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<p class=MsoNormal><i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'><font size=2
color=blue face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;
color:blue;mso-bidi-font-weight:bold;font-style:italic;mso-bidi-font-style:
normal'>Enjoy,<br>
L.<o:p></o:p></span></font></i></p>
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font-family:Arial;color:blue;mso-bidi-font-weight:bold;font-style:italic;
mso-bidi-font-style:normal'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></i></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=5 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:18.0pt;font-weight:bold'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=5 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:18.0pt;font-weight:bold'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=5 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:18.0pt;font-weight:bold'>Searching for <span class=GramE>The</span>
Soul of <st1:Street w:st="on"><st1:address w:st="on"><span class=SpellE>Hamra</span>
Street</st1:address></st1:Street></span></font></b><br>
In <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Lebanon</st1:place></st1:country-region>'s
Capital, Faint Echoes of a Singular Pluralism<o:p></o:p></p>
<p><font size=2 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>By
Anthony <span class=SpellE>Shadid</span><br>
<st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Washington</st1:place></st1:State>
Post Foreign Service<br>
Monday, July 3, 2006; C01</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
<p><st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>BEIRUT</span></font></st1:place></st1:City><o:p></o:p></p>
<p><span class=SpellE><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Nidal</span></font></span> al-<span class=SpellE>Ashkar's</span>
arms rarely rest. At one moment, they're flailing. At another, they circle in
the air. Her hands jab, <span class=GramE>then</span> turn upward in a plea.
Often they point forward. The cacophony of motion suggests her background in
drama -- as a Lebanese director, actress and theater maven. But these days she
is an activist, too, and her body language implies a hint of desperation.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>For more
than a year now, <span class=SpellE>Ashkar</span> has struggled to revive a
theater known as <span class=SpellE>Masrah</span> al-<span class=SpellE>Madina</span>,
housed in the city's old <span class=SpellE>Saroulla</span> cinema. She brings
determination, defiance and not a little faith to the task, inspired by
nostalgia. By saving the theater, she insists, she can save the avenue that
hosts it, <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Beirut</st1:place></st1:City>'s
storied <st1:Street w:st="on"><st1:address w:st="on"><span class=SpellE>Hamra</span>
Street</st1:address></st1:Street>, the remnants of what was perhaps the most
cosmopolitan mile or so in the Arab world.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"What
makes <span class=SpellE>Hamra</span> important is that it still carries our
memories," <span class=SpellE>Ashkar</span> said. "It still carries
the hopes that people had, dreams, political dreams of change, <i><span
style='font-style:italic'>real</span></i> democratization -- real
democratization, not what is happening now."<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"When
I started looking for a place, I didn't even hesitate," she added.
"It had to be <span class=SpellE>Hamra</span>."<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>There are
some places in the Middle East whose names suggest more an idea than a locale: <st1:Street
w:st="on"><st1:address w:st="on"><span class=SpellE>Mutanabi</span> Street</st1:address></st1:Street>
in <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><span class=GramE>Baghdad</span></st1:place></st1:City><span
class=GramE>,</span> once steeped in books and trends, or Abu <span
class=SpellE>Nawas</span> and its rollicking Iraqi nightlife. <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Cairo</st1:place></st1:City>'s downtown -- <span class=SpellE>Groppi</span>
cafe and cinemas like <span class=SpellE>Rivoli</span> -- is redolent of a
liberal era and its end with a fire in 1952 and a revolution that followed. <span
class=GramE>But only <span class=SpellE>Hamra</span>, nestled in the
neighborhood of <span class=SpellE>Ras</span> Beirut, could claim to have
represented the most sophisticated, open and pluralistic space in the Arab
world.</span> From the 1960s until the civil war that erupted in 1975, <span
class=SpellE>Hamra's</span> theaters and restaurants dominated <st1:City w:st="on">Beirut</st1:City>'s
nightlife, the nearby <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:PlaceName w:st="on">American</st1:PlaceName>
<st1:PlaceType w:st="on">University</st1:PlaceType></st1:place> propelled its
ferment, and its cafes -- hosting Arab dissidents, Palestinian exiles and
Lebanese of all sects and tendencies -- shaped an intellectual sanctuary that
delivered a cadence to Arab politics.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><span class=SpellE><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Hamra</span></font></span> is faded now, a repository
of memory, its cafes and cinemas long shuttered. To some here, its demise
defines the perils of the day, where politics are more and more reflected
through an often unyielding religious discourse or primordial affiliations that
break along sect and ethnicity. That complexity is infused with a depoliticized
materialism that can serve as an opiate. <span class=SpellE>Ashkar's</span>
critics ask: How can <span class=SpellE>Hamra</span> exist when its environment
no longer does?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"This
is a good question to pose," said Mohamed <span class=SpellE>Soueid</span>,
a filmmaker and critic who began his career along <st1:Street w:st="on"><st1:address
w:st="on"><span class=SpellE>Hamra</span> Street</st1:address></st1:Street>.
