The Challenge of Seeing

The final day of my visit was devoted to seeing the destruction that still exists along the former green line in Beirut, corpses of buildings that today stand as monuments to the madness that prevailed there during the civil war years. I also tried to visit a Hizbollah-dominated area of the city that was hardest hit by Israeli attacks in 2006 but with no luck—I could not find a taxi driver willing to take me there and I was warned repeatedly that it would be unsafe for me to shoot photos there. In fact, Lebanon is the first place I have ever been to where photography still poses some kind of real or imagined threat. Once while walking down the street, I came upon an abandoned bunker used by soldiers for policing the area. Attracted by its formal qualities and loaded symbolism, I casually snapped a few shots of it—a wooden structure big enough for 2 soldiers covered by stacks of sand bags and draped in camouflaged netting—but seconds later a couple of soldiers approached me from across the street and, in Arabic, demanded that I delete the photos from my memory card. Which I promptly and apologetically did like a naughty school boy and then rushed away. “The Lonely Planet Guide” had warned me about photography in Lebanon—sunsets, party people and mountain views are encouraged, but be careful of anything related to military sites or police. It was explained later that I could have been suspected of being a spy for Israel. Oy.

So instead, I visited the public beach in the south of the city which was quite sad really –such an ideal location right on the Mediterranean coast, but littered with trash, forlorn and forgotten. In its heyday, this was the Riviera of the Middle East; today it is abject and its waters polluted from poor sanitation practices and abuse. As I would learn later, rigid class divisions are alive and well along the coastal waters of the city. Wealthier middle class Beirutis all belong to private beach clubs such as the Riviera Hotel and Beach Club, a trendy restaurant/pool facility that could rival anything found in Miami or Mykonos or Fire Island. As in any developing country, the less privileged must settle for much less.