The Diaspora and the 2006 July War

On a plane to the US, you left behind a home you used to run around in its rooms at the age of five and the ‘dekkene’ you used to buy your favorite candy from at the age of 12. You left behind the nights in Downtown Beirut and Hamra where you would have dinner with friends or dance the night away at 18. This is Lebanon, the country to which you belong, which you call home.

As you see the Mediterranean Sea fade away from your window seat and off you go into a new city, beautiful Beirut becomes a memory of the past engraved deep in your mind in hopes of coming back in the summer to live it all again – until the summer of 2006.

You are now part of the Lebanese diaspora, as was I. You are now a participant in the collective memory of what was once Lebanon and is now a changing definition of what is becoming home, in a time of war by the Israeli occupation in July 2006.

This is not a story of leaving Lebanon but take this as a letter from those living on the outside and looking in, incapable of acting to cease the atrocities as a result of distance, to a homeland they can only support through a screen.

The transnational world of the diaspora

On July 12, 2006, when the Israeli occupation forces declared an all-out war on Lebanon, after the Lebanese Resistance, Hezbollah, captured two Israeli soldiers to exchange them with Lebanese captives kept in Israeli prisons for tens of years, approximately 900,000 people according to UN estimates fled their homes and left Lebanon, throughout the 33-day war, in search of safety on foreign soil that extended from Europe all the way to Canada.

Just by taking the step with the intent of residing away from home, one would have entered the transnational world of the diaspora. Many of those who fled stayed and started lives outside, but a huge chunk of the 900,000, in fact, did come back only to find their homes turned to dust, farms turned to scorched ash, and streets resembling the gates of Hell – in a land that the rich came to in order to embrace a sense of heaven on earth. I refuse to call Lebanon what was once known as the Paris of the Middle East.

For those who remained outside or were previously living outside, "it was difficult not being there" is more than an understatement. It would be a shame to portray the sentiments and psychological being of a diaspora without explaining the why of what they felt and the how of when they felt that their hearts reached more than their hands could.

Brothers and sisters, by blood or by heart, were living opposite lives on opposite sides of the world – one lived in peace and one lived not knowing if a bombshell was right over their head. One lived in a realm of memory and a sense of belonging and one lived in a war-torn present and a loss of identity.

Not being present to support and stand by family and friends, while being provided a stress-free standard of living, shaped a burden on the shoulders of the Lebanese diaspora whose shoulders became something to lean on, in one of the worst times for the land we call home.

Through a couple of means to provide support, the diaspora found some form of relief – financial remittance, protests in solidarity, and social attachment.

Sending money to relatives and friends provided a feeling of not just relief but a feeling of a satisfied conscience that they’re doing the least that they can do.

Mona Issa, 27, expressed to Al Mayadeen English, "I remember as I was watching television and seeing the bombs being dropped, I thought to myself I had to do something. Imagine, I was a 10-year-old at the time." She added that she went into the study room to print out around "100 flyers of the brands that you should boycott, brands that support Israel." That was her "earliest go at activism." A year later, she moved back to Lebanon with her family.

Funds sent after the war was over helped people go about with their daily lives as the reconstruction process was underway, mainly by the Lebanese Resistance, Hezbollah, which revived the local economy in some way while lifting the burden on those whom the war had left in a state of uncertainty and instability.

According to Guita Hourani, former director of the Lebanese Research Center for Migration and Diaspora Studies at Notre Dame University in Lebanon, “Once migrants donate, they are encouraged to visit to see what their contributions have done. This impacts return migration, and, hence, becomes a mechanism for migrants to not just see the physical benefits of their donations, but also to maintain transnational relations between origin and host societies.”

Emigrants, the underdog

Worldwide protests in solidarity with Lebanon against the Israeli occupation were a sight for sore eyes, as the Lebanese people from different backgrounds put aside all the differences, that would have been conflicts of interests back home, and showed unity in the face of a belligerent war hawk.

Cities like Dubai, Michigan, Abidjan, and Algiers witnessed mass demonstrations by both Lebanese citizens and locals in support of Lebanon’s defense against the IOF aggression. Locals who did not know the true facts of the war or did not know of the war at all were now well aware with eyes wide open.