"In a world where no one trusts anyone, talking about being cosmopolitan
and open, it's a losing <span class=GramE>-- "</span> His words trailed
off. For a moment, he reflected on <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">Beirut</st1:City>,
<st1:country-region w:st="on">Lebanon</st1:country-region></st1:place> and the
rest of the Arab world. "It just seems out of place," he said.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><span class=SpellE><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Ashkar</span></font></span> would not necessarily
disagree; she, too, is grim about the future. She believes that within the past
is a way forward, her theater's success the first step.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"We
renovated the whole place," she said, as her arms swept forward to open
the doors to the main theater, lined with 450 red velvet chairs, the cinema's
originals, "but we always kept the spirit of the 1960s and 1970s."<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Her hands
leading the way, <span class=SpellE>Ashkar</span> glided past a coffee bar,
plated with polished chrome, past green leather chairs a generation old, past
faded pictures of Egyptian and Lebanese actors and a long-gone <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Beirut</st1:place></st1:City>. She barreled into each remodeled
room.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"We
had rubbish up to here," <span class=SpellE>Ashkar</span> said, passing
through a newly painted hallway, her hand held to her head.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"Come
see!" she shouted, pointing to a rehearsal room. "This was
disgusting."<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"I
want to make an oasis in the middle of <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Beirut</st1:place></st1:City>,"
<span class=SpellE>Ashkar</span> said as she finally entered her office, a
former projection room. "It's important for the young people to come to a
place that has free <span class=GramE>speech, that</span> is liberal, open, and
really free from any restrictions."<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Near her
office was a poster for a forum on civil society, another for a talk on
diversity. Alongside was an announcement for a lecture on globalization and the
outline of a novel about an Arab world "weighed down by old traditions,
taboos, unspoken and prohibited words." In the open-air lobby were old
projectors as decor, their film reels empty, dusty lenses facing the street.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"<st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Lebanon</st1:place></st1:country-region> doesn't
have a heart anymore," she said. "There is only <span class=SpellE>Hamra</span>."<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-weight:bold'>A Two-Way Street</span></font></b><o:p></o:p></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The taxis
jockeyed along <span class=SpellE>Hamra</span>, its street of newly laid brick
congested with traffic. One driver, his chin in his hand, tried to read the
newspaper headlines of a crowded kiosk. Another lay on his horn. Another driver
shouted a question, in the direction of a gaggle sipping tea, about directions
to the Antoine bookstore.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Watching
the traffic was poet <span class=SpellE>Essam</span> Abdullah, dragging on a
cigarette in a clear plastic filter, and the assorted artists, writers and
journalists who make up his salon, which convenes every day under the blue
awning of the venerable Cafe de Paris.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"People
pass by, look and see us here," he said. "They think we've been
sitting here since yesterday."<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Abdullah's
hair is a little long. His jacket, frayed and ill-fitting, suits an
intellectual beyond world-weary. The 65-year-old is exhausted. But like those
in his salon, he retains a wit, iconoclasm and irreverence that color the
hours-long conversation each day at the cafe, one of the last to survive from <span
class=SpellE>Hamra's</span> golden age. The same resilience goes for his salon,
a rare instance in <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Beirut</st1:place></st1:City>
where sect -- <span class=SpellE>Maronite</span> Catholic, Greek Orthodox,
Sunni and Shiite Muslim, and Druze -- means less than the ideas debated. In the
street's rebirth or twilight, the salon represents <span class=SpellE>Ashkar's</span>
ideal: a <span class=SpellE>Hamra</span> that greets diversity of opinion with
respect rather than fear.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"Wherever
you are, you'll never be as free as you are in a cafe," he declared.
