Southern Lebanon

I boarded a minivan for the short journey down to Sidon, Lebanon’s third city. Southern Lebanon must be one of the least secure regions in the world, repeatedly buffeted by the conflicts of its neighbours, flooded by refugees, pummelled by civil war. The threat of future conflict forever hangs over it. The most recent serious clash in Sidon was in 2013, when fighting broke out between Hezbollah and followers of a firebrand Sunni cleric, mirroring the bloody war over the border in Syria. The fighting was put down by the Lebanese army in a short conflict that killed dozens of people. Sidon has a significant Sunni majority, as well as smaller Shia Muslim and Christian populations.

Yet when I arrived, all appeared calm and normal in the bustling streets of Sidon. Once again I was struck by the resilience of the Lebanese people, who always seem to bounce back from whatever the world throws at them. Sidon’s central historical district is beautiful. The stone buildings lining the narrow streets of the Souks were in a good state of repair. Whatever damage the town had suffered, the renovation had been carried out sensitively. It might have helped that the late prime minister, Rafiq Hariri, who was assassinated in 2005, came from Sidon. The Hariri family have continued to be powerful in Lebanese business and politics, Rafiq Hariri’s son Saad also becoming prime minister. The Hariri foundation has been actively involved in renovating Sidon.

Sea Castle, Sidon

Among the fine old buildings of Sidon is the Khan el Franj, Khan of the French, built in the 17th century to accommodate French merchants. It is a fine example of a typical khan, a courtyard surrounded by an arched gallery. The beautiful, and wonderfully renovated Debbané Palace is as fine an example of Arab-Ottoman architecture as you could hope to find, with its arches intricately decorated with geometric patterns, and its magnificent carved wooden ceiling. The Sea Castle, built by Crusaders in the 13th Century, stands like a dreamy ruin in the bay, a wonderful backdrop for a delicious seafood lunch by the sea. But there is poverty in Sidon too. I visited another khan, tumbledown and overgrown. Yet people lived there in squalid makeshift homes with corrugated iron roofs, with rubbish strewn around.

From Sidon, I continued south to Tyre. Tyre, or Sour in Arabic, is another ancient Phoenician city, and had also seen periods of rule by Persians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Crusaders and Ottomans. Its archaeological remains are among the most impressive in Lebanon, though not on the grand scale of Baalbek. There are two main sites, including collonaded streets, a triumphal Roman arch, an enormous hippodrome, and a necropolis with dozens of stone tombs, the finest of which have been moved to the National Museum in Beirut.

Triumphal arch, Tyre

Like Sidon, Tyre has suffered terribly from repeated warfare. The population is predominantly Shia, with a Christian minority and a large Palestinian refugee camp. The town, together with a slice of territory in southern Lebanon, was occupied by Israel after its 1982 invasion of Lebanon, and then by the Christian-dominated and Israeli-backed South Lebanon Army. In 2006, Tyre again suffered serious damage during the war with Israel. The war damage in the old city centre is in places more evident than in Sidon. It was not possible to enter the sprawling Palestinian camp, but from the outside the shabby poverty of the place, with its makeshift buildings, was evident.

Yet despite its repeated trials, life has picked up in Tyre. The old town, divided between Muslim and Christian districts, bustles with life. I enjoyed drinking Turkish coffee outside a little café on the Christian side of the picturesque little harbour. Like other seafront cafés in Tyre, the interior, with its vaulted ceiling, may once have been a warehouse. I tried to ask the owners what the building had been in the past, but they replied that it had been a café. Tyre has glorious sandy beaches. Even in March I was able to enjoy swimming in the sea. There are rough-and-ready seaside restaurants, in one of which I spent a delightful sunny afternoon eating fried fish and green beans.

