Season's greetings
A few months before his body was blown to smithereens below his own window in Ashrafieh, historian Samir Kassir -- commenting on Independence 05, the largely anti-Syrian "opposition" of which he was a major part -- declared "an Arab spring" in Beirut. The irony, already complicated on his death, acquires additional layers of meaning in the light of the Israeli war on Hizbullah -- if that is what it is. Middle East politics notwithstanding, the present writer is intrigued by the fact that, contrary to the ongoing plight of Iraq or even, closer to home, Israel's merciless attack on Gaza, the destruction of Beirut resuscitates a normally dormant concern for Arabness -- a geo- cultural concept which, paradoxically, nothing has undermined in the long run as much as political movements that made it their cause -- Baathist, Nasserist, or plain pan-Arab.
Of some 30 correspondents who speak the language -- both in and outside Lebanon -- only a handful have bothered to reply to an e-mail request for responses to what's happening. For those of them who are experiencing it first-hand, this is understandable enough. With others it might suggest that the complacency evident in Egypt typifies Arab attitudes in general. Yet it remains risky to generalise. Bellying the seeming apathy, in Egypt as elsewhere, is the frenzied call for protest in support of the so-called resistance. The problem is that it is no longer clear whether the term applies to Hizbullah or to the wider circle enduring if unable to fight the onslaught. Frequently, in this context, narrowly sectarian interests will be confused with an Arab nationalist stance against Israel -- or a grassroots will to go to war with it. Solidarity remains ideological.
In truth, however, those with direct experience of Lebanon will have understood Kassir's spring in rather more personal terms. "Beirut offered us a familiar ground and a space for freedom," wrote one Palestinian-Jordanian, commenting on the mood of her circle of writers and artists. "Amman has shrunk in space, in dimension, in breath now that Beirut is blocked." A Saudi mechanical engineer who grew up between Egypt and the US decries his loss of access to night life in Beirut, while, for one Egyptian journalist with much experience in humanitarian relief work, "It is not simply a question of two military parties in conflict. It's the civilians caught in the crossfire that concern me. Depending on when and how the current crisis ends, what will become of people in southern Lebanon, for example? With what money will Beirut be rebuilt?"
Such feelings are reflected in the musings of one resident of southern Beirut writing an e-mail diary of the siege as she considers the possibility of fleeing the country: "Trying to evacuate people has put me under stress. The question is what am I to do if I had the opportunity to leave? Would I leave? What do I do with my friends? My family? My art studio... What about all my brushes and paints and glitter and books! All my books! Again -- the crazy things that cross your mind. What about our photo albums? All our family pictures? The memories..."
Still, it is arguably on the identity politics of resistance, not on any such individual awareness of human memory or loss, that the large-scale downtown Cairo demonstration of yesterday was based. For one young graphic designer with Muslim fundamentalist leanings, "The Israeli incursion on Lebanon is something that was planned a long time ago, and it is yet another step in the Israeli- American project of building a so-called new Middle East; next, they will be moving on to Syria, as you must surely realise... The idea is to eradicate the Arab-Muslim identity as completely as possible; in itself the notion of an Arab identity is misleading, and it's one of their strategies for misguiding and confusing us. Their aim is to wipe out any notion of a Muslim identity. They want you, rather, to depend on the West, to remain infatuated with the West. And in the hugely complex process of ensuring that, their current method is to bomb civilians in Lebanon..."
Ironically it was with one of Lebanon's most staunchly anti-sectarian citizens -- a National Movement fighter turned media producer -- that the aforementioned graphic designer most obviously agreed, describing prayer as the only available course of action at present. "Should I say I've become accustomed to wars," the producer wrote briefly, explaining that, like many others, he spent most of his time glued to the television screen, "since this is at least the fourth destructive war that I witness in my life? It's a shame. I wish I were a believer because the best thing we can do now is pray for the children and those who didn't have the chance to wake up and start a new day." In contrast to this correspondent's admirably mild tone, there are those who urge fellow Arabs to political action in an almost humiliating way -- for better or worse, this is reflected in increasingly louder praise for those who dared challenge Israel. Posters shout, "Glory to the resistance." Yet there are those Egyptians, however politicised, who will coolly point out that the million-strong demonstration against the Iraq War in London did not prevent Blair from being re-elected, let alone stop the war. "What, really, is the use of a demonstration?" a young physician inquires.
Writing together with his SHAMS association colleagues, in an open e-mail theatre director Roger Assaf, a Shia convert long active on the anti-Israeli scene, makes a rather more persuasive case for simply being alive and working -- in a theatre that remains open and where large numbers of young people congregate "despite the sporadic bombing". He asserts that discussion and self-expression are going on, describing "a modest network of co- ordination between humanitarian and social organisations and... refugees coming from the south of the country and the suburbs of Beirut". And he declaims against not only "the theocratic state of Israel" but "the irresponsible rhetoric of Arab oil merchants or Lebanese billionaires" and -- the more potent part of the condemnation -- "the ideological and war-mongering thesis of Hizbullah". He adds, "Our self-consciousness is dictated neither by Damascus nor Teheran, Tel Aviv, Washington, Paris or the UN. It is rooted in a humanity. A humanity trampled by the civilised world's Wehrmachts, excluded from 'Human Rights' which are jealously reserved for those who promulgate them." And to far more convincing effect, with heart-rending calmness, he adds, "We are doing fine. How about you?"
Perhaps there really is an Arab spring in Beirut.
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