Marwan kindly (and promptly) translated my most recent article in Al-Akhbar: "The Return of the Dangerous Man: The Expedition of
"Return of the Dangerous Man: Expedition of History"
The story of the Dangerous Man is not over, and will never be. It is at the heart of the story of the history of Lebanon and the Arab East. That story might be fictitious, but fiction agrees with reality in more than one station. Then, what if the events and people are figments of imagination? Would that discount their true nature? Who knows? The characters of the novel might be of flesh and blood.
What to tell you about a man who emerged from the womb of his mother carrying a newspaper, what to say? What to tell you about a man who threw a stone at an Israeli patrol while he was still crawling on his hands and knees? A man who shouted revolutionary slogans before learning the alphabet and before uttering his first word in front of his parents? What to tell you about a man who drew a map of Palestine with chalk at the age of four? What to tell you about a man who never came across a Lebanese flag without uprooting the cedar out of it? What to tell you about a man who’d go to bed to the sound of a moaning flute whenever Israel kills an Arab? What to tell you about a man who was killed three times but did not die? Three times, believe me. What to tell you about a man who traced the footsteps of «Ayman» in the land of the south after he read Shawki Bzei’s poem about him? About a man who left meteors of revolution and rejection anywhere he went? About a man who tamed the history with his two arms? What do I say?
I tell you about a man who never stopped walking and running since he started crawling. About a man who contracted an ulcer the moment Sadat set foot on the land of occupied Palestine. I tell you how he spent the war years. How he abandoned the bourgeois and academic aspirations to feed the neighbourhood kids and keep them warm in the winter. Do I tell you about him when he singlehandedly defeated the aggression of the Nazi Israeli-Lebanese militias? Do I tell you about him belittling the threats of Ariel Sharon’s tools in Lebanon? Do I tell you how he fell while climbing to the top without getting as much as scratched? Do I tell you about him when he was in more than one place at the same time? How he used to cross to “East Beirut” invisible while bypassing military checkpoints? Do I tell you about him when he decided to proceed with the march of elimination of the Zionist project in Lebanon? This is the guy who used to scold his fans when they’d say that he’s the creator of “the creator”.
This is the Dangerous Man, the perpetrator of miracles and wonders ... and the ordinary struggle.
Do I describe him for you? How do I describe somebody whose face glows in the darkness? How do I describe somebody who’s got two crystals in the place of his eyes? How do I describe somebody whose footsteps are silent one day and cause earthquakes and tremors on other days? Somebody whose voice would make Fairuz listen to him with her head down. How do I describe whose shadows emit meteors? How to describe the rainbow reflected in his features? How to describe whose face reflects the light of the sun and the moon at the same time? How to describe who carries no effects of torture despite what he's been through? The whips and the chains would melt upon touching his body. Do I describe someone whose pictures almost escape from their posters? Do I describe who conceals behind his face an army of resistance?
No, the Dangerous Man did not disappear. Contrary to their hopes and expectations, he’s within earshot. The Dangerous man is far and near: perched and mobile, floating and still. He might not be on the soil of the freak-of-a-nation, but he is observing with concern and diligence. He lives in his greater home country (or his “greater” nation). The Dangerous Man, this non-Lebanese who was born in Lebanon, who fled his confinement when he decided to. Linked and not linked to any entity. Liberated in spite of his enemies. When he holds flowers he prevents them from wilting, and when he embraces the hungry, they are hungry no more. When he’d go for a walk in the village that he fled to for respite, he is pursued by women’s gazes and school kids follow him unnoticed. Even birds, eagles and butterflies would accompany him in his evening tours. The Dangerous Man is no ordinary man, even if his enemies consider him to be. Ordinary? This guy who was seen shooting fire out of his mouth like a dragon when he was, in front of his friends, responding to the small Lebanese Nazi’s speech? Ordinary? This guy whose voice echo would reverberate three times at least, even in crowded streets. Ordinary? This who defeated Israel with his two arms? Ordinary? This who contributed to the liberation of Lebanon from Israeli occupation, without making a fuss? Ordinary? This who caused a fatal blow to the Nazi project in Lebanon?
