1/ Happy #LiberationDay! 20 years ago today the Israeli Occupation Forces' military occupation of #Lebanon was defeated. Make no mistake, this was NATIONAL LIBERATION (in addition to the liberation of the south). Many characterize this as "the liberation of the south" and date

2/ the end of the civil war to 1990 with no critical thinking or compassion to the thousands that lived & fought under military occupation & terror until 2000. This forgetting exists in direct proportion to S. Lebanon's underdevelopment & sectarian classist bullshit that makes

3/ the South somehow less able to mediate the "nation" as Beirut/Mt Lebanon. So here is some revised history from a non-historian: When the Taif Accord was signed & later implemented 1/4 of the country was militarily occupied & there was a proxy-allied traitor militia working

4/with Israel against & terrorizing Lebanese & Palestinians until 2000. The resistance to occupation over time cut across ideological, religious, & national lines. In this history there is literally something for everyone.

I remember the day Lebanon was liberated very clearly

5/ My neighborhood (mar elias/yazbek/hayy el lija) turned into a block party & the ecstasy of possibility was unavoidable. my dad shoved us in a car and drove us everywhere, & that summer I went over and over again with high school/college friends. We understood that while the

6/ war had ended for "us" in Beirut it had not ended for the country and thus for a larger "us". we were living the postwar as others were still mired in it. We were all proud, we FELT the moment. Khiyam was a national symbol of resistance, steadfastness, mourning & inspiration

7/ Memory & commemoration are political acts, especially as ppl try to create new political /national imaginaries. Rethinking Liberation Day's national, regional & international significance, is part of this.

Liberation for all occupied people, across the world!

8 [fyi my first paper as a grad student was abt vthe destruction of khiyam as the attempted destruction of an archive of Israeli war crimes in Lebanon--just remembered that]