nodding head, take camera from under arm, open the view screen to show him how to frame, press the shutter button to show him how to shoot, hand it to him and the other boys to hold while I bend down to guide the lens with my hand) "Now!" (They press the button, we have a picture of Selim. Repeat.)

Selim is in rare form. The goal here is to remember the options, remember that reactionary courses of action will lead to continued pain and suffering, that revenge is not a solution to the problem. The first step to brainstorming other options is simply to get out of the war mindset. Selim gathers the group of children around him, about 40 in all. The parents are relieved to have him here; they sit and watch the activities with exhaustion on their faces. The common space - located adjacent to the main bathroom in this school - plainly smells. The facilities cannot accommodate so many people.

Selim holds up pictures: (In Arabic) "what is this?"
Children: "Toothbrush"
Selim: "Very good, very good - and what do we do with the toothbrush?"
Children: "Brush teeth!"

And so it goes for a few minutes; he takes them through a number of group games. For 30 beautiful minutes, there is smiling, there is laughter, there are kids. You can see them loosen up. In the coming couple of days, Selim will work with them on realizing their rights as Children, will help them to build/create/paint/act their ideas against war/for peace, will show them a path to power that does not involve a gun. He is tireless.

Selim (in the car, driving back): "They tried to ask me the trick question."
Me: "The Hezbollah question?"
Selim: "The political question. I told them that this was not about that. That that is not our issue, that is for others to decide. That our issue is with the children and that is that."

To close the day, the children are handed the pictures of trees and toothbrushes and asked to color them in. By that point, I am still the outsider, the one tall white American in the room. I can feel I am a distraction but can see no way around this but to go against a recommendation - I get more involved. When I pull myself into the circle of children, there is a growing sense of awe: apparently, I am a fantastic colorer. Names are exchanged. I learn Mohammad's, he learns mine. I ask another volunteer to translate: me:"M, what do you want in this tree? You want...I mean, it needs a tire swing in my opinion. Tire swing?" There is nodding, there is a group gathered around now. "What else do we want?" By the end of the afternoon, we have two birds nests, a ladder, a tire swing and an enormous monkey. When I leave, I am no longer called "USA"; the kids call me by my name, I call them by theirs. We have success.

Working with the kids is a help, but with this the frustration is growing. The American wrote to me today telling me that there were rumors that Israeli tanks might find their way to the southern suburbs. You need the eyes of kids upon you, you need that accountability incentive to keep your cool - you need to remind yourself what you're doing and why you came back. The situation, the exhaustion, watching Talal sit in the dark each night through the nightly rolling black outs, pissed off...gets to you. It's a challenge...it's an education on why these things persist. I find myself staring at this chart I made on powerpoint in Cyprus when I was considering returning. A teacher of mine in high school used to tell us that there are always three things you can do in any situation "Gentlemen, there is the right thing, the wrong thing and nothing - and guess which one is the worst."

I've never really paid much attention to the advice - think it's pretty dumb, actually - but while in Cyprus I couldn't get it out of my head. Then, it was like: well, I don't KNOW what I would do if I went back, I don't know what action would be "the right thing"; I knew that a relief effort was happening, I knew of ths organization, knew I had applicable skills...but the constant question from the concerned was "is there not a better way for you to apply your skills somewhere out of harms way? This is not worth the risk."

(Standing and bearing witness to (patience))

Right thing ---------*--------Wrong thing

(Sitting and watching)

It has been worth the risk. I'm not sure how done I am investigating this idea from the teacher, but it seems to me that there are two kinds of 'nothing' - there's the kind where you lay down and let the tanks roll over you and there's the kind where you stand in defiant non-participation and make them roll over you, with you staring the tank driver square in the eye the entire time. It is called making a stand for what you believe in, it is called nonviolent resistance, it is called active non-participation. And, from what I've read, it's been one of the most powerful tools for change in modern history.