New Post on Beirut Spring

Posted: 28 Dec 2013 05:07 AM PST

Two Different people, one common destiny…

two-mohameds

One, the one who was targeted, was a middle -aged economist. A former minister and World Bank official. His thinning hair almost reached his shoulders, but when he wore a suit, he tamed it with a healthy amount of hair gel and framed it with stylish binoculars. People close to him described him as brilliant, approachable, cool and open-minded. And he certainly looked the role.

The other, the bystander, was a young teenager. He had the too-cool-for-school look, with his red hoodie, his acne-covering stubble and his street cred selfies with the other boys. His biggest worry at that moment was probably which instagram filter he was going to use, or whether his secret crush in school would dig the careless way in which he was staring at the camera.

The bomb –in typically crude bluntness– didn’t care about how different these people were. It killed them both with equal viciousness and left them both bleeding and lifeless on the formerly-glitzy streets of this part of the capital. They were both named Mohammed, and perhaps a bit of tortured symbolism can be extracted from that. You know, like for example how silly the notion is that the Middle East is in turmoil because Muslims are savage terrorists who can’t live in modern times.

There are many ways in which yesterday’s incident can be analyzed, explained and contextualized. Politics, power struggles and regional wars can certainly account for the big picture. But I worry that we are becoming a bit too desensitized, that we are quickly forgetting about individuals like Mohammad Chaar and Mohammad Chatah whose lives, in all their eventfulness, richness and splendor, get trampled over by this monstrous insanity.