I saw a show on Al-Arabiya TV (the cultural program by `Ahmad `Ali Az-Zayn) on Muhammad Dakrub. Dakrub, from Tyre, started his life as a poor manual laborer in downtown Tyre (who was forced to quit school early), before he started to write on cultural matters in the 1950s. He later joined the Lebanese Communist Party, and became an editor of At-Tariq, the theoretical/literary magazine of the party (it ceased publication a few years ago). I liked Dakrub most for his book, Judhur As-Sindiyanah Al-Hamra' (a history of the origins of the community party in Syria/Lebanon). What impressed me most about him in the show, in addition to his simplicity and lack of pretension, was his willingness to say unabashedly that he was a Marxist. It is frustrating to me that communists in the Middle East seem to be ashamed of Marx (although many of them are not ashamed of Sa`d Hariri). Even the Lebanese Communist Party seems to be running away from Marxism. I am more annoyed by communists who become liberals than by communists who become conservative.