George Shami recounts war story

BEIRUT - Alternative Staff

December 2003

Journalist George Shami, 62, disclosed his revisionist rhetoric of the ideology of Lebanese combatants during the civil war saying that most of them were deceived to fight on behalf of sectarian leaders.

In a fiction book entitled What Is Left of Fighting, published by Riad El-Rayyes Books in January 2003, Shami recounts two scenes that alternate in his memory when telling the story of fighters from the rightist Lebanese Phalange Party.

The first scene takes place in church in Downtown Beirut, which was destroyed during the war and transformed into a front line between the divided East Beirut and West Beirut.

The book is full with imagery and heavily questions the fighters’ motivation. Yet, the unsystematic alternation and flashback between the church the fighting scenes, mostly narrating the story of what was known as the hotels’ war in 1976, distracts the reader’s attention.

The book randomly cites the names of parties that were involved the rounds of fighting. He also mentions names of contested sites but does not aim at giving an accurate account of the events of the hotels’ war.

Despite describing the clashes from the eyes of a Phalangist fighter, Shami’s statements secular praising nationalism and describing the Lebanese as “children of life” suggests his appreciation of the Syrian Socialist Nationalist Party’s (SSNP) ideology.

He also praises the virtue of “the evolution of survival,” in reference to SSNP’s founder Antun Saadeh’s book entitled Evolution of Nations.

Shami’s book is an account of repentance of an imaginary fighter who joined a militia under the pretext “of defending the country.” As events unfold, the fighter discovered that his defense of the nation was futile and rather contributed to its destruction.

Shami was particularly successful in creating war images and quoting dialogues of the “arms’ comrades.” Fighters are young, come mostly from middle and lower classes or from the villages.

The writer also describes, with skill, how the war slipped from a so-called “noble cause” into a war without a goal. Through conversations of senior fighters with younger ones, Shami highlighted the difference between veteran warriors who joined militias “to defend their country,” and those who later joined only because they were told to do so.