The Palestinian refugee camps in Tyre and elsewhere in Lebanon are long-established, with new generations born and raised in them. Now there are hundreds of thousands of new refugees from the war in Syria. Many live in rented accommodation. I was told it is often very poor and inadequate, in unfinished houses, garages and warehouses. Others live in camps made up of temporary buildings built out of thick plastic sheets spread over wooden or metal frames. They usually have concrete bases, but the facilities are very meagre. The Lebanese government does not allow anything more substantial to be built, as it does not want to acknowledge that these Syrian refugees may have any long-term, let alone permanent presence in Lebanon. It does not want them to become settled. Their reluctance is understandable. This small country has over decades accepted numbers of refugees that would horrify any European country. It has been deluged and destabilised by refugees, and driven into civil war by refugees. Amid all the controversy over refugees and asylum seekers in Europe, people might think of the enormous burden with which Lebanon has been encumbered.

I visited three of the camps, all in the restricted zone in the south of the country, close to the Israeli border. We stopped at a viewing point overlooking the border fences into Israel. UN troops from Indonesia stood around chatting to one another. Over the fences, on the Israeli side, were trimly planted fields and neat little settlements. I was told that Palestinian refugees sometimes came to this viewing point to gaze longingly at their lost land.

Refugee camp, southern Lebanon

The camps I visited all consisted of similar plastic homes, made with materials provided by the UN. Simple outside toilets had been provided. In one smaller camp, the residents had tried to make their homes as homely as possible, planting flower and vegetable beds. A larger camp was more depressing, with piles of burnt rubbish. Disposal of rubbish was a problem, I was told. The UN was not paying for its removal, and the authorities were not taking responsibility. Hence residents were turning to bonfires. Other problems included the difficulty for children to access schools from these remote camps, given that parents could not afford transportation. We spoke with a couple of families. A lady from a village near Raqqa offered us delicious herbal tea. Even in such circumstances, norms of hospitality were observed. One of her concerns was the registration of newly born children. If they wanted them registered in Syria, someone had to make the journey back, despite the dangers.

We were invited into one of the homes. Inside it was surprisingly cosy. The home was sub-divided into different rooms. There were mats and cushions around the walls. They had a refrigerator and a television set. There was a stove with a chimney to provide warmth in winter. I was told that conditions in such temporary shelters were often better than in the rented accommodation that many other families endured. But the hopelessness of the people was depressing. Nothing to do, the lack of any future perspective either here in Lebanon or back home in Syria. This is the lot of refugees. Those that had the means might risk the journey to Europe. These people were stuck, nowhere to go, in a country that did not want them. They were not taking to boats for Europe or streaming across European borders. As a result, few people really cared about them.

Faded glory in Baalbek

I wanted to go to Baalbek, in northern Lebanon. Some of the most impressive Roman ruins anywhere are situated there. The modern town is interesting too, a stronghold of the Shia Hezbollah party and militia. But there was a lot of discouragement. The UK Foreign Office website recommended against going there, except on essential business. Baalbek is close to the Syrian frontier, and there had been fears that the civil war there might spread across the border. The annual Baalbek cultural festival had been moved elsewhere in 2013, due to the perceived security threat, although it had subsequently returned. I had hoped to travel directly from Tripoli, over the mountains. That proved impossible, as snowfall had blocked the mountain road. So instead I travelled south, along the coast, to Beirut, and then took a minivan up to Baalbek. The road from Beirut rises steeply up over Mount Lebanon, and then follows the Bekaa Valley, actually a high plateau to the east of the Mount Lebanon range. The region had been under Syrian occupation until 2005. Now Baalbek enjoys an uneasy peace while next-door Syria burns.

Temple of Bacchus, Baalbek

I arrived in Baalbek in the middle of a warm, sunny March day. Snow still capped the mountains to the west of the town. I quickly made for the Roman remains, which are indeed magnificent. The scale is astounding. The site of the Temple of Jupiter is vast, and must have awed visitors in its day. The smaller, but still immense Temple of Bacchus is much better preserved, and impresses also due to the exquisite detail of its craftmanship. I found it baffling that the Romans chose to build on such a vast scale, bigger by far than anything in Rome, and with such quality, in this of all places? What was it about this region that they felt the need to impress so?

