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Lebanon: 20 years later
Submitted by Michael Fielding on Mon, 01/19/2009 - 1:01pm.
Beirut
September 29, 2005
…“Arise, cross the Jordan, you and all this people to the land which I am giving to them, to the sons of Israel,” God said to Joshua, the son of Nun, Moses’ servant, upon Moses’ death. “Every place on which the sole of your foot treads, I have given it to you, just as I spoke to Moses. From the wilderness and this Lebanon, even as far as the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of Hittites, and as far as the Great Sea toward the setting of the sun will be your territory.” – Joshua 1:4…
So it was a mandate, then – from God Himself – that Moses’ people take advantage of this Biblical “land of milk and honey.” Hey, that’s good enough for me. In fact, Lebanon and its famed cedar forests are mentioned about 70 times in the Bible, so how can this tiny republic that’s been under Syria’s thumb (not to mention dozens of other foreign thumbs, pointers and middle fingers since the Greeks) not rank as one of the world’s most significant cities?
Still, it remains a political hot potato, with several car bombings since Syria’s troops backed off two months ago. No one’s really excited about my trip – except for my wife, maybe. We considered it as one of our honeymoon destinations just a few months ago. But my family and my boss do have some cause for concern: It’s fair to say that my travel itinerary takes me right through a route that’s not necessarily the most welcoming – even if it is one of the safest. I’m an American with a layover in London before continuing on to Beirut, the world’s one-time hellhole. And the recent news punctuates that ever so clearly:
Just yesterday, Muslim protestors hurled stones, tomatoes and smoke bombs at the British embassy in Tehran after the European Union proposed to send Iran’s nuclear case to the U.N. Security Council. Not so coincidentally, Iranian lawmakers proposed a bill that would force the government to scale back its cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency. The protestors, numbering about 300, gathered outside the embassy to denounce the IAEA resolution submitted by Britain, France and Germany. While the news doesn’t directly affect me, it did remind me of Beirut’s volatile decade back in the ‘80s. “The door of the old fox (Britain) should be closed,” read placards by young women in black head-to-toe chadors. Meanwhile, Iran’s Foreign Ministry said the Islamic state might resume uranium enrichment if the process to refer it to the Security Council continues.
That same day, Israel launched missile strikes that knocked out power to thousands of Palestinians in Gaza – just two weeks after it pulled out of the territory. Still, militant groups held their fire, pledging to halt attacks condemned by the Palestinian Authority as harming the national interest. Wednesday’s attacks took place just hours after Israel’s army fired artillery shells into the Gaza Strip for the first time since the 1967 Middle East war. Meanwhile, Palestinian chief negotiator Saab Erekat said an Oct. 2 meeting between Israeli PM Ariel Sharon and President Mahmoud Abbas was postponed. The attacks are in retaliation for militants firing rockets into Israel.
Back east, the U.S. military said that more than 1,000 prisoners held at Abu Ghraib would be released this week after a request by Iraqi authorities for a goodwill gesture to mark Ramadan, the Muslim holy month, the month of fasting that is the pinnacle of Islam’s calendar. It starts in just a few days – the day I return to the tyrant U.S. via the British fox.
At least I’ll be nestled in the bosom of the Middle East’s latest darling.
…Lebanon has always been held in high regard by everyone from Homer to King Solomon, who, in a lengthy and passionate love letter to his wife, wrote: “Honey and milk are under your tongue, and the fragrance is like the fragrance of Lebanon.” – Song of Solomon…
So here I sit, tired and eager in a vast pit of humanity at Heathrow, surrounded by the new foxes of the world: Virgin Megastore, Sunglass Hut, and – of course – Starbucks. Never been to Heathrow. It’s my third time in London and fourth trans-Atlantic trip in a decade, but I’ve never been to Heathrow.
* * * * *
Beirut
October 1, 2005
It is Saturday night, and the flu/jet lag/food poisoning/anxiety has nearly worn off. I’m no longer aching, my headache is gone, and – after nearly 36 hours – I am hungry.
The taxi ride from the airport, located at the southern outskirts of the city, took more than half an hour, as traffic is almost always heavy. It was the first thing I noticed from the plane – aside from the fact that the runway is deathly close to the sea.
