Confessions

The hedonism of Beirut was matched only by the unease caused by its bullet riddled and burnt out buildings, still cheek by jowl with slick new steel and glass towers, or the tanks, barbed wire and pill boxes on the roads up to the hills and mountains.

Lebanon’s recent traumatic past just didn’t feel that past. A sense of borrowed time persisted, punctuated periodically by the alarm of an explosion, assassination, border incursion or rocket attack. How many crimes had gone unclaimed, unsolved, or even unnoticed? Who was going to own up to what, when? How long could an imposed suspended reality continue to forestall mounting disbelief?

Somehow Lebanon struggled on. Even when Hizbollah blew up Hariri on Valentine’s day, a mushroom cloud engulfing the harbour below as my girlfriend and I lunched on the Albergo roof terrace. Even when Israeli fighter jets bombarded Tyre and blew up Lebanon’s key bridges in response to Iran-backed Hizbollah raids and attacks. Even during the clashes with Islamist militants in Tyre and Tripoli. Even when Beirut’s port itself was blown to pieces by a warehouse full of ammonium nitrate. Even as the economy fully crashed from five years of Syrian sanctions, the Covid pandemic and almost complete government paralysis. Somehow Lebanon struggles on, I confess I don’t know how.