From Al Akhbar’s “Lebanese Jews in New York”

 

The BBC recently published an article written by Habib Battah, blogger from The Beirut Report, about plans to demolish a hippodrome located in Wadi Abu Jamil of the Beirut Central District. However, since that report, Battah posted an update stating that the dismantling of the hippodrome wall has already begun. The hippodrome dates back to Roman times but also happens to be located on land that is estimated to be worth $60m. This prime real estate is being “protected” by Marwan Kheireddine, the minister and mogul who wants to turn it into a gated community. The project would effectively destroy the ruins of an archaeological site that is 2,000 years old. Wadi Abu Jamil used to be known as the Jewish quarter of Beirut and is now a restricted area that is home to the recently-renovated Maghen Abraham Synagogue. People need permission to access the grounds (as I learned from Ronnie during the WalkBeirut tour that includes a no-photos-allowed visit to this part of town).

The Association to Protect Lebanese Heritage, or APLH, are fighting the approval for construction that was granted earlier this season. I contacted them to ask a few questions to get some more information on their initiatives. Another blogger had insinuated that religious sites get more attention when it comes to preservation so I asked APLH on that too.

1. Beirut, and Lebanon, has a history for erasing its history. Why do you think that is?

A) We have been merchants way back since Phoenician times, where we sold our Cedars’ timber. Our current god is Profit, and this is how we see a Ministry of Culture approving a private project to the detriment of public domains like the invaluable archaeology being found underneath Beirut.

B) We have insufferable individualism and no community spirit binding us. When a society is not bonded and has forsaken its culture, traditions and roots, nothing prevents its individual elements from doing what they feel like doing. In short, our behavior is selfish and emotional rather than
rational. Every one of us has a different opinion and vision of Lebanon. Without consensus we can’t achieve any goal.

C) This problem is not only seen in Lebanon. Wherever a society is in decline & trades its cultural values for global vagueness, you will see heritage as the first victim of the ‘new’ paradigm (a Mayan temple was ‘mistakenly’ razed in Mexico a few months ago). Of course, this doesn’t happen overnight, you’ll need a few decades to notice the damage done.

A) Our officers are working relentlessly with a team of benevolent lawyers in stalling demolition permits (this project included) threatening our archaeology. I cannot give names for the sake of protecting our sources and the people who help us. Because our work is being done in the courts of the Shura council, very few people know about our fight and its magnitude. While people are busy surviving the daily Lebanese tedium, there are people working (for free) to keep our heritage from disappearing.

B) We spread awareness through our FB page, our blog and our cultural gazette: Of Men and Ruins (downloadable for free from its FB page)

Rampant governmental and municipal corruption, and the disconnection of the Lebanese citizens in general (not talking about the very few exceptions) make our task a thankless, but a necessary one.

Far from that, let us look at the vandalized hideout cave of Mar Maroun in Hermel: it is covered with tags and graffiti. Many medieval religious sites all over Lebanon are falling into disrepair due to lack of funding and motivation to restore them. The current geopolitical situation in Lebanon has a lot to do with our disintegrating economy, so we turn to the Lebanese diaspora, as this is our only hope in safeguarding our collective memory for future generations.

– Organize environmental days (taking the trash off the roads, planting trees, etc)
– Undertake small repair jobs around their community (repainting some wall, flower decoration, creating a meeting place for the neighborhood’s youth)
– If a town has a specific specialty or trade, its people should organize seasonal events to showcase the unique produce or tradition of their town

The above undertakings help create a sense of pride, belonging, community, and more awareness and organization in the case of a threat to their community (heritage demolition, environmental threat, shrinking of leisurely places in favor of parkings, etc) Without this sense of responsibility, we will sink into bleakness without understanding how it came to be. The APLH is one such taskforce, but with a legal platform that enables us to sue the faulty party. We ask the people to team up with like-minded friends, and be responsible for the protection (and beautifying) of their own
home, building, backyard, neighborhood, so that the difference can be made and sensed on a national scale.

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This incident is one of many that has been occurring across the country for decades. So much of our history and cultural essence is disintegrating or deliberately lost at sea. I don’t think I need to express my feelings on the matter – I have done so enough this past year. I’ll tell a story instead. Back in the 6th grade, when we were being taught of the first civilizations, I developed an unexplainable obsession with Ancient Egypt. Please ignore the fact that I disregarded my own ancestral roots to Phoenicia and/or Mesopotamia. Right then, I had decided I was going to apply to Brown University upon graduation and study archaeology (Egyptology, to be specific). While that did not end up happening due to my sudden shift to interest in the sciences (yes, I was always scatterbrained), it was also the impractical choice when it came to studying something that would enable me to be successful in the digital age of technological innovation.

The sad conclusion that so many people make, and perhaps with some conviction, is that the past is not a money-maker nor is it the way of the future. What they forget is that the past is what makes us human.

Seeing that TEDxLAU was held on the 7th of this month, I am a bit late posting this. However, I still have a bruise from donating blood at the DSC stand that was there so it hasn’t been THAT long. Yes, this is my so-called “logic,” woo!

1. “People are made of pages…You get to pick the words that your story is made of” – Elie Kesrouani

A storyteller who gave me goosebumps, Elie had a somber tone throughout his talk but still touched on a lot of things that ring true. He stressed on the importance of reading, cherishing slow moments (short moments that translate into long memories), and how one shouldn’t playfully brush off warning signs when they’re right in front of you. The last one was the moral of a story about a clown on stage who was trying to warn a cheering audience about a fire in the theatre; they took the warning signs as entertainment until it was too late. Very relevant to our region today. He also touched on the lessons that reading can teach you indirectly. Other than learning new words and stretching your imagination, it can make you accustomed to being alone, making the relationships you have much stronger.

