ON THE ETHICS OF PEDESTRIAN CROSSINGS or why ‘mutual obligation’ does not belong to the language of neo-liberal economics. (in Meanjin, December 2000) Ghassan Hage Introduction to a pedestrian crossing Ali Ateeck is a Lebanese factory worker and an artist who migrated to Australia in the late seventies. He was from a village in South Lebanon but lived in Beirut from 1969 until he migrated. In Australia, he lived in Campsie, NSW, a Sydney suburb with a large Lebanese population. Ali died last year. He was fifty three. I interviewed him in 1993. He told me this story about himself 1 : AA: I arrived in Sydney in 1979. I was half-mad when I arrived but they didn’t know… GH: What do you mean…?! AA: Well, I was fine when I applied… and they gave me the visa… a couple of days later our house received a direct shell. My sister and her daughter died… and I was shell shocked… I was never the same. I developed a mental condition… (he starts crying)… I am still not one hundred percent… I still take tablets… but it was worse… I used to disappear for days not knowing what I was doing… My brother’s family here used to go looking for me… GH: And immigration didn’t notice? AA: No. It wasn’t obvious to begin with but I got worse when I came here. I developed this (his right arm was unusually thin). I used to see my sister and niece waving to me from all sort of places. I once jumped 1 Translated from Arabic.