When violence erupted between Israel and Lebanon, I found myself compulsively, melancholically, and nerdily reading a tome of context to understand what was happening in my father’s homeland, wishing I had been a better listener earlier. Lebanese newspapers and history books helped me feel responsible for my frail Tayta — grandmother in Arabic — and short-tempered uncle who still live there. Are the two of them alone together now, making their meals, watching television?
My guilty conscience is alive. I feel for my Tayta and uncle who have moved to the very north of the country to our ancestral village Niha, extrapolating from my own confined emotional range of movement. Acerbic fears flood me in tidal waves as I visualize my Tayta Mila’s apprehension. The past seems unaddressable for her. Where to begin? Like a schoolgirl giving a presentation, she would work up her nerve — emboldened, then embarrassed — carefully choosing her words. Once she got our attention, she evaded the subject altogether. After a few failed presentations, her past became “that which will not be named.” Struck by my own shameful self-indulgence, I realized my writing of “selfhood” and how I have understood my “self” and childhood is a luxury my grandmother never had.
I’m not the first person to write about Lebanon rhapsodically, particularly the village that I am from — which would be so utterly Lebanese of me — with the hope of preserving its cedar and pine tree landscape. Instead, I’m focused on the camaraderie I have found with my Iranian friend this fall at Princeton when the Middle East is at war between apparent binaries: Arab and Jewish, Iran and Israel. This deep friendship in the face of Lebanon’s political crisis defies the Middle East’s political dogmas.
Lebanon, a Mediterranean haven, is dotted with childhood memories of swimming in salty seawater and harvesting chickpeas with my cousins while we discussed our respective crushes. Any traces of the Parisian metropolitan sensibility of Beirut, with which my father and his siblings were raised, were inherited by me and my cousins. This Parisian elegance, however, was balanced by a more rustic childhood scene.
Over summers, there was no time to understand the grammar of divisive politics which joined the ranks of other Middle Eastern nations. It didn’t appear to affect my seaside ice creams nor long hikes in the forest. When I did try to follow grownup discussions, I quickly got bored or frustrated that I couldn’t follow. Most of my time in Lebanon was spent in my grandfather’s ancestral village Niha, where Tayta Mila still lives atop a hill in a coral-colored roofed home. Misty Niha, with its hills and a few small houses nestled among cedars and rugged, shaggy rocks, has remained unchanged since its birth a few centuries ago.
In Niha, my contentment came from the pious villagers who remembered my grandfather Albert and thanked God before they ate garlicky food. I was so interested to know what they believed in and why they believed in it. At Tayta Mila’s home, I was convinced the tree she grew was enchanted and spent hours discovering new creatures in her garden, inspired by the Enid Blyton novels my mother and I read together.
My rambunctious brother would take his innovative “rombobile,” a wooden plank with wheels, down the house’s hill. Our cousins eagerly joined him. A ride on the “rombobile” felt like a journey in a space machine. The thrill of its speed, the familiarity of its driver, the rush of adrenaline, and the view of Niha’s mountains brought us ineffable happiness.
I remember well-worn days playing outdoors, when I felt safe and satisfied with my community. Early in my life, I was interested in Niha’s interpersonal details. My infantile mind never considered that this parochial, blissful part of the world was at the center of today’s most politically unstable region.
Last week, my aunt said, “I understand that our world is full of suffering and senseless injustice but why do some people have to face extreme injustice and not others?”
Her remark made me think of my Tayta Mila. She has witnessed Lebanon’s numerous wars, raised my father and his siblings during its Civil War, and now faces the third major war of her lifetime. Growing up, my Tayta Mila, with her unrelatable saccharine taste, was different from anyone I knew. Beneath her outdated floral wallpapers, quilts, and dresses, she remains fundamentally unknowable to me with the hidden grief and hard edge which she rarely shows, probably because it invites an indecorous curiosity. Our house has always felt different for me, and it always made me proud. Unlike the other grannies in Lebanon who speak Arabic, Tayta Mila speaks to me and my brother in English or French. She prefers tempered mushroom soups and European fish dishes over spicy Lebanese meals. She dances to “Que Sera Sera,” Edith Piaf, and Georges Brassens rather than Lebanese pop.
I met my Iranian friend the day after this news erupted. In the media, we were pitted as enemies, but the familiarity and kinship which has grown between us over the past four years outweighed these digital maws. Israel was attacking the militant group Hezbollah, which originated as an Iranian militia group and governs Lebanon today. There was an unsaid understanding between us that things were going to get worse. In the privacy of a sunny room, she offered me cardamom and saffron tea and asked about Tayta Mila’s health.
Her warm smile, her care in asking after my family, and her serving me tea with biscuits, threw me off my kilter. Is this a joke? Are these trick questions? She knows that I am from Lebanon. Isn’t she supposed to hate me? The scowl I had been wearing and even took time in the mirror perfecting in the morning quickly evaporated under her kind gaze. Her big-heartedness transcended political silos. Instead of behaving as if we didn’t want to be known by one another — by withholding beliefs, safeguarding our opinions, and protecting our tastes — we began speaking in our own language by sharing our unifying worries. “Stress, our families, their movements.”
I began telling her about my concerns for Tayta Mila’s safety. She understood how Tayta’s precarious position in Lebanon makes it important to keep her safe. Ugh, she gets me. In the past month, since our first tea, my Iranian friend and I have gone on long walks where she has shared her favorite bits of campus, introduced me to her exquisite paintings, and graciously invited me with her to classical concerts.
My friend’s integrity, reliability, and compassion has cast into doubt an ideology of separatism which characterizes Lebanese relations with Iran. Moreover, my unique half-Lebanese self with its dueling identities and the convictions they carry or inherit — convictions I once considered unmodifiable — are variable, shaking my understanding of what the “self” is. At any age, through any event, occasion, or even friendship, the self changes, and with it, sometimes, its beliefs. I have found strength in this unseen friendship which doesn’t rely on nationalities, does not claim to be superior to others, and is not vulnerable to political ideologies.
Pia Sarah Haykel is a guest contributor for The Prospect and a history major from New York. She can be reached at phaykel[at]princeton.edu.
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