More than just a drinking game...

On my lunch break during the QE1 (years ago, it seems), I ran into our dear classmate Marianne El-Khoury in the grad lounge. “Have you heard the news?” she asked. We had been talking frequently about my upcoming visit to her homeland of Lebanon, and I could tell from the look in her eyes that it was serious. “It's war.”

Nearly one month later to the day, I sat in a dark, air-conditioned sedan on the way from Rafiq Hariri International Airport to my flat in West Beirut, imagining what the “war” Marianne had spoken of had looked like. The highway we were driving on would have been barricaded by masked men burning tires and brandishing kalashnikovs, putting a stranglehold on Lebanon’s main artery to the outside world. My neighborhood of Hamra, which had remained an oasis of calm throughout the country’s long civil war, would have been overrun by rival militias battling in the streets, as frightened families huddled together in their back rooms. The stores and cafes would have had their shutters drawn tight, and the tent city of protesters suffocating the newly-renovated downtown would have been bustling with activity in support of one faction or another...


...The view from my balcony, facing east toward downtown and the Mt. Lebanon range beyond. The nice building in the foreground is the Hariri palace, home of the late prime minister Rafiq Hariri (whose assassination in 2005 was a watershed event in Lebanese politics) and his son Sa’ad (who serves as the current parliamentary majority leader). Secretary Rice visited the palace yesterday to "express support for Lebanese democracy," sending the neighborhood into a state of lockdown...

I write all of this not to glamorize the situation here, for in a land where the violent days have outnumbered the peaceful ones for nearly 40 years, there is nothing glamorous about their recurrence. Instead, I write it to draw a sharp contrast with the Lebanon I found when I finally arrived here last Wednesday, ten days behind schedule and three weeks after the country’s rainmakers reached an accord in Doha which brought an end to the political stalemate that had paralyzed the government for the past 18 months.

I wish I could have been here when the deal was struck. Over dinner the other night, my boss at IFES told me of how he had rushed downtown as soon as the news broke. Within minutes, the tent city had been dismantled with remarkable efficiency to make way for restaurant patrons and excited pedestrians. Stores that had been closed for over a year reopened their doors, and the streets and sidewalk cafes were filled with people again. By the time I arrived, life had returned to normal, or at least as normal as it gets these days in Beirut. It was almost as if nothing had happened...


...The view from my office. Despite the renewed calm, the LAF retain a heavy presence in West Beirut and other areas affected by the recent civil strife. Somewhat ironically, the army is the only state institution viewed as independent and objective, which explains why the new Lebanese president was drawn from its ranks...

Almost. There are constant reminders, of course. My five-minute walk to work takes me through no less than three military checkpoints and a parking lot full of armored personnel carriers. Last weekend, at the home of a young professor at AUB I have befriended, we drank Turkish coffee and smoked nargileh (hookah) beneath the fresh shrapnel holes in his living room wall. And the Doha agreement did little to resolve the fundamental political and religious rifts underlying the episodic violence that continues to consume this tiny Mediterranean nation (whether or not a reform of the country’s electoral system would accomplish this will be the subject of another entry)...

...A Greek Orthodox church in Anfeh, home of the El-Khoury family. There are 18 official religious sects in Lebanon, from the Alawites to the Evangelicals, and every Lebanese citizen must belong to one (at least on paper) so that political power can be shared proportionally. At times this complex confessional arrangement has been a remarkable story of human coexistence; at other times, a tragic example of its failure...

Such is Lebanon, from what little this humble, wide-eyed Westerner has gathered so far. There’s a certain tragic beauty to it: life is lived to its fullest, for it is all too precious to live otherwise. The swank nightclubs are packed with well-dressed partygoers of all faiths an fashions; the country is obsessed with European soccer, with each fan claiming a cousin or uncle or daughter in Germany or Turkey or Italy; food and hospitality are exalted above all else. And why not? Lebanon has its own unique history and circumstances to deal with, but if we all approached life with the same appreciation for its finer side, perhaps the world would be a better place. Or at least a whole lot more fun.