The job of the Arab journalist is often disturbing and unfortunate. Many times his line of work forces him to embarrass those he encounters. He asks questions, and then asks them again and again. And it so happens that the Arab journalist fails to aptly reckon that the walls in the capitals that live under tyranny have ears and that the people you sometimes meet are certain that something planted in the car, or in the coffee shop, will pass on everything being said. In fact, terror may sometimes even push some to believe that a device of some sort has been planted in their hair. I was once in Baghdad, when the Iraq-Iran war was still raging. I met a young man who managed to intrigue me with the vastness of his culture and with his evident affability. But when I attempted to ask him about politics, he would quickly evade the subject. He would change it to talk about literature and he would digress. He was an avid reader of novels, and liked to talk about Flaubert, Proust, Falkner and Mishima. I admit here that I would greatly enjoy his attempts to find new ways to be evasive by reading this stream of chef d'oeuvres. But, unfortunately, and by virtue of my profession, I had come to Baghdad to try to ask about Saddam Hussein, and his inner circle. After the ice was broken, I invited him to dinner on the banks of the Tigris. I love Baghdad and its River, and the stories about the cruel men who succeeded in ruling the country, with their outrageous crimes and their resounding downfalls. The conversation started with some small talk and then the food was served. The young man started eating, with his eyes transfixed on the platters. I tried to break the heavy silence but failed. Then I noticed that he had tears peering from behind his glasses. The job of the Arab journalist is painful, especially if he was unacquainted with the bitterness of living under tyranny. Suddenly, he spoke. He said, “I beg your pardon, but they have turned me into a dog”. I was perplexed by what I took to be an exaggeration and I wagered that the situation would soon be saved. But he added, “I know that you don't believe me. But they have turned me into a dog. I smell food and I start gobbling it until I am stuffed. That, is better than talking, and better than thinking. I have agreed to this metamorphosis so I can stay alive”. He then raised his head and pointed to a low spot on his forehead and another in his chin. He said that they once took him to the intelligence office. They asked him to confess to his ties with the communists and to betray his comrades and provide information about them. When he told the truth, that he had nothing to do with this, they opened the gates of hell and the aftermath was still present in his body. He said he signed documents that established his guilt and provided them with everything he knew about his friends. He added, “I came out of that place with an overwhelming feeling of shame. They broke my dignity and my humanity. I felt that I was despicable and began living like a dog whose sole concern was to avoid being tortured again”. He said, “Do you know that they can summon me tomorrow, and ask me about the questions you had to ask me? That I would disclose what I heard from you, and sign whatever they will write, additions and fabrications included? If they summon me tomorrow, I will betray my relationship with you. I am a dog, but they have even denied me the capacity to being loyal, which is otherwise inherent to dogs”. He told me, “I know that you come from a troublesome country in which others are left to roam free. [I know] that the nation has poured on the Lebanese sphere all its hatred and dirt. But I believe that you have a great opportunity despite the pain, the opportunity of not living under a historical leader”. He added, “The historical leader turns citizens into a hybrid of dog and slave. He makes you feel as though the land belongs to him and as though you were his guest who can stay as long as you have agreed to sell your freedom and humanity. In the office, you sit under his portrait. And in the street, you pass near his statues. He makes you feel as though he owns your home and your children, and that you only live because he has not decided to take your life yet. His shadow is ever present in the living room and the dining room, and he is almost also there in the bedroom”. He then went on to say, “The historical leader consumes both flesh and stone. He confiscates the national anthem, poisons books and rivers, and visits children's imaginations. I will not have a child in this country so that they do not transform him into a dog. I will seize the first chance to flee abroad. To a country that does not commit the sin of spawning a monster called the historical leader”. Since that dinner on the bank of the Tigris, I have found myself struck with terror whenever the media goes too far in peddling a ‘hero', and whenever people go too far in applauding a ‘leader'. It is fortunate thus that Lebanon has not sinned and spawned a ‘historical leader'. I don't know why I am writing this article. Who knows, perhaps the reader does. As for my partner at the dinner, who I know not under which sky he lives today after fleeing Saddam's Iraq, I owe him two apologies: One for repeating the conversation we had at dinner, and another because of the title of the article.
