Rebuilding Beirut

I've spent the last several days working in the southern suburbs of Beirut, known collectively as the Dahieh, which just means suburbs in Arabic. Though unimaginative, the name is evocative: to many Lebanese it conjures up the image of a sprawling semi-lawless, Shia Muslim ghetto where the government fears to tread, where parking tickets are never paid, electricity bills never delivered, and where the streets are ruled by Hizballah traffic police wearing brown and Hizballah security men in black. This state-within-a-state of mind is expressed by a t-shirt popular in the 'hood which reads: Republic of Dahieh.

Some of this is no doubt exaggeration. The area was once predominately Christian, and not only are there a few churches still around, but because of Lebanon's bizarre electoral laws whereby citizens vote in the towns where their families once lived the last time the country had a national census (sometime in the 20's or 30's) several municipalities in the Dahieh are actually controlled by Christian politicians not by Hizballah. Even Haret Hreik, the center of Hizballah power in Lebanon, isn't the seething slum it's often depicted to be: it's a dense, urban, middle class neighborhood. Albeit one where that had a warren of offices and weapons dumps belonging to one of the world's most formidable militias.

Haret Hreik got pummeled by the Israelis during the 2006 war, and its now the center of an ambitious Hizballah reconstruction program called Waad, or Promise. Its supposed to be the fulfillment of a promise by Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah to rebuild the homes of those people displaced by Israeli bombs within a year after the beginning of construction, if the former residents hire Waad as their contractor and turn over their government compensation checks to the program.

Waad gathered some of Lebanon's best urban planners and architects and gave them a mandate to return everyone to their homes as quickly as possible and to return the fabric of the neighborhood to what it once was. Yet within the same basic framework, Waad wants to make what improvements are possible -- increase light and open space, reduce traffic, update the buildings to the latest safety and seismic codes, give the streets and buildings a greater sense of place and character rather than the undifferentiated maze it once was. One also assumes that because no one is allowed to photograph the area without Hizballah permission, and since some locations are off limits to photographers, at least a few of those deep, bunker-like basements being dug will be used for more than just parking spaces.

Though Hizballah has complained that the government has delayed delivering the proper share of compensation funds earmarked for Waad, the program is moving at breakneck speed. Private contracting companies are working for Waad at a discount and running crews on double shifts, and the centralized nature of the design process is also saving time. Once all the residents of a building are on board, Waad can start the initial construction, even as it continues to work on designing the interior.

Still, Hizballah knows that a lot is riding on the success of the Waad program. If it can't fully fund the project, finish on time and up to standard, it risks the reputation for organizational flair and constituent services that has earned the respect of many Lebanese, even some of those opposed to Hizballah's existence as an armed group. It also risks alienating all those made homeless by a war that Hizballah started.

But perhaps most mind-boggling of all, even a successful Waad program and all the effort expended here could be for nothing. In three month, this neighborhood might be gleaming and new, or if war breaks out, it could be rubble once again. This is perhaps the converse of the eat, drink, and be merry fatalism displayed by many in this war-weary country. How do you live if you tomorrow you might die? Brick by brick.

--Andrew Lee Butters/Beirut