Outsiders, and fear, loom over Lebanese daily life
Thursday, July 12, 2007
THE Lebanese soldiers passes cautiously along the sidewalk, weapons held ready as they spread out in two long columns along the quiet, tree-lined streets of the middle-class neighbourhood of Ashrafiye.
Around the corner, a glass door opens into Sushi Bar, a trendy, upscale restaurant that caters to this bit of Lebanon the alcohol-drinking, cigar-smoking, valet-dependent Lebanon.
"Do you have a reservation?" the hostess asks, offering not a hint of irony as the army patrols outside along largely empty streets. It is hard to know whether the hostess is engaging in a bit of wishful thinking most of the tables are empty or if her question is part of a broader struggle to try to hold on to some semblance of a normal life.
Lebanese are being squeezed, no longer just by fear of bombs, but by the realities of checkpoints and roving patrols of soldiers. At nearly every step, civilian life intersects with the martial: brides must pass through metal detectors on the way to their own weddings at hotels; parking attendants always search car trunks for bombs; mall security guards insist on examining the contents of pocketbooks.
"It seems everything is getting worse, because we have so many problems now," says Ahmed Fatfat, a cabinet minister who has lived in his government offices for the last nine months because he like the prime minister has been afraid he will be killed if he stays at home.
After the war between Hezbollah and Israel a year ago, United Nations officials marvelled at how quickly this city, and this country, got back up and running.
But now optimism is in short supply, as Lebanon grapples with a chronic political crisis, the rise of al-Qaeda-style militancy and a seemingly endless stream of bombings and assassinations.
The sectarian and political tensions that divide, and define, Lebanon, are more evident in daily life. The presence of foreign powers playing their hands in Lebanon is also more evident.
"Nations don't behave this way," says Timur Goksel, the former spokesman for the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, known as Unifil. "It's groups of people who share the same land."
Foreign powers have long pursued their national interests on Lebanese soil. But any efforts to conceal those machinations have evaporated.
The old and new airport roads, for example, are lined with yellow banners boasting of Iran's help with reconstruction. At a traffic circle in the municipality of Ghobeiry, just outside of Beirut, there is a small new public garden and three public toilets. A sign says it was all built by the "Iranian committee" in just 40 days.
The small Persian Gulf country of Qatar seems to be everywhere, from the north to the south, doling out cash for rebuilding and for health services. For some, the signs of foreign involvement add to the anxiety. "We in this country are waiting to see the outcome of the American-Iranian game," says Fadi Abboud, head of the Association of Lebanese Industrialists.
A north-to-south tour illustrates the few free spaces Lebanese can find, now, to breathe.
"Your sweet blood protects the country," reads a banner strung over the highway leading into Menieh, just north of Tripoli. The sign refers to the soldiers who were killed fighting Islamic militants in the Palestinian refugee camp Nahr al Bared. Eighty soldiers have died, and the fighting continues.
But the fighting has also revealed a level of potentially destabilising hostility between the Lebanese and the Palestinians who have lived here as outsiders for generations. When thousands of Palestinians tried to march back to their abandoned camp, the army opened fire and local residents attacked the Palestinians.
"They don't pay rent, they don't pay electricity, they don't pay to inspect their cars," says Mustafa Deeb, 26, a truck driver who identifies himself as affiliated with the Future Movement, a Sunni Muslim party.
For their part, some of the Palestinians say they believe that the Sunni-led government wants to destroy their camp so that they would assimilate. The goal, the theory goes, is to increase the number of Sunnis in the country Palestinians are primarily Sunni to offset the electoral strength of Shiites. But that would undermine the Palestinians' dream of someday returning to what is now Israel.
Residents of the south also have seen their world circumscribed by anger and fear. Thanks to money from Qatar, the village of Aynata in southern Lebanon has managed to rebuild about 60 per cent of the homes that had been destroyed by Israeli bombs, people there say.
But these do not feel like happy times in Aynata. Nahed Jaafar runs a small food store and gas station on a main road in town. She cheerfully greets visitors, refusing to take money for a Coke and some gum, and pulls out plastic chairs for her guests to sit and talk.
Instantly, however, a dirt bike roars up and the driver, his face hidden beneath a helmet, revs his engine and spins doughnuts in the dirt right in front of Jaafar. The driver stops and pulls off his helmet to reveal a boyish face with a scar running beneath his right eye.
He says to the visitors: "I am Hezbollah. You are not allowed to be here. You are not allowed to talk to people. You are a foreign terrorist. This is a Hezbollah area. Maybe you are working against Hezbollah."
The urban landscape of the south falls into three categories: rubble, houses of cinderblock in the early stages of repair and new homes with stone facades and red tile roofs. The village of Bint Jbail is still mostly rubble the victim, residents say, of a dispute over how to proceed with rebuilding.
Amid the rubble, Muhammad Hassan Bazzi, 70, his wife, Amina, and his brother Najib, 67, sit in the shade enjoying the afternoon breeze while sipping sweet tea from small glasses. "We ask when we will get help," says the elder Bazzi. "They say be patient. But what is happening? We don't know."
"I had everything," his wife says. "Now I want a refrigerator, a washing machine, a TV." Tears come to her eyes.
Soon a shiny black Infiniti emerges along a dirt path cutting through the rubble. The younger Bazzi sees the car and without hesitation says: "The conversation is over."
