Tragedy and Comedy in the Land of the Cedar
August 7th, 2008I met the news of my upcoming trip to Lebanon both with anxiety and a numbing sense of apathy. “Lebanon?” I responded to my mother’s phone call informing me that our flights had already been booked. My voice struck the tone of someone unimpressed with what he had just heard. “Alright,” I said, as if I had just been handed an obligation that would ruin the plans I had already made. The truth, however, was that this trip would fill a vacuum of my vacation that I would have otherwise spent sitting in a small Cairanese café, puffing on a rusty shisha pipe reading the books whose pages time had not permitted me to turn during the last year. All I knew was that my level of excitement upon hearing this news was so low that it had infested my manner of speech when relaying this news to my friends. “You seem upset or something,” a colleague of mine in Holland told me before he delved into an inquiry of my familial lineage. “Aren’t you Lebanese?”
For some, this is a very easy question to answer. Yet for me, having a Lebanese father, but having seldom visited the country throughout my existence in this life, I find that answering this question with “yes” elicits in me feelings of dishonesty. Within the typical constructs of identity, I am Lebanese, certainly more so than the Dutch man who asked me the question. I have ‘Lebanese blood’, if you will; I have vacationed in the country’s capital, spent afternoons with family in its picturesque mountains, and been stung by the overpopulated jellyfish of its forgiving seas. Yet I am no part of the society of those who share this blood, a society deadlocked in a seemingly endless tragedy of sectarian power struggle and foreign obtrusion.
However through intently following the political developments of the country, I have shared in the pain of this tragedy. I have formed opinions and taken sides in a conflict that has caused me no physical travail, but has produced arguments that are formed as much by emotion as reason. Many of my nights in Holland were spent passionately informing acquaintances of the happenings in my father’s nation, and of the terror inflicted on its people by confessional politics and divinely inspired militiamen. As I write these words, I wonder whether my apathy and unease prior to my visit found its roots in the image of it I had created through the text of books, papers and blogs, and whether this contributed to my experience of identity conflict. My trip to Lebanon was needed, to decry what I had only read, and to rediscover the charm of its country, so often lost in the dust of its troubles. I would travel intent to evade the vociferous presence of Lebanese politics, to fall back in love with the country in a manner that transcends the polemic.
It would not take me more than 5 minutes on Beirut’s highways to realize how overly ambitious I had been. My last trip to the country was in 2004 after my graduation from high school in Riyadh. It had been a trip initiated solely to escape the dry life of Saudi Arabia’s capital, to discover what it was like to act on my teenage ambitions in a country that provided me more than ample opportunity to do so. As such, my memories of my last visit were filled with scenes of dancing beauties, extravagant beaches and rousing nights. In a way, I had wanted to recapture this indulgent spirit on my current trip, yet my memories were dealt a blow of reality by the displayed advertisements on the road leaving the airport. Scattered amongst the ads of designer brands, resort beaches and refined liquor, Hezballah made a presence. Images of Imad Mugniyeh and the party of God’s logo on raised billboards and the sides of bridges made their impact felt, as the conversation in our car immediately turned to politics.
“They’ve become really strong,” started my uncle, referring to the party without invoking its name as if to solicit inquiry to his remarks. My father caught the bait: “I’ve become pro-Hezballah now, Karim doesn’t like that,” he said laughing, not knowing the escape I wanted from this discussion. I remained silent, nodding occasionally to acknowledge that I was listening as a recap of the previous month’s events began to be told. Lebanon’s recent history would be recounted often on my trip, by various people, all of whom were unaware that I had kept up with the events of the country. There were certainly many details I was unable to learn while abroad, however I understood the implications of the events that had happened. Even so, I would always allow whomever was speaking to do so freely, as I know the feeling of knowing too much about something and needing an outlet to vent indirectly.
