A Martyr’s Body

By Rabih Mroué

Introduction

March 29, 1971 Headline:
The International Committee for the Red Cross confirms the flight of the body of the Israeli Pilot to Vienna.

The Body
Officials from the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) confirmed the arrival in Vienna of the body of an Israeli pilot killed in Lebanon. The body was subsequently reunited with the pilot's family.

"We are all martyrs. Our mission is martyrdom. But in my opinion, this monument should be destroyed. Because this monument is not ours, it's the Lebanese government's. The Lebanese government made it so that it could hijack our cause. This monument does not symbolize neither the Palestinian nor the Arab movement. This monument is the personification of no one but the Lebanese Right. And therefore, this monument does not represent you, brother Deeb. Some day, we should just remove that monument entirely. We'll build you another...bigger and better. But now, the timing isn't right. All in due time. Today, we need to think this way...
You are ours, and the monument is theirs."

At the end of the meeting, Yasser Arafat presented Deeb Al Asmar with a Medal of Recognition, as well as a monthly stipend as a permanent member of the organization.

After almost a month of constant contact with the Municipality of the City of Beirut, the plaque was changed from: "In Honor of the Martyr of Lebanon, Deeb Al Asmar..." to "In Honor of the First Lebanese Prisoner Freed, Deeb Al Asmar..."

But despite the change, the city dwellers continue to use the expression Martyr Deeb: "From Martyr Deeb, you go left... you go right... go straight... Are you going in the direction of Martyr Deeb?... Meet me at Martyr Deeb...", and so on.

The old plaque had been erased from the pedestal, but it remained engraved in the minds of the people.


The Anonymous Corpse
There was yet another issue troubling Deeb Al Asmar: Who was the person buried as Deeb Al Asmar? Who was the corpse? If he himself wasn't dead, then it couldn't be his corpse. If he was alive, then who was dead? To whom did the corpse belong?

This period of questioning and stress was sparked with the first time his friends took him to his grave. At first, he had found the situation quite comical.

The second time, he went to his grave by himself.

He was beginning to feel as though this grave was actually his, and that the corpse lying beneath was also actually his. He began to wonder: if this grave is really mine, and the monument is also mine, then who am I? Which Deeb was real, which Deeb was false? How could he prove to himself that he wasn't just a figment of his own imagination or just a character in a dream? What about Israel? The prison? Jordan? Were those also just figments of his own imagination? He was petrified. He turned tail and ran, away from the questions in his head.

The third time he went to visit his grave, he cried over his corpse.

The fourth visit occurred right after the encounter with Yasser Arafat. This time, he decided that the corpse was not his. He, Deeb, was real. He wasn't dreaming, what happened to him was what happened to him.

He had to find out who the corpse was, whose the body buried as his own.

He asked and asked... his family... friends... comrades. Did anyone see the face of the corpse who had been buried? It was during this investigation that he realized that no one had actually seen the corpse's face. Maybe no one wanted to see it. No one had wanted to know for sure. Maybe the Arabs, the people in the region, just wanted a martyr, a symbol. Any martyr.

He discussed the issue at length with his family. They decided, together, to exhume the grave and remove the corpse, since it wasn't really his anyway. But to whom would they hand over the corpse? They called the Red Cross. The Red Cross called everyone else, including the Israelis.

No one knew who the corpse belonged to. It was a corpse with no identity.

The issue went up to the highest echelons of the establishment. Who would be willing to bury this corpse? Who would accept this corpse of a commando to be buried in their graveyard? The Palestinians refused. The Shiites, Sunnis, Maronites, Druze, Catholics, Armenians, and of course, the Greek Orthodox refused. Everyone, with no exception, refused to accept the corpse.

The story started getting huge in Deeb Al Asmar's head. The accumulation led to a series of anxiety attacks; Deeb Al Asmar became ill with distress.

The family refused to keep it in their mausoleum, arguing that the corpse would disturb the legitimate dead. They threatened to throw the corpse in the nearest dumpster if the government didn't take it off their hands in the following two days.

Al-jondi al-majhool... the unknown soldier. Here was the real jondi majhool, but the grave and the monument of  Al jondi al-majhool had already been built and there was no way to bury the corpse in the same place...

