St. George & The Dragon

(AP photo by Hussein Malla)

Gebran Tueni is dead. News photos show young men bearing his coffin to St. Georges Hospital in Beirut, at his request. He had told his family that if he ever died, he wanted his remains brought to St. Georges as an homage to his Orthodox community.

The hospital is 125 years old, and was established by Orthodox Christians to serve the poor and the sick of Beirut, regardless of religion.

That Tueni wanted to be taken to St. George hospital, in the heart of the city he loved, reminds us of the greater ideals here that must not die with him. The ideals are those of caring for the least among us, caring for our neighbors whatever their religion, and of fighting evil - whether with sword or pen.

From the hospital's mission statement:

Saint George Hospital's...purpose is to give hope to the sick, needy and underprivileged. To be a place to turn to in times of hardship, pain and suffering. Allowing no discrimination on the basis of religion, race or gender.

I was raised a secular humanist, but I spent crucial, formative years in the bosom of my Melkite Orthodox family in South Lebanon. St. George was the patron of our village - his picture hung in every house.
From an Orthodox website:

Renowned for his defense of all in need, St George is called "the Quick to Hear" in the Middle East by both Christians and non-Christians. An archetype of the victory of good over evil.

Saint of: leprosy, skin diseases, syphilis, agricultural workers, Boy Scouts, equestrians, field workers, Canada, England, Germany, Greece, Lithuiania, Palestine, Portugual.

The image of Gebran Tueni holding his pen in silence, in protest, in mourning at the death of Samir Qassir, a fellow journalist, reminds me of the archetype of dragon-slayer. I understand from various sources that Tueni was not a saint; perhaps if I read every word he published I would not agree with everything. But I am moved by his determination to slay dragons. He wielded the pen as if it were a sword. I take comfort and strength in this image from my ancestral archetypes of the fighter who protects the downtrodden, the workers of the field, the lepers of the earth.

As a woman and a mother I will never carry arms. But I can battle with my pen (a laptop, but we're talking metaphors and archetypes here). The assault on Gebran Tueni, Samir Qassir, Tarek Ayoub and all the other journalists killed in this terrible decade just makes me more determined to keep writing, to keep speaking out.

May St. George help us fight the good fight.

Let me say one more thing. Last year when I was newly diagnosed with breast cancer, I stopped in a deli in San Francisco across from my hospital. The Palestinian owners told me of a church festival dedicated to St. George happening that weekend. I went there and received blessings and an icon from the priests. The tiny icon of St. George with his lance comforted me later as I went into surgery; I imagined St. George's sword was like the scalpel of my surgeons, who were battling the cancer in me. Thank you, St. George.

Update: Of course since Tueni is a Lebanese, there are seventeen hundred conflicting opinions about him. He was or he was not a racist. He cared for the poor and downtrodden, or he only cared for the rich and famous. He was a Lebanese patriot, he was a lackey of America, France, the Saudis or Ariel Sharon. He was a leftist, a progressive, a reactionary.

The Lebanese Political Journal posts generally positive assessments of Tueni, with some caveats; but read the comments for negative, alternative views.

My riff on St. George and Tueni is about the ideals of a powerful archetype. St. George fought evil with a sword; Tueni held his pen aloft as his chosen weapon. As a writer and a child of both the Byzantine East and the Free Speech West, I find the image of St. George moving.

Comments

[Jonathan Edelstein]

Well said, Leila.

[lebanon.profile]

Beautifully said.

Symbols, like that of St. George, give us strength. Interestingly and sadly, the men of Lebanon continue to become symbols: Bachir Gemayel, Moussa Sadr, Kamal Jumblatt, Rafiq Hariri, Samir Qassir, Gebran Tueni.

We rely on the believed strength of others in our times of desperate pain. Hopefully we will be able to continue rising.

[Tony]

You might be interested to know that a couple of "St. George and the Dragon" items appeared in the Lebanese papers. Al-Mustaqbal carried one today, and George Nassif, himself Greek Orthodox, reflected on that theme as well.

http://almustaqbal.com/stories.aspx?StoryID=155510

http://www.annaharonline.com/htd/JNASIF051214.HTM