Baalbek also boasts fine buildings of more recent provenance, including tall, square Ottoman-era buildings with high arched windows and balconies. But the greatest gem is the Palmyra Hotel. Built in the 1870s by a Greek merchant from Istanbul, The Palmyra has in its day hosted kings, presidents, writers, artists and musicians. Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany visited in 1898, when he planned an excavation of the archaeological site. Other heads of state who visited included Ataturk, King Faisal of Iraq, King Abdullah I of Jordan and Charles de Gaulle. One of the staff showed me the room where de Gaulle stayed.

Inside the Palmyra Hotel, Baalbek

Today the hotel is a shadow of what it once was. The rooms are plain, the bathrooms shabby. It is no luxury hotel. But having been left largely alone, not renovated for decades, it preserves the atmosphere, the elegance of another era. In the chilly evenings (the temperature drops significantly in Baalbek in March, given its altitude), I sat in the upstairs vestibule, outside de Gaulle’s room, surrounded by period furniture, enjoying the warmth of the oil fire that an elderly staff member lit for me. Most of the rooms were unoccupied, and few staff remain. I was mostly looked after by two elderly gentlemen who had probably been there for decades. I had initially thought they were one man, for they looked like they might have been brothers. I spoke with one of them in French, and only realised they were two different men when the other, who spoke to me in English, informed me that he could not speak French. Probably the time will come when someone will renovate the place, and turn it into the luxury hotel it could be and which probably its pedigree merits. For myself, I was very happy to have stayed there in its current, slightly shabby but enormously atmospheric state. I don’t think I have ever stayed in a more special hotel.

Baalbek is a predominantly Shia town, although there are also Sunni and Christian minorities. It had been afflicted by war. During the 2006 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, Baalbek, as a Hezbollah stronghold, was bombed by the Israelis, destroying much important infrastructure. Israeli troops carried out a raid on the town, apparently in the belief that two captured Israeli soldiers were being held there.

With an election approaching, the town was filled with party political banners and flags. Hezbollah, the Party of God, is said to be dominant here, but I also saw many flags of Amal, a rival Shia outfit. Amal also formed one of the civil-war militias, but it is now in alliance with Hezbollah. Outside the entrance to the archaeological site, souvenir stalls offered Hezbollah T-shirts, featuring the Hezbollah flag, with a figure holding a rifle in the air. I chatted with a young Hezbollah-supporting shopkeeper. Times were hard, he said. Because of the conflict in Syria, few tourists were coming to Baalbek. He had been anxious about the close proximity of IS terrorists just a few kilometres away. But thankfully there had been no attacks in Baalbek.

Among the mosques in Baalbek is a relatively new Shia one, very much in the style of Hezbollah’s Iranian patron, with a wide entrance arch, and covered with blue and green tiles and Arabic calligraphy. The worrisome security situation is indicated by the metal fence surrounding the mosque, and the iron-girder tank traps. It was the only sign I saw in Baalbek that all was not quite normal. Otherwise, the atmosphere appeared reasonably relaxed. On a warm Sunday afternoon, at a park on the edge of town, people sat outside cafes and smoked hookahs, while children ate candyfloss and took rides in the toy motor cars.

That Sunday morning there was a political rally in the town, for Hezbollah and its allies. Chairs were set up before the Temple of Bacchus, surely the most dramatic backdrop for a rally I had ever seen. It was a polite affair, as people sat quietly and listened to the speeches. Particularly striking was that men and women were all jumbled up, not segregated, and that not all the women present were wearing hijab. I chatted with a couple of men who happily pointed out which parties the different banners belonged to. It all seemed very normal, apart from the backdrop, much like political rallies I have attended in many countries in Europe. The atmosphere was in stark contrast to the march I had seen in Tripoli, with its strict segregation of the sexes, the women all with billowing abayas, their faces covered.

