Love Thy Neighbour

"Sprechen Sie Deutsch?"

Slightly taken aback by this somewhat incongruous opening line, I rack my brains for the remnants of my now long-distant A* at GCSE German.

"Ja, ein bischen. Warum?"
"Bist du Deutsch?"
"Nein, Ich bin Englisch"
"Well why dintcha say so ya Pommie bastard?! Ya don't look like a Pom anyway. Spose that's a good thing right mate?"

At this point, I think I did well not to have a heart attack. Here in a small mountain town in northern Lebanon, I am being (playfully) abused by a fair dinkum Aussie bloke. Life is truly full of surprises.

Fred is Lebanese, born here in Bcharre, but spent 27 years living in Sydney. He speaks English fluently, with a strongly Antipodean accent. It turns out he's by no means alone around here. Bcharre is the stronghold of Christianity in Lebanon, the historic seat of the Maronite sect who have ruled this tiny country for almost all of its short history since independence from the French. When the bloody civil war, initially at least fought on sectarian lines, exploded in 1975, thousands of people from this area fled Down Under. Now, after 17 years of peace, they're back. Indeed, there are so many of them that "G'day mate" seems a more common greeting than the "Salaam aleikum" or "Bonjour" usually heard in Lebanon. There are so many of them in fact, that Bcharre, a small yet staggeringly beautiful town overlooking the Qadisha Valley, even boasts its own "Kangaroo Supermarket".

Fred invites me to walk with him. We stop at the Kangaroo to pick up a chocolate bar.

"I'm diabetic ya see. Must be all them barbecues! Nah mate, let me get it, it's my shout."

We stroll the length and breadth of the town, taking in the spectacular views, munching our Galaxy bars and talking: sport, politics, history. Like almost everyone in this area, Fred is a Christian. His views on his Muslim compatriots, while not as hostile as some I'll encounter today, do not imply a harmonious future for this divided country. The treatment of women, the ascetic eschewal of the good life so beloved of many Lebanese Christians, the huge families: these will become familiar anti-Islamic refrains as I meet the people of the Qadisha Valley.

Yet it is not easy to stereotype these views in one way or another; political and religious feeling here is a complex and multi-faceted phenomenon. Fred is no Christian proselytiser; his condemnation of Islam's inequities is mirrored by a deep distrust of the Church. Despite his own personal faith in God, he disdains organised religion as "brainwashing", and rails against those who would twist peaceful teachings into instruments of war and violence. However, this condemnation of violence, specifically suicide bombers, does not preclude a deep sympathy for the plight of the Palestinians and a visceral hatred of the many iniquities visited on them by the Israeli occupation. Unlike those in the south of Lebanon, for whom Israeli incursions have proved a very painful reality, however, Fred is more sanguine about Lebanon's belligerent neighbour.

"This country has a choice ya see, either we go with the Americans and the British and the Israelis, or we go with the Syrians and the Iranians. It's quite simple really. And I tell you what, I don't like what the Israelis are doing to the Palestinians, and I don't like what the Americans are doing in Iraq, but I know who I'd rather live like."

Fred's relatively pro-Israeli symptahies are by no means unique in this area. He introduces me to a good friend of his, "Ron", who "lost his arm in the War, fighting with Samir Geagea and those boys". In "From The Holy Mountain", author William Dalrymple comments on his sudden realisation that the friendly and hopsitable people he met in Bcharre were doubtless among the perpetrators of the infamous massacres of thousands of Palestinians in the Beirut refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila in 1982. Now I know how he felt: Geagea's Lebanese Forces militia were among those implicated in the Israeli-orchestrated atrocities.

After chatting about his Brazilian wife over a strong sweet coffee in his living room, I left Fred to go explore the major local tourist attraction, the gallery and museum of renowned Lebanese poet, artist and mystic Khalil Gibran. Some 200 surreal paintings later, the naked female form featuring prominently in most, I emerged into the sunlight, and walked back towards the main square to catch the bus to Tripoli, from where I would return to Beirut. I had only gone a few paces, when a car pulled up.

"Bonjour! Ca va? Tu es Francais?"

"Bonjour, ca va bien. Je suis Anglais"

"Ah, English, very good! I'm going to Beirut, you want a ride?"

"Yeah, sure, why not?"

