All my life, there was always something peculiar about November 7. It's the one day that every year has me awake since 6 am, full of inexplicable inner drive to get out, see plenty of people, joined in some clamorous unified cacophony of a single aim.
***
My father stretches his arms towards me, holds me up and puts me on his shoulders, all of a sudden I'm surrounded with a sea of heads and lifted arms that hold signs, posters and banners with messages in white letters on a red fabric or red letters on a white fabric. There are names of all kinds of manufacturing companies, industry names, agricultural kolxoz - collective unions representing villages. To be frank, seeing heads and hands is a better view than the previous see of marching feet around me. I'm only five and this way at least I can see where the endless crowd is heading to.
We're marching through the streets of Yerevan, the capital of Soviet Armenia but a megaphoned voice reminds us that we're not alone, that at that very moment all the Soviet republics' capitals are exactly in the same atmosphere - red balloons, red flowers, red banners, red scarves and pins... We're all celebrating the date of Great Red Revolution that put the Bolsheviks on a big chunk of the world's map in 1918. Even though, every single day of my existence as a casualty of Soviet citizenship I was reminded that apart from being my grandpas' granddaughter, I was also Grandpa Lenin's granddaughter, ever November 7th up until I was 13 was a clear message of full proprietorship - I belonged to the party, to Lenin, to Marx, to Engels. I couldn't live without them, the message was.
And we'd march to thank these great leaders in their great proprietorship of our minds and hearts but not the souls, for souls were viewed as a tribute of a theistic society and we were by design atheists, hence soulless. I'd look around from above my father's shoulders and see hearts and minds united, I'd see students, war veterans passing in front of the large podium around the Lenin's statue in the main square of the capital. They'd cheer to the Communist Party leadership waving heftily from above the podium - big guys, with big coats with fur collar, with big hats, seemingly smiling from somewhere under their noses.
Then factories and research institutes would pass and shout at the leaders that we, too, were thankful to the Party. Our turn would arrive. Me, my father and all these other people who worked at the Institute along with my parents, would wave our hands and smile, smile, smile to the podium, in a moment of exhileration, I'd look at Lenin's statue with his one arm in the air, eternally waving...or was it blessing...or some kind of an enticing gesture that guaranteed to forever stick in your mind, superglued to your brain's grey cells... He was waving at me I'd think so surely... I was trained to believe so absolutely... When we'd refrain from eating our red soups at the kindergarden, the teacher would assure that Lenin could see me from his portrait hanging in the corner. He could see me not eating and wouldn't feel happy. When I'd refrain from falling asleep, diturbed by the red tiles covering the entire floor surface of the kindergarden - the teacher would say Lenin can see me not sleeping and he's not happy...
So, I'd always do things in a way that would please Lenin. He was always next to me, it seemed, especially when we'd march in front of him, march with so much enthusiasm that our collective willingness that day could give birth to an utopian communist dimension where we'd live happily ever after...
***
After the Wall fell apart, we seized having November 7s, but I'd wake up at 6 am anyway, no matter where I was. Every year that day, I'd reflect about the great question - where are we heading? Why? It was a helpless task to stop thinking that way. I'd try to block these questions by doing the opposite to the communist parade - I'd go to a church or simply stay in, eat pizza and watch Western sitcoms (boy, would this have Lenin tuning in his grave!). I'd try to sink into the capitalism, embrace it and forget I once had a passport famously blessed by Mayakovsky's lines -
"Look (...at my passport...) and be jealous -
for I'm a citizen of USSR"...
But even then, I'd ask so where are we heading? Where's capitalism going? Is it taking me along? Do I want to go along? And here's the point where I'd at least voluntarily be thankful to the capitalism for allowing to choose between wanting and not wanting.
***
The choice. This is what defines a direction. A choice that's free of prejudice, peer pressure, constant campaigns of externally building a man's temper to constitute a part of a society he's in, making him no different from anyone, making him the perfect particle of what Zamyatin called the "WE". I'm in no "WE", I'm in a "ME" that's simply aware of the different "WE"s around...
***
Lebanon, Beirut - a complex community of 18 kinds of "WE"s, defined by religion or political tendencies. Inside every "WE", the Lebanese remind me of the "ME" in Soviet days. It's not really by choice, belonging to a "WE" is by birth and that's how Lebanon, albeit being a capitalist country by designation, hasn't had the chance to develop its unique civil society.
No, I'm not suggesting that Lebanon becomes a statehood prototype of capitalism as per a Western denomination. Every single of the Lebanese "WE"s is completely aware of the other "WE"s - they know one another's belief systems, one another's social codes of existence. Yet, every day spent in Lebanon, means helplessly wondering where is THIS Lebanon heading to? It's not about capitalism or socialism anymore, it's about making a perfect quilt of individual "ME"s, bravely taking their own unique place inside a puzzling pattern of other "ME"s, having their own unique voice, their own individually formed opinions. Daydreaming it is. Yet, everyone you talk to will state that their cause within the "WE" is to achieve a state of a composition of fully and freely established "ME"s... But then they'll continue their thoughts with a "BUT"... "WE" can start and function as a group of "ME"s BUT only if every other "WE" changes faith, or language, or residence, or...
