Every so often, an eloquent little piece is found, not in the blogs or front-page posts on this site, but in the comments and reactions to the stories posted here. This is one such example, from user NubianArsalan, in reaction to a blog post by Hakim Baker called Muslim Roots, US Blues.

Here it is…

"The 99" is now available in comic book stores!

Laure Ghorayeb: In Beirut, There is a Resistance

"The cease-fire: everyone talks about it but nobody wants to implement it"

From her son Mahzen Kerbaj's site:

LAURE GHORAYEB attempt for an objective biography

laure ghorayeb is a lebanese visual artist/poet born in 1931. after publishing 2 books of poems, she slowly stop writing to consecrate herself tothe unique style of painting she developed over the years. this style, melting words, drawings and signs together could arguably be described as abstract/poetic comics (it is at least my opinion).

she did many solo exhibits and hundred of collective ones. she is holder of an award of distinction from the paris biennale (1967) and won the first award of the alexandria biennal in the category of drawing (1997). she also participated in the international forum of art "europ’art 2003" in geneva.

during the 15 years of the civil war, laure ghorayeb never stopped drawing. a selection of these drawings, directly connected to the war, were published in a limited edition book titled “témoignage” (testimony) in 1985.
it seems sadly that art cannot fight war. here she is today starting a new series of her marvelously depressing war drawings in a blog titled “witnessing (again)”.

Ch. 1 Available Here

Ch. 2: In the evening Ayaz was sent to the neighborhoods to collect dinner for the Imam and his families from the generous neighbors. He walked gingerly because he was still sore from his morning beating. He held a steel pail in one hand. Rahim, an evening student, who only attended from the mid-afternoon to the night-prayer, walked besides Ayaz, carrying a multicolored cloth in which he wrapped the bread given for the madrassa's students. 

Except for Jamshed Street the gulleys were narrow and unpaved.  The doors to almost all of the houses were open. However, a heavy khaki curtain hung in the doorways, preventing outsiders from peeking inside. It was an unsaid rule that you did not enter a house unannounced. What, with the women almost always walking around without doopattas or any other type of hair covering. Even though this was a city, honor was still an important thing here. The boys approached each curtain, hitting the pail with a big wooden spoon and waited for someone to come to the door. The tradition of the students from the madrassas coming to collect food from the neighbors dated back hundreds of years. There was a mutual symbiosis between the families and the madrassa. The school took in many of the students from the city and nearby towns, keeping them busy, giving them a strict moral education and free board, while the neighbors provided food for the students every few nights. Upon graduation, these students, obedient and pliable, moral and deemed religious on account of their rote memorization of the Quran, usually married into the neighborhood's families, adopted their business and things went as on before.