On the left, Elie Bou Malham, former LF fighter. On the right, Mohammad Tayyara, former Fateh fighter. (Credit: Matthieu Karam/Collage: Jaimee Lee Haddad)
This is the story of a kid from Aley who used to sneak off to Starco, Beirut, to listen to Kataeb students debate politics. It's also the story of a kid from Beirut who clumsily picked up a Kalashnikov to join his friends in Palestinian factions. They've never met.For Elie Bou Malham, the feday'eens, with their camps and weapons, are a growing shadow ready to engulf his world. For Mohammad Ali Tayyara, the Christian factions want to erase his world off the map. Had they ever met across a green line during the Civil War, it would have been up to a piece of metal or a bullet to decide their fates.Fifty years later, the urge to confront the past and make sense of a war that devoured its own children is not new. Others have testified before, and others surely will again. Their accounts differ, but today, both men echo the same...
This is the story of a kid from Aley who used to sneak off to Starco, Beirut, to listen to Kataeb students debate politics. It's also the story of a kid from Beirut who clumsily picked up a Kalashnikov to join his friends in Palestinian factions. They've never met.For Elie Bou Malham, the feday'eens, with their camps and weapons, are a growing shadow ready to engulf his world. For Mohammad Ali Tayyara, the Christian factions want to erase his world off the map. Had they ever met across a green line during the Civil War, it would have been up to a piece of metal or a bullet to decide their fates.Fifty years later, the urge to confront the past and make sense of a war that devoured its own children is not new. Others have testified before, and others surely will again. Their accounts differ, but today, both men echo the same...