***
And so, tired of these talks of segregation and endless lists of preconditions, I decided to attend the Beirut Marathon. Soon, it'll be a year since I've been living here and I'd never had the chance to visit different parts of Beirut. You see, in Lebanon every "WE" lives in their own special neighborhood, there aren't many mixes and if in the West, Karl Marx described the phenomenon by nailing the term "class based society", I think he'd go numb at the diversity of separation in a seemingly tiny country like Lebanon... Neighborhoods in Beirut are separated by virtue of social class, religious beliefs and political views. So, if you're born or married to living in one peculiar part of Beirut, there's an 80% chance that there'll be neighborhoods you'll never know of or go to.
The Marathon had 1km, 3km, 10km and 42,2km distances. Once I'd looked at the map, I'd opted for the longest distance. Being raised as a future pillar of communism and hence the world, I'd been dancing, jogging and trying different sports all my life. And despite having lived in the West for the past 12 years, I never seized feeling the enthusiasm from doing sports (You've got to understand. For 10 years of my school life, I'd take the bus through neighborhoods and streets covered in red lettered messages and posters "Running is good for your heart", "The Soviet citizen is the healthiest citizen of the world", "Doing sports makes you beautiful and smart" etc.). I have to admit, this much childhood motivation has never seized to encourage me go great lengths in accomplishing goals, the difference being I'm not accomplishing the goals of "WE", but of "ME"...
And so, I ran... I ran through Beirut streets, no cars, only people and pink ribbons indicating the path of the marathon... I then saw Beirut in all its neighborhoods and colors... After the tenth kilometer I no longer cared if I was running through a Sunni neighborhood or Shia, was it a poster of a slain Maronite leader or a sign for Druz social support community center... It didn't matter anymore who holds what zone for what reasons, what indicators speak of change when you go from one neighborhood to another.
The sun was caressing the streets, bringing light to every corner, the peculiarly happy sun of the Mediterranean. There were many foreigners, too, some of them new to Beirut, some of them having lived here for many years. there were people of all kinds of colors and rank, embassies, humanitarian missions, Lebanese by marriage, women men, handicapped, corporations and banks. Everyone seemed assertive of their forthcoming individual accomplishment for their own "ME", yet right there rushing through the streets was a glimpse of a uniquely Lebanese "WE" - a direction worthy to head to... Run through the streets and neighborhoods, old roads and newly-built highways, alleys next to factories releasing questionable residues into the air, run through the seaside, through the barbeque stands of Bourj Hammoud, run past a mosque next to a church, a building standing lonely and abandoned with so many traces of bullets shot at it, a day won't be enough to count them all, run past a new high raise building - residential or commercial... Run the big puzzle that's Beirut and feel united just for a day, just by your own choice, just so you know Beirut from this unique dimension of "WE". Now, that's a November 7th unprecedented and overpassing all the other forced gibberish of previous November 7s... for changing the world to the better can bear no color, no denomination but simply accepting one another as we are, at our simplest...
In a way we're all running for our lives every single day at our own speed and perceptions... Life is a marathon but not really about arriving to the Finish line the first or the last, it's simply about running your own marathon and not minding the other is running his, not really hampering it either, accepting it all as a beautiful symphony of parallel universes of "ME"s, running together, running to the same final destination by only doing so by living and letting live...
***
Let’s work, and build and never whine!
Alexander Deyneka, 1933
What a great poster it is. It was created by Alexander Deyneka – one of the most famous modernist and socialist realism artists of the twentieth century.
In the thirties physical culture was being promoted widely in the Soviet Union. There were two reasons for this. The first one was that the party was trying to control all the aspects of life, by enlisting citizens in various societies and communities. And the other was that physically fit people could be better soldiers, thus improving the defense potential of the country. This explains the choice of sports disciplines on the poster: a discus thrower woman on the foreground is accompanied by a sniper, a group of runners and several motorcyclists. Discus throwing is actually a very useful skill on the battle field as it provides for accurate grenade throwing. Sharpshooting is obvious, running adds power during the battle-marching and motorcycle racing impies not only excellent riding skills (many racers served as messengers during WW2), but also mechanical engineering necessary for fixing the machinery during the war.
The verse to the right says:
Let’s work, and build and never whine –
The way to new life has been shown:
You’re not obliged to be an athlete,
But sports are what you should be doing.
Note the composition of the poster: the foreground and the background meets in a way typical for photomontage. Deyneka was always famous for his composition, one of his works showed the close-up of a shot German ace just before he hit the ground. Definitely a Daliesque kind of painting.
***
Alexander Deyneka, 1933
What a great poster it is. It was created by Alexander Deyneka – one of the most famous modernist and socialist realism artists of the twentieth century.
In the thirties physical culture was being promoted widely in the Soviet Union. There were two reasons for this. The first one was that the party was trying to control all the aspects of life, by enlisting citizens in various societies and communities. And the other was that physically fit people could be better soldiers, thus improving the defense potential of the country. This explains the choice of sports disciplines on the poster: a discus thrower woman on the foreground is accompanied by a sniper, a group of runners and several motorcyclists. Discus throwing is actually a very useful skill on the battle field as it provides for accurate grenade throwing. Sharpshooting is obvious, running adds power during the battle-marching and motorcycle racing impies not only excellent riding skills (many racers served as messengers during WW2), but also mechanical engineering necessary for fixing the machinery during the war.
The verse to the right says:
Let’s work, and build and never whine –
The way to new life has been shown:
You’re not obliged to be an athlete,
But sports are what you should be doing.
Note the composition of the poster: the foreground and the background meets in a way typical for photomontage. Deyneka was always famous for his composition, one of his works showed the close-up of a shot German ace just before he hit the ground. Definitely a Daliesque kind of painting.