"You can be silent or talk, you can walk or sit, you can laugh or not
laugh, read or not read, write or not write. You're responsible to no
one."<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>He paused
for dramatic effect and continued. "The cafe table is an arena, but the
competition is with words!"<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>People
around him smiled, and the conversation went on, across tables strewn with
cigarettes, coffee and newspapers.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The topic
this day was Lebanese politics, a staple of talk here, and <span class=GramE>to</span>
many a feature emblematic of <span class=SpellE>Hamra's</span> demise.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Some made
jokes about Michel <span class=SpellE>Aoun</span>, a former general and
Christian leader. Skewered as well was Hezbollah, the country's main Shiite
Muslim group, which poet Ghassan <span class=SpellE>Jawad</span> said had
turned his village near the Israeli border, with Taliban-like zeal, into the
"<st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><span class=SpellE>Kandahar</span></st1:place></st1:City>
of the south." There were jabs and digs at other largely sectarian
politicians, many of whom fought the 1975-90 civil war and still lord over the
country. One person bitterly complained that people in <st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Lebanon</st1:place></st1:country-region> see it
as their right to steal electricity and water, avoid taxes and try to cheat on
their phone bills.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"They
think the state is their enemy," answered <span class=SpellE>Badia</span> <span
class=SpellE>Baydoun</span>, a former journalist.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>She grew
agitated. What hope was there for civil society, much less <span class=SpellE>Hamra</span>,
she asked, when no one saw beyond his own interests or that of the community?
"There is a horrible absence of citizenship in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Lebanon</st1:place></st1:country-region>," she said, shaking
her head.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>A few
moments later, Abdullah's brother, <span class=SpellE>Emad</span>, began a song
by the legendary Lebanese singer <span class=SpellE>Fairouz</span>.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"To <st1:City
w:st="on">Beirut</st1:City>, a salute from my heart, to <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Beirut</st1:place></st1:City>," it went. A few verses in, and <span
class=SpellE>Emad</span> shook his head and squinted.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"I
can't remember all the words," he said.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-weight:bold'>Goodbye, Kurosawa</span></font></b><o:p></o:p></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Two
images greet someone strolling past Cafe de Paris and down <span class=SpellE>Hamra</span>.