2. “We may be different from the outside, but inside we are all one color” – Hady Sy

Designer Hady Sy left Lebanon during the war in the midst of his studies at LAU (then BUC) and ended up working in NYC. He’d done work with all the big names (Lagerfeld, Vogue, etc) but once 9/11 had occurred, he had witnessed too much bloodshed. He flipped his focus and began doing more conceptual work revolving on that exact subject: blood. He’s back in Beirut because the Lebanese Ministry of Culture offered him an art residency for the installation “One Blood.”

3. “Chairs are not meant to sit on, they’re meant to stand on so you can see the whole picture & go back down and serve” – Christine Arzoumanian

Pretty self-explanatory. Get off your high horse, lend a hand, and make a difference.

4. Kelly McGonigal’s entire talk about befriending stress

5. “Don’t be a citizen journalist,be a citizen diplomat & fight for a better Lebanon, the one you deserve.” – HMA Tom Fletcher

The UK Ambassador is known for being a huge user of social media and incredibly active on Twitter. He’s also really friendly – I mean, we talked about Creamfields…seriously. Anyway, he said that your “superpower” is your smartphone and it should be used to start a conversation and march for a better Lebanon – the “frontline of coexistence.” When discussing the issue about Lebanon’s brain-drain, he had a positive way of looking at it: due to the fact that so many Lebanese leave the country, it creates one of the best global networks for us as a whole. Instead of it being a bad thing, we are connected to people all over the world. What I appreciated the most was that he seemed very interested in the youth, our capabilities, and our minds.

6. “The ‘Arab Disease’- you buy everything but build nothing and don’t industrialize” – George Nasr

Unfortunately, this region does suffer from over-importation rather than having their own sources of production. Other nations are heading in that direction but Lebanon has a long way to go when it comes to industrialization.

7. “Dumbing it down isn’t the same thing as making information more accessible” – Melissa Marshall

This quote struck me as very valid. Too often, we try to get a message across in such a convoluted way that it is lost in translation. Making information more accessible does not mean that you are striping it of its intelligence or significance, it means it will reach more people and cause more of an impact. A good message that doesn’t get past the radar is a dud in the water. Di3ano.

8. “Stop making decisions about what we do and start making choices about who we are” – Jade Saab

Jade, co-founder of the new job platform Achieve, is spot-on when it comes to determining your path in life. It’s not about what you do but rather who you are. There is so much emphasis placed on what you do that who you are becoming gets pushed to the sidelines when, in fact, that is one of the most important parts of building a career: discovering who you are through experiences.

9. “The show will go on as an act of resistance” – Reine Azzi

I already quoted this in a previous post and it pretty much sums up what I was trying to say in a nutshell. Reine said it was inspired by Tom Fletcher.

10. Lebanon2020

A project for the future of Lebanon – an excerpt taken from Tom Fletcher’s blogpost:

“We want to start a conversation about Lebanon 2020. To lift debate beyond the year ahead, important as it is. Stability yes, but also growth and reform. A focus on the factors that unite rather than divide. We think that new groups, often disenfranchised, should be central to this conversation: business, civil society, youth. We must of course learn the lessons from the past. But we cannot make progress solely by looking in the rear view mirror.”

Bravo TEDxLAU team & volunteers!

Lebanon is trending on Twitter…if only it were for different reasons. This is what I wish my Twitter feed looked like:

Click to Enlarge

Click to Enlarge

UPDATE: A report by NOW Lebanon claims that the state is stopping the works near the forest in Bcharre. It also states that the works were not uprooting trees, but moving soil & rocks to construct an amphitheater for the wedding of William Tawk – movement that could affect the rest of the forest. 

As reported by LBC, Gebran Tawk’s son is having a big fat wedding – so fat that he needs a forest removed just so he can have it. Not just any forest, a forest of cedar trees in Bcharre, home of another Gibran.

“It is worth noting that the ancient forest is listed on the World Heritage List of UNESCO; a list that requires the protection of classified sites and their surroundings within an area exceeding 500 square meters; however, the preparation activities carried out in the vicinity may obliterate the existence of the forest.”

The Lebanese Cedar tree, or Cedrus libani, grows in Lebanon, Palestine, Israel, northwest Jordan, western Syria, and south central Turkey. It is on our flag. It is our symbol. It is endangered. I have visited the Cedar Reserves in the Shouf & Tannourine. Cedars are sensitive organisms that require high elevation to grow (4,000-6,000 ft above sea level). Because their seeds need to be buried in snow for a minimum of two months, they are also in danger due to climate change. In a BBC article, Nizar Hani, Shouf Cedar Reserve scientific coordinator, said “isolated populations of trees will be more affected by climate change, so increasing the area of the cedar forests could help.” Instead, we’re clearing the area for round tables and a 3-day wedding for three thousand. Two years ago, Al Arabiya’s Rima Maktabi (she was reporting for CNN for a short period) reported that eco-tourism had been booming thanks to these forests and, as a result, many villagers could sell their homemade products such as jams, honey, and oils, to visiting tourists.

The cedars were used in King Solomon’s temple and they were exported by the Phoenicians. They are mentioned in the earliest written records of the Sumerians dating from the third millennium BC, the Epic of Gilgamesh, and the Bible.

Mr. Tawk, you are a former Lebanese deputy, a citizen of this nation’s soil, and you should be ashamed of yourself.  By destroying a forest of cedars, you are ripping out the veins of our country’s heart and you are defecating all over our heritage. Mabrouk lal 3arees.