<blockquote> <http://www.helem.net/news.zn?id=46> Lebanon Sees Rare Unity - Aljazeera.net
Thursday, August 3, 2006, Posted at 9:19 GMT
Thousands of Lebanese have reached across the sectarian and religious divide to help hundreds of thousands of mostly Shia refugees fleeing Israel's bombardment in the south of the country.
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Social juxtaposition
In west Beirut, an umbrella organisation called Samidoun (The Resilient) has been set up to help refugees.
Fatima Hachem an activist working with the group said she was also surprised by the reaction of Beirut residents to the arrival of the refugees.
"Everyone was expecting to have some problems between Sunni and Shia. But a lot of Sunni people have been cooking food and taking it to refugees. We didn't expect this to happen," she told Aljazeera.net.
The relief effort has created some other strange social juxtaposition.
In west Beirut an office for the gay NGO Helem has been turned into the coordinating centre for Samidoun.
Underneath the rainbow flag the activists work around the clock to make sure the refugees in their care are provided for.
"I don't think the refugees really care about the fact that we are a gay rights NGO. They only care if the NGOs helping them are American," Helem activist Ghassan Makarem said.</blockquote>
-- Yoshie <http://montages.blogspot.com/> <http://mrzine.org> <http://monthlyreview.org/>