My driver, Fadi, was amicable and outgoing. It didn’t take him long to give me my first of many personal history talks of Beirut. It was a quick, dizzying introduction to the city’s modern history: Forget the rest of it – the Canaanites, Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Crusaders, Arabs again, Turks, French, more Arabs, Israelis and the occasional U.S. Marines. Never mind that Pompey the Great conquered Phoenicia (modern-day Lebanon) in 64 B.C., making it part of the Roman province of Syria; the Israelis did the same thing almost two millennia later. No need to talk about the various Arab conquests in 660 and again and again from one dynasty to another until 1258. Peace. Then possible war. No, peace for sure. Then the Muslim leftist coalition waged civil war against the Christian right-wing militias in 1975 – setting the stage for a 15-year war that had more than its share of high-profile kidnappings. The war cost 150,000 Lebanese lives, but, Fadi told me, “it wasn’t about Christians and Muslims, because after the war they are sitting together and having lunch.” He had a point. “What was it about then?” I asked. “It was about money.” He wouldn’t elaborate, but he didn’t need to. Lebanon always has enjoyed a prime spot on the Mediterranean as the gateway to the Middle East. It also has a decent port system and an impressive history of international trade. This sounds a little bit like the argument President Bush gave for invading Iraq in 1992, but I won’t get into that now.
“That’s a Syrian truck.” Fadi pointed at a rumbling, dusty mini-bus whose passengers looked glum in the dark commuter bus that was heading back for the border. We passed a former Palestinian camp that is now overrun with Christians. Within minutes we were in an Armenian neighborhood where – I’m told – some of the old women still refuse to speak the language of their adopted homeland. We passed a Hardee’s, KFC and a billboard advertising the Dukes of Hazzard movie. In many ways, the proliferation of American brands is nauseating. But that night it was somewhat welcome in the midst of an overwhelming introduction to Beirut.
By yesterday morning I was terribly ill: feverish, achy and vomiting. I skipped my first interview with the minister of tourism. But I forced myself out of bed and hailed a taxi. We drove from the hotel, the five-star Le Royal, toward downtown. Just to cross the city midday takes at least half an hour. No one uses turning signals. That’s what the horn is for. No stoplights. That’s what the horn is for. And speed limits? Are you joking??
The driver dropped me off. I asked what the charge was. “Twenty dollars.” Beirut’s an expensive place. I know it used to be called the Paris of the Middle East, but I didn’t think they took it literally.
In an unpublished article for Vanity Fair in 1984, P.J. O’Rourke said that everybody with a gun in Lebanon had a checkpoint: the Lebanese Army, the Christian Phalange, the Shiites, the Druze, Syrians and Israelis. That’s still true today, but generally the only people who have guns are the Army and the police who patrol the streets of downtown and anywhere a politician lives. On my way to interview a woman about research and development in rural Lebanon, a camouflaged cop carrying a semi-automatic gestured for me to open my bag so he could inspect it. Then once inside the building, the security guards inspected it. Security searches your bags at the hotel. The police search your bags when you approach any building of any significance. The security guards inside that building then search your bags. I couldn’t go anywhere without getting searched.
The exhibition I was attending – the Arab World Travel & Tourism Exchange – didn’t begin for another two and a half hours. I was wearing a wool suit, feverish and had no place to go. So I wandered around the Central District.
I wandered past the restored buildings with their arabesque and yellow stonework, graceful arches and wrought-iron scroll work. I walked past ancient Roman ruins, Parisian-style sidewalk cafes and mosque after church after mosque. On one block, Roman ruins sat next to a Christian church, which shared a property line with a new mosque. It’s not surprising, given Beirut’s history – and the history of its major religions. There is evidence in the Koran that Muslims and Christians have enjoyed some sort of camaraderie.
…“The Greeks have been defeated in a neighboring land (by the Persians in Syria in 615; and Muhammad’s sympathies were with the Christians, not with the idolatrous Persians). But in a few years they shall themselves gain victory: such being the will of God before and after.” – “The Greeks” 30:1…
But it wasn’t all that great. Missing my wife, I needed to find a phone card (it cost a whopping $2 per minute at the hotel). But nothing. No shops. All I found downtown were cafes and fashionable shops. And my search for a calling card began during midday prayers.
