Issam Hobballah: Reflections on Innocent Child

                                                                                                Monday 8 Dec. 2014

Issam Hobballah

            Reading the story of this young Lebanese mother has brought to me to the dark events which had shaken our country for decades. It is actually a touching narrative of a mother who is deploring the loss of her daughter in a terrorist explosion at the entrance of the school.

            I can’t but express my deep feelings of compassion towards this distressed young mother.

            The title is “Innocent Child”. The story is really a spokesperson of the whole Lebanese people. I will start commenting  by suggesting a minor change of the title by saying “Innocent Nation”. Indeed, we are the innocent people who are still losing hope for new generations, stability for the markets and dream to leave the land of our ancestors. Running away is the behavior of cowards. We intend to struggle for a country more secure, stronger and more convinced of our message and role in the area.

            Back to Xena Amro, I would like to praise her style, her fertile imagination even though I have denoted some reservations about some of her thoughts and conceptions.

The Style

            This afflicted mother is so spontaneous in the description of her misfortune, so true, that you cannot restrain your eyes from being on the verge of tears. We can understand how demoralized she is, when we get her shouting “My innocent Child” six repeated times, just at the introduction. We can feel her deep sadness when we listen carefully to her conversation with her beloved daughter and when we imagine the angelic tears trickling down the cheeks of the baby.

            It is really stirring, moving, to know how the Lebanese children have lived their childhood and how much their parents have suffered and endured.

            Xena Amro commands so perfectly her English that she used some old ways of saying, like the word “Thee”, or the expression “now and then”, which might surprise readers like me. Anyway, it was a benefit that I will add to my knowledge, owing to Xena!

The Thoughts and Conceptions

            There is a pile of ideas. Some of them are common convictions, some other are controversial subjects.

            Before I start explaining my point of view, I would like to pay tribute to the courage and honesty of the writer, although I may have a different opinion about a few topics. However, maturity has taught me that nobody should pretend owning the truth, all the truth!

            So, on the one hand, I agree with Xena when she said “I know the feeling of terror when bombs explode near your house”. “I know the fear of having your phone signal turn off when you are trying to reach your loved ones”. “I grew up being bombarded with politics, religion, cultural traditions and injustice”.

            On the other hand, I know that a wounded male or female, may shout his or her pain in an extended dimension. Because when people are suffering, we should listen not by ears only, but by heart and mind also. Xena didn’t hesitate to say “religion was, and still is, the root of the problem”.

            This is a misleading approach to the Lebanese ordeal. I do not agree with her, to sum up our problems under this title.

            We should make a difference between religion and manipulation of concepts. Politicians and secret services of regional and international super powers are looking after their detailed interests by using any means to win and reach their aims. No matter if it may cost blood, exodus, dismantling societies and countries.

            Another weird idea: she had dreamt since she was a child, to get away to her “real house” where she would never be judged or underestimated for being female.

            It is too much hearing such allegation!! After all, we are in Lebanon; we are not in a so backward country! Of course, we still have a lot to do for the utter equality between men and women, but what the writer said is more than wrong. The Lebanese women nowadays are ministers at the cabinet, members of the parliament, judges, officers, and professors at the highest level.

The last comment that I like to convey is the following:

            Xena dreams of a place of work where bosses won’t harass women if they choose to wear a skirt! She dreams of Lebanon punishing the rapist rather than nourishing the rape culture.

            She has watched too many American movies. It’s time to remind her that even with one or two cases a year; the powerful media will fail in giving a wrong and unfair picture of Lebanon. I am filled with a very outrageous feeling. Definitely, Xena is talking about another country and maybe she is reviving some movies she had watched on TV.

            I would remind her that Bill Clinton was having an affair with his secretary. Francois Holland as well, has been reported to entertain love stories with his mistresses, such as the Former French President Valery Giscard d’Estaing. I like to mention the Italian Prince Minister Berlusconi and his adventures.

            So, calm down for the sake of God, and a little honesty and reasonable judgment when approaching these topics will be great.