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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face=Georgia><span style='font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:Georgia'><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/"><font color=black
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-family:"Times New Roman";color:windowtext;
text-decoration:none'><img border=0 width=199 height=47 id="_x0000_i1081"
src="cid:image001.gif@01C715D2.B2E9A300" alt="The New York Times"></span></font></a><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=2 face=Georgia><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Georgia;font-weight:bold'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=2 face=Georgia><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Georgia;font-weight:bold'>December 1, 2006<o:p></o:p></span></font></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><NYT_KICKER><st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><b><font
size=3 color="#666666" face=Georgia><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:
Georgia;color:#666666;text-transform:uppercase;font-weight:bold'>Beirut</span></font></b></st1:place></st1:City><b><font
color="#666666" face=Georgia><span style='font-family:Georgia;color:#666666;
text-transform:uppercase;font-weight:bold'> Journal<o:p></o:p></span></font></b></p>
</NYT_KICKER>
<h1><NYT_HEADLINE type=" " version="1.0"><b><font size=6 face=Georgia><span
style='font-size:21.5pt;font-family:Georgia'>After War, <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region
w:st="on">Lebanon</st1:country-region></st1:place> Turns to Art, Asking: Who
Are We? <o:p></o:p></span></font></b></h1>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=2 face=Georgia><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Georgia;font-weight:bold'><NYT_BYLINE type=" " version="1.0"></NYT_HEADLINE>By
<a
href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/michael_slackman/index.html?inline=nyt-per"
title="More Articles by Michael Slackman">MICHAEL SLACKMAN</a><o:p></o:p></span></font></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
line-height:18.0pt'><st1:place w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on"><font size=4
color=black face=Georgia><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:Georgia;
color:black'>BEIRUT</span></font></st1:City><font size=4 color=black
face=Georgia><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:Georgia;color:black'>, <st1:country-region
w:st="on">Lebanon</st1:country-region></span></font></st1:place><font size=4
color=black face=Georgia><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:Georgia;
color:black'>, Nov. 30 — The searing events of war, of spilled blood and
shattered innocence, can provoke introspection and, when the guns have been
laid down and the bodies buried, it can inspire art, too. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
line-height:18.0pt'><st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on"><font
size=4 color=black face=Georgia><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:
Georgia;color:black'>Lebanon</span></font></st1:country-region></st1:place><font
size=4 color=black face=Georgia><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:Georgia;
color:black'> has been tied up with bloody postwar politics. It has been
paralyzed by a tense standoff between political rivals and by the assassination
of a young government minister, which threatens to provoke more violence.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
line-height:18.0pt'><font size=4 color=black face=Georgia><span
style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:Georgia;color:black'>But after
Hezbollah’s war with <st1:country-region w:st="on">Israel</st1:country-region>,
<st1:place w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">Beirut</st1:City></st1:place> got busy
with art, too.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
line-height:18.0pt'><font size=4 color=black face=Georgia><span
style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:Georgia;color:black'>There was a surge of
music, video, sculpture, poetry and theater. Each artist sought to examine the
issues raised by the 34-day war and the ensuing political clash among Lebanese
leaders. Each set out a position, and each in its own way asked of the
Lebanese: Who are we?<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
line-height:18.0pt'><font size=4 color=black face=Georgia><span
style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:Georgia;color:black'>It was a question that
cut to the core of much that troubles <st1:country-region w:st="on">Lebanon</st1:country-region>,
the most pluralistic society in the <st1:place w:st="on">Middle East</st1:place>,
not always comfortable in its own multisectarian skin.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
line-height:18.0pt'><font size=4 color=black face=Georgia><span
style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:Georgia;color:black'>“My own identity
was put at risk in many ways by this war,” said Ziad Abillama, whose
lifelong exploration of an Arab-Christian intellectual identity has infused his
work. Mr. Abillama likes to say he was reborn in 1991, the year of the Persian
Gulf war, when despite his Christianity, his Western orientation, his fluency
in French and his Jewish friends, he realized that no matter what, he was an
Arab and would always be seen that way by the West. How did that feel?<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