He fires bullets out of his fingers at the Israeli enemy and its agents. He transforms fruits into grenades whenever he wants, and he moves across distances without the use of any kind of vessels. He believed that Israeli tanks crumble under his shoe, and he giggled when he heard one of his colleagues one day in the early eighties talking about the «Israeli era». «Israeli era» while I’m alive?” he used to tell himself. He then formally announced the death of the «Israeli era», without anyone around him paying attention to what he said. When Israel invaded Lebanon, the Dangerous Man decided to invade Israel, and good thing he did. A man who invades: that is the Dangerous Man, the perpetrator of miracles and wonders ... and the ordinary struggle.
The Dangerous Man, the Dangerous Man. They never leave him in peace. They wanted him to retire to aggravate his suffering but he refused. Who said that the Dangerous Man is gone? Whoever said it did not see the map of Palestine engraved on his forehead in pitch-black. The Dangerous Man became restless when he retired. They thought that he retired. The further the Dangerous Man got, the closer he became. His name is whispered and the whispers are thunderous. His name and pictures are exchanged on the Internet. People ask: is this him? Is that him? There are sites on the Internet devoted to his honour. And when I spoke to him about putting up an alabaster statue to honour him, he looked at me very disapprovingly. «An alabaster Statue of me? », He asked, and I didn’t answer. He didn’t like the conversation. When the Dangerous Man feels uneasy, I hasten to ask him about Palestinian villages destroyed by Israel after the establishment of the usurping entity. Then, the Dangerous Man dwells in the conversation. He describes the villages-one by one- how they were before the aggression of 1948, and describes them it as they are today, and that’s not all. He then adds a description of the same village after the liberation. He describes for you the street names and the colors of houses after the liberation. He then asks: can’t you see it? He promises to bring me along to the hills of Galilee, after the liberation of all of Palestine. He promises me days of green, red, and thyme. And he promises that «Shady» will, inevitably, come back. And he promises me that we will carry together (he, I and the red) the remains of George Habash , Ghassan Kanafani, Kamal Adwan, Abu Yousef Al-Najjar, Talat Ya’qoub, Dalal Mughrabi, Wadih Haddad, Bassel Kbaisi, Anis Sayigh and many others to bury them in the land of Palestine.
The Dangerous Man does not rest. He wakes up with the sunset and he wakes up with the sunrise. Some people claim that the Dangerous Man can run in the dark and can tell colors in the dark. Some might add that the Dangerous Man could visit occupied Palestine whenever he wants, and that he can draw a map of Haifa and Jaffa from memory. For those who don’t know him, the Dangerous Man appears to be inspecting the movements of the sun, the moon and the planets. He does not pay attention to the earth, or so he seems to the observer. When looking towards the sky, he is glued to the ground. When eagles land, he flies in a straight line. He’s never still, he’s never insomniac, he never sleeps and he never forgets. Deer pass him by while he’s paying homage to those who resisted Israel during the aggression. He thought he ended with his own arms the Israeli project in Lebanon. Little did he know that another family will inherit the malicious task.
The man underwent what no other Lebanese went through. The greatest Lebanese remains anonymous, and his glorification is punishable by law in Lebanon. Avenues and streets are named left and right after the agents of Israel's aggression and the perpetrator of the Sabra and Shatila massacre, and the Dangerous Man hasn’t even been honoured with a statue- not yet, not yet. Your day will come, O Dangerous Man, it will come. Your time will come O Dangerous Man. Only then, the homeland will deserve you as a resident. The day we change the names of all public places and streets and avenues to honour him. Let’s give him that, at the least: The Dangerous Man International Airport, The Dangerous Man Sports Arena, The Dangerous Man Public Hospital, the Dangerous Man Beirut Port, The Dangerous Man Coop, The Dangerous Man International Highway.... etc... The Dangerous Man’s picture should replace the cedar on the flag if Lebanon became an independent country one day. And the postage stamps will all be decorated with pictures of the Dangerous Man, and we will honour in some Iyad Noureddine Almoudawwar: the first martyr of the National Resistance Front against the occupation and fascism, who fell in May 1978.