In the end, the authorities found themselves confronted with two options: To burn the corpse; or bury it in the Jewish cemetery in Wadi Abu Jamil. The first option wasn't really an option, because in Lebanon cremation was not considered theologically acceptable. So the corpse was transported to and buried in the Jewish cemetery, where the Lebanese Jews dared not refuse because they were always being accused of dual loyalties, of not being Lebanese enough, Arab enough, or nationalist enough. They were constantly obliged to prove their innocence: that they hated Israel, and the state of Israel, as much as any other Arab. For all these reasons, they accepted the corpse.

And so, the corpse was buried with a nameless headstone, and its secret with it.

The fate of the anonymous corpse led Deeb Al Asmar to reflect upon all the things that had happened to him. He told himself,
"Is it possible that all these people carried me... for hours... chanting and weeping over me and no one... no one ever thought about taking a look at my face... a small peek even... just a little glimpse at my features?"

He deduced that martyrs obviously didn't have faces. Their features were wiped out by their martyrdom. Their names vanished. They became symbols that symbolized everything but themselves.

He was delighted that there was still hope to reclaim his face... his features... his name and his individuality. He realized that the whole story of his death was a myth. And the monument that they had erected in his name was just a small segment of this giant myth, which they were trying to sway the whole population with, including himself.

The city was concocting epics, creating heroes, and inventing histories to fight each other. Legends skirmishing.

He had been turned into a legend, in spite of himself. He decided to play this game, to make his legend live and rise above all others.

Time passed and Deeb Al Asmar blended into all the other citizens of the city and its suburbs. He started using the expression Martyr Deeb Square in his daily life, to the point that when friends came back to visit Lebanon, the first thing he would do was take them to visit his monument, telling his story to them... sometimes he would slip up and call himself a ‘martyr'. When he spoke of the prisoner Deeb, he would get confused.

Sometimes the monument was his and other times, someone else's.

The visitors were seduced by the story of his martyrdom and his return to life, alive and well.

This time, people looked at his face as the story unfolded; this time they would memorize his features and they would remember every letter in his name.



THE CIVIL WAR

1975. The civil war breaks out in Beirut. The first battles in Beirut flare up in the downtown district. There are many starts to the Lebanese civil war.

The first alleged ‘start' took place on the 28th of December, 1968 when the Israelis destroyed thirteen MEA civilian airplanes parked on the runway at Beirut International Airport. Neither the Lebanese army nor the Lebanese government responded to this attack.

The second so-called ‘start' began with the Cairo Agreement of 1969, when the Lebanese army evacuated from the border villages in the south, leaving the territory open for Palestinian guerilla operations aimed at Israel. The armed guerillas openly took up their base in Arkoub, which became known as Fateh-land.

The third supposed ‘start' was ignited by the death of the great Arab leader Jamal Abdel Nasser in September, 1970. Upon hearing news of his death, the streets of Beirut were blockaded by armed youth, in specific, Palestinians and Lebanese Moslems, who in their mourning, attempted a Coup d'Etat that failed.

The fourth - and this particular ‘start' is considered the official start - took place on the 13th of April, 1975 when a bus full of Palestinians passing through Ein El Rummaneh was seen as provocation by the Christians of the area. The Christians responded by firing at the bus and most of the Palestinians were killed.

The fifth - and this is the start which is the most credible start - took place on May 6th, 1975, when, on National Martyrs' Day, a group of armed Lebanese Phalanges planted dynamite in the base of the Deeb Al Asmar monument and blew it up, its scattered remains thrown in the trash. The blowing up of the monument was the real event which sparked the Lebanese civil war, because this was the event that pitted Lebanese citizen against Lebanese citizen... the Lebanese right against the Lebanese left, Lebanese Christians against Lebanese Moslems. This was the civil war. This wasn't a war between foreigners on Lebanese territory as the Lebanese used to claim.

The battles raged in the downtown core. In no time at all, Beirut became two Beiruts, East and West. East Beirut became the haven of the Christian factions: the Phalanges, Al Ahrar, Al Namour, the National Coalition, and others. West Beirut became the haven of the Socialists, Leftists, the Nationalists, the Baathists, the Islamic movements, and the Palestinian factions.