I enjoyed my short stay in Baalbek. Everywhere I went, I was treated kindly, from the delightful staff at the Palmyra Hotel, to the pastry shopkeepers who would not accept payment for their delicious sweet cakes (I think it was normal to buy them by the dozen rather than singly). As in Beirut, I was struck by the resilience of people who have come through repeated wars, and yet carry on, surviving, and even smiling.

Tripoli, Lebanon

Continuing my journey north along the coast, I arrived in Tripoli, Lebanon’s second city. Tripoli was much less damaged during the civil war than Beirut and cities further south. But the city has continued to be troubled since the end of the war, with repeated outbreaks of violence. Tripoli is an overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim city, with Christian and Alawite minorities. The repeated clashes have mostly involved the Sunni and Alawite communities, especially in two neighbouring districts of the city. The Alawites had long been marginalised and oppressed under Sunni Ottoman rule, but their position was much strengthened during the French mandate in Lebanon. During the civil war, Tripoli’s Alawites aligned with the Syrian occupiers, and fought with them against the Sunni Tawheed militia. Clashes erupted again in 2008 and in 2011, with the onset of the war in neighbouring Syria. As the Alawite-dominated Assad regime in Syria, supported by Shia Iran and the Shia Hezbollah militia from Lebanon, fought insurgencies by groups mainly drawn from Syria’s Sunni majority, there were fears that Syria’s war might spill over into Lebanon.

Citadel of Raymond de Saint-Gilles

Fears about Tripoli’s security have left their mark on the city. Few tourists visit. My host, a local journalist, told me that the Alawite district had been disarmed by the army, and that it was now fully under control. Indeed, I felt quite relaxed as I walked around the city. An election campaign was in full swing. Huge posters of Sunni leaders, including one of the Saudi Crown Prince, looked down on a small square on the edge of the medieval souks. After Friday prayers, a demonstration set off from the Mansouri Great Mosque. Strictly segregated between men and niqab-wearing women, their black banners with white calligraphy looked disturbingly like those of the so-called Islamic State. My host assured me that, while conservative, this group was non-violent and nothing to do with IS.

Like most towns in Lebanon, Tripoli has a rich history, with different rulers all leaving their mark. Crusaders ruled here for nearly 200 years in the 12th and 13th centuries. They built the huge Citadel of Raymond de Saint-Gilles on a hill dominating the old town. It has been rebuilt more than once since then, and above the main entrance is an engraving from the Ottoman Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent, who ordered its restoration in the 16th century. The medieval Souks date from the decades after Tripoli’s conquest by the Egyptian Mamluks in 1289. Like many middle eastern Souks, they are a warren of narrow streets, crowded with little shops, market sellers and eateries. Navigating was difficult. The Souks are rather shabby, and in places dilapidated, but atmospheric. But wandering the alleyways, I would suddenly find myself walking below vaulted ceilings or past the entrances of medieval mosques or madrassas.

Mansouri Great Mosque

Most impressive is the Mansouri Mosque. Built by the Mamluks, its entrance and minaret are thought to be remnants of the earlier cathedral the Crusaders had built on the site. The minaret may have been the bell tower. Stepping through the entrance, out of the bustle of the Souks, you enter the peace of a large courtyard, with a domed fountain in the middle, where worshipers wash their feet before praying. There are several khans in the Souks area. Most interesting is the 16th century Khan as-Saboun, the Soap Khan. From the 18th century, Tripoli became known for its high-quality soap production, the centre of which was here.

Not far from the Souks is a district built during the later Ottoman period. At its centre is the clock tower, which has been renovated with Turkish help in 1992 and again in 2016. Around the square and in the streets fanning out from it are tall 19th century buildings, with ornate balconies.

One of the most beautiful buildings in Tripoli is the 14th century Taynal Mosque, a little distance away from the city centre. Built on the site of an earlier Carmelite church, it preserves part of the nave in the outer prayer hall. Recycled Egyptian columns topped by Roman capitals are incorporated into the structure. The ornate entrance to the main prayer hall, with its alternating black and white stones, typical of Tripoli, and geometric patterns, is particularly lovely.

