The old curse of sectarianism

ENAR

I was 14 at the time. Lebanon’s civil war was in full force. One afternoon the shells began raining down on our neighborhood in Beirut. We ran from school screaming. Out of breath, my knees giving way, it seemed to take forever to reach our local shelter — a dark humid room at the back of our apartment block. The memory of that terrifying afternoon receded — until recently. After more than a decade of relative peace and reconstruction, the bombings and assassinations have returned to Beirut. Every time I hear of a new explosion, I think of a frightened child sitting in darkness. In 1988, I watched the last throes of Lebanon’s civil war firsthand. Now I watch from another continent, but I find those same emotions resurfacing. The actors are like shadows from a long gone past. They are grayer perhaps — those who have avoided assassination. But