Funeral Turns Into Anti-Syrian Protest

Same thing happened at my Grandmothers funeral.

The funeral for a leading newspaper editor slain in a car bomb turned into a massive protest against Syria on Wednesday, drawing more than 100,000 Lebanese who blamed Damascus for the latest in a string of politically motivated killings.
Tens of thousands of flag-waving mourners marched behind the coffin of anti-Syrian campaigner Gibran Tueni as it snaked through the streets of Beirut. Thousands more, including mourners and political activists, gathered in two plazas as the procession passed by. Shouts of "Syria out" intermingled with patriotic music and the national anthem.
A general strike to mourn Tueni brought the country to a halt, closing banks, businesses and schools.

Man, I hope when I die the whole country halts and mourns. Imagine the life this man must have lead that his entire country is willing to stand behind him in death. That's quite an accomplishment. Right now if I were shot and killed I'd only get a bill for the carpet cleaning.

Police, who would not speak on the record because of the political sensitivity, estimated more than 100,000 people turned out for the funeral and the demonstrations. But other witnesses and observers said the turnout may have been as high as 200,000.

Does it really matter? 100,000 or 200,000, after about 1,500 you just know you're going to run out of chairs. Could you imagine a funeral that fucking large. With my luck I'd get stuck behind the fucking hearse car line on the highway.

"We are here to say, no matter how many of us they kill, there will always be others to speak out," said 23-year-old Hiyam Dayekh, a Muslim university student. "We are not afraid."

Syria has yet to learn one important lesson. Targeted killings never turn out well. It always rallies the opposition. Try leaking a dirty secret about the person to one of those supermarket newspapers that you have to read at checkout. That'll work better.