The driver is with Hezbollah. He wants to know who they are talking to and what they are saying. New York Times
Around the corner, a glass door opens into Sushi Bar, a trendy, upscale restaurant that caters to this bit of Lebanon the alcohol-drinking, cigar-smoking, valet-dependent Lebanon.
"Do you have a reservation?" the hostess asks, offering not a hint of irony as the army patrols outside along largely empty streets. It is hard to know whether the hostess is engaging in a bit of wishful thinking most of the tables are empty or if her question is part of a broader struggle to try to hold on to some semblance of a normal life.
Lebanese are being squeezed, no longer just by fear of bombs, but by the realities of checkpoints and roving patrols of soldiers. At nearly every step, civilian life intersects with the martial: brides must pass through metal detectors on the way to their own weddings at hotels; parking attendants always search car trunks for bombs; mall security guards insist on examining the contents of pocketbooks.
"It seems everything is getting worse, because we have so many problems now," says Ahmed Fatfat, a cabinet minister who has lived in his government offices for the last nine months because he like the prime minister has been afraid he will be killed if he stays at home.
After the war between Hezbollah and Israel a year ago, United Nations officials marvelled at how quickly this city, and this country, got back up and running.
But now optimism is in short supply, as Lebanon grapples with a chronic political crisis, the rise of al-Qaeda-style militancy and a seemingly endless stream of bombings and assassinations.
The sectarian and political tensions that divide, and define, Lebanon, are more evident in daily life. The presence of foreign powers playing their hands in Lebanon is also more evident.
"Nations don't behave this way," says Timur Goksel, the former spokesman for the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, known as Unifil. "It's groups of people who share the same land."
Foreign powers have long pursued their national interests on Lebanese soil. But any efforts to conceal those machinations have evaporated.
The old and new airport roads, for example, are lined with yellow banners boasting of Iran's help with reconstruction. At a traffic circle in the municipality of Ghobeiry, just outside of Beirut, there is a small new public garden and three public toilets. A sign says it was all built by the "Iranian committee" in just 40 days.
The small Persian Gulf country of Qatar seems to be everywhere, from the north to the south, doling out cash for rebuilding and for health services. For some, the signs of foreign involvement add to the anxiety. "We in this country are waiting to see the outcome of the American-Iranian game," says Fadi Abboud, head of the Association of Lebanese Industrialists.
A north-to-south tour illustrates the few free spaces Lebanese can find, now, to breathe.
"Your sweet blood protects the country," reads a banner strung over the highway leading into Menieh, just north of Tripoli. The sign refers to the soldiers who were killed fighting Islamic militants in the Palestinian refugee camp Nahr al Bared. Eighty soldiers have died, and the fighting continues.
But the fighting has also revealed a level of potentially destabilising hostility between the Lebanese and the Palestinians who have lived here as outsiders for generations. When thousands of Palestinians tried to march back to their abandoned camp, the army opened fire and local residents attacked the Palestinians.
"They don't pay rent, they don't pay electricity, they don't pay to inspect their cars," says Mustafa Deeb, 26, a truck driver who identifies himself as affiliated with the Future Movement, a Sunni Muslim party.
For their part, some of the Palestinians say they believe that the Sunni-led government wants to destroy their camp so that they would assimilate. The goal, the theory goes, is to increase the number of Sunnis in the country Palestinians are primarily Sunni to offset the electoral strength of Shiites. But that would undermine the Palestinians' dream of someday returning to what is now Israel.
Residents of the south also have seen their world circumscribed by anger and fear. Thanks to money from Qatar, the village of Aynata in southern Lebanon has managed to rebuild about 60 per cent of the homes that had been destroyed by Israeli bombs, people there say.
But these do not feel like happy times in Aynata. Nahed Jaafar runs a small food store and gas station on a main road in town. She cheerfully greets visitors, refusing to take money for a Coke and some gum, and pulls out plastic chairs for her guests to sit and talk.
Instantly, however, a dirt bike roars up and the driver, his face hidden beneath a helmet, revs his engine and spins doughnuts in the dirt right in front of Jaafar. The driver stops and pulls off his helmet to reveal a boyish face with a scar running beneath his right eye.
He says to the visitors: "I am Hezbollah. You are not allowed to be here. You are not allowed to talk to people. You are a foreign terrorist. This is a Hezbollah area. Maybe you are working against Hezbollah."
The urban landscape of the south falls into three categories: rubble, houses of cinderblock in the early stages of repair and new homes with stone facades and red tile roofs. The village of Bint Jbail is still mostly rubble the victim, residents say, of a dispute over how to proceed with rebuilding.
Amid the rubble, Muhammad Hassan Bazzi, 70, his wife, Amina, and his brother Najib, 67, sit in the shade enjoying the afternoon breeze while sipping sweet tea from small glasses. "We ask when we will get help," says the elder Bazzi. "They say be patient. But what is happening? We don't know."
"I had everything," his wife says. "Now I want a refrigerator, a washing machine, a TV." Tears come to her eyes.
Soon a shiny black Infiniti emerges along a dirt path cutting through the rubble. The younger Bazzi sees the car and without hesitation says: "The conversation is over."
The driver is with Hezbollah. He wants to know who they are talking to and what they are saying. New York Times
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