…“Believers, when you are summoned to Friday prayers, hasten to the remembrance of God and cease your trading. That would be best for you, if you but knew it. Then, when the prayers are ended, disperse and go your ways in quest of God’s bounty. Remember God always, so that you may prosper. … Yet no sooner do they see some commerce or merriment afoot than they flock eagerly to it, leaving you standing all alone. … Say: ‘That which God has in store is far better than any commerce or merriment. God is the Most Munificent Giver.’”…
Yeah, but does He give out calling cards? I finally found one: 40 minutes for $20. Everything is $20. Taxi ride? $20. Phone card? $20. Convenient. I’m sure glad they don’t have to make change. Wait a minute–
The exhibition was alright. Nothing extraordinary. I skipped the Qatari night and went back to the hotel. I think Beiruti drivers get a little nervous in the rare but terrifyingly silent two-second lull between beep-beeps. I actually saw a guy honking his SUV’s train horn with aplomb – and with a generous gap all around him.
I should keep an open mind, though:
…”Give full measure, when you measure, and weigh with even scales. That is fair, and better in the end.” … Do not follow what you do not know. Man’s eyes, ears and heart – each of his sense shall be closely questioned.” – “The Night Journey,” Koran …
Maya, one of the exhibition’s organizers, drove me to a pay phone – the only place my $20/40-minute phone card is good. I called home briefly before catching a cab. I told the driver where I was going and asked about the price: “Twenty dollars,” he said. “No. Ten.” “Ten? No, just Lebanese pounds,” he shot back. I told him I didn’t have Lebanese pounds. “OK, how about $15?” “Fine.”
His name was Fadi as well, but he was less interested in the political history of the city. I think he was a pimp. “There are very beautiful women in Lebanon?” he asked, encouragingly. “Yes,” I said simply, understanding where this guy was headed. “You know, you can have whatever you want. I bring you to my hotel room. Very private.” Long silence. “Do you know women from Lebanon are very expensive?” he asked. I had no idea where he was going with this one. Even if I were interested, I’d be looking at the clearance rack. “Do you know how much for two hours? Three hundred dollars. And they are young. They are 16 years, 17 years. Give me a call.” “Uh huh.”
It soon became apparent that Fadi #2 likely had misinterpreted Muhammad’s instructions.
…”If you fear that you cannot treat orphans with fairness, then you may marry other women who seem good to you: two, three or four of them. But if you fear that you cannot maintain equality among them, marry one only or any slave-girls you may own. This will make it easier for you to avoid injustice.” – “Women,” Koran …
I sunk into bed watching the wide, low, undulating waves of the Mediterranean cast a shimmer as they neared the shore.
* * * * *
Joseph Sarkis, the Lebanese Minister of Tourism, spoke of his nation’s promising future during the opening night dinner: “Lebanon is not only a tourist destination well known for its climate and natural attractions, but it is also distinguished for its people, their open-minded culture and strive for freedom and democracy,” he said.
Al-Iktissad Wal-Aamal’s General Manager, Raouf Abou Zaki, capitalized on the minister’s praise of the confidence in Lebanon, highlighting the opportunities that the annual exhibition presents to the Middle East tourism industry. “AWTTE (Arab World Travel & Tourism Exchange) is not merely a gathering for trade professionals and tourists. It is an economic, tourist, investment and social convention where participants meet to network and interact.
That’s just what Mowaffak al-Bana came to do.
He’s the chairman of the Tourism Board at the Iraqi Ministry of Tourism & Antiquities, and I spent part of the trip chatting with him through a translator and trying to figure out what in the world he was doing at a tourism conference in – of all places – Beirut.
I ask him if it’s possible for Baghdad to make the transformation that Beirut did two decades ago.
“Assuming there’s security,” he responds. “Iraq has a lot of resources and is a rich country. The investment opportunities are there: We are thirsty to attract investment and start the reconstruction, but Iraq needs a new infrastructure.”
Yes, but how do you fix the infrastructure considering that it’s the most dangerous place in the world?
“It’s easier to invest during a hard period because there are better rates for loans – companies are already investing in Mosul Hotel and Ninawa Hotel.” After just four months of Marine presence in 2003 they began rebuilding the hotels there.
Still, I’d say that few Westerners understand al-Bana’s tourism push, let alone agree with it.
