January has passed, and with all the days we had off of work this month, I managed to take a few trips. Thus, the splurge of photographs with tag lines. Here's a little missive about my trip to Lebanon.

I've always had it in me to visit Beirut, one of those cities whose glorious reputation has been since scathed by power-battles of religious, national and political factions. French, Christian, Muslim, Syrian, Palestinian, Israeli, Soviet, American: all seem to have had 15 minutes or more of fame on the ground level in this country. And that only covers the last 30 years. I have noticed a pattern while reading about the history of this region. The pattern involves struggles for self-rule and political independence, but the overarching storyline is always about a continuous fight against foreign occupation. National integrity stablizes a region, and the difficulty in maintaining this integrity in modern Lebanese history can be blamed on its unfortunate positioning between Syria and Israel. On the wider timeline, the history of the Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Ottomans Turks and French in this country can still be recognized in one day of touristic activity: while visiting the Roman ruins of Byblos (one hour north of Beirut along the coast) you can speak French with your taxi driver in order to make arrangements to see the Ottoman palace in the hills half an hour to the east. Because the country is so small, it is easy to get an idea of the past life of this area, to orient its geographic significance on a timeline.

Beautifully situated against dark green hills falling into the Mediterranean, Beirut is a clean, classy, European style city. The downtown is fully rebuilt from the rubble that was left after 15 years of civil disputes with neighboring countries and the war with Israel. The new downtown evokes the spirit of the old city with cobblestone streets and late 19th century European architecture that charms the money out of tourists at cafes and galleries. Four things I cannot do in Egypt that I did in Beirut: speak French, eat mussels, drink good wine, and see a lot of rain. Other details about Beirut: people are quite friendly, helpful and speak 3 languages (French, Arabic and English); every 3rd car is a Mercedes, and most likely a taxi; and while wandering around neighborhoods beyond downtown chances are you will come upon scars of the early 1980s war--the ruins of a building, a pockmarked facade with a crumbling, shelled interior.




Such remains are oddly charming and picturesque, like ancient ruins, perhaps covered in soft green over-growth and silenced by the absence of human inhabitance. I struggled with the idea that these scars of war could be "charming," particularly because the buildings had not been memorialized or marked for tribute. Why are we attracted to the remains of civilization and interested in the process of decay? We are curious about how people built and once inhabited a space but are we not also interested in how a space was destroyed? What about the decline of a civilization, and in this case of modern history, the rise of chaos and ruination? Is it bad to consider the aesthetics of a building hit by a bomb, an artifact of great pain in the lives of the Lebanese? The surreal quality of the now peacefully quiet building intensifies the more I learn about the history of the conflict and the war itself. When seeing these broken lots, I did what I normally do while visiting ruins: imagine the building with living beings and appreciated the architecture as a form of design and engineering. But at the same time I had to contemplate the destructive force of whatever it was that hit the building. Clearly, these remains were not of interest because they were old. They were not part of any guide book of "Things to See While in Beirut."






One of the more educational displays I saw was an advertisment for Beirut at the airport. In the corridor leading to my departure gate, large holligram pictures displayed scenes from rubble to renewal, changing from the "Before" view to the "After" scene as I walked by. Cool! What a great use of holligraphic technology, I thought to myself. But, after a second of enjoyment, I reminded myself to mind the scenes of destruction.