The blowing up of the monument enraged the common people, with Deeb Al Asmar at the top of the list. He started making phone calls en masse to the West Beirut factions and organizations in order to reconstruct his monument, as a symbolic retort against East Beirut, and as a gesture proving that the civil war was not a sectarian war. The monument was rebuilt, downtown, but this time it was placed slightly to the west.

The Demarcation Line
In the years 1975 and 1976, Beirut witnessed one of the most ruthless of its many battles. During these years, the expression ‘Deeb Sector' took over. The monument had become one of the major points of altercation on the Green Line. Radio, television, newspapers, fighters, reporters, civilians, analysts, politicians and observers all used the expression ‘Deeb Sector' just like they did the Museum, Mar Mikhael, Gallerie Semaan, the Ring Sectors, and so on.

Deeb Al Asmar's enthusiasm pushed him to join the fighting on the side of West Beirut, and he chose Deeb Sector as his base. In 1976, he was wounded in the arm and was moved to one of West Beirut's hospitals. The operation on his arm was unsuccessful. After three months, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine facilitated Deeb Al Asmar's travel to Bulgaria in order to treat his arm.

The Bulgarians removed the bullet and Deeb Al Asmar's arm was saved.

Deeb Al Asmar remained in Bulgaria for another two years where, in the first year, he studied the language and in the second, psychology. In the latter year, he stumbled onto the fact that Bulgaria was one of the main suppliers of arms to East Beirut. This movement of arms to the Lebanese Right from Bulgaria continued until the Lebanese Communist Party lodged an official complaint to the Soviet authorities, who in turn obliged the Bulgarians to switch their supply line from Right to Left.

Deeb Al Asmar returned to Beirut when he realized that the bullet in his arm, removed in Bulgaria, was Bulgarian. This time in Beirut, he stayed away from the fighting and moved closer to politics. He spent his hours in analysis, reading and writing articles. In the same year, his father passed away and Deeb was forced to take over his father's trade. The business would suffer due to business lost in East Beirut because Deeb, although Christian, was considered by the East to be on the side of the West.

The battles in downtown Beirut began to subside and with time, the demarcation line became fixed. But from time to time, the area still witnessed some clashes, sniping, shootings and so on.

It was during this period that Deeb Sector became a crossing point between the two Beiruts. This time it was branded the Martyr Deeb Crossing. No one quite knows when the term ‘Martyr' Deeb returned to the local Lebanese lexicon.

The Invasions

1982. Israel invades Lebanon. Beirut is besieged. After a series of difficult negotiations, the Palestinians agree to leave Beirut and move to Tunisia with Yasser Arafat. Bashir Gemayel, the leader of the Lebanese Forces, becomes President and is soon after assassinated. The Israelis invade West Beirut and the Sabra and Shatila massacres take place.

But the resistance quickly drives Israel out of West Beirut.

With the departure of the Palestinians, the income from Yasser Arafat to Deeb Al Asmar was discontinued. From that point on, Beirut was increasingly torn to shreds by countless sectarian battles and confessional strife between East and West, West and West, East and East. The war had become aimless, absurd. Looting, extortion, killings, kidnappings, etc were an epidemic sweeping the city.

Deeb Al Asmar became extremely depressed. He decided to move to Paris, where he watched the war back home, moving from café to café in the company of other Lebanese intellectuals. He lived this way until he received news that a group from the Amal Movement had taken over his house. Upon hearing the news of this personal invasion, he immediately returned to Beirut.

By that time, the Syrians had re-entered Beirut and taken over again.

After contacting various influential people, Deeb Al Asmar finally got an appointment with the leader of the Amal Movement, Mr. Nabih Berri. On the day of the appointment, Mr. Nabih Berri was called to Damascus, and Deeb Al Asmar was met by Berri's first assistant instead.

The first assistant was totally overwhelmed when he realized that he was in the presence of none other than Lebanon's first martyr in the Arab cause and the Palestinian resistance. He rummaged through his desk and pulled out the first article he had ever written; it was in honor of the Martyr, Deeb Al Asmar.

The reception was warm, and the meeting animated. They chatted, reminiscing about better days. When the first assistant found out that people from his movement had occupied Deeb Al Asmar's home, he went insane. He called the Movement's head of security and gave him a thorough verbal thrashing. "How dare they have invaded and taken over the house of one of the country's most important icons!?"

