war

The bombs are at it again in Lebanon, just like they are in almost every other place in the world these days.

Another 'journalist' dies in the game that is dirty politics. I use the quotes around the word journalist only because to label a journalist pro or against a cause seems to defy the whole point.

But how fitting that this happens today, when today's local media reports on Robert Fisk's book signing in Dubai.

I've had the pleasure of hearing two of Robert Fisk's lectures in Montreal, and then finally meeting him at a journalist's convention some 3 years back. He is a little man, typically British, a cold man... I almost had a hard time believing all the incredible years of reporting from the Middle East had come out of him, such a tiny man (yes, his size did strike me.)

When anti-Syrian Al Nahar 'journalist' Samir Kassir was killed in June, I read one of Fisk's columns, about how death is right around the corner for many journalists. His words struck me, as they always do. You tend to wonder if it's all worth it, for these people to die for such causes.

Someone I know once asked Fisk how he could still sleep at night after witnessing the horrors of war day in and day out, and Fisk apparently just responded with a distant stare. I also remember one CBC war correspondent telling the group of wannabe journalists me and my class were that it was no longer the sight of dead bodies that bothered him, but the stench.

Fisk added to that floating thought in my head months later. While showing photos of the 1982 Sabra & Shatila massacre which he had snapped himself, he uttered words that remain with me today: "Dead bodies aren't a romantic sight the way you see them in movies." The photos were stomach churning, and I could only imagine the stench coming out of those bodies that had been lying there for days before journalists were even allowed onto the scene.

Is it really worth it? The CBC war correspondent (then freshly back from the US-Afghanistan war) asked each one of us then-students: if you could leave everything behind right now and go to a war zone, would you?

I wanted to be brave, even if it was a lie. But the words could not come out of my mouth. I couldn't imagine putting my life at risk for a cause that was not mine. But as citizens of the world, which cause is ours and which is not?

I've gone into a very different side of journalism over the years, the kind my idol Robert Fisk might even mock. And I don't blame him.

I don't put Kassir and Gibran Tueni in the same league as Fisk. As far as I'm concerned, their kinds of journalism are worlds apart. Kassir and Tueni were both Lebanese men in the midst of Lebanon's turmoil. Fisk is an outsider, putting his life at risk for other people's truths.

Is it bravery? Is it the love for a job? Is it the adrenaline rush? Is it crazy?

The horror of war leaves no one untouched. Bless those who run right into the eye of the storm.