Tyre/Sour (صور) A storm was sending waves crashing into the Lebanese coastline as the bus battled against the wind, strafing the coast from Beirut to Sidon and Sidon to Tyre. Between this coastal road and the sea, the palms of the banana plantations were outstretched to the bus, seemingly clinging on to their branches as the wind tried to rip them from each other. Further south, the the finer leaves of the citron groves fared slightly better. The Roman columns in Tyre jut out into the sea. The setting seemed a million miles away from that of the long colonnade that I had seen in Apamea. Next to this site stood a Muslim cemetery. Many fresh headstones bore the photographs of young “martyrs”; this city has sacrificed much of its youth. The yellow flags of Hezbollah adorned many of the graves, and Fatah and Amal were well represented, too. The violent struggle of this town was reflected as wind whipped the long, black flags lining the beach. The presence of the United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon (UNIFIIL) were testament to this. Their checkpoints stationed along the road between Sidon and Tyre, and many troops are stationed in the town. On the way back north, the small mini-bus in which I traveled was stopped at a Lebanese army checkpoint. The driver was questioned a lot, and not happy about it. He explained that this vehicle provides the income for three families. Three drivers are assigned “shifts” driving the vehicle, the money they earn being the sole support for each of their families. If the vehicle is removed, it blows the livelihood of three whole families. A rough mental-arithmetic of the fares & journey-times put that income at around $40 a day, and then from that one must deduct the petrol costs & servicing of the vehicle.

Tyre/Sour (صور)

A storm was sending waves crashing into the Lebanese coastline as the bus battled against the wind, strafing the coast from Beirut to Sidon and Sidon to Tyre. Between this coastal road and the sea, the palms of the banana plantations were outstretched to the bus, seemingly clinging on to their branches as the wind tried to rip them from each other. Further south, the the finer leaves of the citron groves fared slightly better.

The Roman columns in Tyre jut out into the sea. The setting seemed a million miles away from that of the long colonnade that I had seen in Apamea. Next to this site stood a Muslim cemetery. Many fresh headstones bore the photographs of young “martyrs”; this city has sacrificed much of its youth. The yellow flags of Hezbollah adorned many of the graves, and Fatah and Amal were well represented, too. The violent struggle of this town was reflected as wind whipped the long, black flags lining the beach.

The presence of the United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon (UNIFIIL) were testament to this. Their checkpoints stationed along the road between Sidon and Tyre, and many troops are stationed in the town.

On the way back north, the small mini-bus in which I traveled was stopped at a Lebanese army checkpoint. The driver was questioned a lot, and not happy about it. He explained that this vehicle provides the income for three families. Three drivers are assigned “shifts” driving the vehicle, the money they earn being the sole support for each of their families. If the vehicle is removed, it blows the livelihood of three whole families. A rough mental-arithmetic of the fares & journey-times put that income at around $40 a day, and then from that one must deduct the petrol costs & servicing of the vehicle.

On the Party Trail Wandering the back-alleys of Lebanon, it can sometimes be a little intimidating when faced with the posters of the political parties & militias here. Men in ski-masks, brandishing kalashnikovs; party logos bearing crossed arms; names such as the Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine. I find it particularly disturbing when these images are plastered on the doors of a UNRWA school. Children are growing up with this image. But this imagery also reflect the psyche of despair in political progress. Talks come and talks go, and little real progress seems to be made. Hezbollah has a bad name in the Western press, but following the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war, they also garnered a lot of support with the progress they made in security, and in the education and social welfare that they brought. I direct you to a small series of some of what I saw adorning walls in the Lebanese capital. » Click here to see the photos, though some things were “off limits”.

On the Party Trail

Wandering the back-alleys of Lebanon, it can sometimes be a little intimidating when faced with the posters of the political parties & militias here.

Men in ski-masks, brandishing kalashnikovs; party logos bearing crossed arms; names such as the Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine. I find it particularly disturbing when these images are plastered on the doors of a UNRWA school. Children are growing up with this image.

But this imagery also reflect the psyche of despair in political progress. Talks come and talks go, and little real progress seems to be made.

Hezbollah has a bad name in the Western press, but following the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war, they also garnered a lot of support with the progress they made in security, and in the education and social welfare that they brought.

