The Guardian

B E I R R U E T B O R N

Decades of civil war and economic meltdowns left Lebanon’s people struggling for hope. – and then three years ago came the huge blast in the capital’s port. But even as the young emigrate in record numbers, among those who remain there is an artistic rena

Interviews by Killian Fox Photographs by Elena Heatherwick Continued overleaf

Can you imagine what it meant to grow up in Beirut during Lebanon’s civil war in the 1980s? If a shell didn’t kill you, hopelessness surely would. And death by despair is a thousand times worse, and more final, than death by a missile. But something kept me hopeful and alive, day after day, despite all the misery and desolation surrounding me. Something almighty, intensely transformative – something magical: it was literature.

I didn’t read to learn (the latter was a mere collateral benefit); I read to unlearn. To unlearn hate and fear and distress and despair. To unlearn closed doors and clipped wings and tunnels without a light at the end of them. I read to forget everything and everyone that was trying to kill me, outside as well as inside.

Then, from reading, I moved on to writing. It wasn’t a choice; it wasn’t a decision; it wasn’t a luxury: it was a ferocious and vital necessity. I composed poems and invented stories in order to survive; just like my cousin Fouad played the piano in order to survive; just like my friend Leila sketched dresses and our neighbour Sylvia painted, in order to survive. It would come as no surprise that Fouad is now an accomplished pianist, Leila a successful fashion designer, and Sylvia a well-known painter. The

likes of them can be found in each and every Lebanese household.

The big war ended – at least officially – in 1990, but our tribulations, our petites guerres, did not. From car bombings to foreign occupations, from kidnappings to assassinations, from political stalemates to confessional tensions, from Israeli rockets to Hezbollah’s gradual takeover of the country, our misfortunes went on and on.

Then, three years ago, while the whole planet was grappling with the Covid-19 pandemic, and Lebanon was also coping with a ghastly economic meltdown – the downfall of our banking sector after years of corruption and mismanagement by the ruling elite – there was a horrific explosion in our port, one of the most powerful non-nuclear explosions in history. Caused by a fire, which detonated tonnes of improperly stored chemicals, the blast destroyed nearly a quarter of the city, killing 233 people, injuring 7,000, displacing 300,000 and leaving 80,000 children homeless. Poverty, homelessness, unemployment, insecurity, medication shortage, vanishing services, and human rights violations all followed. The number of young people seeking to emigrate jumped by 50 per cent after the blast. The currency has been devalued by 90 per cent, meaning many people’s life savings have evaporated.

You name it: we now have all the ingredients needed to make a people completely lose faith in life.

Nonetheless, despite all that

– and perhaps because of all that – the Lebanese creative scene has never been more prosperous and vibrant: it has kept on blooming like an unlikely flower on a volcano’s crater. Painters, sculptors, poets, dancers, photographers, musicians, novelists, designers, playwrights, chefs, performers … these are the superheroes of our country. They are the ones keeping this place from collapsing completely, saving it – and us – from the devastating havoc that politics and politicians have brought, and continue to bring upon us.

Wherever I travel, people ask me about the “Lebanese secret”: what makes us so driven? (Notice how I did not use the word “resilient”, which I, and many others, resent.) Is it the fact that we have been trained, through decades of hardship, to get quickly back on our feet and recover after each blow? Has it become an instinct engraved in our genes? I am convinced it’s much more than that. It’s a defiant, offensive stance, not just a defensive reflex. It is, to put it bluntly, our individual and collective middle finger in the face of everything and everyone that keeps trying to dishearten us, scare us and murder us.

Don’t get me wrong: this is not the cliched refrain of “what doesn’t break us makes us stronger”. I’ve always found that to be horribly reductive of people’s suffering and pain; a way of depriving people of their right to feel vulnerable and wretched. No. This is a story of revenge and atonement through art and creativity. And there’s no sweeter revenge, nor greater atonement.

So, here’s to middle fingers, and to the creators, and creations, that they inspire.

Joumana Haddad is a Lebanese author, journalist, TV presenter and human rights advocate

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