Paris of the Middle East.. yes I think this might give a good idea about Beirut and its people. But no, not in the sense that you would understand when you first read this. I mean, when you want to picture the streets and buildings of this city in your mind, your image will definitely not match what you will see in Beirut. However, this phrase reveals the mentality of the people here and what they want to be..They are trying to live and look like the Paris people..
After living 1 month in this incomprehensible city, I had a general idea about the lifestyle in Beirut. But still, it's almost impossible to understand..Maybe it's because of the rich history, occupations and wars which were non-stop in this country.. The known history starts from the Phoenicians and goes on to Egiptians, Persians, Assyriacs, Romans, Arabs, Seljuks, Mamluks, Crusaders, Ottomans and finally the French Mandate. As a consequence of all these, a country with a very very diverse ethnicity and religion has emerged..
There are 17 religions in this country. I dont think it exists in any other place around the world, especially in such a small land. 59.7% of the people are Muslims where Sunni and Shia are 27% each and 39% is Christian. The Christians are mostly Maronite but there is also Greek Orthodox, Melkite Catholic, Armenian Orthodox, Syrian Catholic, Armenian Catholic, Syrian Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Chaldean, Assyrian, Coptic, Protestant. And the other Muslim communities are
Druze, Isma'ilite, Alawite.
In the end, what you get from all these are a very messy political system, civil war and identity and ethnicity problems.First of all the state is not secular and religions are the basic elements that shape the political system. For instance, here in Lebanon, the president has to be Christian, the prime minister has to be Sunni and the speaker of the parliament has to be Shi'a. So we can say that the main political power is in the hands of the Sunni community.
Other than that, the civil law is not secular as well. That is, when you want to get married or divorce, you have to obey the rules of your religion. For example, if you are a Catholic, you may not be allowed to divorce. Or marriages between people of different religions are strongly discouraged or prohibited for most of the groups. So many people here go to Cyprus or sometimes Turkey to have a civil marriage.. And other issues about inheritance are also handled by the religions. All the laws other than the civil law are copied from the French system.
Although religion is always involved in the politics the main polarization of the country right now is not actually about religion. After the assassination of the prime minister Rafic Hariri in 2005, there are two main groups in Lebanon: March 8 and March 14. In other words Pro-Syria and Anti-Syria.
March 14 group is mainly Sunni and supported Hariri. They blame Syria for the murder of their prime minister in 2005.
For me the more interesting group is March 8 which consists of Christians, Shia and Hezboullah. The thing that surprised me was some Christians who are in this group that support Hezboullah. I didn't expect anything like that as Hezboullah does not sound very positive from the outside. So a Christian Hezboullah supporter was totally unexpected.
But there are many reasons why Hezboullah is so powerful here. First of all Lebanese army is very very weak, thanks to the arms export embargo that is applied by almost all the world, in other words "thanks" to Israel. The army doesn't even have planes. So the only power that can resist to Israel seems to be Hezboullah which is backed by the Shia community, which is Iran and Syria. In the end they are indeed very powerful especially in southern Lebanon. You can see flags and posters all around the cities.
Other than that, your poltical choice will always find and effect you in your life. For instance, when you apply for a job, your qualifications are less important than your political and religious backgrounds. This is something very annoying if you dont want to be any part of it. But this option is unfortunately not available. In this sense this is quite similar to Turkey except for one main difference. Turkey is not that diverse. Right now it's only "Erdogan" or "anti-Erdogan".
In Lebanon, just like in Turkey everybody talks about politics. But they dont just talk. For example, every political party has a color. And these colors do not belong to the people anymore. You cannot just wear whatever color you like, cause people would think you support that party.
Here's an interesting article how this can be annoying.
These people even special way of sounding the horn according to your political leanings!!! Everytime you are in a tunnel, you can hear the "horn fight" where you try to make more noise than the others with the rythim that's associated with your party.
Anyways, enough with the politics.. There are many minorities in Lebanon that I found interesting.
 |
| Armenian Church in Bourj Hammoud |
First of all Armenians who were dramatically expelled from Turkey during Ottoman times, in 1915 and before. They are living in a neighbourhood where the hatred against Turks is still very alive. The violent acts do not continue as there were attacks to Turkish Embassy and secretary of Turkish embassy was killed in 1975 by
ASALA. But for instance, this district is the only place in Lebanon, where you cannot find any Turkish products in the supermarkets and where people do not watch Turkish tv series (yes all the Arabic world is watching stupid series from Turkey since the last decade :)
But still, you can meet people who have their grandparents Turkish and Armenian and these old people speak Turkish at home with each other.
The other community I found interesting is the Druze. Maybe it's because of the name which is Dürzü in Turkish and gained a completely different meaning!!!
They say Druze was a branch of Shia before but then changed and transformed to something different. But I still couldnt exactly figure it out. Because the religion is kept secret from almost everybody. Even the Druze people themselves. The truth is only known by some "knowers" and only they have access to these secret teachings..The Druze people might have this opportunity after they are 40 years old, if they deserve it. The Druze permit no conversion, either away from or to their religion, and no intermarriage..
This is all the information and I could find online and I've been heard there. But I don't have any idea about how correct it is.
And the last minority is the people who are always minority everwhere in the world.. There are 400,000 Palestinians in Lebanon, mostly living in refugee camps. These people are not allowed to be a Lebanese citizen, are not allowed to work or buy property. So, they have no rights at all. They live in the camps in very bad conditions. They cant leave the camp without a special permission. They dont have access to Lebanese healt care system. In other words, they are not behaved anything like humans, and totally ignored. All I can say is, this is a huge shame on Lebanon and Arab world.
Finally, to end the background information about Lebanon, there's the Lebanese Civil War between 1975 to 1990 which caused around 200,000 deaths. It was a war between many groups as a result of the diversity of the country: Sunni, Shia, Christian, Palestinians, Israel, Syria..
In the end Beirut was completely destroyed where you can still see signs from the war around the city. Since then, there's construction all around the city to rebuild the "Paris of the Middle East" again. The signs on the buildings are mostly removed but probably not the ones in the memories.
I'll write my observations about the people and the lifestyle in a seperate post as this background was really long and became just an introduction to understand the Lebanese.
