Sunday, September 03, 2006

South Suburb or South Beirut?

South Suburb of Beirut, or Southern Beirut?

The words “South Suburb of Beirut” were the most erroneous and common mistakes used during the war in Lebanon by members of the media when referring to a part of Beirut mostly inhibited by Lebanese Muslim Shia and a Hezbullah’s stronghold and the part that was turned into another Dresden by Israeli bombardments.

The mistake stems from erroneously translating the Arabic word “ Daheya” { Da-he-ya) into the English word “ Suburb” without taking into consideration the obvious difference in meaning and designation of the two words in these two different languages.

Daheya in Arabic simply means an area that is in a sense part of a larger area or city, and not an administratively independent town outside of a major metropolis as the English word” Suburb” indicates.

Much like Chicago’s Lincoln Park, or Inglewood, or Albany Park, which are all areas in Chicago but neither suburbs of it nor independent towns in it!

So, I would use the words “ South Beirut” since “ East Beirut” and West Beirut” are very commonly used in English and Arabic.

Moreover, the error is obviously is in the translation and lack of understanding of how words are conceptualized to mean certain things according to certain set of peculiar conditions, economic, religious or political... etc.

To explain this we can look at the way Arab cities were planned and structured. Unlike European or American cities in which the center of the town is the commercial, and business hub where people converge in the morning and fan out in the evening to their own “ Suburbs” which are basically residential areas.

Fouad Khouri, an Arab intellectual and author wrote that Arab cities do not have suburbs in the western sense of the word because each city consist of many areas or neighborhoods sometimes following ethnic lines, or socioeconomic lines, or religious lines each one of those areas has its own businesses, and residential areas as well.*

Arab Jerusalem for example has four quarters, or neighborhoods: Christian, Jewish, Muslim and Armenian. Cairo is described by Professor Janet Abu Lughod as having sub-cities* due to its semi-independent nature of its areas, which mean in a sense that each area support itself socially and economically while still legally and administratively part of Cairo and not cities on their own* *

Beirut too is no different than other Arab cities with its Christian East Beirut, Shia Southern Beirut, or Sunni West Beirut.

So when a member of the media here utters the words “ Southern Suburb of Beirut” the question that jumps to mind immediately is: what’s the name of this southern suburb Since the word suburb, in an American mind, implies an independent town with its own administrative apparatus.

The answer is of course is that this imaginary “ Suburb” has no name, because its not a town outside the city of Beirut.

it is simply South Beirut, much like Chicago, to use a city that I am most familiar with, South side of Chicago, or simply “ The South Side” of the West Side.
This should have been a very simple and straight forward case.

So too,” Beirut’s Daheya Janoubiya” which is how Arabic speakers in Lebanon and outside it refer to it which simply mean the (southern area of Beirut or Southside, or Southern Beirut) . And for short it is simply called the “ Daheya” which come to mean not only geographical designation but also a religious connotations, a Shia Muslim area in this case.

* Fouad Khouri, The Arab Mindset (1993) Dar AL Saqi, London} Arabic
** Janet Abu Lughod,(1971) Cairo, Princeton University press)

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