"Go see your future"

All political leaders in Lebanon and their direct subordinates and sub-subordinates are fanatic sectarian self deluded gangsters. They are murderers on top of that. They fought the fiercest and ugliest wars and killed people in Kilos. Yet, none of them induced damage to this country more than Rafik Hariri. He killed the last shred of cultural life left in the last square meters of the city. One of the earliest songs I heard in the wake of the Hariri invasion of Lebanon -that his TV looped 24/7- said "dear beloved, go see your future" (verbatim). It so sounded like "put the politics and your brains aside and go to your room finish your homework". Come to think of it, the Hariri plan was partly to take the young generation away from political activism through sending them abroad for education through Saudi money. Even moms wouldn't dare say that to their sons in the midst of the war. After the May 7, 2008 war in Lebanon, I was having dinner with some friends at Abou Hassan in Karakass, a once "popular" leftist restaurant in Beirut, when a bunch of thugs overheard our discussion of the war from the adjacent table. We had also seen them replay some of the scenes of their macho-ness in one of the streets during the war. Just as they were about to leave, one of them approached my friend and told him with an utmost sarcastic and mafia-like tone "khallik bi darsak w shou baddak bi hal haraket" (Focus on your studies and stay away for your own sake). It made me remember that Hariri song. The funny sad part is that Hariri plan did succeed. Today, a theater in Lebanon announced that it might close soon.