Amnesia

I have just returned from a decidedly underwhelming week in Beirut. I had initially thought that spending a few days in the city that never sleeps (except during working hours) would do me a world of good. But the Beirut I saw at the turn of the year is shifting ever rapidly away from the city that I know and love.

Before you accuse me of expatriate snobbism, let me tell you that I have a carefully thought out argumentation of my new-found aversion for Lebanon’s capital city. Anyone who knows me knows that I suffer from a severe case of selective patriotism, but I fear that my current disillusionment will last substantially longer.

I have found Beirut in 2007 to be a city fuelled by vodka, electronically remixed 80s hits and tribal politics. I couldn’t imagine a more nauseating mix if I wanted to. It has become a city full of alcohol-fuelled superficial hedonism. I know this is not a brand spanking new phenomenon in Lebanon, but the heights which it has reached are frankly alarming. Most women dress like street-walkers in a desperate bid to grab the attention of the dwindling male population. The men, their egos artificially inflated by aforementioned attention-seeking, have become more arrogant and futile than ever. Puzzled expatriates crack jokes about the situation knowing full well that they can retreat to their real lives in Dubai, Qatar, London and Paris after a week of heavy partying. Even though the demographic I am talking about may not represent the city or the country as a whole, it is still a worrying social dynamic.

I found it virtually impossible to sustain a conversation with anyone in Beirut during my last visit. Even the most habitually verbose of friends is rendered a blathering fool by the numbing repetitiveness and futility of life in the city once called the Paris of the East. And herein lies my problem with the city. If you want to compare yourself with such gleaming examples of culture, stability and history as Paris or Switzerland, you better have more substance than an insatiable appetite for vodka and clubbing.

It has long been an irate observation of mine that the over-hyped and gloriously extolled Downtown area of Beirut, now the home to the winter camping trip of boy scouts of various colors and creeds, does not have a single library or bookshop. You can eat as much as you want. You can buy as many shoes as your heart desires. But you’d be hard-pressed to even locate a copy of the latest airport thriller, let alone any classic work of any importance. Maybe if there were a few books in the Downtown, people on both sides of the divide would be less prone to follow the host of tribal leaders they seem to have pledged a life-long and blind obedience.

A friend of mine pointed out that Lebanon is going through a particularly hard time at the moment, and that people have more pressing worries than culture. I was quick to reply that truly great civilizations, those that the world stands up to acclaim, produce their most poignant plays, music and literature in their most difficult times. Beirut’s youth drinks away their talent amidst a flood of strobe lights and trance, and with the fading sparklers of the champagne bottles die the hopes of a generation. The frenzied amnesia of a bruised country continues.