ALFRED TARAZI/TOYS In 1975, Imam Moussa Sader thus spoke: “weapons are the ornaments of men”. All across Beirut’s misery belt, the deprived grouped and listened: “if our plight goes unheeded we will attack the palaces and mansions of the rich and powerful… this is the outcry of the oppressed, the rise of a crushed but awakened community”. The misery belt turned into a ring of fire. Revolutionary violence was needed, a new world to be created. Merchants had already been visiting the country for a while. Residing in Beirut’s luxurious hotels, they would pay their respect to the various political factions and sell those metal toys that make little boys dream…supply meeting demand, the Christian regime faced with revolutionary violence had to fight to survive. By the outbreak of the Civil War, all the Lebanese communities were beautifully adorned and heavily armed. The Palestinians had set base here, and they had already opened a front in the south on the Lebanese Israeli border in order to free Palestine. Soon enough, an entire country with a history to write engaged in the exercise of war. When you look at the portraits of the martyrs each militia published you realize how young they all were. Is civil war even possible without the exhilaration with which oversexed young men risk their lives? Is civil war even possible without the excitement of young women at the sight of armed men in uniforms? Is civil war even possible without the eagerness generated by the sight of guns and tanks in little boys? But soon enough, the exhilaration of the men turns them into killers, cripples and corpses. The excitement of young women leaves way for widows, tears and mourning. Only little boys keep their eagerness alive. And after the land is plundered, after the fighters have discharged the iron seeds of death and spread misery and grief, little boys look at this spectacle of ruins with awe. As the smoke of battles dissipates, little boys would run unto the stage of history and collect the leftovers, those priceless spoils of war: bullets, shrapnel, mortars. And every once in a while tragedy would hit, and little boys would also join history. In the summer of 1982 the Israeli Defense Forces invaded Lebanon to eradicate the Palestinian guerillas and install a friendly government in place. They managed to have Arafat and his men on boats deported to Tunis. They managed to have Bachir Gemayel, their Christian ally elected as President. Came the moment to sign a peace treaty, 35 years old Gemayel had a sudden outburst: there could be no peace agreement if all Lebanese didn’t agree on it, and the men of the blue eyed Imam would certainly not agree. Talking to his father about that ill-fated meeting with the Israeli Prime Minister, Gemayel complained: “he treated me like a boy”. He would not live long enough to ponder on that thought, as he would be killed a few days later. Israel’s occupation and ever growing frustration with Lebanon would however last for much longer. From the vast array of explosive devices with which they littered Lebanese towns and villages, you could also sometimes find toys, the head of a doll, a football, discarded surviving witnesses amidst the rubble. And little boys caught in the thirst for collecting spoils of war would sometimes stumble unto those reminders that there are other toys, not made of metal, and other games to be played. But there are times at which any game can cost you your life and end with an explosion.