But in all that what truth will there be?

Sir C. Donald Gaston Hammami-Disraeli III emerged from the literature of empire. Inspired by the layers of satire already contained within the event itself, I hoped to inquire into why elections serve as a categorical moral justification for the distribution of power. If a body politic were to vote for colonization, would colonization be morally legitimate?

Of paramount importance, I played the colonizer not as a fool or a tyrant, but rather as a gentle, humorous, and inquisitive gent—I avoided judging him. By suffusing the performance with humor and lightheartedness, Sir C. Donald Gaston Hammami-Disraeli III's imperialist perspective and colonizing behaviors held an air of moral neutrality, which allowed me to open the question, Exactly wherein lies the immorality of the colonizer's power?

Well, according to the burly guy at the bar, little came through.

But he liked the moment with the baby in front of the ghost portrait because it echoed the political reality in Beirut. The cityscape is plastered with the ghosts of dead politicians—Hariri, Aido, Gemayel. There are hundreds of posters featuring Saad el Hariri alongside his assassinated father, Rafiq. Likewise, Amin Gemayel always appears on TV with a portrait of his assassinated son, Pierre. In Lebanon, the living and the dead feature prominently in politics.

He continued: “I laughed when she came out in the burka, it looked good, but I didn't get it.”

After nodding and contemplating my response, I uttered, “What is there to get?”

I had tried to mimic the role that religion plays in the political landscape. Wife's religiosity as reified by her burka was not why she killed me. It in and of itself had nothing to do with the murder. It was not the immediate cause of the political violence. The reasons were social, personal, and religion was merely a circumstance, almost trivial.

I think I was attracted to this character pulled from Orientalist texts because it's true. I feel like a colonizer, but I wish to be welcomed and received by the intellectual and artistic communities here. I also feel like an Orientalist. For years, the Levant has been an imaginary place that I've romanticized:

You ask me whether the Orient is up to what I had imagined it to be.
Yes, yes it is. And more than that, it extends far beyond the narrow idea I had of it.
Facts have taken the place of suppositions—so excellently that it is often as though I were suddenly returning to old forgotten dreams. My time here has been a gift of eternity; indeed, I feel as if I have finally come home.
...
Terrifying as it is, this character was my surrogate. I am desperate for these communities to rapprocher, regarder, reconnaisser, saluer, and étreigner-moi. Maybe winning the election in Sahra Khat Ahmar would have signaled that, yes, I will be able to transcend the politics of my identity.

That, yes, I have a place here.

I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed.

And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"

Nothing beside remain remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.