Hawa Beirut (The Love of Beirut)

Beirut, Lebanon

I met Robert Fisk for coffee in the Hamra district of Beirut. I have heard him lecture, have read his books and many of his articles, and had met him briefly once before. I had been calling him periodically to arrange an appointment since October, but he explained he travels to the United States on speaking engagements every three weeks or so. I asked him how he was received in the States given that his views on US foreign policy in the region are generally critical. Surprisingly perhaps, he said he is rarely seriously challenged or heckled but that from time to time protesters show up outside the hall - he said one time he joined them!

His latest book is a tome; "The Great War for Civilization; The Conquest of the Middle East.” I told him after reading it I went out and bought every junk magazine I could find. The inane antics of Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan were all I could cope with after reading the history of the bloodiest, deadliest century in history; its unending toll of war, violence, sectarian hatreds and destruction. The book is relentless, and at the end I was left wondering how he was able to keep covering ‘wars and rumors of wars’ in this region of the world without going completely mad.

The Phoenix

Beirut, Lebanon

And so like Ibn Battuta I arrived again in Beirut.

“We traveled next to the town of Beirut. it is a small place but with fine bazaars and its congregational mosque is of striking beauty. Fruit and iron are exported from there to Egypt.”

Beirut is no longer small - its population is about 1.3 million, many of its bazaars are now expensive haute couture boutiques and its exports are of the financial services variety. By the end of the civil war the city was a wreck, its reputation as the “Paris of the Middle East” in shreds. Many of its buildings especially those of Martyr’s Square and along the Green Line which divided Christian East and Muslim West Beirut, were pock-marked with shell and bullet-fire, windows were shattered, streets blocked by fallen masonry. But phoenix-like the city began re-building - in razing and clearing the center of the city vestiges of its historic past were uncovered and Roman baths, columns and mosaics have since been left in situ or moved to other parts of the city. Today the corniche or seafront, has elegant new buildings and shiny glass-sheathed towers, large swathes of Downtown have been re-built in honey-colored stone in the original French Beaux Arts-style, and streets like Rue Verdun and Rue Monot and quartiers like Gemmayze, Raouche and Ashrafiye have chic boutiques, restaurants, bars, cafes and nightclubs. The dynamic, party-loving city was re-born; the city was featured in glossy international fashion and lifestyle magazines - Beirut was back.

Demonstrations and the Labyrinth of Lebanese politics.

Beirut, Lebanon

It is rather exciting being here. A day of protest was called for by Hezbollah and their main allies, the Amal party led by Nabih Berri, and two Christian groups, one led by Michel Aoun, the other by Suleiman Franjieh. We drove from Baalbek today where lines of cars and mini-buses were waiting at gas stations to get filled up for the trip to Beirut and back - a journey of about an hour and a half each way. The vehicles all carried the distinctive red and white Lebanese flag with the green cedar tree in the middle, and some had pictures of Sheikh Nasrullah of Hezbollah and there was a general festive air about it all. My driver is Christian and thinks the whole thing is idiotic - clearly he does not support the Aoun faction.

The ambiance in the area of the demonstration itself was a bit like a rock concert except instead of drugs and alcohol, there were narghiles (water pipes) and tea. In the square hundreds of thousands of demonstrators carrying flags chanted as the speeches were read out. The crowd was a sea of red and white flags because Hezbollah did not allow their supporters to carry their flag to the parade on this first day - in fact it was universally admitted that they had done a superb job of organizing the event. There were many crowd-control helpers on hand to direct and assist the estimated 800,000 people who poured into the capital to register their disapproval of Lebanese prime minister Sinioura and his "Western-backed", government to use a typical Western-media phrase.

Ruins in the South

Beirut, Lebanon

Beirut is only 127 kilometers, (80 miles), from Damascus and the border at Mazra’a in Lebanon was busy with cars and buses disgorging hundreds of people traveling in both directions. There is a degree of tension between the two countries, Syria is larger and more powerful and it was only in the wake of the assassination of Lebanon’s former prime minister Rafik Hariri almost two years ago, and the subsequent international outcry, that the Syrian army finally left Lebanon where they had been since the time of the country’s civil war. Since then there have been more assassinations or attempted assassinations of politicians and jourmalists all of whom were ‘anti-Syrian’. Needless to say cars with Syrian plates travel less frequently across the border these days.

Not far from the border I got my first look at the damage done by Israel’s recent bombing; the highest bridge in the Middle East was in tatters, a huge central section blown away and twisted rebar dangling like black spaghetti against the blue sky.

Not going anywhere.
Peeling off the highway, we drove off in the direction of Karak Nuh, a small town near Zahle. Ibn Battuta traveled there from Beirut;

“We made an excursion from Beirut to visit the tomb of Abu Ya’qub Yusuf, who, they say, was one of the kings of the Maghrib. The tomb is at a place called Karak Nuh in the Biqa’ al-Aziz, and by it is a religious house at which food is provided for all who come and go.”

Karak Nuh gets its name from Noah’s tomb which is next to an old Mosque and is a site of pilgrimage for both Muslims and Christians. The tomb, like that of Daniel in Samarkand in Uzbekistan, is enormously long - 42 meters (138 feet) and despite this he was buried with his knees bent...... Quite why Ibn Battuta does not mentiont this astonishing story is not clear. Nor is the story of the tomb of Abu Yaqub Yusuf who was indeed Moroccan (Maghreb in Arabic) and died in Portugal so if he was buried here, nobody now remembers. We asked all available old people in the village and nobody had heard of the man......