The first is a banner, under which traffic passes. "<st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Lebanon</st1:place></st1:country-region>
first," it reads, a startling slogan for a street that once imported
almost every ideological battle of the Arab world. The other is a rickety stand
of postcards, circa 1970, showing its landmarks: the Al <span class=SpellE>Hamra</span>
cinema and cafes like Horseshoe and <span class=SpellE>Modca</span>.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><span class=SpellE><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Soueid</span></font></span>, the 47-year-old filmmaker
and critic, called the <span class=SpellE>Hamra</span> of those days "the
Arabs' Champs-<span class=SpellE>Elysees</span>."<o:p></o:p></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"I
still remember if you wanted to make a career as an intellectual or get involved
in film, the <span class=SpellE>Hamra</span> cafes were the best place to meet
people and discuss," he said. "It was a meeting ground between the
West and the Arab world."<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Like <span
class=SpellE>Hamra</span> itself, the cafes' names spoke to an idea: <span
class=SpellE>L'Express</span> was <span class=GramE>highbrow</span> for, as <span
class=SpellE>Soueid</span> put it, "those who found the most complicated
words to form a phrase." After shows at the Piccadilly <span class=GramE>theater</span>,
performers like <span class=SpellE>Fairouz</span> stopped in at Wimpy, where
their black-and-white photos still hang. The Horseshoe drew poets and Arab
exiles; <span class=SpellE>Modca</span> self-made intellectuals. The Strand
catered to Palestinians, whose cause intersected headily with other <st1:place
w:st="on">Third World</st1:place> liberation movements of the time.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><span class=SpellE><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Soueid</span></font></span> remembered the inspiration
of seeing the films of <span class=SpellE>Andrzej</span> <span class=SpellE>Wajda</span>,
Federico <span class=SpellE>Fellini</span>, Akira Kurosawa and Ingmar Bergman
at cinemas that began with Al <span class=SpellE>Hamra</span> in 1958 and
proliferated in the decade that followed.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Through
those years, the neighborhood around it, <span class=SpellE>Ras</span> Beirut,
emerged as the city's most diverse, where Sunni Muslim and Greek Orthodox,
Druze and Protestant lived together. The <st1:PlaceName w:st="on">American</st1:PlaceName>
<st1:PlaceType w:st="on">University</st1:PlaceType> of <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Beirut</st1:place></st1:City>, founded in 1866, fed that pluralism.
The city itself suffered deep inequality -- a ring of misery on its outskirts,
populated by disenfranchised Shiites -- and at times the heavy hand of Lebanese
intelligence, but <span class=SpellE>Hamra</span> and <span class=SpellE>Ras</span>
Beirut emerged as a sanctuary of ideology and lifestyle. "Everybody who
felt out of place in the Arab world felt at home in <span class=SpellE>Ras</span>
Beirut," said <span class=SpellE>Samir</span> <span class=SpellE>Khalaf</span>,
a professor at the university who lived in the neighborhood.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The civil
war ended that, and in time <span class=SpellE>Hamra's</span> intersection was
subsumed in <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Beirut</st1:place></st1:City>'s
anarchy. Its Christian population dwindled, and businesses fled. Squatters and
migrants surged in, many bringing the traditional mores of the countryside. To
survive, theaters went from showing Kurosawa to pornography. "The idea of
it," <span class=SpellE>Soueid</span> recalled, grimacing. The owner of
the Horseshoe sold the iconic cafe in 1979. "It was a dagger in the heart
of <span class=SpellE>Hamra</span>," said <span class=SpellE>Assem</span> <span
class=SpellE>Salam</span>, 80, a prominent architect.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Some of
the street's resilience has survived. Recently the writer <span class=SpellE>Noam</span>
Chomsky delivered a lecture at <span class=SpellE>Masrah</span> al-<span
class=SpellE>Madina</span>, an occasion imbued with its own symbolism: an
American Jew speaking in predominantly Muslim West <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Beirut</st1:place></st1:City> at a theater run by <span
class=SpellE>Ashkar</span>, who is from a <span class=SpellE>Maronite</span>
Christian family. The neighborhood around it retains more diversity, however
diminished, than the rest of city, and the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:PlaceName
w:st="on">American</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceType w:st="on">University</st1:PlaceType></st1:place>
is enjoying a revival. The street is freshly paved, and trees are planted along
the new shops, among them Starbucks. Property remains some of the <span
class=GramE>city's</span> most expensive. "It's as if the invisible hand
of Adam Smith is smarter than the Lebanese," <span class=SpellE>Khalaf</span>
said. "Your future is in mixed areas."<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>But like
a faded postcard, <span class=SpellE>Hamra</span> reflects its times. While
still diverse, fashion reflects a growing Islamic conservatism, the veil <span
class=GramE>its</span> most visible if <span class=SpellE>cliched</span>
manifestation. Bootleg DVDs of "King Kong" are hawked along the
sidewalk of a decidedly downscale street. Theaters remain closed, cinemas
relocating to more segregated neighborhoods; on one still hangs a tattered
poster of the 1989 movie "See No Evil, Hear No Evil," with Gene
Wilder and Richard Pryor. Farther away, near the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:PlaceName
w:st="on">American</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceType w:st="on">University</st1:PlaceType></st1:place>,
a McDonald's stands where the fabled Faisal restaurant entertained exiles,
dissidents, conspirators and students. Newspapers like an-<span class=SpellE>Nahar</span>
have moved elsewhere; <span class=SpellE>Modca</span>, the intellectual haunt,
made way in 2003 for Vero <span class=SpellE>Moda</span>, a clothing store.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"Can
you imagine <st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">New York</st1:place></st1:State>
living only on buying clothing?" asked <span class=SpellE>Soueid</span>.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>At a cafe
off <span class=SpellE>Hamra</span>, with a hint of bitterness, he considered
the fate of the street and his country.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"True
nations never lose their <span class=SpellE>naivete</span>," he said.