And so I met Pierre, another local Christian, and another member of the Australian connection; his girlfriend, while of Lebanese extraction, hails from Sydney. Despite the distance, he is convinced she is the one for him - she visits a couple of times a year, and speakl for at least four hours a day on the phone. How sweet. Pierre's faith is so devout, he insists on visiting a local shrine before we depart; after much self-crossing and prostration we head off down the mountains. The sign of the cross makes a couple more appearances - each time we pass a Church in fact - but before the fears of kidnap at the hands of an evangelical grow too large, conversation turns to some rather unChristian topics. Had I, for instance, yet visited a "super nightclub" in Beirut? Thinking that BO18 was indeed "super", I replied in the affirmative, whence I quickly discovered that "a super nighclub" is in fact Lebanese code for what we Brits rather less euphemistically call, "a brothel". For a mere US$250 it seems that one can procure the services of a charming Russian or Ukrainian lady for a full six hours, which Pierre assured me would be the best six hours of my life. And to think I'd settled for a retracting roof and loud trance music!

Pierre, however, despite living the good life like any Lebanese Christian, also has a serious side. He works as a "detective" for the Ministry of the Interior, specifically "looking after" prisoners. I don't push for more details, though he does conspirationally share with me the rather dubious statistic that 90% of Lebanese prisoners are Muslims, of which most have committed heinous crimes of rape, murder, secual abuse etc. Of those few Christians currently doing bird in Lebanon, the vast majority are guilty of only "minor things, less than 10 years in jail like". There then follows the familiar invective about mistreatment of women, unrestrained procreation, and predisposition to violence.

Like Fred, Pierre fears for the future. Rather ominously he warns me that "Lebanese Christians are nice people, very friendly and kind, but if you try to fight them, they will never forget, never let you go." As I drink a graciously-offerred free beer, while enjoying a free lift back to Beirut (a journey of some two hours), and reflect on a day of unparallelled, humbling hospitality at the hands of Bcharre's Maronites, I think back to one-armed Ron and the massacres at Sabra and Shatila. If it comes to war - and after the Presidential election in a few weeks it just might - the Christians of Lebanon will not shirk a fight.

You couldn't hope to meet nicer people anywhere. But you wouldn't want to cross them.

Lies, Truth, and Propaganda

"I loove history feelm. Gladiator, Braveheart (you know, with Mel Jeebson?), Troy. You like history feelm Jeems?"

"Yes, I like history films too. Have you seen "Munich"?

"No, what ees thees feelm?"

I proceed to explain the plot of Steven Spielberg's Hollywood epic to my 24 year old Syrian Arabic conversation partner: the kidnapping and subsequent massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics by the Palestinian Black September group, the resultant Mossad death squad that hunted down and executed the perpetrators, the growing sense of unease and regret among the Israelis, the parallels with the modern "War On Terror".

"Why? Why they make up such oreeble storee? Why they say thees bad thing about Filistinian? Israel always keeling people, not Filistinian, they never keel people."

"This isn't a story, it really happened. More or less at least."

"No, thees never happen. It ees lie."

Somewhat fittingly, this surreal and somewhat sinister conversation took place on October 6th, a national holiday here in Syria, commemorating the famous "victory" in the Yom Kippur War of 1973. A rough equivalent in Europe would be Germany celebrating their famous victory in World War II in 1940, or Bayern Munich celebrating their famous victory in the 87th minute of the 1999 Champions League Final against Manchester United. But just as many of the Syrian populace seem unaware of the reprehensible actions of their Palestinian brethren in Munich in 1972, they are also, rather conveniently, apparently not informed of the successful Israeli counter-attack in the October War a year later.

Like many Arabs, my Syrian friend (who shall remain nameless for his own safety - discussing politics with foreigners can be a tricky occupation here) also holds forthright views on a number of truths, apparently self-evident to us in the West. The Israelis were behind September 11th - a cunning ruse to draw the Americans (and their humble servants in Britain) into a global war against Islam. This I've heard before of course, and while clearly absurd, it at least has the benefit of plausible motive, unlike the claim that the same Zionist government was also responsible for the assassinations of Princess Diana and Dodi al-Fayed. My source doesn't elaborate on the logic of this assertion; I can only speculate it's part of a fiendish plot concoted between the late Robert Maxwell and his comatose friend Ariel Sharon to boost the sales of the Daily Express, a publication which seemingly exists solely to print outlandish theories on the demise of "The People's Princess".

Encountering the products of brainwashing is a frustrating experience. It's virtually impossible to explain to someone that something they've heard a thousand times is patently false, or that some major event they're totally unaware of actually happened, particularly when that event might pose some uncomfortable questions about their worldview. Yet meeting the brainwashed can also be enlightening and thought-provoking. Who is brainwashing who? Who has been lied to and who knows the truth? Is it possible that I am the one who has been misled?