I direct you to a small series of some of what I saw adorning walls in the Lebanese capital.
» Click here to see the photos, though some things were “off limits”.

A Piece of History The British gained their mandate over Palestine (now, modern-day Israel & the Palestinian Territories) in 1922 but by 1947, one year before it ended, they had had enough. They were not able to find a solution to the integration of “a national home for the Jewish people” in the region, and during the mandate period, had faced revolts by both the Arabs and the Jews. Whilst in the home of a Palestinian family in the Beirut Palestinian camp of Sabra & Chatila, I was shown a passport that the family had kept from their father. I found this document incredible. I had heard of Palestinians keeping the keys of the homes they had fled in 1948, on the creation of the Jewish state, but I hadn’t thought of the documents that were issued during the period of British rule. I was asked if with this document, it gave them, the children, and now grandchildren of its bearer, the right to immigrate to the UK, but reading the small print in the back of it, this was not the case. The passport was issued in Jerusalem, and printed in English, Arabic and Hebrew. It bore the stamps of arrival in Lebanon, newly independent after the French mandate of Lebanon & Syria. The preamble to the passport is practically identical to my own, current, passport: By His Majesty’s High Commissioner for Palestine. These are to request and require in the Name of His Majesty all those whom it may concern to allow the bearer to pass freely without let or hindrance and to afford him every assistance and protection of which he may stand in need. The Palestinians of Lebanon now have little chance to “pass freely without let or hindrance”.

A Piece of History

The British gained their mandate over Palestine (now, modern-day Israel & the Palestinian Territories) in 1922 but by 1947, one year before it ended, they had had enough. They were not able to find a solution to the integration of “a national home for the Jewish people” in the region, and during the mandate period, had faced revolts by both the Arabs and the Jews.

Whilst in the home of a Palestinian family in the Beirut Palestinian camp of Sabra & Chatila, I was shown a passport that the family had kept from their father. I found this document incredible. I had heard of Palestinians keeping the keys of the homes they had fled in 1948, on the creation of the Jewish state, but I hadn’t thought of the documents that were issued during the period of British rule.

I was asked if with this document, it gave them, the children, and now grandchildren of its bearer, the right to immigrate to the UK, but reading the small print in the back of it, this was not the case.

The passport was issued in Jerusalem, and printed in English, Arabic and Hebrew. It bore the stamps of arrival in Lebanon, newly independent after the French mandate of Lebanon & Syria.

The preamble to the passport is practically identical to my own, current, passport:

By His Majesty’s High Commissioner for Palestine.

These are to request and require in the Name of His Majesty all those whom it may concern to allow the bearer to pass freely without let or hindrance and to afford him every assistance and protection of which he may stand in need.

The Palestinians of Lebanon now have little chance to “pass freely without let or hindrance”.

