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The Tragedies We Miss Underneath The Big Story

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  • The Tragedies We Miss Underneath The Big Story

    THE TRAGEDIES WE MISS UNDERNEATH THE BIG STORY

    Belfast Telegraph Online
    October 30, 2012 Tuesday 8:00 AM GMT
    Ireland

    They found part of a hand in Rue Ibrahim el-Mounzer, along with some
    intestines - no one doubted ownership of the thumb that was discovered,
    still pressing the button of a mobile phone.

    But the little people of Lebanon remained forgotten, the bereaved
    and the wounded, all 38 of them, largely not photographed

    Gun battles enshrined the streets of central Beirut after the nation
    buried Brigadier-General Wissam al-Hassan. But the bravest man in
    Lebanon stood in a church in the tired suburb of Bourj Hammoud: a young
    Armenian whose equally young wife was slaughtered in the same attack.

    I suppose we scribes always go for the Big Story - the Lebanese
    intelligence boss blown to bits in the Syria-style bomb assassination.

    The cliches are essential, as is the assumption that Syria's war is
    'slipping across the border'. But the tragedy of Georgette Sarkissian
    should be told.

    Joseph Sarkissian's family came from Palestine and his grandparents
    were thrown out of Armenia during the 1915 Turkish genocide. He stood
    next to his 21-year-old daughter Therese, who was with her mother,
    Georgette, when she was killed.

    In Lebanon, the big men get the imperial funerals, the little women
    are left to be buried. But the biggest man in Lebanon was Joseph
    Sarkissian, an insurance official, short dark hair, spectacles,
    no tears in his eyes.

    "I can't tell you ... She is half my life. My daughter picked her up
    from the ground - she carried her in her arms because there were no
    ambulances and drove her to the hospital in her own car.

    "From the first, my wife was in a coma, thanks to God, because her
    head was opened from behind by the explosion.

    Part of her brain was missing. She is a treasure to me. You can't
    imagine ... There were so many flowers for her and for me - because
    everyone loves her."

    Then there was the local bank manager in Rue Mohamed el-Mounzer who
    said Lebanon had endured "40 years of crucifixion" and that during
    the country's 1975-1990 civil war, "not a pane of glass had been
    broken in the street".

    At the end of the road, I came across Lebanese ceramist Nathalie
    Khayat, bandages still covering the wounds to her back, who had been
    talking to her sons Noa and Teo when the bomb shredded Georgette's
    life and almost killed her. "The first thing I thought of was the
    civil war," she said. "I was looking at my son's homework. He is nine
    today. And I was nine when the civil war started in 1975."

    The radios were talking of a gun and grenade battle between supporters
    of the 14 March alliance, the official opposition to the pro-Syrian
    government, and the Lebanese army which had come under fire during
    the night.

    Abed, my driver, and I drove as we have so often these past decades
    to park near the museum, and I ran down the side street and stood
    next to the soldiers.

    And here comes your reporter, clumping into his own story again. On
    this very spot, beside this very road, next to this very wall, I took
    cover from bullets 36 years ago.

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