Slight Return

Dark-skinned men with slicked back hair and gold hoop earrings crowd the narrow lanes between the stalls at Souq al-Ahad. It takes a minute or two to make it to the front of the falafel stand, but the crunchy goodness of the fried dough, fresh vegetables and dressing is well worth the effort. Christmas jumpers and 1980s souvenir t-shirts from Disneyland are on offer at the second hand clothes stalls. The market extends further outside the main entrance to the tarpaulins and frames; the part under the grubby Sin el-Fil underpass has more than doubled in size since last year, and there are so many people, it’s only possible to see a few feet ahead. 

In the area selling pets, conditions are as bad as ever. A box of baby chicks dyed in a spectrum of bright colours is placed next to a tiny cage containing a puppy; a few of the chicks in the box are already dead, presumably a result of the toxic colouring. One of them has been dragged into the dog cage, its intestines strewn across the floor. The monkeys that were tied to the top of their cages last year are gone.

I arrived in Lebanon on my connecting flight from Istanbul to the news that Prime Minister Najib Mikati and his government had resigned in the wake of unresolved tensions over an agreement for an election law to be put in place prior to proposed elections in June. Unable to reach any agreement with the majority Hezbollah-led cabinet, Mikati resigned in a move ostensibly designed to initiate new dialogue between the opposing political groups. However, with the government now officially designated an “acting” one, its ability to keep the country stable, at a time when the catastrophic conflict next door in Syria is being felt more markedly here by the day, has been noted by several commentators as a significant cause for concern. The prospects of the election actually taking place are now remote.

There is violence again in Tripoli between opponents and supporters of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. There are kidnappings in the northern Bekaa Valley. Hezbollah is struggling desperately to retain its authority in the wake of increasing evidence of its support for Assad’s government, in violation of Lebanon’s official policy of “dissociation”, which aims to allow the small state to remain neutral to the Syrian conflict in order to preserve its own delicate stability. Meanwhile, refugees of the civil war on the other side of the Anti-Lebanon Mountains continue to stream over the border. Something attested to, perhaps, by the increased capacity and decreased personal space of the Syrian-flavoured Souq al-Ahad.

New bars and restaurants are popping up along Rue d’Armenie, the main road through Mar Mikhael, the middle class Christian district in which I lived during my exchange semester last year. In fashionable Gemmayzeh and Hamra everything and everyone looks familiar enough to give the impression that it’s been eight days, not eight months since I was last here. A cool breeze blows along the dusky waterfront Corniche. I go back to my old apartment and am reunited with a close friend. Fustu the cat doesn’t seem to remember me, but that doesn’t make him any less charismatic.

Beirut. Not everything is the same. Nothing seems to have changed.