Sabra & Chatila Palestinian Camps Looking over West Beirut at sunset from the fourteenth floor of St. George’s Towers, seeing the new high-rise blocks and the floodlights of the Camille Chamoun stadium rising in the skyline next to Sabra & Chatila, it’s hard to imagine what it would have looked like 28 years ago, when columns of smoke would have been climbing into the sky under the incessant Israeli shelling. I got a little obsessed with a book by Robert Fisk whilst I was in Lebanon. I was up until the wee hours every night, reading Pity the Nation: Lebanon at War, learning about the events that passed here, and how this one journalist witnessed it all. In his book, Fisk often refers to the Beirut districts of Sabra & Chatila, the now infamous Palestinian refugee camps. Long before the massacres — led by the Christian Phalangist militias — they bore the brunt of the Israeli shelling & air-raids on the city. Arafat had his PLO headquarters based there. Twenty-eight years after these events, I spent the afternoon in the camps, their borders now somewhat blurred. I had spent time with Palestinians in Syria and in Jordan, and now I wanted to see how life compared for those living in Lebanon. There is still violence in the camps, although nowadays the danger comes from the friction between the Lebanese poor — whose shanties border Chatila — and the Palestinians. Every night, I was told, there is gunfire and “bombs” (although I suspect that the “explosions” are from somewhat smaller arms). Talking with people, I discovered that the night before I arrived, two Lebanese men had been fatally shot. News of this didn’t really make it out of the camp. Walking into the area from the south, I first crossed a neighbourhood controlled by Amal, the Shi’a militia movement. Not far down the road, it is Hezbollah who control the streets. I sat for a while with two guys, talking about life here. Diib, the “boss” of this little quarter, says he wants to get out. “Fuck Lebanon.” He is fed-up of the poverty and the violence. As he says this, he pulls out a flick-knife and chases off a guy who took a liking to my watch and who talked back to him. As I walked north towards the Palestinian camp, he advised me not to go there. “Dangerous people”, he said. Talking with Palestinians in the camp, they had the same advice about going south, back down to the Lebanese. I was led-up onto the roof of a block of apartments, from which the expanse of the camps was pointed out. He indicated that this was Palestine. In the streets, posters of Arafat are ubiquitous. Opposite, lay the huts of the Lebanese. The concentration of people in this small area is astonishing. Drinking tea back in an apartment, the electricity often cuts out. But the atmosphere here, particularly along the main street, is lively. A fruit & vegetable market is bustling with people, and in a small street I sit in a small canteen opening out onto the street, watching the life of the quarter. Whilst the old lady running the place was surprised to see me here, a Westerner ordering a bowl of fuul, she was very welcoming and happy to see me here. No, I was not an aid worker, nor a journalist. I am just here. “Bravo”, she said. Some days later, I re-watched Waltz With Bashir, the acclaimed Israeli documentary/film that treats the events surrounding the massacre. Whilst it has been criticised for down-playing the Israeli/IDF involvement in the killing of so many innocents, the depiction of certain parts of what I now recognised in Beirut was disturbingly accurate. » See more photos from Sabra & Chatila.

Sabra & Chatila Palestinian Camps

Looking over West Beirut at sunset from the fourteenth floor of St. George’s Towers, seeing the new high-rise blocks and the floodlights of the Camille Chamoun stadium rising in the skyline next to Sabra & Chatila, it’s hard to imagine what it would have looked like 28 years ago, when columns of smoke would have been climbing into the sky under the incessant Israeli shelling.

I got a little obsessed with a book by Robert Fisk whilst I was in Lebanon. I was up until the wee hours every night, reading Pity the Nation: Lebanon at War, learning about the events that passed here, and how this one journalist witnessed it all.

In his book, Fisk often refers to the Beirut districts of Sabra & Chatila, the now infamous Palestinian refugee camps. Long before the massacres — led by the Christian Phalangist militias — they bore the brunt of the Israeli shelling & air-raids on the city. Arafat had his PLO headquarters based there.

Twenty-eight years after these events, I spent the afternoon in the camps, their borders now somewhat blurred. I had spent time with Palestinians in Syria and in Jordan, and now I wanted to see how life compared for those living in Lebanon.

There is still violence in the camps, although nowadays the danger comes from the friction between the Lebanese poor — whose shanties border Chatila — and the Palestinians. Every night, I was told, there is gunfire and “bombs” (although I suspect that the “explosions” are from somewhat smaller arms). Talking with people, I discovered that the night before I arrived, two Lebanese men had been fatally shot. News of this didn’t really make it out of the camp.

Walking into the area from the south, I first crossed a neighbourhood controlled by Amal, the Shi’a militia movement. Not far down the road, it is Hezbollah who control the streets. I sat for a while with two guys, talking about life here. Diib, the “boss” of this little quarter, says he wants to get out. “Fuck Lebanon.” He is fed-up of the poverty and the violence. As he says this, he pulls out a flick-knife and chases off a guy who took a liking to my watch and who talked back to him.

As I walked north towards the Palestinian camp, he advised me not to go there. “Dangerous people”, he said. Talking with Palestinians in the camp, they had the same advice about going south, back down to the Lebanese.

I was led-up onto the roof of a block of apartments, from which the expanse of the camps was pointed out. He indicated that this was Palestine. In the streets, posters of Arafat are ubiquitous. Opposite, lay the huts of the Lebanese. The concentration of people in this small area is astonishing. Drinking tea back in an apartment, the electricity often cuts out.