line-height:18.0pt'><font size=4 color=black face=Georgia><span
style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:Georgia;color:black'>His piece stood in the
entrance of the Espace SD gallery, and it represented what Mr. Abillama was
feeling about himself and, to some extent, his <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Lebanon</st1:place></st1:country-region>. It was a metal signpost
with arrows pointing in multiple directions. Each sign pointed the way to
“Arabes,” French for Arabs.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
line-height:18.0pt'><font size=4 color=black face=Georgia><span
style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:Georgia;color:black'>Who are we? Some
Lebanese insist they are descendants of the Phoenicians, not Arabs at all. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
line-height:18.0pt'><font size=4 color=black face=Georgia><span
style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:Georgia;color:black'>In the gallery
exhibit, there was a sound installation that harmonized bombs falling with a
jazz trumpet. There was a sculpture of personal belongings, books, papers and
pictures, covered in the pulverized dust that was someone’s home. There
was the pink Warhol-style portrait of Hezbollah’s leader, Sheik Hassan
Nsssralla.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
line-height:18.0pt'><font size=4 color=black face=Georgia><span
style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:Georgia;color:black'>“Regardless of
my political opinions, his voice was the one I waited to hear,” wrote
Zena Khalil, the artist who painted the portrait, called
“Superstar.” “I find that by painting him, perhaps I can
break past the media pop star and try to get to know the human being who has
come to have such an overwhelming presence in my life.”<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
line-height:18.0pt'><font size=4 color=black face=Georgia><span
style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:Georgia;color:black'>Nearly everyone here
speaks of wanting a united country, unity of purpose and a clear national
identity. But all of the main actors, leaders of parties defined primarily by
confessional communities (Christian, Sunni, Shiite, Druse), want a <st1:country-region
w:st="on">Lebanon</st1:country-region> united by their definition of what <st1:place
w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Lebanon</st1:country-region></st1:place>
should be. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
line-height:18.0pt'><font size=4 color=black face=Georgia><span
style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:Georgia;color:black'>Allegiance is
sometimes regional, sometimes ideological, sometimes opportunistic, but always
divisive. The war with <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Israel</st1:country-region></st1:place>
did not unearth these feelings, but it deepened what already ailed this place. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
line-height:18.0pt'><font size=4 color=black face=Georgia><span
style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:Georgia;color:black'>After the war, people
were divided by a sense of victimization and triumph. Many Shiites bristled
when they heard some Christian and Sunni leaders complain of the cost they bore
from the war when the damage was mostly restricted to Shiite regions. Many
Christian and Sunni leaders bristled at Hezbollah’s claims of victory,
when whole swaths of the nation’s infrastructure were devastated.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
line-height:18.0pt'><font size=4 color=black face=Georgia><span
style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:Georgia;color:black'>But the war also
recalibrated the balance of power, or the perceived balance of power, and so a
struggle ensued, with Hezbollah feeling it emerged stronger, and the governing
coalition weaker.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
line-height:18.0pt'><font size=4 color=black face=Georgia><span
style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:Georgia;color:black'>A lot of people just
felt numb.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
line-height:18.0pt'><font size=4 color=black face=Georgia><span
style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:Georgia;color:black'>“The more I live
wars, the more my memory and emotion shows no interest,” wrote Rowina Bou
Harb, in a note posted beside her piece in the Espace gallery. Ms. Bou Harb
wrapped a white board in a piece of ripped plastic.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
line-height:18.0pt'><font size=4 color=black face=Georgia><span
style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:Georgia;color:black'>She called it,
“Don’t Feel Like Talking Anymore, I Almost Forgot What I
Felt.”<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
line-height:18.0pt'><font size=4 color=black face=Georgia><span
style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:Georgia;color:black'>Art can transcend
politics, but also can work perfectly as a tool of politics, taking sides and
promoting causes. One of <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Lebanon</st1:place></st1:country-region>’s
more famous singers, Julia Boutros, adapted a speech by Mr. Nasrallah into a
potent tribute called “Ahibaii,” or “My Beloved Ones.”<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