The Dangerous Man could not believe what he saw upon the July aggression. Agents of Israel and its friends shamelessly demanding during the cabinet session the disarmament of the resistance to Israel in Lebanon. “Why did they not get arrested?” he kept asking. During the July war, he did not set foot on the ground. He was sailing in the air towards Palestine for a while, then towards the south for another, and he’d sometimes wipe the blue off the sky. He’d monitor the news from the sky: here’s Haifa and here’s Jaffa and here’s Acre (Akka), and they’re all coming back, he’d repeat to himself. During the aggression, he’d count the rockets raining on the enemy as if he was counting his own breaths. He was counting the number of first aiders and did not forget for an hour to count the number of aggression aiders who were veiled in slogans of hypocrisy. The Dangerous Man read Ali Al-Moussawi’s book about the history of Israel’s agents in Lebanon more than once, and he even learned it by heart.
During the July war the Dangerous Man visited the sites of all Israeli bombardments, and contributed to the aid of the bereaved mothers and the injured and the needy. The Dangerous Man did all this without even setting foot on the Lebanese territories. The Dangerous Man flies as it’s known today. He flies without lifting his feet off the ground. The Dangerous Man stopped breathing that month. He was impressed by the capabilities of the resistance, and he felt constrained from its political performance. He’d watch the agents of Israel appearing on the screens and trying to badger the resistance, as it was receiving, along with all of Lebanon, strikes from the air, sea and land. He saw the agents of the aggression casting detailed responses to all speeches by Hassan Nasrallah. They read their comments on Nasrallah's speeches from cue cards, and some of them would falter while reading. He used to say to those around him: they follow a decree, it is a job. There is no democracy in resistance-he’d say- especially when fake democracy means that «The Future» newspaper and «LBC» station publish false news about the progress of the enemy forces towards the Litani River, while they couldn’t get past Maroun al-Ras. Arrest Israel’s aids, he’d insist. Seize Bush's allies, he’d repeat. Surround the enemy’s agents’ areas, he’d shout. Close the multiple Israeli embassies in Beirut, he’d repeat. None of that came true. On the contrary, Hezbollah wanted to convince his audience that everyone in Lebanon are brothers, partners in piety, in the victory, while a part of the Lebanese was praying to God and requesting the defeat of Israel’s resistance.
The Dangerous Man saw them, and shook his head. When May the 7th came along, his friends thought he’d be very happy. But he wasn’t. May the 7th was two years late, he’d say. It should’ve lasted at least a month by the broad resistance front. The aggression of July he would say is two-dimensional; one internal and one external. He wanted the resistance to address the internal dimension after the war ended. Do you need my help again? The dangerous Man lists the goals of Israel’s resistance: the need for Lebanon to breach UN resolutions designed to protect Israel. The need to open public trials for the Israeli agents in Lebanon, and bring them to the gallows. Rewriting the Lebanese constitution to remove all reference to the sects because the sects protected the supporters of Israel in Lebanon and blocked their trials. Drag that lady who prepared dishes for Ariel Sharon (and who promised him that he and his wife will be the first official guests of the Presidential Palace, but she and the worst Lebanese ever never got what they wanted) with her head shaved and bring her before a court martial after being forced to prepare dishes for the children of the camps that her husband contributed to their destruction. And the Dangerous Man calls to undermine the very foundations of the state and to raise the banner for armed struggle again, for Lebanon and Palestine together.
When asked if he belongs to March 8 or March 14, he ridicules them both. These are groupings of sects, he says, although his hostility towards the March 14 is the compass because of the Israeli-Saudi direction. He does not belong to a sect. The Dangerous Man does not recognize the eighteen sects. He recognizes only two sects: Israel’s agents and Israel's enemies. Friends of Israel deserve neither the country nor the shade. The Man, like me, is not democratic, and he fears that the slogans of democracy might turn into a malicious plan to leak Israel into Lebanon, and to extend the control of Gulf countries capital. We’ll think about democracy after the liberation of the homeland and the elimination of Israel. And democracy will be a different one that Prince Muqrin (did any of the three heads of the state not invite him over for food this week?) cannot purchase.