"<span class=SpellE>Naivete</span> means you're still ready to believe in
something, to grasp life's promise, to accept what comes from life. The
Lebanese have stopped being naive."<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><span class=SpellE><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Soueid</span></font></span> thought about the <span
class=SpellE>naivete</span> of <st1:Street w:st="on"><st1:address w:st="on"><span
class=SpellE>Hamra</span> Street</st1:address></st1:Street>.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"It
is nostalgia to me, but even nostalgia has lost its meaning," he said.
"I get bored of remembering this street."<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-weight:bold'>Directions</span></font></b><o:p></o:p></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Behind
the stone walls that encircle the red-tiled roofs of the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:PlaceName
w:st="on">American</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceType w:st="on">University</st1:PlaceType></st1:place>,
six Lebanese students gathered after a seminar. They don't remember the street.
But they remember what it represented.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"We're
going backward, not forward," said <span class=SpellE>Fouad</span> Debs, a
19-year-old sophomore.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>More than
a year after protests helped end a 29-year Syrian military presence -- hailed
as a democratic success by the Bush administration -- the country is today
gridlocked by fighting between factions nominally pro- and anti-Syrian, but
really fractured by sect. In political talks that have stretched for weeks, the
leaders chummily converse, while the sectarian tensions among their followers
are as pronounced as perhaps any time since the civil war. It reaches down as
far as the affiliations of local sports teams.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The six
students are largely secular; two are born of mixed marriages. And in this
milieu, they find no one representing them in a country and region where Islam
or communal interests tend to be the sole axis around which politics revolve.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>In
student elections last year, sectarian and religious parties swept the vote, a
reversal of 2002, when secular groups did well. Several noted it was students
who organized protests in 2003 to try to keep <span class=SpellE>Modca</span>
open, and they lamented a seeming contradiction that is familiar elsewhere in
the Arab world: a growing social conservatism, grounded in a religious revival,
colliding, coexisting and sometimes intersecting with the crass materialism
that relentlessly washes over <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Beirut</st1:place></st1:City>.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"The
Syrians left, and we went back to this polarization," said <span
class=SpellE>Rami</span> <span class=SpellE>Estephan</span>, a 21-year-old
senior.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"Come
on," Debs said, scolding. "We were already polarized before
that."<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>As <st1:City
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Beirut</st1:place></st1:City>'s geography has
transformed, new centers have emerged, at <span class=SpellE>Hamra's</span>
expense. The rebuilt downtown, with a plethora of sleek restaurants and offices
straddling the civil war-era Green Line, brings crowds day and night, but lacks
a cultural or intellectual air. Critics complain it is soulless. Nightlife has
blossomed in east <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Beirut</st1:place></st1:City>,
but it remains an explicitly Christian realm. "There is nowhere in <st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Lebanon</st1:place></st1:country-region> now where
<span class=GramE>people</span> of all communities and all classes meet," <span
class=SpellE>Salam</span> said.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>In the
rest of the Arab world, only <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Dubai</st1:place></st1:City>
can claim the diversity <span class=SpellE>Hamra</span> and <span class=SpellE>Ras</span>
Beirut once had, but it's more commercial than cosmopolitan. "<st1:City
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Dubai</st1:place></st1:City>?" asked <span
class=SpellE>Khalaf</span>, shrugging his shoulders. "It's a shopping
mall."<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>And at
AUB, the students, as one of them put it, are waiting for their "<st1:State