“We have a long history that goes back 7,000 years before Christ, and we are very proud of that,” he reminds me. “Once we settle down, we will encourage Westerners to see our sites.”
And how long will that take? He declined to guess. I don’t blame him. He and his countrymen have learned from the best. George Bush declined to detail how, why, when or where Iraq had or may have been about to have weapons of mass destruction. Nonetheless, al-Bana is hopeful.
His experience in the tourism industry stretches back three decades, although he’s just a newcomer to civil service, logging just three months in his current job so far. “Tourism and war don’t go together,” he says, without a smirk.
Plus, few five-star hotels exist in Iraq, which traditionally has relied heavily on religious tourism (Karbalaa and Najaf are both popular sites for Iranian pilgrims). In 1978 he traveled to Italy and received his diploma in hotel management through a project with the United Nations to create the School of Hotel Management in Iraq. Afterward he became president of the university, located in Baghdad, and oversaw the inaugural graduation of 500 students. These days the university attracts fewer than 150 students annually – and it doesn’t help that in 2003 the former school became the new home of the Americans who had been using the United Nations building next door – it was destroyed, so they moved in, and the hospitality students moved out to a new but smaller location.
It’s a pattern that is uniquely American in this war, al-Bana explained: The Al Jazeerat Baghdad resort (situated in the middle of the river and home to restaurants, cinemas, an amusement park and pools) also had been occupied by the Americans, but after they left it suffered major damage both externally and from within. “When you put tanks inside buildings, they do damage,” al-Bana says, adding that American troops did help to build part of the resort.
Shortly after I fell asleep Friday night, the din from party-going Arabs down the hall roused me out of bed. Beirutis hold a wonderful sense of pleasure in life, perhaps due to centuries of war and foreign occupation. O’Rourke said that “when danger waits the tables and death is the busboy, it adds zest to the simple pleasures of life. There’s poignant satisfaction in every puff of a cigarette or sip of a martini. The jokes are funnier, the drinks are stronger, the bonds of affection more powerfully felt than they’ll ever be at Club Med.” So I forgave them and decided not to call security.
* * * * *
It’s hard to tell rock from rubble. It all has settled into the earth and has been overgrown with years of neglect, weeds and rebar.
“The Lebanese are survivors,” said one of the exhibition’s organizers. “They will not give up now.”
I’ve seen only two traffic lights in Beirut: One continually flashed yellow. The other was red, but we drove through anyway. Red, I figure, simply means: “You may proceed with caution.”
Our group met early Saturday morning for a day-long trip south to Sidon. We met, ironically, on the former Green Line – the imaginary point that separated the Muslims on the west from the Christians on the east. I caught a glimpse of the Place de Martyrs, dedicated to the memory of eleven nationalists who were hanged there by the Turks in 1915. Aside from the memorial, it is largely nothing but a wide boulevard, clean and well-maintained. A wide swath of gravel gives way to a modest garden with shrubs and paved walkways. That’s about it in the way of sentiment. But then again I suppose there’s little need to live too much in the past here in Beirut.
On the way out of town, one of the guides was happy to tell us: “Here is restored Beirut. You can see both new buildings as well as old buildings with new windows.”
We drove along the coast. It is said that all of south Lebanon’s beaches are well-known for their sand – unlike the rocky beaches up north. Beirut has one public beach. The rest in the city are private. More than 200 km of beaches in the country, with most of them private. I’ll give them credit: It’s socially unacceptable to swim at a public beach. Proper Beirutis would rather pay $10 than swim with the hoi polloi.
Despite its size, Sidon – the third largest city in Lebanon – retains the feel of a small town, largely because much of the city’s residential areas are built into the hills, allowing for a widely different vantage point of the old city below with every twist and turn of the road. It also retains much of the agricultural heritage it is known for: lemon, orange, banana and date trees.
We met M.P. Bahia Hariri, the sister of the slain former prime minister, at her residence for a welcome reception. She spoke only Arabic, leaving me to ponder over my date-filled pastry and Arabian (or Turkish or Lebanese – depending on whom you’re talking to) coffee. It is served in tiny cups and is the strongest, most bitter coffee I’ve ever tasted.
Sidon was Hariri’s hometown. The people love him. They nearly worship the guy throughout Lebanon – especially since the Feb. 14 car bomb that killed him.
