Waltz with War

I was 10 years old when the Sabra and Shatila massacres took place. Beirut was a name synonymous with war. Films showed crumbling battle struck buildings. Dusty army tanks seemed to reign supreme. It was a place of death and destruction. I had no idea why.

In the news, stories about the IRA merged with those of Lebanon. In my head, there was little difference. They shared the fate of being poorly explained images on a TV screen. I felt robbed of a decent explanation.

It was as though I’d walked into a conversation decades in. I felt unable catch up. I was wise enough to understand that I didn’t understand. I was decisive enough to conclude that I hated politics. Politicians appeared to be manipulative bullies, and the world was their playground.

Bored by confusion, and frustrated by my own ignorance, I shut myself off from the details. What was the point in learning facts that no one could adequately account for? Without reason they were meaningless. As the acronyms and names drifted by, only the words ‘war’ and ‘death’ truly penetrated my mind.

I felt certain that the carnage could not be justified and that humankind was needlessly violent. Whatever the true history and rationalisation, there was ultimately no meaning.

Ariel Sharon was part of something that the news told me was awful. But, he was just a name. My limited knowledge was not enough to understand his place in the world or his motives. I understood that the newsreader portrayed him as a man of war. The world seemed full of men like him. I heard the daily reports, but never a summary of why they did what they did, or how they got away with it. It seemed ridiculous that such people could come to rule the world.

The Lebanese Civil War began when I was three and ended fifteen years later. By the time I was ten, the conflict was seven years in.

Summaries of the long Lebanese war raise many questions and answer few. It seems that everyone wanted a piece of the conflict. There were factions within factions, allegiances and betrayals. Even to the people involved, it seems that the situation was absurdly confusing and wildly out of control.

Much more than that, it was global. Funding and support came from all over the world. It appears that Romanians, Bulgarians, West Germans, Belgians, Israelis, Libyans and Iraqis all played a part and that the arms came from somewhere.

In 1987, Terry Waite, a British man, became a household name in England. He was our face for a civil war that was tearing apart so many lives, so many miles away. He was one of the many hostages, kidnapped and held in captivity.

On Sunday, I was reminded of the short distance that my mind has travelled. Some 26 years on, the gaping holes in my political knowledge are equally persistent and frustrating. I remain mostly ignorant about the conflicts that kill our kind. I want to learn more, but to learn more, I need the human perspective. I need to be engaged, and the facts alone can’t hold me.

For a series of news stories that frustrated me all those years ago, I now have that.

As soon as the final credits rolled, I wanted to watch Waltz with Bashir again. Real life interviews combined with striking animation presented me with that missing piece. The interviewees in the film aren’t political figures, but people that Ari Folman, the director, spent time with during the 1982 invasion of Southern Lebanon by the Israel Defense Forces. They are very human. They are very engaging.

BBC Interview with Ari Folman

The film ends sadly with the Sabra and Shatila massacres. For the assassination of Bashir Gemayel - the senior commander of the “Phalangists” Christian militia, and the President of Lebanon - the Christian militia took the lives of the Palestinian men and women that remained in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Beirut. They did not spare the elderly. They did not spare the children.

The Palestinian combat fighters had already left, evacuated two weeks earlier.

Ari Folman questions his role in the deaths of the innocent.

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I bought a ticket to see them next week. I bought lots of tickets. It's pay day.