The barricade test: what is Lebanon’s identity

Long divided by the Christian east and largely Muslim west of its 15-year civil war, Beirut is a city snarled today by far more numerous boundaries of sect, perspective and ideology, intersecting and tangling across a capital and country wrestling with a question still unanswered since Independence more than 60 years ago: what is Lebanon’s identity?

In today’s crisis, those fault lines tell the story of the struggle underway between the country’s two camps, divided by past and present, with vastly different visions of Lebanon’s future: on one side Hezbollah, supported by Iran and Syria, and on the other the government, backed by the United States and France. The fault lines tell, too, of an impasse that perhaps can’t be broken.

The borders are defined by ideology: the culture of resistance to Israel celebrated by the Shiite Muslim movement of Hezbollah, for instance, or the Christian separatism of civil war-era militias with fascist roots. They follow the contours of leaders who command loyalty through personality over politics. And they offer protection in a country where survival can feel precarious.

In downtown Beirut, Hezbollah’s protest, with its backers vowing to stay in the streets until the government is brought down, is subsumed in a broader story of the empowerment of Lebanon’s Shiite community, the country’s largest. Along an axis stretching from downtown, across tense borders between Sunni and Shiite neighbourhoods, are the ingredients of another civil war whose prospect comes up almost casually in conversation. Segregated neighbourhoods themselves exude an identity of politics, history and faith so suffocating that even someone living a few blocks away can feel a stranger within them.

“The fault lines are in the minds of the people. It’s much more than just the geography of Beirut,” said Robert Saliba, a 56-year-old architect and urban planner. “I think the mental geography is more important than what happens on the ground.”

Saliba grabbed a piece of bread filled with spice and made his way Saturday from a trendy cafe to nearby downtown, where thousands had pitched tents as part of the protest. Chants erupted every so often: “Saniora out!” At the barricade, boisterous men held up the front page of the daily as-Safir newspaper: “With its masses, the Opposition besieges the government in crisis.” Cheers erupted when recordings of speeches by Hezbollah’s leader, Hasan Nasrallah, were played.

“People here are boiling,” Saliba said, surveying the scene. He gestured back at the cafe. “And over there, they are drinking coffee?” The words were sharp, even surprised, a divergence from the sometimes abstract language of his academic training. A Greek Orthodox Christian, he was more observer than partisan. “Just across the road? It’s awful.” He looked at the barbed wire that coiled along the city’s sleek, rebuilt downtown. “You have a fault line again,” he said. “When you cross it, you get an electric shock.”

In a day, Beirut’s downtown was transformed from a hub of half-million-dollar apartments and designer stores into a far more humble and modest place. Vendors sold bread with melted cheese for 65 cents from rickety wooden stands propped up on rusting bicycles. “Tastiest cheese,” one promised. From a battered orange van, popcorn went for half that. Men hung out in circles, sitting in plastic chairs, tugging listlessly on water pipes.

Portable toilets went up in streets, next to the fashionable Buddha Bar. Alongside them were white canvas tents where wool blankets were spread for the protesters, their sandals and shoes left outside. In a carnival-like atmosphere, men from the Shiite-dominated southern suburbs shouted fealty to Hezbollah’s leader. “God, Nasrallah and all the suburbs!” Others ridiculed Saniora, calling him “Tanoura,” Arabic for skirt. Some held signs that read, “Until victory.” A few chatted with stern-faced soldiers. “You should leave and let us go in,” one suggested, pointing to the government headquarters a shout away.

As he walked, Saliba recalled the vision for the downtown of former prime minister Rafil al-Hariri, who was assassinated in 2005. His detractors were plenty, seeing corruption and questioning whom the downtown was serving. But al-Hariri viewed it as a crossroads for Beirut’s east and west, entertainment and commerce bringing them together. Instead, Saliba said, downtown has become contested space, another border: in March 2005, when Hezbollah’s supporters and foes organised mass demonstrations over the Syrian presence here and, in this crisis, as both have mobilised their loyalists in a show of strength.

“It has become a place where power is proven,” he said. “It has become the place where things are stated.”