Hariri, whose eyebrows are thicker than his Arabian moustache, is everywhere these days. He’s regarded in such high esteem that no one – except for a few pro-Syrian zealots – argues his simple, idealistic vision: for a safe, unified Lebanon. His posters are everywhere: draped high across the streets of Sidon, on light poles, plastered on exterior shop walls. You can’t swing a cat without hitting a mug of Hariri. They even exceed the number of billboards touting Marlboros and Gauloises cigarettes. In Lebanon, that’s saying a lot, since everyone over the age of 6 smokes.
There is much new construction in Sidon, where the long drapes that hang from the open-air balconies (so characteristic of the region) are just a little cleaner, more uniform, straighter than the ones in Beirut, whose apartment complexes are as haphazard as everything else.
Some of the old Lebanese traditions still hang on in Sidon: zigzagging through road blocks to slow vehicle speeds (in the old days, if your car stalled, you likely were shot for fear of being a suicide bomber), and friendly camouflaged police with semiautomatics who are required to check the bags of visitors. There is no law against speeding, although Lebanese drivers may be fined for not wearing their seat belts. So they don’t care how fast you’re driving, just as long as you aren’t ejected through the windshield when you T-bone another Volvo at 80 miles an hour.
As we began our tour, I asked one of the guides about a nearby minaret. “Oh, that is a mosque. It is new.” Then another guide chimed in: “But we will be visiting an old mosque,” she told me, as if to draw my attention from the shell-pocked spire, evidence of Israel’s occupation of Muslim strongholds in the south as recently as a decade ago.
We began at the sea castle, built over a rocky island 80 meters from shore and connected to the mainland by a stone bridge built on nine arches. The Crusaders built the fortress in 1228 on the remains of a Phoenician shrine. In 1253 King Louis IX added a main hall to the fortress.
We then passed through the fish market and visited the Khan el Franj, attributed to Prince Fakhreddine in 1610 A.D. It acted as a hotel for merchants. The stones and warehouse at the ground level were used as a storage area and horse stable, while the upper level houses the French merchants and the consul.
We wandered through the old Souks, enclosed labyrinths of ancient handicraft shops. I saw a woodworker and people making traditional Lebanese desserts. I imagined Jesus walking through the souks, although I suppose He and the apostles probably remained on the outskirts.
Sidon is where Jesus cast the devil from the Canaanite woman’s daughter. It is the place where St. Peter, on his way to Rome as a prisoner, was allowed to spend some time with his friends. It is mentioned in the poems of Homer, and Virgil refers to Sidon-born Dido in the “Aeneid.”
At one end of the hallways in the souks we entered St. Nicholas Church, a Greek Orthodox church built in 1690. Its altar is built in the Byzantine style, and it is entirely, beautifully, vaulted. It feels much older than it really is and is still in use today. It is named after Sidon’s patron saint, the metropolitan of Miralikia, the patron saint of the sea.
A tiny Roman Catholic church – the size of my kitchen – is not used any more. It is the shrine of Sts. Peter and Paul. According to the Acts of the Apostles, “On the other day, we arrived in Sidon, then Julius treated Paul kindly and permitted him to go to his friends to receive their care.” – Acts 3:27.
We stopped briefly at the Audi Soap Factory, some of which dates to the 17th century. The museum, built in 1896, exhibits the evolution of handmade soap through the ages. It houses a tannour, soap furnace and molds for drying it.
Nearby, the Grand Omari Mosque, one of the oldest in Sidon, is seven centuries old. On my first visit to a mosque, I passed under its immense stone pillars into an open-air room overlooking the Mediterranean. Twenty-foot-high ceilings, ornate lanterns and reverential silence made the short visit peaceful and humbling.
We concluded the trip with a traditional lunch at the Kzaz café in the Bab el Saray courtyard. I met some jovial Iranians. Never thought there was such a thing.
On the return bus ride to Beirut, I spot all the usual brand whores: Jennifer Lopez, Claudia Schiffer, Mr. Goodyear. They lay low to the ground on the short, squat Beirut billboards.
Al-Bana is tired. He sits silently, arms crossed on the seat in front of him, eyes fixed in an after-party daze, heavy with the weight of interrupted sleep cycles and sensory overload.