The Dangerous man is on the verge. He can emerge with his head, feet and arms when he wants. The Dangerous Man plans for the return. The July aggression worried him and brought him out of his of semi-retirement. He followed the aggression of July but was not allowed to intervene. The resistance was self-sufficient. Then when the Dangerous Man intervenes, any war will turn into a regional or a global war. This is a habit. He cannot control his powerful arms. But the Dangerous Man suffered in pain. He spent a full day to write a hundred times the names of those who met with Condoleezza Rice when she was defending the right of Israel to attack Lebanon. The Dangerous Man can recite the names of all of those attending the meeting on that dreadful day, and he can draw the sitting arrangement. He can remember the types of sandwiches that were served that day.
The Dangerous Man. The Dangerous Man. He cannot go missing. And how would he? He saw the second Qana massacre twice: the first time he saw it on television, and then he saw it with his own eyes when he was riding a rocket that flew him towards Qana. He helped lifting the rubble and transporting the victims. When a small child cried out: “Ma! This is The Dangerous Man”, his mother scolded him. The child kept quiet and he watched the Dangerous Man working – working for you, he himself. There are those who narrated that he’d disappear under the ground to emerge carrying a victim that he saved. Some say that he helped transporting victims in Qana and Marwaheen at the same time. But that was not the first time when the Dangerous Man was seen in two places simultaneously.
Do not be afraid. When the earth shakes, and the sky goes dark, and the animals in the crowded neighbourhoods start howling, and the sun disappears for two consecutive days, you’ll know that he’s just set foot on the ground of the capital. He will change its landmarks. He will destroy the statues that he does not like, and will change the names of streets and avenues. And when he sets foot, the aids of the aggression will flee in gunboats that the enemy had prepared for them. When the Dangerous Man comes, Israel’s agents will rush to the border with occupied Palestine. They will flee in flocks. Neither the Patriarch’s interventions nor the document of understanding between Hezbollah and the Free Patriotic Movement will be of any use with the Dangerous Man. No mediation in dealing with the enemy. And for the shaved head who prepared food for Sharon, the dangerous man will oversee her trial, using the precedent of the speedy trials of Mehdawi as a guide.
The Dangerous Man knows what he wants. He wants to hold pro-Israel people in Lebanon accountable. The Dangerous Man records in the notebook the names of all who met with Israelis were allied to them. Who else would remember that a delegation from the administration of the Holy Spirit University - Kaslik, headed by dean Muhanna, visited Yitzhak Shamir in the summer of 1982 to thank him for the invasion of Lebanon and to call for a peace treaty between Lebanon and Israel? Who else remembers that May Murr championed Ariel Sharon during a private visit, especially after exposing his role in the massacre of Sabra and Shatila? The Dangerous Man does not forget the role of May Murr and Sa’eed Akl and George Adwan and Elias Hobeika (an ally of Syria and Rafiq Hariri in a later stage) and Samir Gea’gea’ and the fugitive Abu Arz and the rest? He believes in the pre-emptive arrest of Israel’s agents during the 2006 aggression. He wants to end the chatter about democracy. No democracy can coexist with Israel and bank secrecy, he says. He wants to expel the UN peacekeepers out of Lebanon, once and for all, and that the official curriculum should state that they come –only- to serve Israel and protect them from resistance. He wants the resistance to Israel to know without hesitation, fear, or consideration that the goal of the resistance is: to remove the Israeli occupation from all of the land of Palestine. No need for that strategic defence nonsense. The Dangerous Man never heard of Elias El-Murr in his life and he does not want to. The Dangerous Man says he will reconsider his assessment of the Lebanese Army when it faces Israel once publicly, and when they stop considering the destruction of Nahr Al-Bared refugee camp a source of pride.
The Dangerous Man does not belong to camps or alliances. He wants to undermine the regimes in order to facilitate resistance to Israel: he wants to implement the will of George Habash to establish Arab «Hanois» in all Arab capitals. He believes in a policy of entanglement (Once a Fatah policy). This means that he would never mind «giving excuses» to Israel, as described by the Zionists of Israel and the Zionists of the Arabs. The Dangerous Man invokes the speech of Abu Iyad on the road to Palestine (although he curses “An-Nahar” newspaper for transforming his political speech into a sectarian one. Abu Iyad was not a sectarian and that his speech on 30 August 1982 was not sectarian at all). The Dangerous Man, like «Thunderbird» (depicted by Samih al-Qasim), must come. He must."