What the Lebanese did was both spread awareness by being the underdog in fighting Western pro-Israeli media and take to the streets to ensure their voice echoed across the world.

Abdul Rahman Khalifeh, 27, told Al Mayadeen English through a recorded video from the UK, "Those days were really filled with mixed emotions... I can only begin to put them into words. I really felt this overwhelming sense of helplessness, really wishing I was there for my family, even at a young age, just like provide some support, provide some comfort if I could."

Western media played quite a significant role at the time of the July 2006 war, as they still do when they touch on matters that don’t match their personal rhetoric, whether their claim that the war was in "defense of Israel" or that the Lebanese Resistance was killing its own people as they relay more and more misinformation to deviate the truth.

Global media, especially Western, gave an uncontrollable amount of leverage to the IOF and its allies during the war on Lebanon in terms of the number of kills and size of destruction, with the mere imagery of responses by Hezbollah being sufficient for the media to batter the Resistance in racist rhetoric and deep fry it in warmongering. It’s always Hezbollah that struck a “surprise attack” that is allegedly unprovoked and it’s never the Israeli forces continuously provoking and executing intimidations at the Lebanese-Palestinian border.

Think not of the people in the diaspora as involved in homeland politics through elections and voting only. They are the unsung heroes of resurrecting a country in crisis even at times when the country’s own infrastructure could not hold it up.

Social remittance and attachment are not to be excluded here either, for the contribution they provided to the shattered national spirit resuscitated the very heartbeat that founded home.

Phone calls, video calls, and emails were the connecting lines transcending borders and oceans separating the host from home. The unwavering and unshakeable social ties with both the homeland and its people by emigrants and the diaspora, through the medium of technology, provided relief for both the resident and the emigrant. This transnational connection made the emigrant feel like they never left the homeland in the first place and gave unconditional emotional support to the resident.

Meghan Itani, 28, relayed to Al Mayadeen English in a recorded video from the US, "Being away from Lebanon during the 2006 war, I remember feeling very scared and almost guilty like it was unfair that I wasn't there going through what the people I loved were going through." She explained that she had to attend a new school as her family believed that the war was going to be prolonged.

She further expressed, speaking of communication, that they "couldn't really call people unless we had an international phone card which only lasted 28 minutes on a line."

The news didn't help either, especially coming from the US. "All we had was the news, and it was never accurate."

Besides those who fought on the front lines, there were heroes who stayed in the country, like the mother-of-two, Rita Kodeih, who opened her home for 5 families - around 40 people - solely consisting of mothers and children.

Rita said to Al Mayadeen English, "I had the choice to leave Lebanon, as my husband was living abroad, but I couldn't leave my family and the people I knew here... part of the sacrifice was staying by their side to provide them with security and stability."

She added, "It was to be part of the Resistance with lives sacrificed for the sake of Lebanon, given that we did not do anything compared to what they've done for the country. Seeing young men martyred was proof that whatever we did was nothing compared to what they did for our country."

Defining home in 2006

The collective action and collective peace-building, stemming from the collective memory of the Lebanese diaspora during the July 2006 war, were the very roots of re-establishing the definition of home, identity, and belonging.

On August 14, 2006 - 33 days after the start of the war - a ceasefire was put into place, and so were the Israelis. The war was admitted to be a loss to the Israeli occupation in the face of the Lebanese Resistance echoing until this day, as is the sense of unity and belonging among the Lebanese in every corner of the world.

After the war was over and done with, thousands of Lebanese people came back home, many of whom returned to rebuild their homes and many of whom flew in to be held in the arms of an injured country refusing to be crumbled under the fist of a colonizer-wanna-be.

Abdul Rahman concluded by speaking from his heart, saying that "after the war, my love for the country grew even stronger, and I hope for the day I could return to contribute to its healing and to its growth."

Rita expressed, "It was a tough experience, especially as a mother of two by myself hosting 5 families of women and children. I was able to live up to the responsibility as much as I could."

From the Israeli occupation of Southern Lebanon to the 2006 war and till the August 4 blast, the resilience and camaraderie of the people of Lebanon, from its South to its North, rings across the nations of the world and into the ears of its enemies - and from the hearts of its emigrants who are the very foundation of the greatness of its Resistance and its nation.