[LCM Articles] [ARTICLES] "Pride, Peace Pit Sides" & "Journal: A City Transformed" by Julie Goodman

[Loai Naamani]

Pride, peace pit sides 

By Julie Goodman
jgoodman at clarionledger.com


 



Julie Goodman/The Clarion-Ledger

The Martyrs' Statue, marking the struggle for independence from Ottoman rule, sits in downtown Beirut. It still bears scars from the
city's brutal 15-year war between Christians and Muslims. 


Two months ago, I stood facing a towering fence propped up by sturdy poles, covered in what looked like a menacing cluster of cables
and barbed wire.

It was the kind of fence you'd expect to see outside a high-security prison, or maybe a nuclear testing site.

But this fence was neither. It was the boundary between two countries, ones that for years had killed each other off in a war of
bullets, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades. 

I stood in Lebanon; through the fence was Israel.

The "fence" was the Blue Line, the United Nations-created demarcation to confirm Israel's 2000 withdrawal from the south Lebanese
border.

My trip there was part of a five-week stay to cover recent political developments in the country. I focused on one aspect of
Lebanon's evolving political landscape: Hezbollah, a fighting militia that grew out of the conflict with Israel in the early 1980s
and now has infiltrated Lebanon's government, causing ripples around the globe. 

The Party of God, as its name translates from Arabic, is dismissed as a terrorist organization by the United States. But in Lebanon,
its role is very complex.

To many Lebanese, Hezbollah is about pride, dignity and an affront to Israel. To others, it remains the force that forever will hold
the potential to bring chaos to the region and aggravate tensions on the international scene.

The fighting faction reached heroic status after being credited with driving out the Israelis in 2000. But over the years, the party
also has developed a more progressive, socially conscious side, one which eagerly embraces organic farming and recycled paper. 

Violence at the border between Lebanon and Israel largely has died down, and since the end of its devastating 15-year civil war in
1990, Lebanon slowly has remodeled itself to become a relative bastion of peace in the Middle East.

But another transformation threatens that normalcy.

Recent changes have included the attempted assassination of an opposition leader, the resignation of a prime minister, and the
launch of a drone to spy on enemy territory.

In the coming days, I will illustrate the evolution of Hezbollah - where it came from, where it's going and what its experience
might say for emerging parties in other volatile parts of the world. I also plan to examine U.S. policy in the region and the
complications that come with it.

The trip to Lebanon was the first chance I have had to taste authentic hummus, to explore ancient ruins and to watch Hezbollah's
military marching - in an Iranian high step - in front of thousands of cheering spectators. 

I saw an unexpected side to the Middle East, witnessing in Beirut the way Western styles have taken hold with female university
students sporting tank tops and tight jeans, and Muslim women enjoying drags of tobacco from long pipes on the seaside. 

A stark contrast to some of its neighboring Arab countries, Lebanon is where you can chug a beer while listening to the Muslim call
to prayer broadcast through loudspeakers from a mosque down the street.

The country, it seems, is full of contrasts, with lush olive trees and thick banana groves at one turn, and a painting of a gun
tearing through a Star of David at another.

You easily can make a pit stop for sticky pistachio sweets off some of the same roads dotted with haunting faces of young men -
"martyrs," as they are honored - who died in the fight against Israel. 

Residents can traverse the city freely, but the former Green Line, the boundary that once divided Beirut into Muslims and
Christians, is still palpable.

The city is home to the pock-marked buildings and blown-out windows of the past, and the posh storefronts of reconstruction. The
balcony of my apartment in East Beirut, the Christian side, bore the signs of plaster that had been used to repair the damage from
bullets, mortars, or whatever may have once struck the building. 

The country, struggling with an imperfect democracy and perhaps a precarious hold on peace, is accustomed to paradox.

The Blue Line, for instance, is a jarring, yet intimate juxtaposition for enemies.

A Jewish settlement can be seen through its chain links. On the Lebanese side, a sign marks the spot of a suicide bombing just in
front of the "Freedom Cafe," whose marquee includes a picture of a foaming beverage. 

An old tank sits nearby with Hezbollah's logo resting on top: an automatic Soviet rifle propped up on a globe.

My savvy translator, Maha, who guided me around the country during my stay, said the Lebanese were once fond of hurling rocks at
Israelis on the other side of the border. 

The paradox that confounded me the most was Hezbollah's dual nature.

It is angry and militant on one side; maternal and nurturing on the other.

One day, I watched a small child in military fatigues execute a guerrilla warfare stunt off a 30-meter high building. Another, I
listened to a grateful shop owner explain how Hezbollah cleared sewage backup from his streets. 

The question at the heart of this paradox is how one side feeds into the other, and what this split personality could tell us about
other parts of the world.

The answers, I hope, lie ahead.

 

 

Journal: A city transformed 

By Julie Goodman
jugoodman at clarionledger.com

BEIRUT - One of my stops in Lebanon was a nondescript intersection in Beirut, typical of the kind you might see at the center of any
city. But this intersection was not any ordinary crossroads.

It was on the former Green Line in Beirut, and it marked the spot where Christian gunman ambushed a busload of Palestinians, setting
the city's 15-year bloody and chaotic war into motion. 

It was a time when booby-trapped cars exploded and important people disappeared without a trace.

This was the Beirut of the past. The city I saw during my five-week stay in Lebanon had evolved dramatically since the days of the
1975-90 war.

The language is a blend of Arabic, English and French - sometimes spoken over Turkish coffee and cigarettes - and the people are in
integrated mix of Shiites, Sunnis, Druze, Christians and others.

Parts of the Green Line are now populated by night spots where Christians and Muslims both congregate. While there is always talk of
simmering tensions between religions, there seems to be a heavier, more prevalent sentiment, that no one really has the energy to
fight. 

Although people with a range of cultures and religions mingle freely now, there is still a tendency to place people in categories.

A last name usually gives away whether someone is Christian or Muslim, and some Lebanese won't hesitate to goad another into
revealing their creed.

I began my stay in Christian East Beirut. The balcony of the apartment in the Greek Orthodox neighborhood where I lived still bore
the signs of war. A worker had attempted to use plaster to cover the damage from the bullets, shells or whatever it was that once
came flying at the building.

Half way through my stay, I moved to a district called Hamra in Muslim West Beirut, where my bedroom window looked out on to the
Mediterranean Sea.

Here, the call to prayer was frequently broadcast from the local mosques, one consistent sign of Islam in a heavily Westernized
city.

There are turbaned and bearded men who will not shake a woman's hand, and there are Muslim women who will not bear their heads.

At the other end of the spectrum, the young women at the American University of Beirut, around the corner from my place, are fond of
wearing tight jeans and tank tops - with bra straps exposed.

It is a dichotomy one professor I met called "schizophrenic."

While women have the freedom of choice in Lebanon, says Mona Khalaf, head of a women's studies program at the Lebanese American
University, the choices they make are sometimes surprising.

"If you walk on campus or on Hamra street, you see girls that to my mind are at least are shocking as the ones that are covered from
top to bottom," she said.

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