That night, I gave a friend of mine a call to let him know I was in town. Ahmed had studied with me in Riyadh, and after four years of not seeing each other the thought of a reunion produced tremendous excitement in me. Driving around Beirut in a car nearly as old as I, we shared stories of our past, filled each other in on our lives and those of others we had gone to school with. We stopped by the corniche and picked up a cup of coffee each, enjoying the nighttime breeze provided by the mercy of the waters. Our night had been so enjoyable that the feelings of apathy I had before traveling to Lebanon seemed a distant past. It was inevitable, however, that our conversation would turn to broach the one subject I had sought to avoid. With a question I was surprised not to have met up to that point, we got into a discussion on Lebanese current events: “By the way, what are you studying now?,” Ahmed asked. “International Relations,” I answered, anticipating where our conversation would turn.
That question came to spark many more of these conversations. With my cousin, who entered this world a couple of years ahead of me, I had a long talk about my views on theocracy, the state, and American hegemony in the region. My cousin was interested in my perspective on these matters, yet could not avoid the irresistible temptation of lecturing me on the domestic events of the last few months. “Hezballah is very strong here now,” he told me, echoing the words of his father. “Sooner or later they’ll take over the country, you know.”
In fact, they had already proven that militarily they were unmatched with what was widely described as a “siege” of Beirut by the foreign press. Clashes in the streets of the capital erupted on May 6th after a decision by the government to take action against Hezballah’s telecommunications network, in what was described as “Shiite militiamen” quickly gaining the upper hand with a show of coercive dominance. My aunt relayed what she witnessed on Mar Elias, the street of her residence, where large pictures of Nasrallah were displayed along the sidewalks. They remain there today, a present reminder of the events still fresh in the minds of a wary populace.
But much to the testament of the country’s character, some Qatari mediation between the government and its opposition led to an agreement which saw an 18-month political crisis end. Hezballah essentially gained its demands for official legitimacy and increased power within the government, and announced that its protest in downtown Beirut (referred to in the press as “tent city”) that had crippled business and driven away investors would be dismantled. The country’s stock market jumped, and the night life that was a staple of the capital returned almost instantly. People reveled in the sedatives of partying and shopping, with the country’s woes haven been given a figurative band-aid to close its wounds temporarily. Such was the yearning for fun that to the untrained eye, the country would seem to have never had any problems. Such was the comedy amongst the tragedy of Lebanon’s political reality.
My final night in Beirut, I was afforded a few hours to sit on my grandfather’s balcony and reflect on my trip, having wished my friends and most of my family farewell. I was joined by my cousin, who had been impressed by my ability to speak with him about politics and Lebanon at length, for a cup of coffee and cigarettes before I was to catch some sleep for my flight the next morning. I had made my views on Hezballah clear to him during our conversation earlier in the week, telling him of my displeasure at seeing the capital so stained with the party’s presence. What we had also managed to talk about was the resurgent nature of the Lebanese spirit. “Only in this country,” he told me, “will you see a shift as sudden as what we’ve seen the past few months. It shows that people just want to live.”
I began to realize that my attempt to distance myself from the political was not a unique endeavor, but one that was symbolic of the country’s turnaround since the end of May. The political struggles were offset every once in a while by coexistence and the lavish enjoyment of life, only to succumb to our human tendencies for conflict. While my nights were often filled with politics, they would also be occupied by concerts, crowded pubs, and spirited parties. I would also come to rediscover what it was about the country that roused emotion in me, what I felt I needed to defend in my discussions about Lebanon back in Europe. From the drives through its radiant mountains to the good nature of my family and friends, I had fallen back in love with a country which I now felt completed my identity.
Yet despite reconnecting with what I had thought to be a love lost, and despite the abundant distractions the country provided, I could not escape the shadow of politics that engulfed it. And I could not escape the feeling that Lebanon’s stability would soon fall prey to the temporary remedies so joyously celebrated by its populous. But such is the dichotomy of tragedy and comedy in the land of the cedar.
I arrived from Lebanon yesterday and decided to write something this morning. This is an excerpted version of an unfinished article I’m writing for a local magazine in Holland, and I figured I’d post it here. The name(s) used in the article were changed to allow me to write more freely.
Karim El Assir
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