In peace we trust?

Hey Hey... It seems that those iron birds became silent again... Let's hope that what we call "peace" will last for a long time. Those operations were a real disaster for Lebanon, with no more bridges, no more roads, no more facilities to get drinkable water. The Arabian community in the Gulf, everywhere, displays this Lebanese Flag in order to ask for some help to people who lost everything, and those who are in great difficulty. Here, in Saudi, there are many poor people... And particularly in the district where I live, which is far from being the safest and the richest one, Charity starts to show its real shape. Even people who have a very few things show solidarity and give a hand. Shoes, rice, tissues, towels, shampoo, toothpaste, water, cloth, people give anything they think it could be useful. And that is great... In the last decades, I think, Charity has become a kind of fancy thing : those big directors of companies have been showing off on TV, with enoooormous cheques, hundreds of thousands dollars... "Look at me, people !!! I am rich but not selfish !!" Fair enough. At least, it's a clever way to help people but maybe Charity should remain something one should not show off with. To be helpful is not something one should be proud of. Those Saudis, Banglas, Pakistanis, Indians, Jordanians, Bahreinis, Qataris have never asked to be on TV... However they do something, and ask for nothing material in return. Consequently, I'm starting to think that the world is divided between people who have moral values, and people who try to show that there is a moral in this "nothing-but-money" world. Even though I admit to be obsessed by money sometimes, or maybe always... I cannot have an objective point of view about myself, actually. In French, we have such a saying : "it's like that, but you know, I try to cure myself".

Let's now change the topic.. I'm still leading this quiet and busy life in Saudi, everything is going well for the moment. I've been here for almost 10 weeks now, even though I have the impression that it's been more than 3 months. The end of September, which corresponds to my vacation period, is coming quite rapidly I would say. On weekends, I go to Bahrain to have a little drive around. The local French school proposed me to have an accomodation there, sometimes when I want to spend the whole weekend. Bahrain has a bad reputation among Saudis : maybe that's why there are soooooooooo many cars from Saudi at the border line on Thursdays :P :PI could visit some interesting things there... The architecture is very interesting, next time i'll take some pictures if I manage to cross the border even earlier in the day... without spending those 30 minutes at the immigration office, as I do everytime. My embassy did not register my residence permit in the computer, so it gets harder when it comes to leave and get inside the country. From tomorrow I'll see that. I did a very interesting visit, even though I'm not that much interested in sportscar, I went - by curiosity - to this new Formula One Circuit, that was built 3 years ago. It's giant. They say that it took 16 months to make it up, people worked 7.7 and 24.24 on this project. One of the "crazy" ideas of the Bahreini king, who somehow had one of his dreams come true. If you want to take a glance at the pictures, you can find them on this webpage : http://cfsd.ifrance.com/wab/bhr . Now, as I lack some time at the moment to do whatever I want, I'll get prepared to go outside, I have a private course to give. And then, my internship report, "AUN" (Academic Useless Necessity) to write...
Wish you a good day!

Once again... the Cedar is falling.

Middle east is burning... I'm not talking about the temperature outside, that daily reaches 45°C and more. Just about sad events that give us all the creeps. The Gulf is shaking... It seems that a civil war in Irak, failures to make the non-proliferation law (about Uranium modification) survive in Iran and the neverending Gaza conflict were not sufficient elements to provoke a slight reaction in the International Community. Yes... We hear that "This country and that one merely condemned the events and asked for their immediate interruption"... And then??! This speech is tasteless now, and has no more effect... We wouldn't even swallow those false condemnations as "placebo medicine", just to have the illusion that everything is going well. No one can believe this now, any more. Middle east has become like a sad widow... Desperately looking for a partner, a neighbour with whom she would get along well, and maybe expect some bright days. Sometimes she hears some voices... "Heeey, look at me... I want to help you!" But when this partner comes and tries to know her better, he rapidly realizes that her body is covered with scarves, among which some are still not sown. Then, Miss Middle-east has no other choice but to accept to be left alone again, against her destiny. And lacking any wilful surgeon, her pains gets worse and her wounds, infected. On the 14th of July, a tree fell on the ground. It was a Cedar... A big green tree that needs many many...many years to grow and which had already fallen before. Who wanted to put it down? Just some falcons flying around. This kind of devil bird which wings are made of steel, and that could kill any child within a distance of 40km. Those birds are blue and covered with stars... They were bred in the nearby country, a country where they teach you how to forget mercy... For the reason that in the past, people had no mercy towards them.

Filled with the desire of eradicating terrorism - which is a necessary quest, Israëli govt eradicates civilians. Israëli govt bombs the airport. Israëli govt destroys bridges, Israëli govt destroys roads, Israëli govt destroys factories that clean water, and no wonder if Israëli govt soon destroys some powerplants. Because Israëli govt is on the side of war against terrorism..... is it? YES IT IS !! and don't ever say the contrary, if you don't want to be labelled as anti-semitic. Do you know what a syllogism is? Let's consider the famous syllogism of Socrates. "The human is mortal. Besides, Socrates is human. Then, Socrates is mortal." Now let's implement this syllogism to Middle East : Hezbollah is a terrorist group. Besides, Hezbollah's location is in Lebanon. Then, Lebanon is a terrorist country. You got it ? Don't try to find any complexity in Israel's foreign policy : it's very simple!! The best way to eradicate a terrorist group is to bomb the whole country : then you can be sure that you'll have reached your target! One thing that is left to be understood by Israël, I think... It's that terrorism is not a correct reply to terrorism. It seems that they still have this grudge against History and Humanity. Maybe one day we will realize that people who have undoubtedly suffered along History (facts and statistics are not to be questioned at all) can certainly be victims, that's right... But let's not have any bad conscience in thinking that they can also behave bloodily. That's exactly what's happening. What I'm dealing with is not politics, but just some mere questions. I don't give a damn about religion in this case, it's meaningless. I'm just worried about the fact that the situation is already excessively unfair, but there is still not any strong action against a government that considers itself as almighty in its legitimate quest against terrorism.... Please answer me : between a terrorist and a terrorist? which one do you choose? Easy, uhhh....

Now, I'd just like to show some sympathy, without any self-interest, to people who were forced to leave their school, their job, their house behind them.... at least, what is left of these buildings. There is a justice for everything, in the History Lebanon managed to stand up again after many hardships, I wish this could happen again.

With all my heart and respect.