Wednesday, July 22, 2009

First impression - it feels like Berlin in the nineties

Back before we had digital cameras and used something called film, I took a lot of pictures of cranes in a city that had just shed a dictatorship and found itself wearing something called freedom. To think the people had suffered for four decades under Soviet dominance was tragic. Buildings in East Berlin were still marked with the scars of bullet holes from World War II because the oppressors wouldn't bother rebuilding the city. The impression those holes left on me is still as strong as it was then.

But 1989 saw the fall of the Berlin Wall, a wall that had kept prosperity and freedom out, a prison wall, a wall that meant death for so many who tried to cross it to get to that one thing that every human being deserves: freedom. The wall fell and the cranes went up, cranes that would not leave a picture frame, cranes that would start the rebuilding process, that would give back Berlin its heart.

In 1989 as Berlin was regaining its freedom, another country not so far away was ending its own struggle, a 15 year bloody civil war that had ripped the ancient country to shreds. Lebanon wasn't even a country - it was a mess of different religious sects who had only one thing in common - they had all discarded God to put Hell on Earth. The nineties were prosperous for them, too, but unlike Berlin, the divisions still remained and the politicians were puppets. This tiny country only two-thirds the size of the state of Connecticut didn't control its own destiny, as Iran, Syria, and seemingly everyone else pulled the state in every direction, not exactly the best way to hold together a fragile peace.

Everywhere in Beirut are reminders of the war, including the Holiday Inn, juxtaposed between the blue honey of the Mediterranean and the glamor and glitz of five star hotels and the cranes of building and rebuilding. This massive structure is eerie, but like the Kaiser Wilhelm church in Berlin purposely left bombed out to never forget how Europe almost destroyed itself, the Holiday Inn stands as a stark reminder of what has passed, and in my opinion, it should always stand there so nobody ever forgets, because it's easy to forget the past when there is prosperity to be had.

Until those left out of the prosperity bring the past back to life.

It's a very real fear here, especially since billionaires rose from the ashes of the war through exploitation and corruption, leaving so many Lebanese - regardless of religion - in the rubble. The income gap in this country is criminal. Literally.

It wasn't Lebanon who broke the peace though. The outside interests tried to kill peace by assassinating several politicians and journalists in this decade, but the Lebanese held on. It was Israel who broke the peace, who rained bombs down on the country for a month in 2006. Hezbollah briefly caused issues in 2007, and the country had a constitutional crisis and lacked a president for nearly a year. But hope springs eternal, as the cliche goes. Hope, it seems, has a resilience that does not perish, no matter how much human hatred and ignorance try to destroy it. On June 7, 2009, Lebanon had free and fair elections that weren't controlled by outside interests (or there was so much outside interest that it canceled each other out.) From what we're hearing, they might even form a government before the end of my trip. That means that in September, Lebanon could have a real sort of democratic government (next step - getting rid of the religious quotas for parliamentary seats so they can have a real democracy.)

Yeah, this country is a work in progress, but I tell you, the young people are sick of it. Everyone I talk to says they won't go back to that. My suspicions that there really was hope for this country have been reinforced by everyone I've met so far. I haven't quite figured out how to describe it. It's a stubborn optimism, I suppose, a refusal to be optimistic even though the desire is there. It's a stubbornness matured by ancient hatreds and fears of a reincarnation of the past. It's an angry stubbornness, an ire directed at the dinosaurs with the same names who still maintain the old power structures despite the youth's desperate longing to move on.

If they'd just believe it's really their country, if they'd just believe their destiny is in their own hands, if they'd just believe there is no line on the horizon...

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