He ordered the evacuation of the home of Deeb Al Asmar within the next 24 hours. The first assistant asked for Deeb Al Asmar's forgiveness after insisting that Deeb accompany him for a meal at his home.

The conversation around the table revolved around monuments. The first assistant confidentially told Deeb Al Asmar that they were thinking about building a statue of Mr. Nabih Berri as a surprise, which would be revealed during the annual celebration commemorating the day the Amal Movement was born. The first assistant wanted Deeb Al Asmar's advice on which artist they should contact. Deeb Al Asmar recounted for him a list of likely artists, highly recommending a particular communist sculptor. The assistant absolutely refused the idea of dealing with a communist; and the choice finally fell on the original sculptor of the Deeb Al Asmar monument.  

A day went by, a week, a month, a year... and the house remained occupied.

During one of the lulls in the war between the two Beiruts, Deeb Al Asmar decided to go downtown in the company of fighters from the Syrian Nationalist Party and take a look at his monument. He was shocked by the extent of the damage to the war-torn district. The area had become completely deserted, a ghost town with only stray dogs and a few stragglers. The presence of militiamen was close to nothing. But when he finally reached his monument, his shock increased: the monument had actually survived, despite the surrounding devastation.

Still, the monument was in terrible shape. What stood before Deeb Al Asmar was a dirty column overrun by the weeds, grime and thorn bushes which had invaded the entire area. A monument whose life had begun as a symbol of Lebanon was in ruins, and had fallen prey to the disintegrating collective national memory. A devastated memory resembling its devastated city; a city which had allowed itself to lose everything, including the most valuable of memories from its past.

What was the use of a monument today? Would the day ever come when it would recover the symbolism, the dignity of its cause? Or would tomorrow give it a different significance? Would its fate be a tourist site, a part of the war album... that is, if it wasn't wiped off the face of the earth by a rocket or missile? It had been reduced to nothing more than a silly pillar designating an inane crossing point. A neglected monument for passing militiamen and dogs to relieve themselves on, for birds to shit on, with its image, in the best case scenario, printed, once in a while, in one of the local dailies, distorted and blurry.


The Ceasefire
1989. A truce is reached between the warring factions in the city of Taif in Saudi Arabia, putting an end to the fighting which had lasted for over fifteen years.  
In 1990, the battles stop, and Al-Anawar newspaper has this to say: "The two Beiruts are reunited and the people begin to rediscover each other. People from the West go over to examine those in the East; and those from the East go over to examine those in the West."

As for Downtown, both sides went flocked to the center to look, like spectators in a theatre, watching a film. The extent of the devastation was such that Downtown became a sightseeing venue for all the Lebanese, and non-Lebanese for that matter. People were going downtown en masse... a regular tourist site... pure tourism... with film crews using the district as a backdrop for their features and documentaries.  

Among the visitors were the previous retail, shop and business owners who went down, in a futile effort, to see if they could recover anything left of their previous possessions. Deeb Al Asmar also went down to see what could be restored of his monument's previous glory. His attempts were also fruitless in the face of the years of grime, gunpowder and smoke.

For over two months, the area turned into a monument in itself. It became so overused and so over-visited, that it lost its eeriness, its scariness... and became just pure entertainment. Or how else can one explain the phenomenon of all these people buying cameras and film and going Downtown to take all those pictures?

For over two months, millions of pictures... billions of pictures... were taken of this area. It was as if everyone, all these people, knew what the fate of the area would be. Every person started taking a picture of the angle he or she liked best, the composition he or she liked best, the detail that caught his or her eye best...

In general, people photograph what they fear they will lose one day or what they fear may one day fade away, or outright disappear.

Pictures, pictures, pictures.

If we were to put all those pictures together, we could rebuild Downtown after it is razed to the ground to make way for the future. In a way, it was as if all these picture-taking people were participating, in their own way, in its eventual destruction. Every snap of every shutter was saying,
"This is an exceptional state, a temporary state; it won't last."

With every snap of every shutter, a piece of Beirut's center was erased. They kept snapping and snapping until downtown disappeared altogether.


