’Bombs & Botox in Beirut: How do you cope with living in Lebanon? Get a nose job’’ is a text written by Alice Fordham. The text basically talks about the shallowness of the Lebanese citizens, ‘’Surgery, a national obsession’’. She describes surgery in Lebanon as wealth plus status.
‘’To create’’ is an autobiography written by Soha Bechara who was imprisoned for 10 years in Khiam prison. She talks about her experience there and describes the critical situation in Khiam prison.
Both authors talk to a foreigner audience , ‘’Read up on Lebanon’’ paragraph 9 in Bombs and Botox in Beirut ; the use of the pronoun ‘’they’’ as in the Lebanese citizens.
The main common point between these two texts is the distraction that the Lebanese use to distance themselves from the horrific and brutal reality such as ‘’parties’’ and ‘’plastic surgery’’ in Bombs & Botox in Beirut ; creating something out of nothing ‘’knitting needles’’ in To Create. Both texts reflect the horrible situation Lebanon was going through back then ; they both show us the unstable political situation, the violence and the torture ‘’Civilians were dying in sectarian gunfights in Beirut’’ in Bombs and Botox in Beirut ; ‘’ A detainee was being tortured , her screams of pain froze me with terror and brought tears to my eyes’’ in To Create’’.
The author of Bombs and Botox in Beirut is a foreigner based in Beirut who had to witness the ordeal the Lebanese citizens had to endure. At a certain point in the text, we can see that Alice Fordham identified herself to the Lebanese citizens as if she became one of them. Moreover, we can see this ‘’mixed identity’’ as well in To Create in a slightly different manner ‘’ The vast majority of the other detainees were Shiite Muslim and with them I had the chance to discover a holy text that I previously knew little of : the Koran. They knew the verses by heart which allowed me to learn them in turn’’.
Both authors use antonyms to show a certain nuance, ‘’ the mixture of chaos and charm’’ in Bombs and Botox in Beirut ; ‘’Poor treasure’’ and ‘’freedom and prison’’ in To Create.
Nevertheless, in Bombs and Botox in Beirut the Lebanese citizens are imprisoned in an ‘’artificial’’ prison, they either have the choice to leave or adapt , in this case adaptation is distracting themselves from the cruel reality. As in To Create, Soha Bechara had one choice imposed on her : to adapt in order to reduce the effect of the mental abuse and despair. On the one hand, her writing method does not emphasize the prison’s devastating effect on prisoners, Soha uses a serious tone that she keeps all along the text. On the other hand, in Bombs and Botox in Beirut, the author’s tone alters from negative and sarcastic, ‘’ Can these people,the thinking goes,literally not see beyond the end of their noses?’’, to emotional ‘’But I have sympathy with their desire to distract themselves from reality’’. As a matter of fact, Soha Bechara talks as if she was partially ‘’free’’ : her own freedom.
Overall, in my opinion, distracting ourselves from a brutal reality can bring us a certain comfort but only for a short period of time. However, the Lebanese citizens seemed shallow and inhuman because these kind of events are very hard to ignore. Soha Bechara presents creation and creativity as means to resist. In Lebanon, creation and creativity can prevent many conflicts because war is a crucial matter that can influence and affect anyone ,anywhere at anytime.
