Forget everything that you’ve heard. In an epiphany, I have realized why Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah is so reluctanct to relinquesh Hizbullah’s weapons: doing so would entail the truly revolutionary act of changing Hizbullah’s icon, the kashlinikov-clutching alif (Arabic letter “a”) of “Allah” on its flag.

It is kind of difficult to imagine an equally-powerful symbol that could replace that image… A hand weilding an olive branch? Too predictable. A pair of hands with a dove taking flight from them? Too soppy.

They could get rid of the hand completely and just leave the alif but that would probably send very negative images about hands being chopped off in retaliation or punishment… So the hand has to stay. It could remain empty, in a closed fist, but that would be too reminiscient of ‘black power’. If it were unclenched, open-palmed, that would be replicating the symbol of Zimbabwe’s MDC.

So really, when you thinkabout it, all the good hand-images have been claimed already. And apart from merely imprinting a “void” stamp over the gun, Hizb really don’t have much choice but to keep the symbol and the weapons it represents. Poor blokes.