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Article: My Beirut Is Dead; Poor Lebanon Is a Nation That Never Learns and Never Forgets
- Article from:
- The Washington Post
- Article date:
- September 11, 1988
- Author:
CopyrightThis material is published under license from the Washington Post. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Washington Post. (Hide copyright information)
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THERE IS A WAY that Lebanese see the world: It is a way borne out
of ruin and their drawn-out ordeal, and of their age-old dependence
on outsiders. It involves the belief that deliverance is just around
the corner. In the latest such fantasy, the Lebanese have concluded
that events surrounding the election of a new president this month
will provide the opportunity for deliverance.
The new optimism holds that the storm the Iranian revolution
brought to Beirut, and to the Shia southern slums of Beirut, has
subsided. The pied piper of the oppressed of the Moslem world,
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, has finally conceded that he can't
remake the Moslem world in Iran's image. The Syrians, who ...