There’s not a city in the world without its own contradictions, dynamism and a spirit which certain visitors can feel, and which it emits for some of its residents to reach out and grasp. But Beirut is a special and unique case. The Lebanese capital, growing ever more densely populated thanks to internal migration and the great Syrian exodus has become the locus for a staggering intensification of these contradictions, dynamics and differences.
Here, architectural beauty and ugliness sit side by side and class and social divisions have widened to a terrifying degree, a gulf that can be observed in a single street or by moving from one neighbourhood to another—a trip that should take just minutes were it not for the hideously congested traffic. Here, resident and visitor alike feel its pressure, its heavy pulse, as though they are just a speck within it even as they are aware of all the other specks and motes trying to assert themselves over the city, to violate it, or at the very least to disturb its existence.
In Beirut, a useless parliament extends its own term with a shamelessness befitting the prevailing atmosphere of political degradation, the media broadcasts shows of matchless stupidity and boorishness, people follow stories of clashes in Tripoli and Arsal and hear tales of the “Shiization” of dozens of young men sent out to Syria by Hezbollah to fight in defence of the regime of barrel bombs, massacres and chemical attacks… and then they just proceed on their way, back to their daily lives, whether comfortable, make-do or wretched.
It is in Beirut, too, that solidarity and tolerance compete with racism, hatred and fanaticism, where it is impossible to avoid the sheer excess of social and cultural vibrancy on every side, where Lebanese, Syrian and Palestinian immigrants and foreign residents vie to turn out art, literature and cultural activities, where in a single week you might hear about a book fair that draws huge crowds to its seminars and signings, of lectures and conferences on a wide variety of themes, of a marathon in which tens of thousands run through the streets, of associations that work in the poverty-ridden camps setting up employment opportunities and schools, of the opening of restaurants, bars and cafes (and the closure of others), of theatre shows, movies, music concerts and exhibitions… and you feel as though all these events and their participants are on another planet, a small, beautiful planet where there is no killing, even though the majority of its inhabitants constantly mutter about the murder all around them and the likelihood of it coming to visit them…
And finally, in Beirut, you despair at the consequences for a country and a region where violence strikes mercilessly, and yet are optimistic at the extraordinary capacity you see for survival, for living with freedom. There is nothing sweeter than walking around at night to witness the evidence of this capacity—strolling, mixing, laughing—or hearing it in debates that never end, debates whose words and ideas are uncensored, raised without fear, regardless of how rich or meagre they may be.
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Translated from the Arabic by Robin Moger
First published in Arabic by “NOW.”, 12/11/2014