Reconstruction
1990. Following the recommendation of  a Lebanese leftist intellectual, the Dar Al Handassah construction company presents an extravagant plan... a monumental plan. The plan is founded on an some apparent theory of urban development..., which in reality, looked more like an agenda following the tenets of cutthroat realty competition.

One real estate company would be given the sole right to supervise the project as a whole... with complete centralized control, under the pretext of the incapacity of the public sector to administer the area due to corruption and mismanagement.

To implement this project, an immense, amputative operation of dynamite and bulldozer proportions would be required. The priority would go from public spaces to a large-scale transportation network

The Lebanese leftist and intellect proposed that the first question this company had supposedly asked itself was: "Should it completely wipe out any trace of the civil war in the area?"

Obviously the answer was positive. Anything and everything that could be traced back to the war would be masked. That Beirut would need to be erased and a new Beirut built. A new page. Square one.

Anyway, whether or not the Leftist intellectual was right, in one night and a day, the company chosen to implement the great plan, Solidere, annihilated over 80% of the Downtown area, including the Martyr, or Released Prisoner, Deeb Al Asmar monument.

Overnight, property became stock - whether or not the former property owners wanted stock.

The 20% spared was composed of immense edifices, which would make good banks or commercial institutions or retail centers, with only vast, empty space surrounding these enormous buildings that fell on the main avenues.

Empty space that would need filling.

Deeb Al Asmar was furious. He fumed about the obliteration of his monument. In the usual course of action, he went from one person of influence to another, demanding his monument be re-instated. And, as usual, promises were made. Just words.

Words. Words. Words. And nothing else.

A year he spent running from one political organization to the other. It was obvious. He no longer had a place, or held any significance as far as the new scene was concerned. Beirut was being recreated from scratch, and no one had the time for him or his monument... they were too busy finding their own place in this new scene.

The main player in the country was still Syria. So, Deeb Al Asmar took that route as well. But to no avail.

Words. Words. Words.

Deeb Al Asmar felt abandoned by everyone... and he felt that he was just another one of those people who had paid such a high price during the war... for nothing. He was struck by despair and suffered under a heavy mantle of depression.
He felt impotent.

Deeb Al Asmar remained in this state for months, watching the situation develop in his country. He watched as the militia leaders entered into the post-war system of government, taking their seats in the highest echelons of politics. He watched as they redistributed the wealth of the nation amongst themselves. The first prize went to the Syrian regime and the rest went to the leaders of the confessional Lebanese sects.     

Deeb Al Asmar decided it was time to take matters into his own hands.

Revenge
He called a sculptor, a friend. He asked him to replicate his monument, in the most exact of minute details. He asked his friend to make not one, but ten of his monuments. Fifty. A hundred. He put all his inheritance into the mass production of his monument; a project which took almost a year to complete. He called a guy with little status but lots of clout. The guy provided Deeb Al Asmar with a bunch of Syrian and Egyptian laborers.

In one night, the workers spread out all over the city of Beirut... and the monuments were placed all over the city, in sensitive locations, specifically marked out by Deeb Al Asmar. One hundred monuments, all replicas of each other... anywhere one looked in Beirut, except, of course, in Martyr Deeb Square - or downtown, for that matter. That area couldn't be penetrated because Solidere had its own private security force that was impossible to infiltrate.

The city awakened one morning, astonished to discover Martyr Deeb monuments everywhere.

The Lebanese state, the political elite and the clergy did not dare utter a word of protest against the invasion of the monuments, because they feared that the decision may have come from Syrian quarters.

The monuments remained where they were placed for a period of almost six months. Without a scratch. The city lived this monumental nightmare. It was as if the monuments were declaring that the war was not over yet and the civil truce was crumbling right there before their eyes... Monuments standing over them like the ghosts of the dead... As if the war's dead had returned... As if they had returned to claim their place in the postwar city.

The city's daily life turned into chaos. Out of habit, the inhabitants began to use the monuments as landmarks... but all the monuments looked the same... Meetings, taxi drivers, infrastructure projects, directions, addresses... all got confused. It got to the point that people began using the monuments as an excuse for getting lost and not getting to their appointments on time, or not going at all, for that matter. The city was lost. The monument clones had wreaked havoc, chaos. Even the state, the security apparatus began losing control... the police would get lost on their way to quelling a demonstration because they had used the wrong monument as a reference point.