line-height:18.0pt'><font size=4 color=black face=Georgia><span
style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:Georgia;color:black'>She accompanied her
music with a video that honored the Hezbollah fighters who had battled <st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Israel</st1:place></st1:country-region> in the
south. After a sold-out performance in <st1:City w:st="on">Beirut</st1:City>
she is scheduled to perform around the region, all the while promoting
Hezbollah and a <st1:country-region w:st="on">Lebanon</st1:country-region>
united under her notion of <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Lebanon</st1:country-region></st1:place>.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
line-height:18.0pt'><font size=4 color=black face=Georgia><span
style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:Georgia;color:black'>The night of her benefit
performance, thousands of people poured into a forum here. They waved the flag
of Hezbollah and chanted “God, Nasrallah and the suburbs,” a
reference to the crowded Shiite neighborhood bombarded by <st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Israel</st1:place></st1:country-region> during
the war.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
line-height:18.0pt'><font size=4 color=black face=Georgia><span
style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:Georgia;color:black'>This was Ms.
Boutros’s <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Lebanon</st1:place></st1:country-region>,
minus the other half that wants no part of her half. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
line-height:18.0pt'><font size=4 color=black face=Georgia><span
style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:Georgia;color:black'>There is plenty of
anger too. A small troupe of actors, college-age men and women, have for weeks
performed a show called “UNacceptable.” The messages were not
subtle: the United Nations is a tool of the <st1:country-region w:st="on">United
States</st1:country-region>; international institutions are bloated, useless
and focused on themselves; <st1:country-region w:st="on">Israel</st1:country-region>
is the enemy; the government is weak; the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">United States</st1:place></st1:country-region> is evil. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
line-height:18.0pt'><font size=4 color=black face=Georgia><span
style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:Georgia;color:black'>When the war was still
raging, Ritta Baddoura started posting her poetry on a blog as a form of
“resistance and an act of survival,” she said. Ms. Baddoura likes
to shock, to poke around places her neighbors wish to leave alone. <st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Lebanon</st1:place></st1:country-region>, she
says, is a land of denial, of unresolved conflicts between groups of people who
killed one another during a 15-year civil war, then chose never to acknowledge
the past. Militia leaders — men who ordered their neighbors and
adversaries killed — became political leaders.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
line-height:18.0pt'><font size=4 color=black face=Georgia><span
style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:Georgia;color:black'>The war and its
aftermath brought that home and inspired more poetry, another journey into
society’s forbidden territory. In her view, Ms. Baddoura says, the
painful truth for this country is that there is no sense of unity. “We
need <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Israel</st1:place></st1:country-region>
to stay united,” she said with an air of exhaustion. “We cannot
agree on anything.”<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Georgia><span style='font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:Georgia'><img border=0 width=600 height=315 id="_x0000_i1089"
src="cid:image002.jpg@01C715D2.B2E9A300"><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=1 color="#909090" face=Arial><span
style='font-size:7.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:#909090'>Shawn Baldwin for The
New York Times<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=1 color="#909090" face=Arial><span
style='font-size:7.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:#909090'>The singer Julia
Boutros, whose work features a video honoring Hezbollah, performed in <st1:place
w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">Beirut</st1:City></st1:place> on Nov. 10</span></font><font
size=2><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
10.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><img border=0 width=650 height=433 id="_x0000_i1098"
src="cid:image003.jpg@01C715D2.B2E9A300"><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=1 color="#909090" face=Arial><span
style='font-size:7.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:#909090'>Shawn Baldwin for The
New York Times<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=1 color="#909090" face=Arial><span
style='font-size:7.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:#909090'>An actor with a fake
gun performed Nov. 12 in a play called “UNacceptable,” which
suggests the United Nations is a tool of the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region
w:st="on">United States</st1:country-region></st1:place>.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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