Adonis Diaries

Testimonials of a civil war in Lebanon:  The case of  Michel Abu Najm

From the issue of the daily Al Balad April 21, 2005

Michel Abu Najm was 4 years old when the civil war started. His Christian family is from Riyak close to Zahle and the pictures of Khomeini were predominant in his elementary school. What follow is an excerpt of his impressions and how his family political positions and upbringings affected his views.

Michel used to call Pierre Gemmael and his sons Amin and Bashir uncles, every time he saw their pictures in houses during their visits to families.  He got very fond of a picture of Bashir carrying a machine gun and smiling.

Family chatting in these surrounding left him with indelible images of the Druze as rough fighters wearing their traditional head caps, a knife in a hand and a Kalashnikov on a shoulder surrounding Christian villages in the region of Chouf.

A book written in French showed pictures of slaughtered Christian families by the Druze.  His father used to recall with pride the image of a Christian girl holding a Doshka gun placed on a jeep that was trailing behind it a Somali fighter who volunteered his services to the Palestinian cause.

Michel was fond of soldiers and saluted the Syrian forces when he saw them, not being able to discriminate among soldiers; his mother would remonstrate him for being friendly with the Syrian soldiers, but his grand father would reply that she should leave her son’s candor intact.

They moved to East Beirut, and after learning to discriminate between the 155 mm shells of the Lebanese army and the 240 mm of the Syrian artillery, the entire family hurried back to their hometown after a couple of shells fell very close to where they lived in Beirut.

In his town, the members of the Lebanese base Syrian National Social Party were the main power after the Phalange party members were driven out of town. He learned later that the meaning of Syria in the Syrian national social party ideology is not support for the Baath party in Syria, but the concept that Syria is one nation comprising Iraq, Jordan, Palestine, Syria and Lebanon.

His family hated Elie Hobeika who split the “Lebanese Forces” and led a faction that supported the Syrian politics in Lebanon.

Later on, he became a fan of General Aoun and the Lebanese army as they stopped an offensive by the Palestinians and Jumblatt’s fighters in Souk Gharb in Aley.

After the downfall of Prime Minister Aoun, Michel’s views changed; The Lebanese army and the Lebanese flag had no meaning to him any more.

One day, someone with a Syrian accent ordered them to open the door of their house  His mother hid her children and his father snatched his gun and looked out the window; they discovered the priest in front of the door who has come to bless the house, and it was his assistant of Syrian origin who called on them.