Deeb Al Asmar was immensely satisfied. He had avenged himself.

At the same time, people were starting to get used to the new circumstances. They were actually starting to enjoy it. But the authorities were greatly disturbed. They were trying to regain control over the situation. The municipality of Beirut contacted various authorities, the Syrians in particular.
Finally, they discovered that Deeb Al Asmar... on his own personal initiative... without any backing, political or religious support... had taken the decision single-handedly.

The municipality took the case to court. A quick verdict was announced calling for the destruction of all the monuments and to summon the guilty party, Deeb Al Asmar, to trial. And before crowds of reporters and heaps of lenses, the monuments were bulldozed.


The Fall
Like any other citizen, Deeb Al Asmar witnessed the event on television. The breaking news got front page coverage in all the dailies and regional newspapers. It was the first item on the news broadcast on every radio and TV station in Lebanon.

Images of the destruction were played over and over again, and for fairly long periods of time, to prove that the state had regained control and security had been restored. It was a confirmation of the state's supremacy and a lesson to every citizen about the consequences of individual attempts to destabilize the system.

The mass destruction was accompanied by heated speeches and animated addresses by local politicians and ex-militia leaders, warning the people that any jerk who tried to pull a stunt like that again would pay dearly. They would forbid the return of the civil war mentality, the psyche of dissension.

Deeb went nuts.
"ME?"
"A JERK?"
"I have a war mentality! A psyche of dissension!"

Deeb Al Asmar was charged and the ruling stated that Mr. Deeb Al Asmar would pay the state 75,000 US Dollars as a fine for his occupation of public space without a permit and for vandalizing the face of the city and he would also have to reimburse the municipality for the cost of the bulldozers and the cost of clearing the city of the monumental litter.
Deeb Al Asmar refused to pay the fine. The state seized all of Deeb Al Asmar's property and assets and he was carted off to jail for three weeks, charged with yet more crimes: obstructing justice; refusing to comply with the commands of the security forces; disturbing the peace. And finally, threatening the security of the state.

Three weeks later, Deeb Al Asmar was released. He wandered among the city streets, talking to himself nervously, often stopping pedestrians to tell them his story or to just yell at them. He was seen by many, standing in front of other monuments and statues, discussing his case with the structures in the most heated way.

He would stand there weeping to them, wondering, wailing:
"How is it that my monument survived the entire civil war without turning its back on anyone?! Standing erect, upright!... And in a split second, with one simple word, it was over?! You! You monumental friends! You statues... just stood there... silent! Not one of you defended me! I was destroyed before your eyes and you just stood there! You have no conscience... you don't care about anyone but yourselves... Have you no friends? You selfish, self-serving, insensitive ... Are your hearts made of stone? Have you no morals? Have you no principles? Monuments who care only about themselves! Shame on you!"
He vowed never to give up. He would continue his own war against the infidelity of the Lebanese people, the people who had cheated him and left him standing alone, without a single voice in his defence.

From that point forth, Deeb Al Asmar would paint his face, neck and hands a bronze-like color and wear the oddest articles of clothing. He would move throughout the city, choosing this corner or that, and then just stand there, posing, immobile. A statue. People who crossed his path would stare at him. Kids were frightened by him, or threw stones at him, or made fun of him. Adults felt sorry for him, but they did so from a distance, cautious. Some would leave him food, or toss money at him.

When Deeb Al Asmar would decide to change locations, he would walk like a machine, a robot. Slowly and at a constant, steady pace. A statue, not a human being, was stirring.

His family tried to protect him, to get him to go back home. They took him to a psychiatrist. And when he took the medication the psychiatrist prescribed, he would get better... for a day or two. But, without failure, he would stop taking the pills, paint himself bronze and revert back to his statue-state.

He became known in the city as the ‘Mobile Monument'.

Stories were constructed around him. Weird stories. Not a single word true. People were making up stories and believing them. They actually forgot his name. Young and old knew him only as the ‘Mobile Monument'.
They even suspected him of being a Mossad agent, or of working for some intelligence apparatus.

Deeb Al Asmar remained in this critical state for a period of three months. All the attempts by his family to help him failed. He was deteriorating rapidly, so rapidly that he eventually fell apart.