In 1943 in the holy city of Al Kadimia he was born into a poor family with four brothers and two sisters (one brother who lived in Maryland died two years ago – Muafak has never been to the United States). His father died when we was seven years old. “All my life was a struggle between working and studying,” he recalls. “I went to college and got my diploma.” His faint memories of childhood gel into a sort of flip book, as he recounts people and places and souks. “I liked being around people.”
His hair is the hew of finely combed pewter barely able to hide the crown of his head. When he walks he favors his right leg. He walks deliberately, like a college professor. He wears his black-rimmed bifocals low on the bridge of his nose. His dress is modest but sharp. His speech is without a hint of humor. It is punctuated, like a politician’s, only with sincerity and without the fortune of hearing a speech writer censor his words before they’ve even been fired from the synapses of the brain.
Pin-stripe pants are resting at the south end of a slight beer belly, borne of years of doing much deliberating. The beer belly smooths out the short-sleeve mustard cotton shirt he has chosen to wear on his trip to Sidon.
Al-Bana’s plans include fostering an agreement with Iran to bring 5,000 visitors weekly to visit the religious sites again (a sound plan, considering that you build on what’s already there, on what has traditionally attracted people and served as a foundation of Iraq’s rudimentary tourism economy). “But the first thing we should do before planning for tourists is to restore all the tourist sites and infrastructure,” he says. “We cannot host any tourists until we have sites to be seen.”
Which leads to his questionable decision to attend AWTTE as an evangelist for Iraqi tourism, although it’s not his first such exhibition. He has attended tourism fairs in Brussels, Nairobi, Tripoli and Libya, and in September he traveled to Amman, Jordan, for a regional WTO conference.
“I took this opportunity to see how things are going here in Lebanon. I came out of curiosity,” he explains, adding that he regrets not being an official exhibitor (al-Bana is merely an attendee this time around).
This is not his first trip to Lebanon. Al-Bana used to vacation here with his wife and children, and he remembered that life in Beirut has changed drastically since a 1973 visit. “It was much more beautiful than now,” he recalls. “Beirut before was much better in terms of a simple life, the beautiful life. Now development is spoiling the nature of the city.” He actually prefers the waterfront, and just yesterday he passed the time walking the Corniche, the seaside promenade popular with joggers and bicyclists.
* * * * *
Beirut
October 2, 2005
We are on a long, slow bus trip up the mountains of northern Lebanon through small groves of young (they’re only 100 years or so) cedars. We passed briefly through the Qadisha Valley, or Holy Valley, a place for spiritual refuge since the 5th century. It is the seat of the Maronite Church, a Catholic sect established in Lebanon in the 6th century. Unfortunately, we will not be stopping there.
The valley and surrounding mountains are vastly different from the south. The graceful gorges and naturally cut stone are peppered with squatty pines that cling to the steep cliffs among the early Christian monastic settlements and grottos. On the way up the mountain, we pass through small towns where cars are parked on both sides of the highway wherever a church sits. After all, it is Sunday.
The Maronites have established numerous churches in their mountain villages. Here, many of them still speak Syriac, a variant of Arabic. The villages are gorgeous in their simplicity. The narrow roads cut through markets inhabited by centuries-old buildings with shared walls. Vendors sell vegetables and hand-carved cedar products. The views of the villages are amazing. Tiny plumes of white smoke rise from the hills. It is the locals making charcoal briquettes. This is how they make their living.
A similar kind of smoke – though much more aromatic – once shrouded the entire valley. During the height of the establishments by the Maronite monks (5th-7th centuries), the 3,000 or so monastics used cedar to light incense during morning prayers, turning the entire valley into a spectacularly perfumed altar, green with life and full of hope.
The chalets begin at the base of the Cedars, about 1,700 meters above the sea. Just a half-hour drive from there is one of seven protected cedar reserves in Lebanon. This particular reserve is called the “Cedars of the Lord” because its grand, mighty trees were used not only for the masts of Phoenician ships but for some of the holiest buildings in the world, including Jerusalem’s Dome of the Rock and Solomon’s Temple.