As I read Robert Fisk's epic history of the Middle East, The Great War For Civilisation, told through the quite staggering scope of his own experience as foreign correspondent in the region for The Times and The Independent, I am reminded of the extent to which we in the West are lied to just as much as - perhaps even more than - the Syrians whose naivete I gently mock here.

How many Americans still believe Saddam was behind the atrocities of September 11th? How many Brits still believe Libya was behind the Lockerbie bombing? How many remember the US Navy shooting down Iran Air flight 655, with the loss of all 290 passengers and crew, in July 1988? (An action Margaret Thatcher described, incidentally, as "totally understandable". She seemed less understanding five months later when the Iranians and the Palestinian Abu Nidal - not the Libyans by the way - returned the favour by blowing Pan Am flight 103 out of the sky over Scotland, with 270 deaths.)

Whose government speaks the truth and whose government tells lies?

How many in the West are aware of the "First Holocaust", the Turkish genocide of 1915-1920 in which 1.5 million Armenian Christians were systematically annihilated. A genocide which, incidentally, was keenly observed by the Turks' German allies (among them a young Rudolf Hoess, later Kommandant of Auschwitz) who learned such innovative techniques as the use of cattle trains and gas chambers from their Ottoman compatriots. Yet despite the parallels, indeed the direct causal linkages between the two genocides, denying the Jewish Holocaust is a crime, while denying the Armenian Holocaust is official government policy in many countries, including Britain.

Who is brainwashing who?

My young Syrian friend and I also debate the indiscriminate use of the word "terrorist" - irhabi in Arabic - and its slippery definition. It's a well-known truism that "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter": such now-revered figures of the Twentieth Century as Nelson Mandela, Lech Walesa, and David Ben-Gurion were all "terrorists" at one time or another. Nevertheless, most in the West would baulk at ascribing the label of "freedom-fighter" to everyone's favourite Pakistani cave-dwelling bearded Saudi, yet here in the Middle East it's a sobriquet by which Osama bin Laden is widely-known, even by many liberal Muslims. What is the difference, they ask, between the Allied slaughter of civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq and Al Qaeda attacks on Western cities?

The issue of "terrorist" versus "freedom fighter" was brought home to me with particular resonance this weekend, as I visited the picturesque Syrian town of Hama. In 1982 the peaceful sound of the gently spinning water wheels on the Orontes River was shattered when Syrian army and intelligence forces converged on the town to crush a putative uprising against then President Hafez al-Assad by the Syrian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. Estimates of fatalities vary between 10,000 and 40,000; the centre of the town was razed to the ground by artillery fire and hundreds of political prisoners disappeared. Today the peace is restored and a pretty park and elegant new apartment blocks stand where once fire rained from the skies.

Hama is no stranger to violence. Its environs boast two of Syria's greatest tourist attractions, the last stronghold of the Crusaders at Crac de Chevaliers and the castle of the legendary Assassins, a mysterious Ishmaili Islamic sect famed for their unparalleled efficiency at executing the leaders of any enemy. (From their name, derived from the Arabic word for the marijuana they smoked in copious quantities, hashish, we get the English word "assassin".) These sights provide a picturesque reminder that the clash between East and West, Christianity and Islam, predates Osama bin Laden and George W. Bush by some thousand years. (The Saudi construction magnate might play up his similarities with Salah ad-Din; I can barely bring myself to mention Richard the Lionheart and George the Buffoon in the same sentence.) Yet the events of 9-11 colour our relationship with the Middle East, our relationship with Islam, perhaps even our relationship with truth itself, to an enormous extent.

In 1982 the West condemned the atrocities in Hama as gross breaches of human rights against a legitimate political opposition movement. Today the Muslim Brotherhood and many of its offshoots - among them Hamas, Jammat al-Islamiya, and various Mujahideen groups in Afghanistan - are proscribed in many Western and Western-allied Arab countries as dangerous extremists. Freedom fighters to terrorists in 20 years.

I'll let my anonymous Syrian friend have the last word, however. Totally unaware (of course) of the Hama massacre he brushed it off with the observation that:

"in Amreeka and Britaan there have two parties which both same, and many people not like. Thees is not democrace. In Syria we have real democrace. I love my President, I love my government, so do all Syrians. Thees is democracy."

Tony Blair and George Bush might well agree.