They committed him to a mental institute for treatment.

At the institute, Deeb Al Asmar recounted his story to anyone who would listen, lecturing for hours about the state of the Lebanese nation, the Arab nation's cause and the Palestinian dilemma.

The doctors despaired. Then one day, pacing in the common room, surrounded by gibbering, rocking men in gray, and lecturing to a young man drooling onto a deck of cards, Deeb Al Asmar struck a ray of sunshine. Or rather, the ray of sunshine struck him. He saw all the misunderstood, unhappy men before him and realized at that moment the true worthiness of his cause. His cause would not be fulfilled in this disappointing life, but in glorious death. That was the true meaning of the word martyr. And furthermore, this was God's will, for all to be martyred in God's name and in the name of Islam. Martyrdom in God's name was the right of every Moslem. Life had no value. What counted was the Afterlife. And martyrdom was the key to opening the gates of Heaven.

When Deeb Al Asmar was released from the institute, he immediately joined Hizbollah. He would get a thorough military training again. He became a fighter in the Islamic Resistance.

After finishing Hizbollah boot camp, he was assigned to his first operation against the Zionist entity along with another group of fighters. The operation would be an assault on an Israeli outpost in occupied Hasbaya, in Southern Lebanon. He was responsible for one simple task in this operation: he would be the one to carry the Hizbollah flag and plant it, once the site was liberated. There was always one person in the group who had a camera, who would film and document the event for its broadcast later on television. The broadcast would prove the operation took place and succeeded.

The skirmish lasted a few moments. The occupation of the site took exactly one minute. The planting of the flag and the filming also took exactly one minute. Then the withdrawal. The operation was deemed a success.

Deeb Al Asmar was struck with bodily aches everywhere, after all that walking and running. He reasoned that, next time, he would commit a suicide attack and become a hero again, like in the old days. Anyway, that was the only way he could guarantee his entrance to Heaven. But Heaven for him was having a monument made in his name. And martyrdom for him was the only means by which he could retrieve the monument that he had lost... to retrieve his heaven.

Hizbollah agreed to the suicide mission. They videotaped him giving his last will and testament, like they always do. Deeb Al Asmar would bid no one farewell for to succumb to such sentiment meant he was not yet ready to die.

They gave him a car loaded with TNT. Deeb Al Asmar headed down to the occupied lands of Southern Lebanon with a forged permit that would get him through the checkpoints. The objective would be to reach a cluster of Israeli soldiers and military vehicles and blow himself up among them.


On the way, he saw a huge statue of a young man on horseback. He stopped the car and moved closer to read the plaque. The statue was a memorial erected in honor of the Martyr Basil Al Asad, the son of the Syrian President, Hafez Al Asad.

The statue was signed by Mohammad Kousa, the same sculptor who had made his monument.

Deeb Al Asmar became crazy, furious with jealousy. He chest heaved with anxiety and he spluttered to no one in particular:
"How can the son of the president have a monument in his name and I don't!? How dare they write ‘Martyr' when everyone knows he died in a car accident!? Everyone knows that! Me.. Me... who spent his whole life fighting and struggling for the cause... And he gets the monument?!"

He started thinking again. Since he was already on video and had left it as the last trace of himself, it no longer mattered where it was that he would die. He had attained martyrdom the minute the video of his last will and testament was complete. On the spot, he decided to change his operation's objective. He got back in his car and blew himself up, right there at the base of the monument. The monument was completely destroyed and Deeb Al Asmar was finally, truly dead.

The operation received not a word in coverage... not in a single newspaper, or radio or television broadcast. Hizbollah denied that Deeb Al Asmar was ever a member of their organization. He didn't even get his picture on a lamppost, like so many others.



Deeb Al Asmar's remains are lost. His family buries him without a corpse. Not a single trace of Deeb Al Asmar is left, except for the videotape, which came into my possession by complete coincidence.

I play it. I watch it. The image isn't clear, it's almost black. The sound is damaged.

Anmerkung der Redaktion: Auszüge dieses Textes wurden von Rabih Mroué während seiner Präsentation mit dem Titel „Limp Bodies" im Rahmen des Denkmal-Projektes der Factory Season 2003 im Tanzquartier Wien vorgetragen.