…Solomon to Hiram, King of Tyre:
“You know that David my father was unable to build a house for the name of the Lord his God because of the wars which summoned him until the Lord put them under the soles of his feet. But now the Lord my God has given me rest on every side; there is neither adversary nor misfortune. Behold, I intend to build a house for the name of the Lord my God, as the Lord spoke to David my father, saying, “Your son, whom I will set on your throne in your place, he will build the house for my name. Now therefore, command that they cut for me cedars from Lebanon, and my servants will be your servants; and I will give you wages for your servants according to all that you say, for you know that there is no one among us who knows how to cut timber like the Sidonians.” – 1 Kings 5 …
We hiked down the trail of the relatively small reserve, set dramatically apart from the rest of the landscape by its dense green canopies that tower over the reserve itself, most of the trees are younger than 500 years old. Still, it was rewarding.
I caught the sweet scent of fresh cedar sap on my finger. I walked where the ancient Phoenicians, Greeks and Romans walked, where they cut thousands of millennial cedars for their ships and their buildings. Just three millennial cedars remain in Lebanon. So the wonder at standing at the feet of these “tiny” 100-foot-tall tikes is dampened – but not by much.
…“Those who live in his shadow / will again raise grain. / And they will blossom like the vine. / His renown will be like the wine of Lebanon.” – Hosea 14 …
We continued higher up Jebel Makmel (Makmel Mountain) and stopped at the small, smooth summit of sorts that split Mount Lebanon east from west. I overlooked the sloping foothills to the west and then wide agricultural Bekaa Valley and the neighboring mountain range, with Syria some 30 kilometers beyond. I bought sugared figs from a Syrian roadside stand and munched on nuts, enthralled with the majesty of the Qadisha Valley. Despite the desolation of the foothills, I was struck with the warmth of home. Thick, low-lying clouds cast a slow-moving silhouette against the mountains – despite the otherwise clear sky. The white sun somehow did not blow out the landscape as it does on a snowy landscape. Instead it cast a blanket across the Holy Valley’s rolling flats below, where, thousands of years ago, cedars blanketed this region. I was moved to say an “Our Father,” silently.
…“The voice of the Lord is powerful, / the voice of the Lord is majestic. / The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars; / Yes, the Lord breaks in pieces the cedars of Lebanon.” – Psalm 29:5 …
Along the eastern side of the mountains are crags and crevasses similar to the Southwestern United States. There are not pines and cedars here; rather, the locals grow apples and cherry trees to export to the Gulf States, and oaks and junipers are the common trees. Short, squatty shrubs and fruit trees dot the hillsides of the Bekaa. There are no sharp, jagged lines to the silhouette of the hills. They are pleasantly curved, like the figure of a real woman.
The wide, long road that descends into the valley feels strangely similar to Sonoma – no joke. Except for the Bedouin tents and the occasional Lebanese Army checkpoint. Known since ancient times as the bread basket of Lebanon, the wide, agricultural Bekaa Valley is a checkerboard of fields and small villages.
One that’s not so small is Baalbek, where we stopped for a mezze – a famously traditional Lebanese hors d’oeuvres feast containing up to 40 dishes from hummus (chickpea puree) to babaganouj (a dip made of roasted eggplant, sesame paste, lemon and garlic) to tabboule salad, lamb, lebkeh (a cream yogurt dip with garlic made from milky sour cream) and stuffed grape leaves. To do it right I ate with flat, round Arab bread and drank a bottle of Arabic Coca-Cola. I never tried the arak, an anise-flavored liqueur. Strange, especially for me.
Then we headed for the Roman ruins, which rival most in Rome itself. Baalbek originated as a place of worship of Baal, the Phoenician sun god, and was known during the Greek and Roman periods as Heliopolis, or City of the Sun. The three largest Roman temples ever built were erected here. It took 200 years, but the temples to the divine Roman trinity – Jupiter, Venus and Bacchus – were built with stone blocks weighing up to 100 tons. The Temple of Jupiter alone was 88x48 meters around. It was surrounded by 54 columns – the height of a six-storey building. The temple stairs were used to build the Byzantine basilica at that site (none of which remains) and later to close the walls of the building so the Arabs could use it as a fortress. I marveled at the immense structure. I wonder that if it took 200 years, did Romans ever really get to worship there? I grabbed some stones from the steps and walked off.
Behind the courtyard is the Temple of Bacchus, the best-preserved building of the complex. I found century-old graffiti marking the level reached by the rubble that covered it. It was surrounded by 42 columns and gives a great impression of what a Roman temple was really like.