Byblos

A short distance north of Beirut, along the coast, is the little town of Byblos, or Jbail in Arabic. There has been a town here for at least 7,000 years, and it is often claimed that Byblos is the oldest continuously-inhabited town in the world. One after another, the great civilisations of the eastern Mediterranean have left their mark here, Phoenician, Egyptian, Persian, Hellenic, Roman, Islamic, Christian. The archaeological site next to the medieval town centre includes remnants of societies and cultures from different periods going back millennia. Some have been moved from one spot to another by archaeologists, to enable the excavation of earlier remains.

Byblos harbour

There are royal tombs cut in vertical shafts. One of them, the 3,000 year old tomb of King Ahiram, contained a sarcophagus, now in the National Museum in Beirut, with an inscription in the ancient Phoenician alphabet. The earlier “Obelisk temple”, which was moved to enable the excavation of an even older temple underneath, contained numerous small gold-plated bronze figurines, now also in the National Museum, that are a symbol of Byblos. Nearby are the sturdy walls of a later Persian fortress. There is a Roman theatre, and the remains of a Roman fountain.

Hard as it might be to imagine, this little town was also once a favoured destination for the international jet set and their yachts. I stayed in a guesthouse attached to the Fishing Club restaurant, which gives on to the pretty little harbour. In the 1960s, the rich, the famous, the powerful and the glamorous of the world came to enjoy the hospitality of its proprietor, Pepe Abed, a tourism pioneer in Lebanon, who also owned nightclubs in Beirut and Tyre. The walls of the restaurant terrace are covered with photos of the famous guests, Brigitte Bardot, Marlon Brando and David Niven among them, as well as Vaclav Havel, Jacques Chirac and Helmut Kohl. Alas, since the end of the civil war, the glitterati have not returned to Byblos. In March, when I was there, the restaurant terrace and the harbour were quiet. No yachts in sight.

Crusader castle, Byblos

Byblos’s population is a predominantly Maronite Christian. The 12th century Church of St John the Baptist was built during the town’s period of Crusader rule. The Crusaders also built the impressive fortress which dominates the archaeological site, much of whose masonry came from the Roman buildings that once stood there. The ends of Roman columns can be seen sticking out from the walls.

In addition to a Shia Muslim population, there is also a small Armenian community. I visited the ‘Aram Bezikian’ museum of the orphans of the Armenian genocide, which was opened in 2015, the year of the centenary of the genocide. Among the survivors who in 1915 were marched across Anatolia and Syria, were large numbers of children separated from their families. The building in Byblos that houses the museum was one of the orphanages established to care for them. I had visited the genocide museum in Yerevan a few months earlier. Though on a smaller scale, a visit to the museum in Byblos is also a moving experience. Leading up to the entrance is a row of statues of skinny children seated on the ground, their food bowls in front of them. Inside, exhibits about the life of the Armenian community in Turkey before the genocide, and about the horror of the genocide itself, recall the museum in Yerevan. Upstairs there are exhibits about the humanitarian efforts to care for the orphans. It is estimated that there are around 150,000 Armenians in Lebanon today. There had been more, but many left during the civil war. A young man I spoke to at the museum in Byblos told me they have their own schools and churches. He could, he said, speak both Arabic and Armenian fluently, as well as English.

Resilient Bairut

From the time I started to become aware of world affairs as a teenager in the mid-1970s, Lebanon was racked by the civil war which lasted until 1990. Even since then, devastation has repeatedly returned to the country due to persistent conflicts with Israel. And Syrian forces occupied swathes of the country until 2005. As I was growing up, Beirut seemed to be a byword for wanton destruction and never-ending hopelessness. What I knew of Lebanon was based on television news footage of the destroyed city. Yet my father, who had spent a year in Lebanon after the Second World War, reminisced about Beirut as a beautiful place.

As a young army officer, he had studied Arabic at the British school at Shemlan, in the mountains close to Beirut. It became notorious as the so-called British ‘spy school’. There may have been something in this. He, like many others who studied there, had been an intelligence officer. But the description was probably over dramatic.

