There is a story to this article. I wrote this article originally for As-Safir in Beirut. For the first time ever in my relationship with my friends at the newspaper, As-Safir decided not to run it, saying it was "too tough." I circulated the text among friends who (thanks to Mounzir, Kamal, and Fadi) submitted it to Al-Quds Al-`Arabi. It is titled: "The Folklore of Lebanese Patriotism: What the Fluttering Flags Could not Hide."