The Catholic Weekly 16 August 2020

catholicweekly.com.au 4 16, August, 2020 BEIRUT BLAST Helping build a brighter future for children and families in crisis. Dunlea Centre 35A Waratah Road Engadine NSW 2233 Phone 02 8508 3900 AUSTRALIA'S ORIGINAL BOYS' TOWN A place for change... www.dunleacentre.org.au SYDNEY’S LEBANESE-AUS- TRALIAN community is mourning the loss of relatives and friends who died in the explosion in the Port of Beirut which injured more than 150 people and left 300,000 home- less. Maronite Bishop An- toine-Charbel Tarabay led a memorial Mass last Saturday for the victims. The Eucharist was live-streamed from Our Lady of LebanonCo-Cathedral inHarris Park. The disaster came on top of Lebanon’s ongoing tragedies of “economic and political in- stability and a lack of respon- sible and proper governance,” the bishop said. “The explosion did not only shake Lebanon and the Leba- nese community and diaspo- ra. It has shaken the world,” he said in his homily. Five of the Beirut victims had familymembers present at theMass. They are Jacqueline Jibrine, Joseph Latif Merhi, Nicole Ma- jid Elhelou, Micheline Khalil Taouk and Joseph Roukoz. The bishop also prayed for the firefighters, some with Syd- ney relatives, who were among the first responders on the scene and remained listed as missing. George and Fadia Abou Saleh of St Charbel’s parish in Punchbowl attended the Mass to pray for the repose of their cousin, 25-year-old Ms Elhe- lou. Ms Elhelou had been driv- ¾ ¾ Marilyn Rodrigues Family, friends mourn Sydney’s Maronites grieve after another Lebanese tragedy ing close to the blast’s epicen- tre after visiting a friend. “As soon as it happened everyone in the Lebanese community was trying to get on the phone, frantic, because so many people work down at the port,” Mrs Abou Saleh told The Catholic Weekly . “That’s where all the new buildings were going up, trendy new offices and bars. “That part of Beirut has al- ways been a hub for work. “It’s terrible that we can’t go over [to support them]. “First the economic crisis, and then COVID hit and it got worse andnow this happened.” Elias Moawad of Strathfield spent many hours on phone calls to his relatives and those of his wife, Claire. “It’s not the first time Leb- anon has had a disaster but nothing like this,” he said. “It is devastating, heart- breaking. I feel my heart liter- ally aching. “I have no words to explain howwe feel,” he said. “It’smore than a disaster, and we feel as affected as if we were on the ground there.” The son of his nephew, Pat- rick Mouawad, was injured by shattered glass at St George’s Hospital, less than 2kms from the Port of Beirut. Patrick and his younger brotherMario are young doctors there. Mario was also at the hospital but was able to take shelter un- der a table andwas uninjured by the blast. “The hospital was obliterat- ed. Many nurses, many patients died,” Mr Moawad said. “My nephew rushed to the The Christians in Lebanon have very strong faith in the in- tercession of St Charbel, in Our Lady of Lebanon, in St Elias ... But how long can their faith support them?” Elias Moawad BELONGING WAS an im- possible quest for young Ar- ab-Australians in the 1990s and 2000s. We came of age at a time when radio hosts were egging the masses on against us, when the beaches where we had spent our childhood summers became scenes of riots and protests against our presence in the only place we’d called home. News broadcasts labelled and derided us and news- paper stories stripped us of our Australianness and ren- dered us foreign. For many of us, Lebanon became a lifeline. We sought belonging in our common histories, turning inward to one another, to our commu- nities, to the music and lan- guage of our people, even if it didn’t come as naturally to us as English. We embraced our parents’ fragmented and traumatic memories of a land we had only experienced fromafar. Lebanon was a place that proffered what Australia could not: acceptance for those parts of ourselves we could not change, where we couldembraceour surnames, our skin colour, hijabs and wild hair, our vibrant person- alities. Now that place of abstract refuge is hurting after the blast at Beirut’s port which devastated much of the city, killing 157 people (at the time of writing) , including a two- year-old Australian boy, and leaving thousands homeless. Cities around the world have made a visible show of solidarity with Lebanon, in- cluding Melbourne and Bris- bane and even Tel Aviv, the capital of Lebanon’s greatest enemy, which projected the Lebanese flag on to its town hall. But in Sydney, home to one of the world’s largest Lebanese diaspora, there has been nothing. Sydney projected the French flag on to the sails of A missing light for Lebanon the Opera House when 130 peoplewere killed in the Paris terrorism attacks of 2015, but didn’t do the same for Leb- anon when it was attacked a day earlier. We should now right that wrong. More than 68,000 people in NSW were born in Leba- non and hundreds of thou- sands more are of Lebanese descent. Such an act of soli- darity and care would show such a sizeable part of the Sydney community that their blood and that their identity, matters. It would be a nod of ap- preciation to those who have toiled for this country and this state, serving in the military, playing in local and nation- al sporting teams, serving in government, and even, as many a Lebanese tradie can attest, building parts of this citywith their very hands. Likemanywithinmy com- munity, I am a proud Aus- tralian, but my connection to Lebanon is more than herit- age and nostalgia. Most of us might only know our moth- erland through memories of tragedy and trauma, but we also know it as a place that of- fered us belonging when we knewanything but. This is a chance for Sydney to change that—and showus we are part of this city we’ve always called home. SarahAyoub is an author and a lecturer in jour- nalismandwriting at the University of NotreDame - www.smh.com.au ¾ ¾ Sarah Ayoub Sydney project- ed the French flag ... when 130people were killed in the Paris terrorism attacks of 2015, but didn’t do the same for Lebanon.” AS LEBANON’S Catholic leaders appealed for help for their country, international and Australian organisations appealed for donations for Beirut, capital of a country al- ready suffering from a severe economic downturn. “The church, which has set up a relief network through- out Lebanese territory, now finds itself faced with a new great duty, which it is incapa- ble of assuming on its own,” said Cardinal Bechara Rai, Maronite patriarch. He called for a UN-controlled fund to be set up to manage aid for the ¾ ¾ David Ryan Lebanon seeks help: here’s where you can donate reconstruction of Beirut and other international assistance to aid the stricken country. In Lebanon, Maronite Catholics are the largest Christian group. In Beirut, Syriac Catholic Patriarch Ignace Joseph III Younan appealed to all people of good will: “Here is Beirut, crying out for help!” He said all Syriac parishes would use everything at their disposal to help. “We value all relief, aid and assistance provided to those affected, especially for Beirut residents and its suburbs,” he said, also appealing for prayers and referring to the victims as martyrs. In a statement from the Melkite Catholic Patriarchate in Damascus, Patriarch Jo- seph Absi also referred to those who died as martyrs. “The time now is not for the sharing of responsibilities nor for disputes, but for the tireless work to reduce the repercussions of the national catastrophe and to ... reject differences and work together to avoid the worst,” he said. Here (opposite) are some Catholic agencies in Australia where you can donate to help the citizens of Lebanon. The time now is not for the sharing of responsibilities nor for disputes, but for the tireless work to reduce the reper- cussions of the national catastrophe.” Patriarch Joseph Absi