I read that the altars were set up on the roofs of the temples. There was a surreal end to the trip. As I was walking toward the bus, a roadside souvenir vendor offered me a hat that simply read: “Lebanon” on it. When I declined, he said a few more things in Arabic, the only word of which I understood was “Hezbollah.” I kept walking, thinking I misinterpreted him. But then I saw more vendors selling proud Lebanese flags, miniature Taiwanese imports of the six columns of the Temple of Jupiter and, of all things, Hezbollah T-shirts. A pudgy German travel writer with bad skin and jet-black long hair bought one. He joked about donning it, walking through security at an American airport and demanding to see the door to the cabin. He was the only one who found it funny.
Ten feet away Hezbollah T-shirts, miniature made-in-Taiwan Roman ruin replicas and little boys riding camels.
On the bus trip back to Beirut, a traffic jam transformed two Egyptians and an Indian on our bus into school boys. They are wrapping the cheap kafiye around a Brit’s head like a mummy. He laughs, they laugh, and al-Bana sits silently unamused.
* * * * *
Beirut
October 3, 2005
I spent the day walking through downtown – mostly the Solidere redevelopment district. Construction sites unfold one after the other. Just east of the Solidere development, for example, I saw 11 cranes in a one-block radius working on seen different buildings. Here, the bumblebee buzz of the motorbikes is nearly drowned out by drills and jackhammers and the manual work of thousands of Lebanese rebuilding their city.
Just before noon the bell tower of a Christian church tolled “Ave Maria.” Half an hour later, morning prayers echoed through the city from its dozens of mosques.
Armed police (gray camouflage) and Lebanese Army soldiers (green camouflage) are everywhere – especially downtown, where there’s one or two at every block. It’s like Washington, D.C., but more heavily guarded.
Try to find a bench downtown. It’s difficult. But then again, try to find a garbage can in central London. For the Lebanese, it’s all how you look at it: Either this place is too dangerous not to have security patrols (which is what Westerners argue) or it’s one of the safest cities in the Middle East as a result of the security presence (as the Lebanese argue). Plus, I hear that the crime rate in Beirut is very low. I’m serious.
Beirut is a bit perplexing to the Western visitor. It is at once immaculately well maintained, quiet, breezy and tree-lined as well as cacophonous, chaotic and skeletal. It is a shock to the American system. We all know there is a left and right brain. The American brain has a political side and cultural side.
Some people understand the heavy hand of politics, while others prefer the comfort of a Quarter Pounder and Britney Spears. Neither side works better than the other; unfortunately, neither side can work in conjunction with the other.
This is why Beirut can be disconcerting: Somewhere in the back of the American mind remain indelible images, sounds and emotions of a singular “Beirut,” a certain place in time, frozen there forever. Yet this new Beirut has begun to reach out, to try to catch the attention of that same American mind that can’t erase those memories – no matter how far removed it is from that singular “Beirut.”
It’s 6:10 p.m., and the sun is setting on the Mediterranean – my final sunset here for now. Maybe forever. The view from the pool deck here at the new Le Royal hotel in Dbayeh, a northern suburb, is spectacular. In one sweeping motion, I can see northwest toward Cyprus, west toward a gorgeous sunset, southwest toward the city and south toward the neighborhood apartment complexes – geometric concrete blocks of highly uninspired architecture.
More than a dozen tiny lights twinkle off the coast like votives in a bathtub. Nearby sits a freighter, ostensibly anchored and waiting to leave port – or arrive, I am not sure. A single star hangs above the low, modest skyline, which surprisingly is quite gray and illuminated very little, except along the shore. Traffic moves freely on the highway below. I hear very few car horns. The sun didn’t leave the expected lingering soft pastels that typical sunsets leave: the massive orange ball melting into the horizon behind a thin layer of eye-level clouds. Instead, the sky just turned gray, and a haze began to cover the rooflines of the city, leaving it up to the twinkling lights to demarcate where city and sky meet. Here in Beirut, it seems less clear.
They must have someone with them. Protection is what they need.
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Regards
Comment: Although most domestic
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 07/15/2009 - 5:13am.Although most domestic workers leave their children in their home countries, there are an increasing number of children of domestic workers. Many children of domestic workers face marginalization and racism within the Lebanese society because of their parents’ social status.
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