But the atmosphere here, particularly along the main street, is lively. A fruit & vegetable market is bustling with people, and in a small street I sit in a small canteen opening out onto the street, watching the life of the quarter. Whilst the old lady running the place was surprised to see me here, a Westerner ordering a bowl of fuul, she was very welcoming and happy to see me here. No, I was not an aid worker, nor a journalist. I am just here. “Bravo”, she said.

Some days later, I re-watched Waltz With Bashir, the acclaimed Israeli documentary/film that treats the events surrounding the massacre. Whilst it has been criticised for down-playing the Israeli/IDF involvement in the killing of so many innocents, the depiction of certain parts of what I now recognised in Beirut was disturbingly accurate.

» See more photos from Sabra & Chatila.

Identity I get the feeling that the Lebanese want to shun their Arab roots. They already have quite a mixed identity; having been under Ottoman rule for 400 years, the French “created” the state, and then the republic, as part of their mandate for Syria following the First World War. They gained independence from the French in 1943, although the French influence is still very present. The country’s top-ruling positions have to be occupied by people from specific religious groups: for example, the President has to be a Maronite Christian, the Prime Minister a Sunni Muslim, and the Speaker of Parliament a Shi’a Muslim. The religious make-up of the country is diverse. Add to this the vast numbers of Palestinians who arrived following the creation of Israel, and the subsequent Arab-Israeli wars. Due to the fifteen year-long civil war, a third of the population was wounded, and estimates of fatalities range from 130,000 to 250,000. As a result of this, many Lebanese fled the country, and so other nations’ cultures play a part in the make-up of the country. Brazil has a huge ex-pat Lebanese population. In the Achrafiyeh district, everybody, it seems, speaks French. And I’m not talking about people having it just as a second-language; I would often hear groups of Lebanese speaking French amongst themselves. Similarly in Hamra, as I sat in a café, English was spoken between friends. Billboard posters often appear only in English or French, advertising the shops or banks in the language of the country from which they came. A job advertisement in the window of a restaurant only appeared in English. This was all epitomised when I overheard a conversation in a café. The (Lebanese) waitress was saying to a (Lebanese) customer, in English, that she had the same computer, but that hers was “better” because the keyboard was only in English; there were no Arabic characters. Whilst the global export of our culture can certainly lead to good things, certain freedoms and rights, above all, I don’t think that other societies should embrace it as whole-heartedly, and packaged, as they seem willing to do. The photo, above, reads “Beirut” in Arabic. Let’s hope it stays this way for a little while longer.

Identity

I get the feeling that the Lebanese want to shun their Arab roots.

They already have quite a mixed identity; having been under Ottoman rule for 400 years, the French “created” the state, and then the republic, as part of their mandate for Syria following the First World War. They gained independence from the French in 1943, although the French influence is still very present.

The country’s top-ruling positions have to be occupied by people from specific religious groups: for example, the President has to be a Maronite Christian, the Prime Minister a Sunni Muslim, and the Speaker of Parliament a Shi’a Muslim. The religious make-up of the country is diverse.

Add to this the vast numbers of Palestinians who arrived following the creation of Israel, and the subsequent Arab-Israeli wars.

Due to the fifteen year-long civil war, a third of the population was wounded, and estimates of fatalities range from 130,000 to 250,000. As a result of this, many Lebanese fled the country, and so other nations’ cultures play a part in the make-up of the country. Brazil has a huge ex-pat Lebanese population.

In the Achrafiyeh district, everybody, it seems, speaks French. And I’m not talking about people having it just as a second-language; I would often hear groups of Lebanese speaking French amongst themselves. Similarly in Hamra, as I sat in a café, English was spoken between friends.

Billboard posters often appear only in English or French, advertising the shops or banks in the language of the country from which they came. A job advertisement in the window of a restaurant only appeared in English.

This was all epitomised when I overheard a conversation in a café. The (Lebanese) waitress was saying to a (Lebanese) customer, in English, that she had the same computer, but that hers was “better” because the keyboard was only in English; there were no Arabic characters.

Whilst the global export of our culture can certainly lead to good things, certain freedoms and rights, above all, I don’t think that other societies should embrace it as whole-heartedly, and packaged, as they seem willing to do.

The photo, above, reads “Beirut” in Arabic. Let’s hope it stays this way for a little while longer.