Eight Years of Struggle for Lebanon
By Sami and Julie Makarem
October 26, 1982

To us, twenty years before, the present was not urgent nor the future dangerous. Clearly, the world in which we lived then was not the real world. The first Middle East War in 1967 awoke some of us from our dream, but it did not quite awaken me, my hopes were too stubborn, and it is possible to live in the present world nursing hopes that belong to the past.
As you all know, there have been a series of wars since the 1967 war. That war forced me to evacuate to the United States. Ironically, I had the least reason to evacuate in the 1967 war than in the stream of wars which followed; yet, my family and I always stayed in Lebanon living through those wars. But I must not give you the impression that we met with any disasters at that time. On the contrary, during the long 1975·76 war, it was the war itself which brought our family a source of happiness. We were plunged into isolation for nearly a year and during that time we learned to know each other and to love each other more than at any time in our family life. But we, like all the other Lebanese, were still to learn what unhappiness really was. All this was still in the future. After the 1975·76 war, there was a period of 'no war-no peace.' We lived each day as it came; however, we were not totally oblivious to the instability that surrounded us.
On Friday, June 4, 1982, we all started our day as usual. At 2:30 that afternoon, 45 minutes before the planes started bombing Beirut, I sent three of my four children to the mountains for the weekend. I did not know then that I was not to see them again until the end of June. Sahar (our oldest daughter) and I stayed in Beirut because Sahar has classes on Saturdays. Sami and I had exams to give and Sahar to take the following week, so we all planned to be together again on Monday as usual.
However, all schools closed that Monday, so the children stayed in the mountains. The University still had not announced closing, so Sahar and I stayed in Beirut for our exams. Sami had an exam to give the following Friday, and we were all going to go to the mountains that weekend. But things began happening very fast, and Aytat (our village) was occupied by that weekend. All roads began to close, and Sami could not get out of Aytat. Sahar and I could not get out of Beirut because of the bombing by planes. It was a month of total depression, desolation, and oppression. There were still people in the building, and we all spent most of our time in the bomb shelter. We had no car with us and finding a taxi to go through Beirut was almost impossible. Yet, the city was becoming more and more deserted everyday. Circulars were being dropped from planes telling the residents to leave the city to save their lives.
The fourth circular was dropped late in June. There was no communication with the mountains and Sahar and I had no way out. I have a cousin who lives in East Beirut, and since there were still lines between the two parts of the city, I called her the following morning at 6:00. She was at my house at 6:30 and told me I had only one hour to pack and leave. We left West Beirut at 7:30. There were thousands of cars crossing into the Eastern part of Beirut. From there, she took Sahar and me to Aytat, and we did not see West Beirut again until August 2l, 1982.
It was wonderful to be in Aytat with our family all together again. However, my depression became even greater because we watched Beirut being devastated from the roof of our house. There are no words to explain the suffering we endured for those still trapped in Beirut. I doubt that any city has ever been so oppressed for so long. Beirut was without food, water and electricity for over two months. Also, the noise from the bombing was insufferable. So was the noise from the shelling going down to Beirut from villages above us. It was agony when night fell because we knew we would have to listen to the bombs falling on Beirut; and shells hitting it from the sea.
Though we were safe in the mountains, we also had some suffering. Our house had been bombed before Sahar and I arrived in Aytat. It was hit by a cloister bomb. Let me tell you a little about a cloister bomb. The cloister bomb breaks into two parts. Each part breaks into sixty shells and each one of these sixty shells break up into another sixty shells. Every part of our house was affected by this bomb. We have spent the entire summer repairing the house, and we still have a lot to do.
Our house in Beirut had been hit on April 27, 1981, also by a cloister bomb. and we are still not finished repairing our Beirut house either. But we consider ourselves among the fortunate because we all stayed alive. We "have lost friends and relatives, but we have not lost our hope for the future of Lebanon. All of the Lebanese are waiting for peace. We have had eight years of real unhappiness. During those eight years, we saw and heard about suffering in every corner of the country. So many Lebanese lost hope of ever seeing Lebanon as a peaceful country again, so they left. These people cannot be blamed because they saw no promise for a future here. This is a historical process. Yet it diffuses itself even without that support, for it has established itself in practice and has the prestige of established things. We can be appalled, but we cannot accept it in any other sense.
This awareness of the direction in which the world is moving which came to me so belatedly, cast doubt on my memory of the world twenty years ago. Yet, I had a dream then, and those years still seem to be among the happiest of my life. God willing, I can still retain my dream for a peaceful Lebanon and eventually a peaceful world.
I know the prayers of all our friends in America and around the world are with us. We thank you, the children Sahar, Rand, Nassib, Samir, and Sami and me. We ask for your prayers to go on and for our new president as well. His task is a big one, and only with God's help, can he have the power to restore this war torn country. We ask that you pray for there to be tolerance among the people. We ask that you pray for the hate and grudge that still might exist in people's hearts be absolved. There are thousands of people homeless and thousands who have lost loved ones and even more thousands that are crippled after eight years of horror. We ask that as you pray for us, you, too, pray for all the Lebanese to find forgiveness in their hearts and start a new life again.
Sami and Julie Makarem