City Days

Yesterday we had lunch with a friend of Rob’s who is living in Beirut in doing research on political authority in one of the Palestinian refugee camps. Her name is Sarah. She was careful in her observations, a necessary protection for her status and ability to do research. Sarah also noted that she is careful with whom she associates--she has set up a life here—as it can affect her ability to collect information from her informants. Sounds like an anthropological approach to understanding political relationships, similar to a researcher whose lecture on Islamic insurgency in Thailand Grant and I heard at Boston University.

Sarah is teaching English at one of the smaller refugee camps (there are four in and around Beirut), similar to Sasha who is teaching at an after school community center in Shatila. The two had an interesting conversation about their experiences, noting how difficult the Palestinian situation is because they have no legal status in Lebanon (even though many of these Palestinians have lived in these “camps” since 1948. No legal status means that these Palestinians do not have passports, cannot legally work, and have no political representation in the governance of this country. Social services are provided either by themselves and/or through UNRWA, the UN sponsored agency that was established to assist the Palestinians. It is not in the interest of UNRWA to change the situation of the Palestinians, nor do the Lebanese want the primarily Sunni Palestinians to be incorporated into the Lebanese political fabric as it will unbalance it even more (Christian Palestinians, in general, were given citizenship at some point in the past).

The refugee camps are basically run down slums—the tents are long gone. Sixty two years of no legal status is a long time.

Our other lunch discussion topic was Lebanon itself. Is this a failed state? The currency in my opinion has little value. Before the war, the Lebanese pound was some number (I cannot remember exactly, though it may have been somewhere between 2 and 8 to a dollar). Now it is about 1500 to a dollar. Dollars are available at any ATM, and are used interchangeably with Lebanese pounds. In discussions with the young people, they see little evidence of strong central government authority. Cohesion is a function of the balance negotiated between the political entities; religion is the defining characteristic of the political entities. A national social contract seems not to exist; the balance between political entities is fragile.

Walking back to the hotel late yesterday afternoon, we passed through Rue Wadi Abu Jamil, the former Jewish quarter. This had been on our walking tour on Sunday, and our guide had told us not to take photos ostensibly because a political leader (could it be the Prime Minister) had built his residence nearby. The entire street is under construction; the old buildings demolished years ago after the flight of the Jewish community. The synagogue is being restored, but as earlier noted, not for actual use. I wanted a photo of the street, so I could compare it to pictures I took in 1972. I surreptitously tried to take a shot of the street. Not being very good at subtle photography, a young guard approached me after I took the shot and insisted that I delete it (there were guards posted every 50 yards or so up and down the street, not visibly guarding anything). I reluctantly deleted it, but we decided that this made little sense as the buildings going up in the area look to be high end residences. Who would want to live there if you could not take a picture?