Place d'Etoile

In earlier times, Beirut had flourished as one of the great cosmopolitan trading cities of the eastern Mediterranean, along with Alexandria, Smyrna and Istanbul. Like in those other cities, different religions rubbed shoulders, Orthodox and Maronite Christians, Sunni and Shia Muslims, Druze and Jews. Unlike many other such mixed cities, Beirut had not, before the civil war, had defined quarters for different communities. In the city centre, the Mohammed al-Amin Mosque and the Maronite St George Cathedral stand next to each other. Philip Mansel, in his book about the great cities of the Levant, cites the enthusiastic reports of visitors to Beirut in the years before the civil war: “Paradise! Absolute paradise!” It was known as the Paris of the Middle East.

Beirut has largely been rebuilt since the civil war. In the downtown area, new apartment buildings have sprung up, many of them luxurious. The process of rebuilding has not been without controversy. Many accused the company set up by post-civil war Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, who was assassinated in 2005, to rebuild the city centre of profiting at the expense of the pre-war owners of the land. Much of the modern city that has risen from the ashes gives little impression of the elegant Beirut that earlier visitors had described. The downtown area, around the Place d’Etoile, with its clock tower, has been restored, a kind of declaration that Beirut is back. But it feels a little artificial and soulless. Not here the chaotic hustle and bustle one finds in the livelier districts of the city.

The dilemmas and controversies over Beirut’s post-war reconstruction are evident in the Souks district, not far from the Place d’Etoile. The area, once the commercial heart of the city, had been ravaged by the civil war. Except for a handful of buildings, it was decided to level the whole area and build a new Souks complex, as a shopping and leisure centre. Modern and smart, its architecture may have much merit. But to me it felt rather contrived, out of context, carefully designed, but very different from the bustling, vibrant city one finds away from the downtown area. It brought to my mind the shopping malls I had visited in Dubai a few years earlier.

The Al-Omari mosque

At the entrance to the Souks stands a remnant of the pre-war city, a square archway, with a dome on top. A young woman in a nearby tourism office told me she thought it was the remains of a mosque. Many other religious buildings have fared better. In the redevelopment of the city, mosques and churches were more often preserved and renovated. Close by the Souks is the Al-Omari mosque. Built in the 12th century by the crusaders as the Church of St John the Baptist, it was converted into a mosque the following century by its Muslim, Mamluk rulers. The Romanesque architecture, with the apse at one end, clearly indicates its Christian origins. The Mihrab, which points the direction of prayer for Muslims, is situated halfway along the nave. Having been damaged during the war, its reconstruction was completed in 2004. On the other side of the Place d’Etoile is the Mohammed al-Amin Mosque, inaugurated ten years ago, built in the Ottoman style, with slender pointy minarets surrounding a central dome.

The Mohammed al-Amin Mosque looks onto the Martyrs’ Square, named to commemorate Lebanese Arab nationalists executed there in 1916 by the Ottoman authorities. At the square’s centre is the Martyrs’ monument. The square was on the frontline during the civil war. After the end of the war, the monument was restored, but the marks of the war damage, bullet holes in the metal figures, were deliberately retained. The square had once been a central focal point of the city, a transport hub and meeting place, with cafes and cinemas. Today it feels like an empty hole at the heart of the city. But it has also become the place for political protests, notably the massive demonstrations following the murder of Hariri, which led to the withdrawal of Syrian troops from the country.

The Holiday Inn, Beirut

War-scarred buildings remain in many parts of the city. The 25-story Holiday Inn, a pock-marked skeleton of a building, remains as a monument to the conflict while its owners squabble over what to do with it. Some other buildings have been kept as they are deliberately, as monuments. Most notable is the Barakat building, built in the 1920s by the wealthy Barakat family. During the civil war it found itself on the frontline, a sniper post at a crossroads known as the ‘intersection of death’. Although badly damaged, the building remained standing. In 2003 it was taken over by the municipality and restored. The façade, disfigured by countless bullets, was left alone, shored up by metal supports. But behind it a new building was erected. Now known as the ‘Beit Beirut’, or House of Beirut, it houses exhibitions of photographs commemorating the life of the city, and especially how it was affected by the civil war.

