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<h1><b><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Dance
away the heartache: The Lebanese turned up the music to drown out the sound of
gunfire, writes Lina Saigol. </span></font></b></h1>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>By LINA SAIGOL <br>
827 words <br>
27 November 2004<br>
<a
href="javascript:NewWindow(%20'FIISrcDetails','?from=article&ids=ftft');void(0);"
title="javascript:NewWindow(%20'FIISrcDetails','?from=article&ids=ftft');void(0); Financial Times"><font
color="#6666ff"
title="javascript:NewWindow(%20'FIISrcDetails','?from=article&ids=ftft');void(0);"><span
style='color:#6666FF'>Financial Times</span></font></a><br>
London Ed1<br>
Page 17<br>
English<br>
(c) 2004 The Financial Times Limited. All rights reserved </span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Some
people dance to remember, some dance to forget. In Beirut, they just dance.
They shimmied their way through the 1982 Israeli invasion and 16 years of civil
war, and now they are swinging their way through the 21st century. </span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Beirut</span></font>'s
nightlife did not shut down when the shelling started - it went underground.
The Lebanese simply turned up the music to drown out the gunfire. </p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Returning
home to Lebanon during the mid-1980s for holidays, I remember how my cousins
and I would sneak out after curfew to while away the time in one of the few
after-hours bars that were still operating, such as Backstreet or Uncle Sam's,
a low-key pub near the American University in West Beirut. </span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>We would
revel in drinking warm beer and dragging on American-bought Marlboro Reds as we
discussed politics in heated tongues over flickering candles. Sometimes, if our
Christian friends could be bothered to drive through the endless check points
set up to divide east and west Beirut, they would join us. </span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>For those
of us who did not have to endure the daily bombardment and pain of war, the
more erratic the electricity, the bigger the thrill and the more poignant our
exchange of stories appeared to be. </span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Today, it
is not so much courage, but cash and connections that is needed to get into the
glitzy array of bars and clubs sprinkled around the centre of town. </span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The
spectre of nightlife entertainment varies from Crystal, Beirut's largest and arguably
tackiest nightclub, to Casablanca, a Bohemian- style restaurant and bar with
views of the corniche. </span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Competition
to be the trendiest and slickest in terms of design is intense. Some venues
close within months of opening, depending on the mood of Beirut's revellers.
One of the first clubs to hit the scene straight after the war was B018, Beirut's underground club that still has echoes of war and death. Submerged underground in
an area where Muslim refugees were massacred in 1976, clubbers display a kind
of group amnesia as they dance on tables set with memorial photos of old
Hollywood entertainers, waiting for the state of the art ceiling to open and
reveal Beirut's polluted sky. </span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>This is
still one of the most popular clubs in Beirut that is able to attract some of
the biggest names on the circuit. Last week, Judge Jules, the well-known DJ,
made a guest appearance at the club. </span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>At Crystal, the heady scent of Fendi, Gucci and Prada engulfs you at the door. Mountains of
glossy, brown and blonde hair and beautiful hands with varnished talons
cling-filmed in transparent silks, jig along to the latest sounds, adorning
women mouthing the words to songs. Here, the jetset Lebanese crowd can be as
flash and gaudy as they like. Whenever someone buys a Dollars 3,000 bottle of
Moet & Chandon, the music stops and a spotlight is beamed on to the
customers as their order is carried to their table. They then get their name
embossed on the wall. </span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>For
something a little less over the top there is the baroque-style lounge bar </span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Zinc.
Housed in an old French colonial villa, Zinc is a favourite with people who
want to dance for fun, not display. </span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>It can be
heartbreaking sometimes to see a generation of people brought up in almost
endless war, dancing on the tables to Vera Lynn's second world war ballad,
Those Were the Days. Growing up during the war, this song was a favourite with
my great-aunts who used to delight in waltzing to the memories of their
glamorous Beirut past. </span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Indeed,
it is easy to forget that some of the Palestinian refugee camps that are in Lebanon, including the rat-infested Bourj al-Barajneh camp, are located less than 15
minutes away from the nightlife. </span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>To
untrained ears, the supersonic boom resounding from Beirut's nightlife could
resemble the tremors endured during nearly two decades of destruction. </span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>But these
are just the sounds of the Lebanese enjoying themselves again. Some have even
worked the psyche of the war into their nightlife by choosing to drink and
dance at Beirut's 1975, a bar named for the year the civil war broke out. </span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>It
features a smokey atmosphere to suggest shelling, walls lined with sandbags and
a ceiling covered with a dark green camouflage net. Waiters at 1975 wear battle
fatigues and serve drinks from ammunition boxes loaded with ice and bottles of
vodka. </span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>On an
evening out when conversation turns to the latest Israeli attack near Lebanon's border, however, it is difficult to rely on vodka and music to anaesthetise the
pain of conflict. </span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Verdana'><br>
<br>
Enjoy!<br>
L.</span></font></p>
<p><font size=2 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana'>___________________________________<br>
<strong><b><font face=Verdana><span style='font-family:Verdana'>Loai Naamani</span></font></b></strong><br>
PhD Candidate - Information Technology<br>
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)<br>
<br>
Phone: +1 (617) 452 5380<br>
Email: <a href="mailto:Loai@mit.edu">Loai@mit.edu</a><br>
URL: <a
href="http://www.loai-naamani.com/">www.Loai-Naamani.com</a><br>
<br>
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