"die Leichtigkeit des Seins"

Some twenty two months ago I was evacuated from the Lebanon. At the time of the evacuation my life, which has always been defined by a certain “Leichtigkeit des Seins” almost changed radically. Such was my indignation and anger at what was happening. It is no exaggeration to say that I almost didn’t get on the boat pictured above and that I almost stayed to at least try and help the poor fuckers who were being fucked once again. My contract working with Palestinians from a refugee camp near Tripoli was terminated prematurely. There followed for me a three day holiday in Cyprus, my full salary until the end of the contract and, within a week of arriving back in Germany, a phone call from Birmingham University that was to give me two months on two tax free salaries. The Palestinians lost their English course and a couple of them lost their lives. The IDF bombed the whole of the country before deciding that they would have to go in on the ground to achieve their goals. What were those goals? The release of the two hostages taken by the Hizbollah and teaching the Hizbollah a lesson they wouldn’t forget? I think not! The evidence would seem to suggest that Olmert was trying to bully his way back up to the Litani; a goal he was only to give up on after 119 Israeli Defence Force soldiers had been killed.
So, today the focus is once again on the Lebanon and I am reminded of the bar owner in Tripoli who, while emphasising his loathing of Israel tempered that loathing by saying, "what the fuck was Nasrallah (the General Secretary of the Hizbollah) thinking of when he kidnapped the soldiers? Could he not at least have waited until the Summer was over and we had made our money." Once more it looks like a the Lebanon's peak tourist season won't quite peak. For me it is back to the "Leichtigkeit des Seins" and the discovery that the little shop under my flat sells bottles of German "Weissbier" for 10 rmb or 0.9 of a Euro.