Beit Beirut

Walking the streets to the south of the downtown area, one comes across fine old buildings, once the homes of wealthy commercial families, some of them war damaged, others apparently suffering more from neglect. The Ziade Palace, a 19th century mansion, looked a dark and gloomy place. A couple of ladies sitting outside an open door indicated that it was nevertheless inhabited. Occupied by different militias during the civil war, pillaged and damaged, it has been earmarked for restoration. Many such gems survive in Beirut. But surrounded by modern buildings, their context has often been lost.

Beirut survivors

Something of the former city survives and has been restored in Christian East Beirut. Tiny hole in-in-the wall cafes on the Rue Gouraud might not have changed much. But these are pockets. Nevertheless, modern Beirut has life and character. How much it has been changed by the war, I could not say. But it is a vibrant city, its streets bustling, its traffic chaotic. Areas such as the Hamra district in West Beirut, with their cafes, bars and restaurants, buzz with life. To have come through such trials and such destruction and come back with such verve is evidence of Beirut’s tremendous resilience.

Just north of Hamra, overlooking the seafront, is the American University in Beirut. A private institution founded in the 1860s, it is considered one of the finest universities in the Arab world. It boasts an impressive roll of alumni, including presidents, prime ministers and central bank governors. The university was not spared during the civil war, and in 1982 its president, Malcolm H. Kerr, a US citizen and native of Beirut, was murdered. Today, amid the noise and pollution of the city, the university campus, with its gardens and trees, is an oasis of peace and calm.

I arrived in Beirut without high expectations. I knew there was not much left of the great Levantine pre-civil war city. I was not expecting beauty. But the modern city does have much to be said for it. The divisions that once rent Beirut have been repaired to a remarkable degree. Politics may still be divided along sectarian lines, but the physical barriers that separated people during the civil war are at least no longer visible. Muslims relax in the cafes of Christian East Beirut, and Christians go out on the razzle in the lively bars of Hamra in the Muslim west. No doubt there are strains beneath the surface. Not everyone is happy. A minivan driver asked me whether Beirut was good? Yes, I asserted enthusiastically. No, he replied forcefully, Beirut is shit. Yet I found Beirut, for all its chaos and grubbiness, in many ways refreshing. Despite all the hardship and suffering of the civil war, this great, diverse, vibrant city has reasserted itself. Different from before, for sure, but a great and spirited city still.

The main divisions nowadays seem to be between wealthy and poor. There is a world of difference between the luxury apartment blocks in the downtown area, the smart streets of Verdun district, where I stayed, and the Palestinian refugee camps in the south of the city. I travelled along a main road through the Burj Barajneh camp, on the way to the airport. I couldn’t see much. Photographs show a dense jungle of makeshift concrete buildings, the narrow streets criss-crossed by tangles of wires providing jury-rigged power and telecommunications. The people there have the barest minimum of facilities. Forgotten by the world, their presence in Lebanon is accepted only grudgingly. There is wealth in Beirut. Restaurants and cafes are often startlingly expensive. But many are excluded.

Beirut’s biggest challenge remains the turbulent region it finds itself in, and cannot escape. There are still tensions in the city. The heavy presence of soldiers and armed police in the city centre, the barbed wire and roadblocks that shield the Grand Serail, the restored Ottoman-era palace that is now the government headquarters, demonstrate that. Beneath the veneer of calm and normality, fear still lurks. The implosion of Syria reminded everybody of that. Lebanese fighters have fought on different sides. The war threatened to spill over into Lebanon. Thankfully Lebanese had had enough of sectarian warfare not to go down that path again. And then there is Israel. With the battle-hardened Hezbollah militia better organised and equipped than ever, another war with Israel is an ever-present risk. Destruction can some to Beirut again. In the meantime, life goes on.