It's Not Paranoia If the Danes Are Really Out To Get You

I think we all know who is really causing all this trouble in Lebanon. No, not Syria. Hizbullah? No way. It's the Danes, of course.

But seriously, Danish paranoia (sound like some drastic weight-loss plan when written that way) is spreading throughout Beirut. It's sort of the reductio ad absurdum of xenophobia; if you are petrified of an influx of Danes into Lebanon, hellbent on its destruction, then you really can't trust anybody.

One of my good friends in Beirut is from a Moroccan background, and holds a passport from Denmark. Obviously, none of this was a problem for most of the time he has been here. He was traveling during the whole Danish terrorist incident, and had planned to go right from his trip back to Copenhagen. However, he missed his flight, and found himself stranded back in Beirut for a few days. He went back to the apartment where he had been living (and which he was still paying rent for) and, to make a long story short, the landlord was not happy to see him. "What are you doing back? You said you were leaving! Don't you know that the security situation now? They can arrest you just for being Danish!"

To make a long story short, I ended up with a very angry Dane sleeping on my couch last night. But I guess it is nice to know that Lebanon, whose government has not solved one assassination or bombing for the last three decades, still have time to clamp down on the Danish threat.