Looking thru a Broken Windshield
by Sharad Venkat on July 2, 2008 in Blog, Live from Beirut
The other night, I had a few drinks with a friend. On the walk home, he stopped by a red Hundai. “See this car?” he asked. “It’s been sitting here untouched since the last war.”
The next day I thought about the car and went back to take another look in the daylight. It is in relatively good shape except the back window is completely smashed. The front windshield has a bullet hole near the top. I imagined I was a crime scene specialist on CSI and after closer inspection, determined that a bullet had come in through the back and exited through the front windshield. It came in through the back because the glass from the back window was mostly inside the car, indicating the force came from the outside and in through the back. This was a pretty rudimentary analysis, but I was happy with it. I was more interested in the story behind this car. Why was it still sitting here? What did it mean?
The car seemed to me an appropriate analogy for Lebanon. The front windshield is intact but it is fragile at best, similar to the peace that exists in lebanon today. The glass is a patchwork of different ideologies, and if they move too much in opposite directions, or push too hard at each other, the stress will be too great- the glass is bound to shatter.
Perhaps it would be more appropriate an analogy if the windshield was full of cracks, slowly spidering away from the bullet hole. Though many would walk past and pretend not to see it, from time to time someone might come along once in a while and patch up some of the cracks, perhaps even cover up the bullet hole. But the hole will still be there, just as the cracks will still be beneath the fix, and eventually they’ll start working their way outward again.
As I stare off into space, I can see that the people of Lebanon are packed into this car, all 3 and some million of them- the civilians, the politicians, the journalists, the United Nations, and the aid workers- and they’re all looking out through this windshield, watching the cracks inch across the glass, all hoping that it doesn’t give way. Some are optimistic that it will hold, many are not. The latter are wearing jackets, gloves, hats, goggles, bracing for the violent wind that will greet them when the shield finally gives. Some have their hands on the door handles, ready to jump out if it does.
I have a Greek friend doing research at AUB. He was in the supermarket a block from his apartment in Hamra, very close to Saad Hariri’s residence, when a woman ran in screaming. Fighting had erupted outside as Hizbullah gunmen confronted Hariri’s Future party army, the mustaqbal, and everyone in the market ran to the back, laid on the ground and began waiting. Though he was scared, my friend said the most unnerving part was listening to the women. Some were saying ‘oh my god, I have children to feed, what am I going to do?’. Some were saying ‘I don’t want to die. Please god don’t let me die.’ And some were saying ‘That’s it. I’ve had enough. I’m leaving this place. I swear to god I’m leaving this time.’
That’s what happened to the owner of the car I think. When that bullet came through, he said, ‘that’s it, I’ve had enough. I’m not waiting around for it to get worse.’ Why else would someone leave a perfectly good Hyundai on the street for two months?
The truth is that there are a number of cars in Beirut that have been left behind as my friends have pointed out to me over the last few days. Perhaps some look at them as reminders of the conflict that once again left scores dead and the country submerged in uncertainty.
This little red Hyundai sits untouched, one of the few indications of a person or family who used to live here, who decided that it would be better to become part of the constantly expanding and contracting Lebanese diaspora than to stay here.
But perhaps it has been left there, gathering dust on the street instead of in some car lot or junk yard, in the hope that whoever ran away will decide to come back and reclaim their dusty, beaten, bullet ridden car. After all, this is the only Lebanon they’ll ever have.
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Nothing worse than a broken windshield, I wonder how many people in 3rd world countries replace auto glass?? I bet its nothing like here in America where every one and their brother does it.
Larry Diesbach
FixMyWindshield.com