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">New York</st1:place></st1:State> place."<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"There's
no real bridge," Debs said.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Sara <span
class=SpellE>Mourad</span>, a 19-year-old sophomore, interrupted him. There
actually are bridges, she said.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"People
stand on each side of them, they wave, and they never meet in the middle."<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span class=SpellE><b><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-weight:bold'>Cul</span></font></b></span><b><span
style='font-weight:bold'>-de-Sac</span></b><o:p></o:p></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>It's the
nostalgia of <span class=SpellE>Hamra</span> and the hope for students like <span
class=SpellE>Mourad</span> that keeps <span class=SpellE>Ashkar</span>, the
theater director, going.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"This
is a place of tomorrow, not yesterday," she said.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>A few
minutes later, she set out down <st1:Street w:st="on"><st1:address w:st="on"><span
class=SpellE>Hamra</span> Street</st1:address></st1:Street>, past the former
an-<span class=SpellE>Nahar</span> building, water stains streaking its gray
stucco. The <span class=SpellE>Ajami</span> cafe underneath, a haunt of
activists and journalists, has long closed. She pointed to the former site of <span
class=SpellE>L'Express</span> and the Horseshoe where she remembered, in her
twenties, meeting Syrian poet <span class=SpellE>Nizar</span> <span
class=SpellE>Qabbani</span> and Lebanese writer <span class=SpellE>Laila</span>
<span class=SpellE>Baalbaki</span>.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"Everyone,
everyone, everyone was at the Horseshoe," she said.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>She
walked on, past an older man in a fez on the sidewalk playing the <span
class=SpellE>oud</span>, a string instrument. Next to him, a poster read,
"I want to sing to live." She walked underneath the canopy of Cafe de
Paris and greeted Abdullah and his friends, who on this day, as others,
bemoaned the idea that their salon might remain, but its milieu no longer does.
She pointed out Antoine, where her father bought books. She glanced at a
women's clothing store, where her mother bought a dress for her when she was 9.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"This
one was here since we were young," she said. "It never changed."<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Then she
ventured into a travel agency that opened on <span class=SpellE>Hamra</span> in
1959.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"The
Horseshoe is actually older than us, but it was closed a month ago," an
employee told her.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"Closed?
Why?" she asked.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"I
don't know. They sold it, but I don't know to whom," he answered.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"God
destroy their house," she said. "How stupid are they?"<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><span class=SpellE><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Ashkar</span></font></span> said she sees a lot of
stupidity these days -- in politics, more than anything.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"I
think it's a very dark period in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Lebanon</st1:place></st1:country-region>," she said.
"We're in a tunnel now, and I don't know where it leads."<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>She
paused, looked out at the street again, <span class=GramE>then</span>
seamlessly switched sentiments. "When I walk in <span class=SpellE>Hamra</span>,
I feel at home. I feel my youth," she said. "<span class=SpellE>Hamra</span>
has our soul, it has our youth, and it had our hope for change."<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>By choice
or accident, <span class=SpellE>Ashkar</span> spoke in the past tense. At that
moment, nostalgia was stronger than hope.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<div style='mso-element:para-border-div;border:none;border-bottom:solid windowtext 1.0pt;
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<p style='border:none;mso-border-bottom-alt:solid windowtext .75pt;padding:
0in;mso-padding-alt:0in 0in 1.0pt 0in'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>© 2006 The
Washington Post Company<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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